Ethiopian Review Readers Forum
ENC-July 24/05
First hand witnesses confirm that the repression includes the burning of houses and property, and the confiscation of land and farm animals. Terrified by such tactics, hundreds and possibly thousands of individuals and families have been forced to abandon their farms to save their lives – in the middle of the main period for cultivation.
The brute use of force by EPRDF government on innocent farmers is blatant retaliation for rejecting EPRDF’s candidates. It also aims to intimidate them so that they will be too afraid to bear witness against the orchestration of the investigation of vote counting currently underway under the auspices of the partisan National Election Board (NEB).
Although the repression has been all across the nation, farmers in certain parts of the country have been singled out for particularly brutal treatments. For instance, in Borena Zone in Wollo, especially in Kelala Lemi and Debre Sina districts, mass killings have been reported, not to mention loss of property and internal displacements. There are similar reports from parts of Gonder, eastern Gojjam, Shoa, parts of Wollega and Southern Ethiopia.
Residents of the Ethiopian countryside are particularly vulnerable to targeted atrocities due to their remote geography, lack of quick transport and communication infrastructure for rapid exchange of information, absence of human rights monitoring groups and lack of independent media coverage. Knowing this, EPRDF is acting with impunity.
We appeal to all Ethiopians, and to humanitarian and international agencies to raise their voices so as to put a stop to the killings of our people. The EPRDF government is engaged in ruthlessly revenging and reshaping the outcome of the May 15 elections. It has lost all fear of the consequences after premature adulatory comments by certain groups of the international community about the conduct of the elections.
The irresponsible and brutal measures of the EPRDF government must be stopped before we lose many more lives, and before the government causes further displacements of people from their birth places, destruction of their properties, confiscation of their assets, and the consequent danger of starvation. We ask all peace loving people around the world, including human rights organizations, to make their voices heard at the earliest opportunity to stem the killings and brutalities. We urge experienced international agencies to conduct assessments as a matter of the greatest urgency. Most Ethiopians are deeply distressed by the genocidal scale of what seems to have been set in train by EPRDF as much as by the apparent silence of the international community.
