"...Meles's own political party would have been considered a terrorist organization under his predecessor's regime, which it overthrew in 1991."
Abigail Salisbury, former Law Professor at Mekelle University

Human Rights and the War on Terror in Ethiopia


Abigail Salisbury is a former faculty member at the Mekelle University Law Faculty in Mek'ele, Ethiopia, and has written for JURIST previously on the issue of human rights in Ethiopia. She is a 2007 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

JURIST Guest Columnist and former JURIST Executive Director Abigail Salisbury says that the Ethiopian government has used the War on Terror to maintain its power, labeling opposition groups, journalists and others as terrorists and detaining them under legislation that is purportedly aimed at furthering the War on Terror...

It is not entirely out of the ordinary to hear of the arrest of political dissidents in Ethiopia, but a recent cluster of arrests has drawn attention from the international human rights community. Over the last few weeks, a group of at least nine journalists, Ethiopian National Democratic Party members and others, have been arrested and detained under Ethiopia's Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652. This added to some two dozen other individuals said to have been charged under the same law over the last couple of months. This 2009 law uses the buzzword "terrorism" to encourage the West to continue to see Ethiopia as a vital partner in the War on Terror, drawing attention away from the law's true purpose: suppressing any opposition to the regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Given the recent unrest in several other African countries, the uptick in arrests under the law is worrying, and tends to validate earlier concerns over its potential for facilitating human rights violations.

Disguising human rights violations and oppression with positive terminology is not new to Ethiopian legislators, who passed the Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation No. 590 in 2008. This idealistic-sounding law's title belies its contents, because it enables the government to bring charges against "any person who is suspected of committing an offence through the mass media." Such offenses include the publication of statements critical of the legislative, executive or judicial authorities that are deemed false or defamatory. It is up to the attorney general to decide if the accused journalist should be detained on remand.

The more recent adoption of terrorism as a tool for oppression has allowed the Ethiopian government to take much greater measures to eradicate opposition. The ruling regime has learned that the West needs its support for its own anti-terrorism efforts in the region, so much so that human rights abuses can be overlooked. Many argued against HR 2003, The Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007 when it was before the US Congress, because they felt that conditioning non-essential US aid to Ethiopia on the regime's attainment of certain human rights benchmarks would damage a relationship crucial to fighting terrorism. The reaction in Ethiopia was mixed, and the bill never came to a vote after reaching the US Senate.

The Ethiopian government was encouraged by the bill's failure, and by its provision specifically exempting anti-terrorism funding from the human rights benchmarks. Thus the regime enhanced its restrictions on freedom of speech by hiding them behind Western-friendly terms, the most powerful of which turned out to be "terrorism." Recognizing the nation's geographic and political value as a strategic outpost for the West's War on Terror in East Africa and the Middle East, the Ethiopian government made a show of its dedication to fighting terrorism not only for its own benefit, but for "the peace and security of the world at large," in the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation. The law cites Ethiopia's commitment to cooperation with those fighting terror all over the world, emphasizing its relationships with the African Union and the UN.

After reading past these vows and laudations, however, the true purpose of the law becomes clear. Yes, they are dedicated to fighting terrorists, but who are the terrorists? In what amounts to a bill of attainder, once the legislature designates a person or group as a terrorist or terrorist organization, they lose their legal personality. Any assets or property are forfeited and liquidated immediately, without a judicial determination of guilt. The government can then officially ignore or punish what would otherwise be legitimate actions in a free society, such as lawsuits, protests or speech, as well as the actions of anyone who is deemed to have supported or aided the "terrorists" in any way.

Under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, encouraging terrorism can mean as small an act as showing "moral support" for a person or group deemed terroristic by the legislature. Publishing one's approval for one of the country's various ethnic rebel or political forces, for instance, could result in a 10-year minimum prison sentence, since these opposition groups have been declared terroristic in nature. Human Rights Watch states that it knows of 14 people who were arrested under the law in June for belonging to the Oromo Liberation Front. Meles's regime is built on ethnic federalism, and tends to favor certain ethnic groups, so designating opposition groups made up of the disfavored ethnicities as terrorist organizations helps Meles to stay in power. These designations could help support a future request for foreign military assistance in the event of an uprising, since such people could be characterized as committing terrorist attacks, not fighting for self-determination or democracy. Indeed, the authorization to control people or things threatened by or supportive of this so-called terrorism provides a convenient excuse for breaking up protests, suppressing speech and stripping people of the assets they would need to establish an effective opposition force.

The law takes advantage of this anti-terrorism theme to deprive people of due process in other ways, as well. The Criminal Procedure Code of Ethiopia requires that an individual must be brought before a court of law within 48 hours of arrest, and that detention on remand may be no longer than 14 days. Warrants are required in a manner familiar to US lawyers, and search and seizure provisions are laid out in detail. Even the Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation forbids remand for further investigation. The Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, however, allows detention for as long as four months, and authorities are explicitly permitted to use force to obtain evidence from the accused. Again justifying these actions by pointing to the importance of fighting terrorism, the law authorizes courts to ignore normal rules of evidence when trying suspects. Anonymous intelligence reports containing anonymous statements are admissible, as are all confessions, hearsay and information collected by any foreign entities. The accused are encouraged to name names and describe events in order to reduce their punishment, which could include the death penalty.

Interestingly, Meles's own political party would have been considered a terrorist organization under his predecessor's regime, which it overthrew in 1991. Perhaps this legislation is not ironic then, but rather politically shrewd. All around him, other long-time leaders in the region are being called into question, and some have even been removed and detained. Meles may be worried, but perhaps such legal actions are tactical. After all, he knows firsthand how rulers are deposed. He did it once himself.

--------

Abigail Salisbury is a former faculty member at the Mekelle University Law Faculty in Mek'ele, Ethiopia, and has written for JURIST previously on the issue of human rights in Ethiopia. She is a 2007 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Suggested citation: Abigail Salisbury, Human Rights and the War on Terror in Ethiopia, JURIST - Forum, Aug. 2, 2011, http://jurist.org/forum/2011/08/abigail ... terror.php.
-------------

Source: http://jurist.org/forum/2011/08/abigail ... terror.php

LUT HOMOsenaY:
the woman has never been the president of Melekelle University; Sawa university perhaps. Damn it, you should reread this article “Security Council Tightens Sanctions Regime on Somalia, Eritrea”

LUT HOMOsenaY:
the woman has never been the president of Melekelle University; Sawa university perhaps. Damn it, you should reread this article “Security Council Tightens Sanctions Regime on Somalia, Eritrea”

I see that you have not yet got over with the post-traumatic hangover that exacerbated your existing inferiority complex. May I remind you that you're living in a fish bowl and swimming in your own lies?

The [deleted] was in Mekele university only for a few months, but when our comrades in the vast and advanced world of Tigrayan academia found out that she is not 1% worthy the fake credentials she presented to them, instantly they decided to blind-fock her skinny butt before giving her the plane ticket so she can go back to her village where she can tend to her cucumber husband's garden .Semira is much better than this [deleted], for the latter does not even qualify to teach in Sawa, homosinia's only highschool. Revulsion, you mothafockin wedikontromuro, your envy of the weyanes will give a deadly brain tumor. No wonder ancebas have the highest insidence of organic psychosis in the entire Milky Way Galaxy.

Excerpts from Professor Abigail Salisbury's
"Linking Rights and Foreign Aid for Ethiopia" -January 16, 2008

Other groups do not get anything close to the level of governmental representation enjoyed by the citizens of Tigrai, even though it is one of the smallest regions.

On a recent trip to the Amhara region, some young men asked me and my friends about our travels in Ethiopia. They were extremely friendly to us until we said that we were not really backpackers, but that we live in Mekelle, at which point one of the men spat on our vehicle and all but one walked off in disgust, yelling that they hate people from Tigrai. Our group was made up entirely of white people and this conversation was being held in English. It goes without saying that we could not possibly be from Tigrai, but so great was their hatred of the Tigraian politicians that the mere fact that we live in Mekelle was enough to taint us.

Abigail Salisbury currently teaches at the the Mekelle University Law Faculty in Mek'ele, Ethiopia. She is a 2007 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

January 16, 2008

[Excerpts]
I sat down to read and grade the mid-term essays of the students in my International Human Rights Law classes. Because all of the instructors at Ethiopian universities are made to sign a contract that we will never say anything against the government or ruling party, I had been very careful in wording my assignment. I asked the students to select a human rights issue in Ethiopia (making sure not to imply that there are any actual problems, just issues) and find another country dealing with that same situation. They were required to then compare the actions of the two nations, discussing them in light of various international human rights instruments which have been covered in class. Then, they were to propose some potential methods they might use to deal with this “issue” they selected. Thinking that this was a sufficiently non-inflammatory prompt, I assumed I would get some rather dry responses, especially given the comments from the H.R. 2003 discussion forum, which all seemed to assert that Ethiopia is doing just fine on the human rights front.

I was absolutely shocked, then, when I started reading my students’ work. Out of the hundred third-year students I teach, probably forty of them had inserted a special section, right after the cover page, warning me of what might happen to them were their paper to leave my hands. A number of students wrote that they would never give their real opinions to an Ethiopian professor because they fear being turned in to the government and punished. Others begged me to take their work back to America with me so that people would know what was going on. Of those who wrote such notes, almost all said that I would probably be surprised to find that many of the students had been afraid to express their true feelings at the H.R. 2003 discussion forum because you never know who is listening.

After my initial shock, I began to wonder if the students weren’t just making exaggerated claims in hopes of getting better grades. I kept trying to figure out whether they were writing these warnings because they were genuine or because they wanted to make me think that they were really putting themselves on the line for this assignment. As I read the papers which had been submitted without the notes about fears, however, I got the sense that the students were just writing in as safe a fashion as possible. They put in long recitations of facts and laws and strove to make the “issue” seem as insignificant as possible within the larger context of Ethiopian government. They were holding back. Their work lacked the color, honesty, and intensity of the writing of the students who had asked me not to show their papers to anyone.

To be fair, I can understand how the students might be afraid to speak their minds, because there have been a number of student protests which have been put down with violence recently, some journalists have been imprisoned, and much of the media is censored. At dinner, some university graduates from Addis Ababa mentioned that they had been without food for weeks at a time on campus but were forbidden by the administrators to ever voice a complaint. My friend tried to learn more about the conditions, but the Ethiopians had quickly changed the subject, telling her that they should not be overheard discussing such things. I even know some expatriate workers here who are hesitant to say anything negative about the country in their e-mails to friends and family at home, because they know that everything goes through a central server and could be read, with possible negative repercussions.

I should mention that teaching this human rights class can be a very touchy thing, even though the subject appears to be strongly supported by the university, which is of course overseen by the Ministry of Education in Addis Ababa. While such a subject would be almost a luxury elective or niche seminar in America, it is a part of the Ethiopian core curriculum and the administrators consider it one of the most important topics today, even having established a Human Rights Centre for community advocacy and informative purposes. However, I have heard very little public criticism of the actions taken by the government, even though most people would like the human rights situation to improve.

It turns out that ethnic loyalties — not the alleged satisfaction with the progress being made — have a great deal to do with the reluctance to agree with the policies behind H.R. 2003. The political boundaries of Ethiopia are drawn based on ethnic groupings, with each region having its own unique language and culture. I live in the northern region of Tigrai, which is well-known as the homeland of almost all of today’s Ethiopian leaders, including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who is portrayed in H.R. 2003 as a human rights abuser. After the Derg military regime was defeated, the new government was formed largely by the political party which grew out of the Tigraian People’s Liberation Front, whose enormous office is about three-hundred yards away from the campus of the law faculty. Other groups do not get anything close to the level of governmental representation enjoyed by the citizens of Tigrai, even though it is one of the smallest regions.

People from other regions are much more free with their criticism of the government. I have seen several couples get into screaming fights because the spouse from Tigrai refuses to criticize the government while the spouse from elsewhere rants about corruption, censorship, the military, Eritrean secession, and so on. On a recent trip to the Amhara region, some young men asked me and my friends about our travels in Ethiopia. They were extremely friendly to us until we said that we were not really backpackers, but that we live in Mekelle, at which point one of the men spat on our vehicle and all but one walked off in disgust, yelling that they hate people from Tigrai. Our group was made up entirely of white people and this conversation was being held in English. It goes without saying that we could not possibly be from Tigrai, but so great was their hatred of the Tigraian politicians that the mere fact that we live in Mekelle was enough to taint us. One calmer man stayed to speak to us and told us that in order to be safe and have a better time when we travel, we should tell people, “The Ethiopian government made me work in Mekelle. Of course I never wanted to live in Tigrai.”

http://jurist.org/forumy/2008/01/linkin ... id-for.php

Revolution:

You are not making it easy for the woyane foot soldiers this days...that their health condition is getting worse than it already is.

Revolution:

You are not making it easy for the woyane foot soldiers this days...that their health condition is getting worse than it already is.

As you can read on Professor Salisbury's article, a great majority of people in Tigray are living in constant fear of the TPLF apartheid regime, and the only people supporting the regime are a handful of cruel and opportunists who don't give a fuk about the Ethiopia they only give a lip service for, nor the people of Tigray under whose name they're committing genocidal crimes in Ethiopia. The truth needs to be told. The people of Tigray who went thru hell to bring justice and equality in Ethiopia don't deserve to be hold responsible for things they have nothing to do with. People need to be able to differentiate between woyanes and the people of Tigray.

The [deleted] was in Mekele university only for a few months, but when our comrades in the vast and advanced world of Tigrayan academia found out that she is not 1% worthy the fake credentials she presented to them, instantly they decided to blind-fock her skinny butt before giving her the plane ticket so she can go back to her village where she can tend to her cucumber husband's garden .Semira is much better than this [deleted], for the latter does not even qualify to teach in Sawa, homosinia's only highschool. Revulsion, you mothafockin wedikontromuro, your envy of the weyanes will give a deadly brain tumor. No wonder ancebas have the highest insidence of organic psychosis in the entire Milky Way Galaxy.

Pity ! You Adwans are outnumbered even in our Tigray region. Keep deluding yourself [deleted]. Judgement day is around the corner.

As you can read on Professor Salisbury's article, a great majority of people in Tigray are living in constant fear of the TPLF apartheid regime, and the only people supporting the regime are a handful of cruel and opportunists who don't give a fuk about the Ethiopia they only give a lip service for, nor the people of Tigray under whose name they're committing genocidal crimes in Ethiopia. The truth needs to be told. The people of Tigray who went thru hell to bring justice and equality in Ethiopia don't deserve to be hold responsible for things they have nothing to do with. People need to be able to differentiate between woyanes and the people of Tigray. [/color]

I understand what you mean but I personally had difficulties to differentiate the two from each other and the reason has been; no one knows the Eritrean people more than the tigrains but when I saw the crimes that they committed against the Eritrean people both in Eritrea and Ethiopia that was it for me. But I guess the problem with truth is that it is so time consuming and it is often abused from right and left that it is very hard to find her. But now it is making its way in the woyane world and let’s hopes those who lost their humanity and dignity get it back full packaged.

As you can read on Professor Salisbury's article, a great majority of people in Tigray are living in constant fear of the TPLF apartheid regime, and the only people supporting the regime are a handful of cruel and opportunists who don't give a fuk about the Ethiopia they only give a lip service to, nor the people of Tigray under whose name they're committing genocidal crimes in Ethiopia. The truth needs to be told. The people of Tigray who went thru hell to bring justice and equality in Ethiopia don't deserve to be held responsible for things they have nothing to do with. People need to be able to differentiate between woyanes and the people of Tigray. [/color]

I understand what you mean but I personally had difficulties to differentiate the two from each other and the reason has been; no one knows the Eritrean people more than the tigrains but when I saw the crimes that they committed against the Eritrean people both in Eritrea and Ethiopia that was it for me. But I guess the problem with truth is that it is so time consuming and it is often abused from right and left that it is very hard to find her. But now it is making its way in the woyane world and let’s hopes those who lost their humanity and dignity get it back full packaged.

I say it would probably take a generation or two to mend the bridge woyanes had burned behind them, and since we can't choose our neighbors, geo-political interest will demand it that the people of Eritrea and Tigray will eventually forge a relationship based on mutual respect to each others territories and vowing not to allow a repeat of woyane's reckless destruction of life and destabilization of the region. It is to be remembered that Mercha Kassa's more of the same reckless agenda and treasonous activities had also put the people of Tigray in a very similar precarious position that they were viewed with utmost suspicion and closely scrutinized by Ethiopians for well over 100 years.

And just when we thought that we saw a dawn of change in 1991, it didn't take long for woyanes to follow Mercha Kassa's footsteps and do far worse crimes against people of both countries. It seems like a never ending vicious cycle, putting us back to square one. I think the whole Tigray needs to undergo a radical revolution of values to fully break the generational curse that has held the people helplessly captive for centuries. Something has got to be done about it.