Flagge ?thiopienAddis Abeba (epo). - Unter Vermittlung durch die Europäische Union und das US-Außenministerium haben Regierung und Opposition in Äthiopien wieder Verhandlungen aufgenommen. Doch unmittelbar nach Abschluss einer entsprechenden Vereinbarung wurde ein Oppositionspolitiker, der Abgeordnete Tesfaye Adane Jara von den United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), von der Polizei erschossen. Acht äthiopische Piloten haben sich Medienberichten zufolge aus Protest gegen die Unterdrückung der Opposition ins Ausland abgesetzt. Nachdem der Internet-Zugang in Äthiopien zwei Tage lang unterbrochen war, erreichte die epo-Redaktion wieder ein Augenzeugenbericht aus aus Addis Abeba.


Addis Abeba, Mon, 20 Jun 2005 16:49

 

Dear Friend, the story of repression continues from our end and here are some of the latest developments.

There have been serious problems in the Air Force since the killings of innocent civilians in Addis Ababa in early June. One pilot and his assistant defected to Djibouti by taking a fighter helicopter (the helicopter was returned), but the pilots are still in Djibouti and everybody is asking the Government of Djibouti not to hand over the pilots to the Ethiopian regime.

Today, we learned an interview given on the German radio Amharic service that 8 pilots (all of them are officers) who were in Byelorussia for training, have asked for asylum in the US embassy there. The pilots explained that the massacres carried out by the brutal security forces of TPLF are intolerable and they want to expose the crimes of the fascist regime in Ethiopia to the world. One of the pilots asked that if there is democracy in Ethiopia, then why are innocent people being killed? These developments are big blows to the TPLF led Government of Meles Zenawi.  Even amongst inside circles of the TPLF the "democracy mask" is being pulled from the face of TPLF leaders; I truly hope this mask will come all the way off and the world will see the real face of the blood thirsty beast.

As I told you this morning, the National Electoral Board (NEB) continues to reject complaints from the opposition parties. Of 299 complaints against election results, the NEB almost rejected more than 170, saying that there is no satisfactory evidence for investigations to be carried out). The NEB was of course drawn up and appointed by the ruling party, as a vehicle to provide some form of legal basis upon which to justify the stealing of the people?s vote. Obviously they are also supposed to convince the international community that the ruling party has honestly won the so-called "free and fair" elections. The NEB is established to produce justifications for all illegal actions carried out by the ruling party; every member of the NEB "breathes" by the grace of the TPLF lung.  Regardless, I believe even against great odds, there is no turning back for the Ethiopian people from the struggle to establish democracy in their country.

Two days ago the Ethiopian Police Commissioner appeared on TV and told us that a lot of people died because untrained policemen were used to control the violence in Addis Ababa. This guy had competed himself as a candidate for ruling party in the May 15 elections for the seat representing Shashemene, south of Addis Ababa. He was defeated by the CUD candidate (I think she is a woman). After realizing that he lost the people?s vote, most of the ballot boxes in that polling station were stolen and one election worker was shot dead by armed militia men of the ruling party for trying to prevent the ballot box from being stolen. So, this is our police commissioner who gave us justification for the killings of the innocent defenceless civilians by untrained police men.

What he did not explain is how these "untrained" police men knew how to function as snipers and shot directly into the heads of the protesters, without missing a single shot (by the way the Federal police members disclosed that they were not involved in the shootings).

This information I can now send you, as luckily the Internet service shutdown of the past two days is over. It seems that the regime shut the Internet down deliberately, to do some "surgery" on their servers. Ethiopia is a country where everything is owned and controlled by one party - TPLF.  First they shut down the SMS and GPRS telephone services and now they have managed to shut down the Internet service temporarily.

I am almost sure the service was shutdown for the past two days to check our mailboxes. Maybe they will try to find out what we are thinking. They want to control everybody as trained dogs and to control all of us. Ethiopia is one of the countries in the world where no private owned radio and TV broadcast stations are allowed. Only in the capital city Addis Ababa are private newspapers allowed, but government employees are not permitted to read private newspapers in public or in their office.

So the drama of cheating is continuing, even in front of the international observers, particularly those from the EU. We still hope that the international community will not easily be fooled by the regime. I trust they already know that there were gangsters trying to rob a bank, casing the security forces to brutally kill dozens of people. The truth will be revealed, the real robbers or those in power desperately trying to steal our votes and hoping to keep receiving large amounts of international aid money for as long as they can cling on to power. We are convinced that is only a matter of time until the murderers are brought to justice.

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