JUNE 11/2005

The violent repression against the people in Ethiopia is spreading. We present here below some facts:

The number of people killed in Addis Ababa was not in the twenties as reported by the foreign press but close to one hundred as evidenced by the reports coming from the morgues of the city hospitals.

In Gondar, a demonstration by students of the high schools has been brutally repressed with some killed and dozens arrested.

Government security forces and cadres are going around in the rural areas of Gondar and rounding up peasants who supported the opposition. Shootouts have erupted in several places (Kola Diba,etc..).

in Addis Ababa and other places security forces have continued to round up and detain people in accordance with a secret list prepared by the authorities.

Close to ten thousand people (10,000) have been taken to Zwai and Shoa Robit prisons that are considered as virtual concentration camps.

in Bahr Dar schools and the universities are closed, protests suppressed and tension is high. Many people have been jailed.

Such reports come from Jimma, Wello and many other places in Ethiopia.

 

SOCEPP has learnt that some foreign quarters are not making the necessary effort to impress upon the regime the need to respect the rights of the people while they are pressurizing the opposition to give in to the EPRDF and accept its diktat. The head of the EU in Ethiopia, Tim Clarke, the British ambassador to Ethiopia and the German ambassador Helga Von Strachwitz are mentioned as the ones making little or no effort to chastise the ruling group while, on the other hand, pressurizing the opposition to give in. What is actually required is an unequivocal condemnation of the violence and repression undertaken by the EPRDF and a firm support to the people who are victimized by it. The repression is brutal. The repression continues. This should be exposed and condemned and not covered up, trivialized or ignored.