Are US and UK ‘turning a blind eye’ as Ethiopia uproots natives?

California think tank issues double-barreled report alleging Washington, London are willfully ignoring gross violations.

The Christian Science Monitor
by Mike Pflanz, Correspondent, Robert Marquand

Charges surfaced yesterday that American and British diplomats responsible for Africa are deliberately ignoring a brutal Ethiopian campaign to relocate local people in order to lease the cleared land to foreign corporations.

The Ethiopian government leased the homelands of these Anuak women to an Indian company, Karuturi Global Ltd, and moved them to a village where there is no land for farming.

An American expert on Ethiopia who translated for US and British staff in the region of South Omo in 2012 released transcripts and audio tapes of conversations in from a joint fact finding mission there. In it, Omo tribals tell officials that girls and women, including their wives, were raped by “men with guns” in order to get them to leave the area.

The expert, Will Hurd, said that continuing denials by State Department officials of evidence of harm and forced evictions from Ethiopian land is “shocking,” in a report by the Oakland Institute, a California think tank.

Heavy police presence during anti-Ethiopian government rally in Canada

A heavy police presence formed outside the Belmead Community league in west Edmonton Saturday afternoon when about 100 protesters gathered to rally against the Ethiopian government.

Protesters told CBC News that representatives from the Ethiopian government were meeting inside the community league's building to discuss selling bonds for a hydroelectric dam project on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia.

Fingerprints of International Aid on Forced Relocation, Repression, and Human Rights Abuse in Ethiopia

OAKLAND, CA—Two new reports from the Oakland Institute, Development Aid to Ethiopia: Overlooking Violence, Marginalization, and Political Repression and Ignoring Abuse in Ethiopia: DFID and USAID in the Lower Omo Valley, show how Western development assistance is supporting forced evictions and massive violations of human rights in Ethiopia.


The Ethiopian government’s controversial “villagization” resettlement program to clear vast areas for large-scale land investments is funded largely by international development organizations

ኢህአዴግ ጣና በለስን ለምን አፈራረሰው? “በሩ ይከፈት፣ በአባይ ጉዳይ አገራዊ አቋም እንያዝ”

Negash | June 7th, 2013

“ጣና በለስን አፈራርሶ ያስዘረፈ ፓርቲና አመራሮቹ አሁን አባይን ለመገደብ የተነሱበት መነሻ ለአብዛኛው የኢህአዴግ አባላት እንቆቅልሽ ነው”

By Goolgule.com
June 7, 2013

በግብጽ ረዳትነት፣ በሱዳን መሪነት መንግስት ለመሆን የበቃው ህወሃት/ኢህአዴግ ግዙፉን የጣና በለስ ፕሮጀክትና ንብረቱ
እንዲዘረፍ ያደረገበትን ምክንያት በማንሳት መከራከር እንደሚያስፈልግ ተጠቆመ። የግብጽ ፕሬዚዳንት ሙርሲ እንዳደረጉት በአገር
ጉዳይ ሁሉንም ያሳተፈ ግልጽ አቋም እንዲያዝና አጋጣሚውን በመጠቀም ብሔራዊ ህብረት እንዲፈጠር ኢህአዴግ በሩን ሊከፍት
እንደሚገባ ተገለጸ።

Ottawa Rally calls on Canada to halt support for dictatorship

OTTAWA – Ethiopian Canadians on June 5 took to the streets of Ottawa and condemned the ongoing human rights violations in the Horn of Africa nation. The protesters were mainly drawn from Toronto and Ottawa.

Ethiopian editor questioned over story on Azeb Mesfin

(CPJ) New York, May 15, 2013–Ethiopian police in Addis Ababa questioned an editor for several hours today in connection with a story published in October about the widow of the late Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi, according to news reports.

Azeb Mesfin the widow of the late Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi

Officers in the Ethiopian Federal Police Crime Investigation Department interrogated Ferew Abebe, the former editor-in-chief of the private Amharic-language weekly Sendek, about his sources for the October 10, 2012, story that saidAzeb Mesfin, Meles’ widow, had refused to leave the Ethiopian national place nearly two months after the prime minister’s death, local journalists said. The story, which was widely covered in local and international press, cited government sources as saying that Meles’ successor, Hailemarian Desalegn, was unable to live in the palace.

Breaking Political Barriers and Political Taboos

I. IntroductionI watched on ETV with great fascination the recent presentations by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to the Ethiopian House of Representatives, especially the question and answer session wherein a representative asked the Prime Minister to expound on the hot issue of ethnic cleansing against the Amhara in the Benshangul Killil. I also read snippets of the report on that same subject by the lucid Redwan Hussien of the EPRDF‘s Secretariat. What both leaders stated without any equivocation was that removing Ethiopian “peoples” from an area based on their ethnic identity is an act by anti-people groups; the phrase they used was ጸረ-ሕዝብ, and they emphasized the fact that every Ethiopian has a Constitutional right to work freely anywhere in Ethiopia. Both political leaders are from SEPDM (Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Movement) the Former is its Chairman and the latter Member of its Central Committee.* In referring to the citizens of Ethiopia, I reject the pseudo Leninist-Stalinist designation “peoples” that the EPRDF and its constitutive members use as their political mantra. The term “peoples” is passé and anachronistic.