Weyane charges 46 with 'assassination plot'

ADDIS ABABA, June 4, 2009 (AFP) – The Meles regime on Thursday charged 46 people, most of them ex-military, of plotting to assassinate government officials, a government spokesman said.

"The charges can be summed up as conspiring to kill different government officials and conspiring to demolish public utilities," Communications Minister Bereket Simon told reporters.

"The prosecution presented the charges to the court today," he said, more than a month after their arrest.

Authorities are holding 32 out of the 46 suspects with the rest believed to have fled to the United States, Europe, Eritrea and Sudan.

Ethiopian authorities in April said they had unearthed a plot by senior serving and former military officers aligned with the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) to kill top government officials and attack key infrastructure.

The group has been detained and held incommunicado for more than a month.

Bereket denied accusations that detaining the men for over a month without charge violated regulations, saying national anti-terrorism laws allowed police to hold suspects without charge for as long as in necessary.

"No constitutional right was abrogated," he said.

Authorities accuse the CUD's leader Berhanu Nega of masterminding the alleged plot. CUD won an unprecedented number of seats in the 2005 elections, which observers said fell short of international standards.

Around 200 people died in post-election violence that erupted after the CUD accused Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's party of rigging the ballot.

Berhanu, currently living in exile in the United States, was elected mayor of Addis Ababa in the polls. He was subsequently jailed for two years and left the country after his release.

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Supporting Ethno-centric Policies is Complicity with Ethiopian Government Crimes Against the Population

June 4, 2009
Ginbot 7 Statement

Ginbot 7 has repeatedly reiterated that with the ignominious defeat of the ruling party,  Tigrai People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in the May 2005 election, the regime of Meles Zenawi had lost its legitimacy to rule Ethiopia.

As has been reported by Ethiopian as well as international observers, election results were rigged by TPLF. In response, opposition forces and the Ethiopian people, whose vote was stolen in broad day light, had pleaded with the international community to apply the strong pressure they had used on other countries where election irregularities had occurred (e.g., The Ukraine) to force the culprits to mend their ways. However, this did not happen in Ethiopia.

We believe it is one of the historic blunders in the annals of the pro-democracy movement anywhere in the world. Without any reproach from the world community, the regime of Meles Zenawi was emboldened to engage in extra judicial killings, mass arrests and gross human right abuses that remains unabated to this day.

The narrow political space that was available to the opposition during the 2005 election has been completely shut off, once gain, throwing the country into endless political crisis.

The TPLF has long since ceased to be an answer to the country’s main problems, becoming instead the central problem itself.

Born out of violent armed struggle with an equally oppressive military regime, it has never been able to transform itself from an ethnic liberation movement to a national, responsible and inclusive government. Rather the TPLF and its small cadre of supporters that has taken charge of the country’s destiny is at war with the Ethiopian people.

Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa (80 million) is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Africa. In a country of such diversity, the TPLF’s dominance in the military and socio-economic sectors of the society does not bode well for the establishment of democratic institutions and practices. To be blunt about it, the TPLF has failed miserably to win the hearts and minds of the Ethiopian people for the last 18 years. It is only tolerated by the deeply traumatized society due to its monopoly of organized force.

Ginbot 7, reminds the international community to take a very close look into the frightening nature of the ethno-centric policy of the illegitimate regime in Ethiopia and the hegemonic power of the TPLF, that represent a mere 6% of the population. The senior leadership of the armed forces has been taken over exclusively by ethnic Tigrayans and the TPLF has expanded its tentacles to become the country’s largest institution with interests in banking, transport, construction, mining and other businesses. Protected by privileges, the ruling elite and a coterie of its inner circles and loyal supporters has grown into a class living apart within Ethiopian society at an enormous cost to the development of the country and the well being of the citizenry.

The political landscape, at present, is dangerously polarized and TPLF is not going to survive the minefield of Ethiopian politics. With very little legitimacy, to speak of, and unable to solve the most challenging of the many crisis the government faces, it has resorted to massive repression and flaunting some of the most basic rules of civilized society (holding political prisoners incommunicado, criminalizing dissent, arresting innocent citizens through guilt by association vendettas). For all intents and purposes, TPLF has become a pariah in the eyes of the Ethiopian people and various international human rights organizations that are producing many damaging reports year after year.

Although the Ethiopia constitution provides for free elections, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and other fundamental rights and attributes of a liberal democracy the reality on the ground tells a very different story. Ethiopia under TPLF is a one-man show with a single dominant party system with no existing institutions for democratic change. Any form of organized opposition is anathema to the TPLF’s model of ethnic federalism with its ingrained suspicion of political competition from the dominant multi-ethnic majority.

Moreover TPLF’s communist past with a penchant for secrecy, intolerance of dissent and complete control of power has proved very difficult to reconcile with the open, pluralist politics of liberal democracy; even though the TPLF is adept at using buzzwords such as multi-party democracy, rule of law, constitutional order, free market economy to hood wink donor nations and the international community

Ginbot 7 believes that donor nations and international lending institutions are well aware of the serious shortcomings of the Meles regime. The fact that the economy is controlled by the TPLF and a small clique of supporters and that widespread corruption, nepotism, mismanagement, lack of transparency and accountability plague the system is an open secret. Western governments and international lending institutions have also repeatedly chosen to ignore the explosive ethnic tension fermenting in Ethiopia, as a result of the repressive and corrupt policies designed by the TPLF to keep a tiny Tigrian elite in perpetual power and privilege.

The international community with the full knowledge that the Zenawi regime has no legitimacy has signed bilateral and multilateral financial and technical agreements and contracts.

In light of the foregoing, Ginbot 7 believes that active steps must be taken to stem the ongoing assault on Ethiopia.

Ginbot 7 believes that any future support given or contractual agreement signed, under the prevailing circumstances in Ethiopia, by foreign governments and institutions with the illegitimate and corrupt ethnocentric regime of Meles Zenawi will be viewed as willful support provided to a ruling clique that does not legally represent the will of the Ethiopian people.

Ginbot 7 will ensure that the people of Ethiopia are fully aware of the activities of foreign governments in Ethiopia and will not refrain from exposing any government or institution that is enabling the repressive ethnocentric regime of Meles Zenawi to stay in power illegally through its support.

Ginbot 7 believes that the struggle to free the Ethiopian people from the tyranny of a minority regime has reached the point of no return and we have begun mobilizing our people to rise against the ethnic apartheid policies practiced by the regime of Meles Zenawi. We would like to remind all foreign powers and organizations that providing unqualified support for the Zenawi regime, under current circumstances, will be viewed as working against the fundamental interests of the Ethiopian people and complicity in the precipitation of a conflict with dire consequences.

Ginbot 7 will also work with all opposition parties and the people of Ethiopia in refusing to honor, all loans provided to and contracts signed, with the illegitimate ethnocentric government of Meles Zenawi. when the inevitable regime change takes place in Ethiopia.

Ginbot 7, calls on the international community to seriously examine its relationship with the regime of Meles Zenawi, that is slowly leading the country towards the brink of internal instability, and actively seek the means of avoiding a crisis that will have catastrophic consequences to the peace, security and interest of Ethiopia, the people of the Horn of Africa and the world community at large.