From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri May 21 2010 - 11:58:24 EDT
Repression Is Alleged Before Vote in Ethiopia
By
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/jeffrey_gettle
man/index.html?inline=nyt-per> JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: May 21, 2010
NAIROBI, Kenya - Diplomats, human rights groups and witnesses say the
Ethiopian government is methodically stifling dissent in the prelude to this
weekend's national elections, denying
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/food_aid/ind
ex.html?inline=nyt-classifier> food aid to opposition supporters, jailing
political opponents and possibly killing a few activists, part of a broader
pattern of repression in several of America's closest allies in Africa,
especially during election time.
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/et
hiopia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> Ethiopia is one of the poorest and most
aid-dependent countries in the world, and the American government and the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/world_b
ank/index.html?inline=nyt-org> World Bank, two of its biggest donors, are
investigating potential leaks in the aid system and allegations that the
government is manipulating food aid to reward political allies and literally
starve out political opposition.
"We have seen these reports, and we are looking into them, and we would
object to any politicization of our humanitarian assistance," said Johnnie
Carson, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs. "We expect
countries to use the aid in the manner in which it was given and to ensure
that it reaches those who need it."
The allegations, which the Ethiopian government strongly denies, seem to be
part of an increasingly iron-fisted strategy to ensure that the governing
party holds on to power while preventing the widespread protests that
erupted after the last major elections in 2005.
Back then, opposition groups said they had won far more seats than the
government acknowledged, setting off demonstrations that were violently
suppressed. Security forces arrested tens of thousands and killed scores of
unarmed protesters.
According to human rights groups, recent State Department reports and
witnesses, the Ethiopian government has recently imprisoned opposition
leaders on false charges, passed laws to stymie intellectual and human
rights groups and silenced independent media. Ethiopia gets roughly a
billion dollars a year in aid from American taxpayers; at the same time, the
government is
<http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Ethiopia-Criticized-by-US-for-J
amming-VOA-Signals-88733542.html> jamming radio broadcasts from the
American-financed Voice of America, one of the few major independent media
outlets left in the country.
The complaints pouring out of Ethiopia echo some of those from Rwanda, the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, American allies that receive
hundreds of millions of dollars in aid each year.
Elections are looming in each of these countries, and though such contests
are supposed to be the embodiment of democracy, they often presage harsh
crackdowns. Human rights groups say strongman governments across the
continent continue to use a variety of tools - arresting journalists,
driving out human rights monitors and jailing opponents - to eliminate any
serious political threat.
"More repression, less democracy and no real outcry," said Daniela Kroslak,
deputy Africa program director for the International Crisis Group. "That's
true for much of Africa today."
In
<http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2010/03/24/one-hundred-ways-putting-pressure-
0> a recent report,
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/human_r
ights_watch/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Human Rights Watch describes how the
Ethiopian government employs an extensive network of local officials,
militias and spies to control who gets donor-financed fertilizer, seeds,
food aid and jobs. It is part of a "complex and multilayered strategy aimed
at preventing political opposition and dissent," the report said, and the
elections on Sunday will probably be "a veneer of democratic pretension
hiding a repressive state apparatus."
Many Ethiopians are terrified to discuss these issues openly, and the
government has denied visas to several foreign journalists trying to cover
the elections and is restricting the movements of foreign diplomats.
But some Ethiopians are speaking out. Hassan Ali, a farmer in central
Ethiopia with seven children, was one of several villagers who said they
were cut off from a donor-supported antipoverty program because they backed
the opposition. He said local officials warned him in March, "Unless you
join the E.P.R.D.F.," the ruling party, "you could die and your family will
starve to death."
Some analysts go as far as saying that American aid to governments like
Ethiopia's is actually subsidizing the problem.
"Our findings show that the development assistance is helping to underwrite
the repression" in Ethiopia, said Georgette Gagnon, director of the Africa
division of Human Rights Watch.
American officials say they have tried to broach these complaints with their
Ethiopian counterparts, and
<http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/af/135953.htm> the State
Department's human rights report on Ethiopia is unsparing: "There were
numerous credible reports of unlawful detention of opposition candidates,"
and, "Security forces committed arbitrary and politically motivated killings
during the year."
Since early March, two opposition activists and
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/world/africa/03ethiopia.html?scp=3&sq=jas
on%20ethiopia&st=cse> one candidate have been killed. Witnesses and some
Western diplomats say the victims were singled out because they were
outspoken opponents of the governing party.
The Ethiopian government says that the killings were common crimes, not
assassinations, and that the opposition was fabricating abuses to discredit
the election. The government has also lashed out at critics abroad,
denouncing the State Department assessment and dismissing the Human Rights
Watch report as "a smear campaign."
Bereket Simon, Ethiopia's minister of communication affairs, said last week
that the government did not need coercion to win the election because "the
people of Ethiopia know for sure the future of Ethiopia lies with this
government."
Supporters of the government say it has reduced poverty and improved
infrastructure, unlike some African nations that get staggering sums of
foreign aid yet have little to show for it because of corruption.
The United States has many delicate interests to balance in Ethiopia, a
sprawling Christian-led country of 85 million people in a region struggling
with Islamic extremism. Mr. Carson, the State Department official,
acknowledged that a top priority was maintaining a "military-to-military
relationship" with the Ethiopians, who received covert American help in 2006
to invade Somalia and oust a government that was tilting toward radical
Islam.
Human rights groups are urging the United States to put more strings on the
humanitarian aid to Ethiopia, but the Obama administration is against that.
"We should never tie our humanitarian assistance to political goals and
objectives," Mr. Carson said. "We are trying to ensure that poor people's
lives are saved."
But he added that "other pieces of the aid package are subject to discussion
when governments backslide on democratic reform."
That backsliding is a problem across the continent, despite the money,
effort and diplomatic capital spent on democratic reform. Sudan just
completed its first multiparty election in 24 years, but many analysts say
the previous election, in 1986, was freer and fairer. Kenya held a clean
election in 2002, and a disastrously flawed one in 2007.
Few of Africa's authoritarian governments, like Ethiopia's, were previously
bastions of liberty. The country has a long history of repression and
rebellion. But critics contend that many of Africa's
former-guerrilla-fighters-turned-leaders are growing steadily more
repressive as their terms stretch from years into decades. Ethiopia's prime
minister,
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/z/meles_zenawi/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-per> Meles Zenawi, has led the country for 19 years.
"They still have this leftist ideology that the vanguard party knows what is
right for the people," said <http://www.bucknell.edu/x48177.xml> Berhanu
Nega, who was elected mayor of Addis Ababa, the capital, in 2005, then
jailed for nearly two years, forced into exile in the United States and
recently sentenced to death in absentia. "Anyone who opposes the party is an
enemy of the people."
Jason McLure and an Ethiopian journalist contributed reporting from Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia.
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