December 18/2000

 INHUMANE CONDITIONS OF DETENTION REPORTED

As SOCEPP had reported many times in the past the EPRDF is holding prisoners in concentration camps and hell holes which deserve to be condemned as inhumane and brutal. Underground holes, secret/ghost prisons, villas turned into dark rooms and torture chambers, hot malaria infested spots turned into prison camps-these and more exist aplenty in EPRDF's Ethiopia.

SOCEPP has come to know that the EPRDF has turned the former military-militia training camp and reeducation center, TOLAI, into a prison camp for allegedly dissident military personnel. Hundreds of non-Tigrean officers and soldiers are now detained in malaria-infested TOLAI. The former concentration camp for Oromo Liberation Front members, DEDESA, is now a prison for Eritrean (EPLF) captured soldiers. Conditions are terrible and leave much to be desired, many witnesses affirm. It is to be recalled that hundreds of Eritreans still languish in prison in several places on the grounds that they are "threats to national security". Witnesses, both local and foreign, have also revealed that the Meles Zenawi government runs a number of secret prisons all over the country and political prisoners are being held in inhumane conditions. Prisoners attacked by malaria and other diseases are denied treatment as a matter of policy.

 SOCEPP calls on the Red Cross and all human rights organizations to demand the right to visit the prisons at Tolai, Dedesa, Kaliti and other places to observe the conditions of the prisoners. The Meles Zenawi government must be made to stop these gross violations of the basic rights of the people.

SOCEPP