HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH WORLD REPORT 2000: ETHIOPIA
Feleke
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH WORLD REPORT 2000
ETHIOPIA
Human Rights Developments
The Ethiopian government, led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF), continued to implement an ambitious program of
political and economic reforms with significant donor support. Ethnically-based
federal regions assumed executive, legislative, and judicial powers provided
for under the 1994 constitution. The EPRDF maintained strict control over this
process through parties affiliated to it which dominated regional governments.
A handful of opposition parties, notably the All Amhara People Organization
(AAPO) and the Council of Alternative Forces for Peace and Democracy in
Ethiopia (CAFPD), preserved a precarious presence in the capital Addis Ababa,
following years of relentless government curtailment of their activities,
particularly in the countryside. Tensions persisted between the government and
ethnic fronts which withdrew from earlier alliances with the EPRDF over their
insistence that constitutionally guaranteed self-determination rights be
immediately exercised in their regions. Sporadic clashes occurred in Oromia and
Somali regional states between government troops and fighters from the Oromo
Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)
respectively. Tension remained high along the borders with Somalia where the
government responded to incursions by the fundamentalist Al-Ittihad Al-Islami
(Islamic Unity) by striking at its strongholds across the border and by backing
armed factions in Somalia opposed to Al-Ittihad.
Wide-scale human rights violations occurred in the context of the
government’s suppression of armed insurgency and political dissent. The
military and rural militia associated with parties affiliated to the EPRDF
arrested thousands for months without charge or trial on account of their
suspected support of armed insurgencies. Opposition activists, editors of the
private press, and leaders of labor organizations who continued to challenge
the EPRDF’s monopolization of political space were systematically targeted
through harassment and repeated detentions. Overcrowding, poor hygiene, and
inadequate food compounded the plight of detainees. However, the government
granted the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) increasing access
to places of detention in 1997 and 1998, and cooperated with its efforts to
assist inmates. The humanitarian agency reported visiting by the end of 1997
some 10,980 people held in connection with the 1991 ouster of the former regime
or for security reasons, and registering 5,660 newdetainees.
The close political and strategic alliance between Ethiopia and Eritrea
collapsed in early May when a minor border dispute flared up into brief violent
confrontations. Hundreds were killed on both sides, mainly civilians. The
fighting displaced thousands of villagers on both sides of the border. Fighting
ceased in mid-June following intense mediation efforts, but a massive military
buildup by both states continued as a bitter propaganda war and the pursuit of
escalation by extremists on both sides reduced the chances of a negotiated
settlement.
Both sides traded accusations of ill-treatment of their citizens whom the
conflict had found on the wrong side of the border. Eritrea denied deliberately
expelling Ethiopians and said its policy would remain one of welcoming and
protecting Ethiopians willing to stay, but a September 26 statement by the
Eritrean foreign ministry put the number of Ethiopians who had “voluntarily
returned” to their country at 6,600.
Compelling evidence pointed to a deliberate campaign by the Ethiopian
authorities to expel Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin to Eritrea. By
late October, an estimated thirty thousand, most of them Ethiopian citizens who
had not taken up Eritrean nationality in the aftermath of Eritrea’s 1991
secession from Ethiopia, were deported after experiencing systematic denial of
their human rights. The campaign swiftly degenerated from selective targeting
to indiscriminate deportations. A government “policy” statement on June 11
said the “550,000 Eritreans residing in Ethiopia” could continue to live
and work peacefully there. However, as a “precautionary measure,” the
statement ordered members of Eritrean political and community organizations to
leave the country on account of their suspected support of the Eritrean war
effort, and gave a mandatory leave of absence of one month to Eritreans
occupying “sensitive” jobs. While authorities initially suggested an option
of voluntary departure for the targeted categories, they later began rounding
up people on the sole basis of their being Eritrean or of Eritrean extraction,
and apparently without making an effort to distinguish between the two
categories. Not all who fell in the dragnet were deported. Those of military
age were sent to detention camps where an unknown number remained held by late
October without charge or trial. Others were trucked, after brief detentions,
to remote border posts and ordered to cross into Eritrea on foot. Those
detained and expelled included many elderly retired citizens of Ethiopia,
mainly businessmen who had lived most of their lives and raised their children
in other provinces of Ethiopia while Eritrea fought for its independence. The
government ordered the freezing of their assets and revoked their business
licenses, stripping them and their families of their livelihood. Many families
were separated during the deportations from underage children who were not
allowed to leave with them, or, in a few cases, from children who were deported
unaccompanied.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in an interview with Radio Ethiopia on July 9 said
the deportees were “foreigners,” adding that “. . . any foreign national,
whether Eritrean or Japanese etc. . . . lives in Ethiopia because of the
goodwill of the Ethiopian government. If we say ‘Go, because we don’t like
the color of your eyes,’ they have to leave.” The issue was, however, more
complex than the prime minister’s assertion suggested. For the forty years
preceding Eritrean independence in 1991 both countries were part of the same
internationally recognized state. Strong cultural, religious, and linguistic
affinities existed between the two people, and intermarriages were common. The
Ethiopian constitution, in its Article 6, grants citizenship by birth to any
person with one or both Ethiopian parents. Many Eritreans had retained their
Ethiopian nationality when Eritrea became independent, and Ethiopia did not
take any legal measure to rescind their citizenship then. As a consequence, the
Ethiopian government had no legal basis to consider many of the deportees as
aliens. The roundup, detention, and the ill-treatment of which the deportees,
whether nationals or aliens, were the victims violated rights of
nondiscrimination and freedom of movement that the Ethiopian constitution
guaranteed. The deportations and accompanying violations of a range of rights
of the deportees also violated Ethiopia’s obligations under the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other human rights treaties it has
ratified and indeed incorporated into the law of the land.
The harassment and imprisonment on political grounds of opposition leaders
continued. Professor Asrat Woldeyes, the president of the opposition All Amhara
People’s Organization (AAPO) who was imprisoned in 1994, was hospitalized in
January for treatment for diabetes and other health complications; he was
nearly seventy, and also suffered heart problems. The government adamantly
refused to bend to domestic and international appeals, including from Human
Rights Watch, for his release. By late October his condition had improved, but
he remained under guard in his hospital room. He was serving consecutive prison
sentences of two and three years in Addis Ababa central prison after
convictions for “inciting armed rebellion.” He credibly complained that he
did not receive fair trials, but his appeals were rejected. He and another
twenty-two AAPO leaders faced another trial which began in 1995 on new charges
of “armed rebellion.” The court refused to examine claims by several
codefendants that their confessions implicating the group were obtained under
torture. Aberra Yemane Ab, an activist jailed since December 1993 when he
returned to Addis Ababa from his U.S. exile to participate in a conference on
peace and reconciliation, was allowed in late September only a few minutes’
encounter with a son he hadn’t seen since he was incarcerated. The government
denied the son further visits on the grounds that he, a holder of a U.S.
passport, was a foreigner.
Security forces on September 17 surrounded the headquarters of the elected
Ethiopian Teachers’ Association in Addis Ababa, and ordered ETA’s officials
to hand the premises over to a government-sponsored “teachers’
association.” ETA’s executive committee members present at the time,
Shimeles Zewdi, Abate Angore, and Aweke Mulugeta, were detained without a court
order and were only released on October 15. The latter two were briefly
detained following a similar raid on ETA’s compound on August 13. The
premises had survived as a symbol of ETA’s autonomy, and were a nagging
reminder of the association’s persistent rejection of ethnic federalism
policies, particularly when applied in the field of education. Previous attacks
on the association since its conflict with the government started in 1992
included the closure of its regional and local offices, the freezing of its
accounts, and the repeated detention of its officials. In May 1996, the
association’s president Dr. Taye Woldesemayat was arrested and charged,
together with five others, with “armed conspiracy.” Exactly a year later,
Assefa Maru, his replacement as head of ETA and a human rights advocate,was
gunned down by the police who accused him after the fact of participating in an
armed insurgency.
Dr. Taye Woldesemayat was subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment
in Addis Ababa central prison where he was transferred after his arrest and
remained. The presiding judge denied bail, and when the teachers’ leader
repeatedly complained that he was being harassed by his guards, the judge
failed to act decisively to restrain them. The guards in February placed
Woldesemayat in a death-row cell known as the “darkness cell.” When he
again complained about the conditions of his detention in a July 28 hearing,
the presiding judge, holding him in contempt, ordered him put in chains for
twenty-four hours a day until a hearing scheduled for September 29. The
constant stress from these conditions and daily verbal abuse by his guards
reportedly exacted a heavy psychological and physical toll on Woldesemayat.
Authorities in March arrested thirty-four individuals and charged them with
armed conspiracy with the Oromo Liberation Front. They joined in prison an
earlier group of thirty-one prominent members of the Oromo community who were
arrested in October and November 1997 and faced similar charges, punishable by
from five years’ imprisonment to death. The government claimed that some of
the sixty-five Oromos were OLF fighters and accused the others of membership in
OLF “support groups.” The “groups” in question included the newly
founded Human Rights League; the Oromo Relief Association dissolved by the
government in 1995; the newspaper Urji , which ceased publishing after the
arrest of key journalists; an Oromo cultural revival association; and a medical
clinic catering for the Oromo community in Addis Ababa. Typically, the trial
started with a round of adjournments which the government attributed to lack of
judges.
Personnel shortages and meager resources indeed led to severe delays in the
courts and slowed down the restructuring of the judiciary in line with the
federal system. With a backlog of thousands of cases by late 1998 in Addis
Ababa alone, and few judges to clear it, one year adjournments became routine
in the court system, with suspects and defendants having to spend long months
in pretrial detention. The legal rights of prisoners to speedy and fair trials
thus remained seriously compromised. Prisoners facing trial on political and
security charges credibly claimed that the government was using the near
paralysis of the justice system to neutralize them and their parties,
associations, and newspapers for years at a time without appearing to be using
an iron fist. Long term detention before even coming to trial faced some
prisoners held solely for the nonviolent exercise of their freedom of
expression and association. Detention for indefinite periods also applied to
those accused of serious crimes and violence with political dimensions. A case
in point of the latter was the internationally supported trial of officials of
the previous Derg regime for crimes against humanity, an initiative once lauded
as a major strike against impunity but which was seriously tarnished by its
unconscionably slow pace. On September 10, the Office of the Special Prosecutor
announced the release of thirty-one defendants who had been in pretrial
detention for seven years for lack of evidence.
Repression against the independent press escalated to unprecedented levels in
the last quarter of 1997 and in 1998. There were seventeen detained journalists
in Ethiopia in late October. The brief but often repeated detentions of
journalists observed in most of 1997 gave way to the crippling practice of
wholesale arrests of key members of the editorial and managerial staff of vocal
publications, a tactic which amounted to the virtual banning of the targeted
publications. Five journalists from the pro-Oromo weekly Urji remained in
detention since their arrest in the last quarter of 1997, including the
editor-in-chief and his deputy and the reporter Garoma Bekele, who at the time
was also secretary of the newly founded Human Rights League. Together with
other Oromo leaders rounded up during that period, they faced charges of armed
conspiracy with the OLF: prosecutors accused Urji of being an organ of the OLF.
The crackdown came shortly after an early October article in which the
newspaper challenged the official version of the killing of three Oromo
activists in Addis Ababa which the government claimed had occurred during a
shootout. The newspaper cited eyewitnesses who claimed the three were killed
without warning. Urji ceased publishing following the onslaught. The private
weekly Tobia suffered a similar fate when four editors were arrested on January
16, 1998 following the paper’s publication of a leaked internal U.N.
memorandum recommending security precautions to its staff. Hours after their
arrest, the newspaper’s offices were burned to the ground, its equipment,
archive, and database totally destroyed. The newspaper ceased publishing but
reappeared after the release of its journalists in July and August. Despite
repeated appeals by media watchdogs for an investigation of the fire, its
origin remained undetermined by late October. On July 13, Shimelis Kamal,
Berhane Negash, and Teferi Mokennen of Nishan , an independent Amharic weekly
newspaper which at the time had published just eight issues, were arrested for
an article criticizing the government’s deportation of Eritreans. Freed a day
later, they were immediately rearrested for issuing a press release criticizing
their arrest and detained without a court order for a month. In the interim,
police ignored two orders issued by a judge to either charge or release them
immediately. The crackdown succeeded in eroding the commitment of the sole
financial backer of Nishan: the paper ceased publishing when he withdrew his
support. For denouncing in a press release in February the government’s
muzzling of the independent press, Kiffle Mulate, editor of Ethio-Time and
national coordinator of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists’ Association,
was himself detained for six months. Repeated arrests had forced the leaders of
that association and some twenty other journalists into exile.