A call to Ethiopians living in Boston

A call to Ethiopians living in Toronto and surrounding areas

EPRP in Seattle

STOP THE FORCED RESETTLEMENT AND VILLAGIZATION IN ETHIOPIA

March 28, 2011

The repressive regime of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia has surreptitiously resorted to forced resettlement and villagization of thousands of people as it pursues its condemnable policy of leasing out land cheaply to foreign firms and countries.
 

In the eighties the forced resettlement and villagization of thousands of Ethiopians as part of a strategy to defeat anti government forces led to incredible misery and disruption of the lives of the people. As a result, the Mengistu regime was roundly condemned by the world at large. The Meles regime is deemed a friend of the West and thus his crimes are glossed over and his anti people policies ignored. Enjoying such a cover, it has continued with promoting the disastrous land grab drive by Indians, Chinese, and Arab so called investors in Ethiopia and allowed them to cause ecological disaster. Ethiopian fertile land is handed over cheap for many years and local people are pushed out of their land and forced to resettle elsewhere and the condemned villagization of the past is being revived. This should be condemned with no reservation.

What is going in Ethiopia is outright land confiscation. Peasants are being ousted from their land. Even in the urban cities and towns including Addis Abeba Ethiopians are being forced to cede their homes /land cheaply. In the rural areas, natural reserves and conserved forests have been given to foreign firms that have felled the trees and are engaged in farming for export. This is criminal at least and needs all round condemnation. Forced resettlement is a crime as is forced villagization that is within the policy of totalitarianism. EPRP condemns this anti people act by the Meles regime and vows to fight against the resettlement and villagization measures of the repressive Meles regime.

Weekly News from the Finote-Democracy, Voice of the Ethiopian Unity Radio (26 March 2011)

STOP THE REPRESSION AGAINST YOUNGSTERS IN ADDIS ABEBA

MARCH 27/ 2011

Following the arrests of many members of the opposition, an arrest that focused on Oromos, the regime of Meles Zenawi has rounded up dozens of youngsters in Addis Abeba and detained them in the central prison (Ma’eklawi) alleging they are involved in “planning and staging demonstrations”. Sources close to the regime claim that the youngsters are linked to anti regime opposition organizations.

It is to be noted that the regime has blocked web sites, imposed full control over internet connections, tapped mobile and fixed telephones and jammed radios like Finote Democracy Radio. Some of the youngsters had allegedly struck contact with opposition groups inside the country and also contacted others with the aim of “organizing protests like Tunisia and other countries”. Most of the arrested are between 14 and 17 years of age and there are fears that they may be taken to labor camps outside of the city or could be subjected to beatings in prisons inside the capital itself. It is to be noted that the regime’s security forces had been strongly chastised for not arresting even one person involved the ongoing EPRP nation wide pamphlet distribution and symbol and messages sticking activity.

SOCEPP calls on human rights organizations to call for the immediate release of the youngsters and/or to visit them in the central prison (Ma’ekelawi) of Addis Abeba.

The Causeless Nothingness

(A poem By Henoke Yeshetlla)

They said "fear is the power by which the human anger is preserved by"
but I said, "It is a service and an obedience to the causeless nothingness"
But they said, "it remains inward and mute"
and I said..- the whole reality of it has the loudest sound.
It is endured...and yet loved....
How slavery is thus graced.
Fear is when one diverts from seeing the power in him
and when one denies the truth in himself for a better pain.
It is when a tree gathers energy and sheds from its own falling leaves.
And it is when the sprit of the hero expands to powerlessness.
to the causeless nothingness.
Yet, little will remain known
fear is still the power....
an axis of rotation for the "voluntary beggars"....
And they said, "Is life so dear or peace so sweet?"
And my answer, "there is no peace without life, nor a life with out
the sweet peace"
So why is fear...
why is it the cause for our slavery?
I said, "as being nothing and subsets in it"
we loved to feel it....
the causeless nothingness....
casting its darkness,
and we said, "there is no peace" and yet hope and faith....
when there is nothing to hope
But hope is a spiritual fear in this case
It is a silent sorrow....
And faith is another instance of it....
when paganism is roving in our veins.....
It is all a causeless nothingness

Gehnet Girma at the UN Human Rights Conference

EPRP in Toronto

tsifo latsafew

Seyalk Ayamirm (Amharic poem)

Finote Democracy Radio jammed by the Meles regime

SOCEPP: March 1995 - March 2011

Weekly News (Finote-Democracy: Voice of the Ethiopian Unity Radio, 19 March 2011)

         

STOP THE REPRESSION AGAINST OROMOS

March 19, 2011

Ever since it quarreled with its transitional government ally, the Oromo Liberation Front, the regime of Meles Zenawi has, as it has done with Amharas, Somalis, etc, consistently been repressing the Oromo people. Recently, the regime has accompanied the purge of its satellite Oromo organization (OPDO) with wide spread arrest of Oromo political activists and dissidents.

The regime holds more than 35,000 political prisoners all over Ethiopia and a substantial number of these are Oromos subjected to ethnic and political repression. The regime has also involved itself in the burning of churches and
mosques and went on to arrest Moslems and Christians to cover its own criminal activities. Legally existing Oromo organizations in Ethiopia have declared that more than 200 members of their have now been rounded up. This repression should be condemned and their immediate release should be demanded. Together with this SOCEPP calls on all to demand the release of all political prisoners be they in Kaliti or in the labour camps (Dedesa, Zwai, Bir Sheleko,etc..) or in the secret so called ghost prisons.

The Meles Zenawi regime has increased its repressive action as the fear of a
mass protest strikes it. In the last weeks many more people have been arrested
from different organizations and sectors. The repression is expected to intensify.

ETHIOPIAN REFUGEES IN LIBYA IN GRAVE DANGER

MARCH 19/2011

SOCEPP APPEAL TO THE UNHCR AND FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS

The alarming light of Ethiopian refugees in Libya has again force SOCEPP to launch an alarm call to the UNHCR and all foreign governments to come to the rescue of more than a thousand Ethiopian refugees and domestic workers suffering in Libya where all sides subject them to racism and mistreatment. SOCEPP also calls on Ethiopians in the Diaspora to rise up in defense of the Ethiopians whoa re in grave danger in Libya.

SOCEPP has received reports of deaths and mistreatment of Ethiopians in Libya. Nationals of other countries have had the chance to be evacuated while Ethiopians have been ignored. Refugees face the danger of deportation back to the hated regime of Meles Zenawi which has disappeared many refugees sent back from the Sudan, Djibouti and Kenya. Those who argue that Ethiopian refugees face no danger if deported argue contrary to the reality and the existing practice of the Meles regime. Of the latest 15 deportees from the Sudan, Major Atanaw Wassie, in his seventies, was first disappeared and then denied medical treatment and has died under detention while his 14 other deportee friends are in Kaliti uncharged before any proper court of law.

Concretely, SOCEPP is working hard to take out the Ethiopians out of Libya and to safe countries of resettlement be it in Italy, Canada or other places. Ethiopian should demand the countries they live in to host the endangered refugees with no hesitation at all. SOCEPP calls on all to hasten to help Ethiopians in Libya who are facing extreme danger to their lives.

For further information please contact SOCEPP.

MARCH 1995—MARCH 2011: SOCEPP’S 16 YEARS OF STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

SOCEPP was established 16 years ago to bring to the forefront the plight of political prisoners and that of the disappeared who had been, for various reasons, ignored by other human rights organizations. For 16 years, it has struggled with persistence to achieve its objective and met with success.

For 16 years SOCEPP has struggled for the respect of human rights in Ethiopia. It has published hundreds of communiqués, exposed violations against ethnic groups and minorities, raised consistently the case of the disappeared, helped the families of political prisoners and those brutally murdered by the regime’s death squads, the thousands in the regime’s known and secret dungeons and consistently exposed the Meles regime’s gross violations of human rights. For its effort, SOCEPP has been mainly assisted by concerned Ethiopians all over the world. One of the secretly active members of SOCEPP, journalist and human rights activist Tesfaye Tadesse, was knifed to death in Addis Abeba by the security agents of Meles Zenawi. 

SOCEPP has raised its voice against the persecution of refugees or the denial of their rights be it in the Sudan, Djibouti or Norway. It has also criticized foreign human rights organizations that ignore the plight of refugees and political prisoners for one reason or another. The disappeared leaders and members of the EPRP, the illegally jailed Abera Yemane Ab, the jailed journalist Berhanu Ijigu, the disappeared trade unionist Abebe Ainekulu and many others have not been mentioned by foreign and local human rights organizations. SOCEPP has raised its voice to echo their names and their fate.  

SOCEPP observes its 16th years of existence and struggle renewing its vow to continue the sacred struggle for the respect of human rights in Ethiopia. SOCEPP asks all to continue helping SOCEPP financially and in all other ways.

The Ethiopians in Yemen

Intsaf Kalnima

Shermo Le-Shermo - from Heyaw Qal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tesfa Kemekuret Siga Mekuret