Jangling nerves (The Economist)

WORRIES about Ethiopia’s election, due in May, are growing. Aid-giving Western governments hope it will pass off without the strife that followed the last one, in 2005, when 200 people were killed, thousands were imprisoned, and the democratic credentials of Meles Zenawi, despite his re-election, were left in tatters.....more..

Human Right Watch (HRW)

Ethiopia is on a deteriorating human rights trajectory as parliamentary elections approach in 2010. These will be the first national elections since 2005, when post-election protests resulted in the deaths of at least 200 protesters, many of them victims of excessive use of force by the police. Broad patterns of government repression have prevented the emergence of organized opposition in most of the country. In December 2008 the government re-imprisoned opposition leader Birtukan Midekssa for life after she made remarks that allegedly violated the terms of an earlier pardon....more..

Africa Policy Outlook 2010 (FPIF) )

Meles Zenawi has been in power as prime minister of Ethiopia since August 23, 1995. He has forged very strong military ties to the United States, and his loyalty has resulted in billions of dollars in U.S. military support and aid.

Ethiopia’s controversial election five years ago resulted in a military crackdown, with over 200 deaths and thousands imprisoned or exiled. Furthermore, because the United States needed support from the government of Ethiopia to lead an invasion of Somalia, it turned a blind eye to numerous human rights violations and all but endorsed Zenawi...read more...

Alemayehu G. Mariam: Ethiopia: Birtukan, Invictus! (Unconquered) {Hedgehogs}

I remember the 29th of December, 2008. Almost a year ago to the day, the only woman political party leader in Ethiopia's 3,000-year history was manhandled and abducted to prison. Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, founder and former chairman of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, was an eyewitness to the crime. He told the Voice of America that he was having a conversation with Bitukan and another person outside an office building when four unmarked official vehicles stormed on the scene. Approximately 10 armed men got out and surrounded Birtukan. They grabbed and dragged her into one of the vehicles. One of the thugs savagely assaulted the nearly 80-year old professor with the butt of his rifle. In seconds, Birtukan was snatched away to the infamous Kality prison, and the professor to the hospital...more...

HAPPY HOLY DAYS

Ethiopia death sentences over assassination plot (BBC)

"We know the price of freedom - the preservation of rights always forces us to pay sacrifice and if that sacrifice means to be sentenced to death, so be it."...more...

Amid Crackdown, Ethiopia’s Hope Rests on Foreign Journalists ( New American Media)

With the increased crackdown on the press, Western journalists are filling the void. Reuters, the Associated Press, the New York Times, Bloomberg News, BBC, Voice of America and others are now the watchdogs for the people of Ethiopia...click here to read the rest..

Copenhagen backstory: Ethiopia PM accused of genocide is top African negotiator (Seattle Post Globe)

As 130 heads of state took their place at the negotiating table, just hours before the talks were scheduled to come to a close, the cries outside came largely from Ogadenians, people from a southeastern territory in Ethiopia, 3,600 miles from Denmark. They made their way to Copenhagen to tell United Nations leaders not to negotiate a climate deal with an alleged génocidaire....click here to read the full story..

Dictator Without Borders (Ethioguardian)

There are dictators and there are purist dictators. The first group of dictators have the minimum intelligence required to notice and somehow accept when their time is up. They reluctantly give in realizing the fact that time and history are not on their side. The latter group, however, believes that the principles of dictatorship should not be adulterated or diluted. As a result they continue to rot in their bubble, failing to wake up when the smoke detector goes off. Since this group of dictators are chronically delusional they keep telling themselves, ‘I am in control’, ‘Things are fine’, ‘I will crush my opponents’, so on and so forth. They have extremely exaggerated versions of their own self worth. Adolf Hitler, Nicolai Ceausescu, Benito Mussolini, Samuel Doe, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Mengistu Hailemariam, Slobodan Milosevic, and yes, the current menace, Meles Zenawi, fit into this band of dictators. They regularly have to invent a narrative to nourish their egomaniacal personalities. The narrative is primarily based on their insistence that their version of the truth is not only superior but also absolute...click here to read more...

The Mouse That Roared in Copenhagen(Huffington Post)

Zenawi was whipsawed by various representatives of the developing countries for bare-faced double-dealing. Lumumba Di-Aping, the chief negotiator of the G77 bloc of countries, representing some 130 nations, mauled Zenawi for selling out Africa to the rich countries:
Meles [Zenawi] agrees with the EU perspective and the EU perspective accepts the destruction of a whole continent plus dozens of other states... The EU's very moral foundation is deeply questionable because she accepts that a large section of the human family should suffer in order for her to continue to thrive and prosper... The African Union has not accepted this. Meles is not the author of this proposal, the EU definitely is, along with the UK and France. ...click here to read more...

The Art of War on Ethiopia's Independent Press (Huffington post)

Mesfin Negash resonated his colleagues' deep disappointment and regret over the paper's closure, but was proudly defiant:

Our newspaper was one of the country's best examples of what independent journalists with an internal capacity to act free of constraints can accomplish in being the platform for intake and synthesis of public opinion. Unfortunately, a government which had a habit of wantonly and aggressively stepping into the locus and crystallization of public opinion as both a platform controller and dictator had made our task impossible...click here to read more...

The Toxic Ecology of African Dictatorships (The Huffington Post)

The inconvenient truth about Africa today is that dictatorship presents a far more perilous threat to the survival of Africans than climate change. The devastation African dictators have wreaked upon the social fabric and ecosystem of African societies is incalculable. Over the past several decades, bloodthirsty dictators like Uganda's Idi Amin, Zaire's (The Congo) Mobutu Sese Seko, Central African Republic's Jean Bedel Bokassa, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, Chad's Hissiene Habre, and the political fraternal twins Mengistu Haile Mariam and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia have been responsible for untold deaths on the continent. Millions of Africans have starved to death because of the criminal negligence, depraved indifference and gross incompetence of African dictators, not climate change. Millions more suffer today in abject poverty because corrupt African dictators have systematically siphoned off international aid, pilfered loans provided by the international banks and plundered the tax coffers. Africans face extreme privation and mass starvation not because of climate change but because of the rapacity of power-hungry dictators. The continent today suffers from a terminal case of metastasized cancer of dictatorships, not the blight of global warming. ...click here to read more...

Human Rights in Ethiopia: Through the Eyes of the Oromo Diaspora | Report (Gadaa)

The Ethiopian government has built on its predecessor’s infrastructure of repression. Torture of dissidents by the current regime, including extreme physical violence and psychological torture, was reported by those interviewed for this report. Sexual violence also was reported. In addition, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention, and confinement in inadequate prison conditions reportedly have continued under the EPRDF. Basic protections of due process, including notice of charges against those accused, are absent, and the judiciary faces pressure from the government....more...

Addis Neger News paper forced to close publication. (Addis Neger)

Independent news coverage in Ethiopia is minimal due to business woes and government interference. Many journalists are fined for their reporting, are brought to court on minor offences, and even some claim they are under the regular surveillance of security officers and their telephones are bugged. The international human rights organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) chronicles many arrests as well as continuing threats to an independent press in Ethiopia. Click here to read full history...

Ethiopia paper shuts due to govt persecution (Maktoob)

Ethiopia's parliament adopted an anti-terror law earlier this year that opposition leaders and the New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said would curb independent criticism of the ruling EPRDF party ahead of elections in 2010.

Four other media firms meanwhile, told AFP that the government was seeking to freeze their liquid and fixed assets under treason-related charges dating to electoral violence in 2005. read more...

The Top 10 Gadgets of the Decade (ABC NEWS)

Ten years ago, we couldn't live without them. Today, they're inching closer and closer to obsolescence. read more....

Ethiopian Despot Hijacks Copenhagen Leadership Role (The MaGill Report)

To be more specific, the Meles regime has held its grip on power the past 18 years through the use of genocide, ethnic cleansing, gulag prisons, a sham court system, medieval property laws and the jailing, torture and lawless execution of civilians and political opponents. ...more..

The Obama Manifesto (Huffington Post)

...The Ethiopian junta, basking in American support for the War on Terror, overturns democratic elections and executes political opponents with impunity.....more..

Activist: Rights, liberties waning in Ethiopia ( AP )

What is very interesting to note in Ethiopia is sort of the opening of democratic space until 2005, and how that ... has constantly been shrinking, if not closing down since then," Daniel said in a telephone interview from Toronto. In keeping with Ethiopian custom, he uses his first name on second reference....more..

Spate of suicides by foreign maids in Lebanon sheds light on abuse (CNN)

London, England (CNN) -- A recent spate of suicides by foreign maids in Lebanon is prompting outrage among human rights groups, who say the government is doing too little to protect migrant domestic workers from severe abuse.
Over the past seven weeks at least 10 women have died, either by hanging themselves or by falling from tall buildings. Six of these cases have been reported in local media as suicides and four more have been described as possible work accidents....more..