Ethiopia bids to quell violence
BBC News
Sporadic violence was reported in Ethiopia on Saturday as police and troops tried to quell unrest blamed for at least 46 deaths this week.
Clashes continued on Saturday in the town of Debre Berhan, 150km (93 miles) north of the capital Addis Ababa, according to a human rights group.
Violence erupted on Tuesday after opposition parties accused the government of rigging elections.
Many shops in Addis Ababa are shut and there are no taxis on the streets.
‘Stirred up’
Government forces surrounded university student compounds in the northern towns of Bahir Dar and Awassa in an attempt to prevent further unrest. Four people were killed in Bahir Dar in violence on Friday.
The protests came over the country’s disputed 15 May elections, which saw Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front take control of two-thirds of the country’s parliament.
The unrest is the worst disturbance in sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous country since protests first ignited after the May elections, when some 36 people died and hundreds were arrested.
State television said this week’s unrest was stirred up by opposition politicians, many of whom have been arrested.
Clashes took place in Debre Berhan on Saturday between security forces and opposition supporters on Saturday, a human right group member told AP under condition of anonymity.
“There was shooting. We believe there may be casualties,” they said. No casualties had been confirmed.
Residents of Addis Ababa feared more unrest despite calmness on the streets. Gunshots had been reported overnight in the district of Mercato.
“It is quiet now but it may start again after some time,” engineer Girma Teshome, 30, told Reuters. “It could be quiet for a month then erupt again.”
The unrest has sparked fears the country may be moving into a period of more authoritarian rule.
Ambassadors from 21 countries which have given aid to the drought-ravaged country issued a statement expressing dismay at the violence, and calling for an urgent investigation.
This article originally appeared on BBC News
UN fears tension in Ethiopia will turn into war
Jonathan Steele
Friday November 4, 2005
The Guardian
Ethiopia’s stability was under threat last night after a major troop and tank build-up on both sides of the disputed border with Eritrea and renewed clashes in Addis Ababa between police and protesters which have already left 42 dead.
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has called for “decisive steps to defuse the escalating tension”, while Maj Gen Rajender Singh, commander of UN peacekeepers in the border buffer zone, warned that “this potentially volatile situation could lead to a renewed outbreak of war”.
At least 100,000 people, mainly conscripts, died in the last war between 1998 and 2000 over a small piece of semi-arid territory, inhabited by only a few thousand people. The war was seen as a surrogate for deeper rivalry between the two countries’ rulers over regional leadership, economic issues, and land-locked Ethiopia’s access to the sea.
After the war both sides agreed to accept the results of an independent boundaries commission which reported in 2002. It awarded the Ethiopian-occupied town of Badme to Eritrea, but Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has delayed implementing the report’s findings.
In a successful effort to revive international interest and get the UN and foreign governments to press for Ethiopian compliance, Eritrea recently stopped helicopter flights by UN peacekeepers. But this tactic also roused the Ethiopians, who have moved tanks based 25 miles from the demilitarised zone to within 12 miles.
Eritrea has the right to send unarmed militias into the zone but UN observers have seen a growing number of men with guns. Under the peace deal only UN troops are allowed in the 16-mile-wide buffer area.
Reports from Addis Ababa say Ethiopian commanders are waiting keenly for any provocation from Eritrea on the grounds that this time they could capture vast areas of lowland Eritrea, including the port of Assab. Government officials blamed Mr Meles for ending the war in 2000 without taking enough territory.
The protests in the Ethiopian capital are not directly linked. Opposition groups from the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, who claim elections in May were rigged to give Mr Meles a third five-year term, resumed demonstrations earlier this week. Some observers say the government is stepping up tension with Eritrea to win support in Addis.
Three people were shot dead yesterday, according to local doctors, and the overnight death toll among those wounded on Tuesday rose to eight from three.
Witnesses said police opened fire to disperse anti-government protests in several areas of the city. Police have also detained scores of people including human rights activists, residents said. Special forces patrolled the streets, where shops were closed yesterday in part to mark the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival.
The violence has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to warn Britons against non-essential travel to Ethiopia.
Mr Meles is well regarded in the West and Washington reacted to yesterday’s protests by condemning “cynical, deliberate” attempts to stoke violence.
Washington urged the government to investigate the unrest and release all detainees, while urging the CUD to pursue its grievances peacefully and take up its seats in parliament, something it has so far refused to do.
This article originally appeared in The Guardian