Africanews
The past five years of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) - led government in Ethiopia have seen gross abuses of human rights. Thousands of suspected opponents of the government have been detained without charge or trial while suspected members of opposition political groups are either gunned down or subjected to torture of the worst kind. |
The Ethiopian government has frequently spoken of its commitments to human rights and its acceptance of the principle of accountability. It took on the task of prosecuting officials of the overthrown government for crimes against humanity committed in their official capacities. But it is not doing anything to ensure that its own human rights record is beyond reproach. It has not been open in acknowledging and investigating abuses by its own forces. The international community has paid insufficient attention to continuing reports of violations.
Urji, a weekly private newspaper devotes most of its columns to human rights affairs in the country. On the occasion of the celebration of its second anniversary (22 March, 1996), the newspaper gave names of 191 people which it said were only a few of the victims of torture, illegal imprisonment and forced disappearances. The documentation available in Urji offices was compiled by interviewing either the victims or a member of his or her family or reliable eye witnesses.
The list includes people of all walks of life, children, women and the elderly. Ninety-eight of them were reported to have been killed and their left on the streets. People were made to observe the corpses to scare them from sympathizing with the Oromo Liberation Front's (OFL) clandestine movements.
The paper said the list does not include the 300 people who were massacred in 1995 in Sigmo District of Illu Aba Bora - 800 kms away from Addis-Ababa. Among these victims, the weekly says, there are families who were destroyed completely, not a single member surviving.
Yet another horrifying scene unfolded recently in the Hiot Ber Clinic in the very heart of Addis Ababa when a group of armed government security force broke into it. According to eye witnesses a group of security forces entered the clinic, detained all the doctors, and other clinic staff and ransacked the entire establishment. The Hiot Ber Clinic belongs to an Oromo national who opened it after fulfilling all the business formalities with the ministry of health. Some of the staff are still missing. A certain Meti Taye, a young girl who had been attending to her patient relative at the time, was violently beaten and later taken to prison, but her sick is still missing. The young Meti was knifed on the forehead by the police and drops of blood were trickling down her cheeks while she was being taken to prison. Neither the state media nor the police gave any statement about the event which sent shock waves of terror among the public.
Tolessa relates his story that when the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in 1991/92 founded the transitional government with other opposition political parties, he was assigned to represent the OLF in one of the Districts in Oromia. But when the OLF boycotted the transitional government in June 1992, Tolessa remained in Addis Ababa to retake his earlier job as a civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture.
"Since 1992 I had no communication with the OLF or I had completely disengaged myself from all political activities ," Tolessa says.
"The second day two security men came with a pincers-shaped metal and an electric wire. I was asked the same question - 'to tell them my responsibility in the OLF'. At the same time, the other person continued flogging me with the electric wire for I had nothing to tell. Then the other took up the pincers- like machine. I was ordered to lay my left hand on the table, the palm facing down. Artfully, the man sought for a bigger blood vessel running down the back of my palm and pinched it between the teeth of the pincers pulling it in such a way that the blood vessel came out. I cried and cried but to no avail and finally lost consciousness. After almost half a day, I found myself in another room . This time, my hands were tied together behind me. My legs too were tightly strapped together and I was lying flat on the floor. For forty-eight hours I remained there in solitary confinement, no food, no water, I was not even having able to turn my body to either direction as my limbs were so cruelly strapped."
Tolessa says that he got no medical treatment for the festering wounds all over his body. The writer saw scars all over his body and his left hand is almost paralyzed. Moreover, he was told not to contact his friends and he is being followed by security informants.
For people under minority rule, says Tolessa, it is obvious that this kind of inhuman treatment is a common place phenomena. "But I wonder that this brutal method of suppression is employed by no less than the Tigrayans themselves who had such grave experiences under the Derg regime and who know the consequences. They are giving lip-services to democracy and human rights but a victim of torture like me has not even a right to talk to journalist about his prison experiences."
Tolessa worries about his seven children and a wife whose addresses were registered by the police and whose lives might be at risk in the event that he is suspected again.
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