The House of Representatives has  passed a bill yesterday which shall press the Ethiopian government to improve the human rights situation .

The Ethiopian Democracy and Accountability Act which passed unanimously still has to be approved by the Senate and be signed by Bush. It enables the suspension of aid, restrictions of visas for government authorities who were involved in human rights abuses .This sanction should be imposed, if Ethiopia doesn’t allow human rights observers entrance to the country and if it doesn’t make improvements regarding freedom of press.

“The debate goes on since demonstrators were shot in the streets of Addis 2005” says Democrat Donald Payne member of the House of Representatives to the BBC “we wanted to give Ethiopia a chance to corrects the deficiencies because they are an ally of the USA

But  there are still people imprisoned after two years, there are problems in the Ogaden Region bordering Somalia and the government is restricting food aid. Therefore we have decided to take this initiative.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders accuse the government  restricting aid organisations from entering the region, where the Ogaden National Front is fighting to secede Ethiopia’s poorest region.

Ethiopia’s ambassador in Washington Samuel Assefa immediately lodged a protest: the law would risk the stability in the Horn of Africa , it would compromise the vital security cooperation with the USA “. Addis Ababa is an important ally in the US led war against terror and is supposed to get 1.5 billion worth of military and 645 million economic aid this year.

Bush veto expected

The Financial Times expects that President Bush will veto the bill. Harpers magazine reports that the Ethiopian government spends 50 000 per month for services provided by the law company DLA Piper. The company, which is also consulting the governments of Afghanistan and Turkey, has many former politicians under contract, like former republican majority leader in the House of Representatives Richard Armey.

Merkel warns

The German councillor Merkel reminded Meles Zenawi at her visit Thursday to respect human rights. Due to events following the contested parliamentary elections 2005 several European countries had reduced aid transfers.

Back then, the Ethiopian army widely unnoticed by the general public brutally cracked down on demonstrations against alleged vote rigging (reported by derStandard.at).

At least 200 were killed and up to 100 000 were arrested, among them the whole leadership of the opposition party CUDP. The politicians, some elected members to the Ethiopian parliament were charged with genocide and treason. It is death for this crimes. Most of them were released in July 2007 due to international pressure.

Parliament seats stay empty

Even so, they can’t take their parliamentary seats. According to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi they have lost their “right” after being absent for two years, as Yacob Hailemariam CUDP central committee member reports in a derStandard.at conversation. ”Zenawi went on TV the day of our release and announced that we had failed the deadline to take our seats in parliament”. The former UN Special Envoy and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda doesn’t want to get into a legal wrangle to get his seat in parliament back: “you can’t expect help from the Ethiopian judiciary in cases like this”

Yacob  Hailemariam estimates that there are still a hundred members of the opposition

imprisoned in relation to the 2005 protests.

The government however had released ten of thousands during the millennium celebration .A fact finding team of  CUDP is currently trying to find out if any of the defendant opposition members are among them.

Pictures to the left

[1. pic]

Army  operation in Addis Ababa 2005

[2. pic]
One of the rare pictures of police operation against demonstrators, 200 people had been killed following the controversial election 2005. Even though an independent commission had come to the conclusion that excessive force was used, no one was held accountable  for the assaults .