EPRDF unleashes its terror machine

A lot of people were excited about the elections in May. There was genuine hope that real change and progress were at hand. People came out and made their voices heard by voting. As the results were coming in, the ruling party (EPRDF) realized that it had been utterly rejected by the people. Once this realization dawned on them, they started their manipulation of the system in order to maintain power.

The oppositon, justifiably, cried foul. The oppostion contested the results in many areas but the final result let the ruling EPRDF's fradulent victory stand. When the opposition, mainly CUD, after exhausting all avenues decided to boycott the parliament. The ruling party changed parliamentary rules to make the incoming opposition ineffective. Despite the effort of foreign governments to mediate, the CUD and EPRDF could not come to agree on the way forward.

Finally, the CUD calls on civil disobedience by staying home. Before the call took effect, the government starts its crackdown on oppositon leaders and supporters. People start expressing their dissatisfaction of the election results by peaceful demonstration. The security forces deploy in force to crush the peaceful demonstration. It is not clear how the rock throwing started by the protestors but it is my belief it is instigated by the government in order to get a pretext for a full blown carckdown.

Using this rock throwing incident as a pretext, the so called democratic government of Ethiopia unleashes the full force of its military and police forces on its own people. They began by arresting all leaders of CUD and whoever else associated with them. In some case, killing wives and children of the leaders in the process. These forces using machine guns and tanks begin suppresing the demonstration. Indescriminate shooting and mass arrests of young people continues throughout the country. Only God knows where they have taken these young people and what treatment they are receivng.

It is hard to say how this situation will be resolved. I hope the donor nations that prop this government up will put extreme pressure on the government:

1. to immediately release everyone who is arrested and has not committed a crime
2. to bring those soldiers and their superiors who gave the shoot to kill order to justice
3. to have a truly independent (not one appointed by the criminal Prime Minister) committe to investigate everything that happend in the last week and report its findings to the world.
4. to agree to the fact that the army never be used to intimidate, arrest and kill innocent citizens for expressing their views and exercising their rights
5. to allow all Ethiopian citizens to exercise their right to free speech and all other rights as given in the constitution

The list could go on but the American taxpayer should not be funding the oppression of innocent citizens by dictators.