Suppression of the Innocent Inside Ethiopia
By Graham Peebles
Redress, Al-Jazeerah, CCUN,
September 18, 2014
Wrapped in dishonesty, arrogance and paranoia, Ethiopia's ruling regime is
following a nationwide policy of violent suppression and constitutional
vandalism.
It was 24 June - mid-summer's day - in the adopted homeland of Andargachew
Tsige, when he was detained by Yemeni officials (state heavies in suits)
while transiting through the capital Sanaa to Eritrea. A British citizen and
leading Ethiopian political activist, he was quickly and quietly extradited
to Addis Ababa where he was imprisoned on spurious charges of treason or
some such trumped up, paranoid twaddle.
Andargachew had been unfairly tried in absentia in 2009, when Amnesty
<
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/ethiopia-british-man-risk-torture#.U-4u0la4lSU>
reported he was "sentenced to death for an alleged coup attempt. He was
prosecuted in absentia again in 2012 on terrorism charges, alongside other
prisoners of conscience, and sentenced to life imprisonment."
Incarcerated he remains, hidden, abused and tortured by Ethiopian military
thugs. His "detention in Ethiopia means that his life and physical integrity
are in great danger. his incommunicado detention in an unknown location
increases this risk", says Member of the European Parliament Anna Gomez in a
letter to British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. In keeping with
Britain's consistent abdication of donor duty in the face of the Ethiopian
government's unbridled abuse of its people, the Hammond and his lieutenants
have done nothing of substance to support Andargachew.
The false arrest, imprisonment and mistreatment of Andargachew Tsige is but
the most high profile recent example of a strategic policy of control and
suppression enforced by the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF).
A range of weapons are employed by the regime to stifle dissent and create
an atmosphere of fear, including extrajudicial executions, arrest,
imprisonment and torture. Human Rights Watch (HRW)
<
https://www.ifex.org/ethiopia/2013/10/18/political_detainees/> states that
the government "regularly use[s] abuse to gather information. Ethiopian
authorities have subjected political detainees to torture and other ill
treatment at the main detention centre [Maekelawi Police Station] in Addis
Ababa."
Journalists who challenge the government are intimidated (so too are their
families) and silenced. Many have been arrested, and, as the Committee to
Protect Journalists
<
https://cpj.org/2013/11/african-media-leaders-should-address-ethiopias-rep.
php> reports, "are languishing in Ethiopia's prisons on trumped up terrorism
charges for doing their jobs". In its thorough report, "
<
http://www.hrw.org/node/119826> They want a confession", HRW documents
"serious rights abuses, unlawful interrogation tactics and poor detention
conditions in Maekelawi since 2010. Those detained. include scores of
opposition politicians, journalists, protest organizers and alleged
supporters of ethnic insurgencies."
Public assembly, while not being outwardly criminalised, is effectively
banned, despite the fact that it is a right enshrined, like all such liberal
freedoms, in the legally binding constitution - dusty document which has no
influence over the ruling party, or indeed the judiciary, which functions as
a docile enforcer of government criminality.
The guilty trust nobody
For a country beset with acute poverty, where it is conservatively estimated
30 per cent of the population (World Bank figures) are living below the
"official poverty line" (that is an income of USD 2 a day), the government
somehow manages to administer and fund (to the tune of USD 340 million) the
largest standing army in sub-Saharan Africa. It boast 560 tanks, over 80
warplanes and, out of a population numbering 92 million, Global Fire Power
<
http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country
_id=Ethiopia> reveals that 25 million are armed and "fit for service", with
a further 10 million standing by.
The men in uniform are kept busy by their political masters - there is a
whole nation to suppress and control, including the people of Oromia (who
are calling for self-determination) and Amhara. There is the Ogaden region
to occupy and forcibly govern, innocent men and women - who seek nothing
more threatening than autonomy and their constitutional right - to murder,
terrorise and rape. There is Gambella in the far southwest and the Lower Omo
Valley where women are raped by soldiers, men beaten, indigenous people (who
have lived on ancestral land for generations) herded into government camps
(the notorious Villagisation Project - part funded by Britain and the World
Bank) as vast tracts of lands are sold for pennies to international
corporations. There is torture to be administered, assassinations to plan
and execute, rapes to be performed and surveillance of dissenting voices to
be carried out. And spying from villages to cyberspace to keep the EPRDF
military men active night and day. Duplicitous, disingenuous and corrupt,
they trust nobody.
In its detailed study of government surveillance in Ethiopia, "
<
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2014/03/25/they-know-everything-we-do-0> They
know everything we do", HRW
<
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/25/ethiopia-telecom-surveillance-chills-rig
hts> found the ruling party "is using foreign technology to bolster its
widespread telecom surveillance of opposition activists and journalists both
in Ethiopia and abroad", and unsurprisingly there are no judicial or
legislative mechanisms in place to protect privacy. The Chinese
multinational ZTE is the primary supplier of telecommunication technology,
but HRW discovered that Britain (a major donor, whose unfathomable support
of the regime could be said to make Britain complicit in some of the
regime's wide-ranging human rights violations) and Germany have also
provided surveillance software and know-how.
The government owns the country's sole telecommunication company (Ethio
Telecommunication). Awash with paranoia it controls and monitors mobile
phone use and internet access (coverage of which, at around 0.5 per cent, is
the second lowest in sub-Saharan Africa) throughout the country. These
"surveillance practices violate the rights to freedom of expression,
association, and access to information," HRW states. Security personnel have
unfettered access to call records of all telephone users - particular
attention is given to foreign numbers. Calls are recorded without legal
process or oversight, and replayed "during abusive interrogations in which
people who have been arbitrarily detained are accused of belonging to banned
organisations". A former Oromo opposition party member told HRW that "one
day they arrested me and they showed me everything. They showed me a list of
all my phone calls and they played a conversation I had with my brother." He
was arrested for the heinous act of discussing "politics on the phone" - a
criminal activity in this supposedly democratic African nation.
Access to websites that offer independent critical analysis of political
events, including opposition party sites, media and bloggers, is blocked.
The Ethiopian people, both inside the country and within the diaspora, are
extremely fearful.
As a result, a great deal of "self-censorship" takes place. People are
afraid to call or receive phone calls from abroad (where many have family
working), they are reluctant to publicly criticise the government and
refrain from discussing a variety of topics openly or during private
telephone calls.
The "main mode of government control is through extensive networks of
informants and a grassroots system of surveillance", HRW reports. In a
society where secrecy and mistrust of one another is common, silent
suppression and distrust of others is fostered. Where unity is needed - for
if there is to be change within the country, the people must come together -
community, ethnic and tribal divisions are strengthened. All, of course, by
EPRDF design.
Legalizing suppression
The legislative weapon of choice used to gag and imprison is the universally
condemned 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP), which HRW
<
http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/06/30/analysis-ethiopia-s-draft-anti-terrorism
-law> describes as "a potent instrument to crack down on political dissent,
including peaceful political demonstrations and public criticisms of
government policy". It allows for "long-term imprisonment and even the death
penalty for "crimes" that bear no resemblance, under any credible
definition, to terrorism".
Since the ATP was written into law,"the independent media have been
decimated by politically motivated prosecutions. The government has
systematically thwarted attempts by journalists to establish new
publications. Blogs and internet pages critical of the government are
regularly blocked, and in 2012 printing houses came under threat for
printing publications that criticised the authorities."
The EPRDF has used this and other repressive laws to cripple civil society
organisations and independent media, and to target individuals, with
politically motivated prosecutions. It is a paranoid, cruel and violent
regime that ignores human rights law, violates its own constitution and is
causing extreme suffering among its people.
Donor countries - America, Britain and the European Union primarily - appear
content to ignore wide ranging atrocities (some of which, deep inside the
Ogaden region for example, constitute crimes against humanity), in exchange
for the illusion of stability in the centre of a region dominated by failed
states and warring fanatics.
There is no stability and harmony within Ethiopia, but cruel suppression,
terror and simmering anger. While the responsibility for bringing lasting
change rests firmly with the people acting in unity, there is no excuse for
allowing - indeed supporting - a regime that throws a dark, dank shroud of
fear over the country. Responsible allegiance entails holding regimes
accountable and supporting the people of the nation state, not the
dictators, defending human rights, and insisting on justice and the
implementation of federal and international law.
The impunity and arrogance of the EPRDF was blatantly displayed in April
this year when, just days before US Secretary of State John Kerry visited
the country, "six bloggers for Zone 9, an Amharic-language website whose
writers have criticised the government, and three freelance journalists were
arrested,"
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/world/africa/ethiopia-9-media-workers-arr
ested.html?_r=0> reported the New York Times.
In addition to donor indifference, the wide-ranging human rights violations
taking place daily within Ethiopia go virtually unreported. The Ethiopian
people repeatedly ask why their plight is not reported, why do donors not
act or use what is assumed to be their considerable influence on the EPRDF
leadership. Why, for example, isn't British citizen Andergachew free? Is it
because he is black, poor, a migrant to Britain born in Ethiopia? They
rightly ask why the state terrorism taking place within Oromia, Gambella,
the beautiful Lower Omo Valley and, perhaps worst of all, in the Ogaden
region - where murder of the innocent is routine, where men and women are
imprisoned without trial, tortured, the women violently mass raped - is
allowed to go unchallenged.
These are legitimate questions passionately asked by a people violently
suppressed, living in fear in a corner of Africa, suffering and desperate.
Received on Thu Sep 18 2014 - 14:10:03 EDT