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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Aug 05 2011 - 15:15:33 EDT
Britain and EU increase aid to Ethiopia while ignoring human rights warnings
Britain and the EU have increased aid to Ethiopia while ignoring repeated
diplomatic warnings of human rights abuse and concerns that Western funding
is being used as a tool of repression by the country's regime.
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/bruno-waterfield/> Bruno Waterfield
By <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/bruno-waterfield/> Bruno
Waterfield, Brussels
10:30PM BST 05 Aug 2011
An investigation by the <http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/> Bureau of
Investigative Journalism and BBC Newsnight has found that as Ethiopia is hit
by drought and famine, communities are being denied basic food, seed and
fertiliser for failing to support Meles Zenawi, the country's authoritarian
leader.
Senior Brussels officials ignored 61 email warnings from its EU ambassador
in
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/ethiopia/>
Ethiopia about human rights abuses, evidence that European governments,
including Britain, were prepared to turn a blind eye to repression in order
to woo a key African ally.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism investigation has also gathered
evidence of continuing ethnic cleansing, mass detentions, the widespread use
of torture and extra-judicial killings by Ethiopian government forces.
The Daily Telegraph understands that last summer the EU failed to condemn
crack downs on opposition politicians and journalists in return for
Ethiopian support in critical climate change negotiations in December 2009.
Ethiopia receives £1.8 billion in development aid every year, with Britain
the second largest donor after the US.
This year the UK will hand out £290 million, not including the £48m in
emergency aid announced last month, a 24-fold increase over the past decade.
The EU provided a further £152m last year.
Leaked emails reveal that both the EU and Britain failed to act on
confidential daily diplomatic telegrams from Timothy Clarke, the EU's former
ambassador in Ethiopia.
The emails were sent over three months in the days after elections in 2005
and express increasing concern about reports of murders and arrests of
thousands of civilians by government forces.
"Basic human rights abuses are being committed by the government on a daily
basis - the EU must respond firmly and resolutely," he wrote on June 12
2005.
Despite the warnings, Brussels commended Ethiopian conduct of the elections
a pattern that was mirrored in 2010 when the EU welcomed as "an important
moment in the democratic process" a result that saw Zenawi's regime won 99.6
per cent of the vote amid reports of widespread human rights abuses.
Ana Gomes, a Portuguese MEP who was the chief election observer for the EU
during the 2005 Ethiopian elections, has accused European officials of
"watering down all the most difficult passages" which detailed repression.
"There is this industry of aid not only in the European Commission but in
the different member countries, namely those who are the biggest aid donors
to Ethiopia, like Britain, like Germany who want the business to continue as
usual because they have their own interests at stake," she said.
A spokesman for the EU diplomatic service said: "Protection of human rights
is a priority for the EU and it features prominently in our dialogue with
all external partners. This also applies to the EU dialogue with Ethiopia,
where we raise human rights issues regularly."
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