Ethiopian Review

Addis Ababa (12 May 2009) In its statement on the ‘Ginbot 7 plot’ and arrests, Meles Zenawi’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses the US and the UK governments as “an all-too-frequent example of the double standards so often applied to Africa” for favoring Ginbot 7 leaders. (Picture: Ambassador Johnnie Carson newly appointed assistant secretary of state for African affairs)

The press release attacks the two superpowers for allowing Ginbot 7 leaders get unprecedented access to the media, esp., the BBC and The Voice of America.

“This raises an issue of whether friendly states, such as the UK and the USA, should open their state-funded media outlets to individuals and groups whose declared objective is the overthrow of an elected government by any means. It is hardly an action to be explained in the context of the friendly inter-state relations between Ethiopia and the US and the UK.” The Ministry said.

The statement has also attacked Amnesty International’s statement as a similar visible double standard. “The double standards of some western media, and of international human rights organizations, appear to be clearly at work here once again.” it said.

It also said that Ginbot 7 does not have the capacity to damage the process of democratization. But in the context of the relations of Ethiopia and the US or the UK, it could, perhaps cause un-necessary suspicions.

Analysts say the Meles regime is very uncomfortable with the U.S. Ambassador Johnnie Carson – the newly appointed assistant secretary of state for African affairs – making him the Obama administration’s top official charged with directing U.S. policy toward Africa.

On April 29 Johnnie Carson addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that corruption and freedom of the press —important issues in the U.S.-Africa relationship.

Asked to comment on reports of arbitrary arrests in Ethiopia, Carson said that the United States “needs to have a broad and balanced relationship with Ethiopia — one that is based on a common set of shared ideals and principles based on democratic values.” He said it is “extremely important that Ethiopia … try not to close down its democratic space, that it allows its political opposition, its civil society to participate broadly in the political life of that country.” He also called for Ethiopia to allow a free press and trade unions to operate there.

The dictator regime of Meles Zenawi is mounting series of attacks on the US state department by trying to defy and ignore the human rights report of the U.S State Department and the human rights concerns the Obama administration.

In an underside mounted self defense, the regime has started a crusades against the US government, Amnesty International and New York-based Human Rights Watch. The Meles regime says all human right groups and the US state department are liars.

(Ethioforum)