[GP-Eldorado-n] urgent action needed to help in Ethiopia

[Diana Stauffer]

This from, Ben Parks, one of our peace community members and long time ally and activist for political justice and human rights.

Hood day all;                    December 06, 2005

please read the information below.
check the web sites ..  then ...
Americans on this list need to contact their government representatives
immediately.
this is really happening ...
six of my kids were hunted down and arrested last month...
one called from his hiding place while police were in the house .!!
all but one are back from prison ..  the latest released after 3 weeks.
it is not so lucky for 115,000 others ..

also please call the Ethiopia embassy in DC ..
ask what they are doing to stop the arrests and detentions...
      Ambassador :  Kassahun Ayele   :  Tel: 202/364-1200   ....... Fax:
202/587-0195
Los Angeles consulate:
      phone :(213) 365-6651  ....... FAX   :(213) 365-6670

thanks ..
 Ben Parks
=======================================



http://www.mediaethiopia.com/Election2005/MediaETHIOPIA%20EDITORIAL_SOS_Ethiopia.htm

http://allafrica.com/stories/200512060599.html
http://www.ethiopians.com/
http://www.mediaethiopia.com/blog/

SOS Ethiopia: 115,000 political prisoners at a
 Nazi-style concentration camp

 MediaETHIOPIA EDITORIAL
 Published: December 5, 2005

 Almost four weeks after the popular revolt in Addis
 Ababa in November of 2005 in which more than 100
 people were killed according to human right groups,
 shocking news is slowly emerging indicating that more
 than 43,000 political prisoners have been detained in
 open air prisons (read Nazi-style concentration camps)
 in the Dedessa valley of South West Ethiopia. For the
 first time in 11 years since almost a million Tutsis
 were slaughtered by Interhuame militias in the green
 hills of Rwanda in 1994 and 10 years since the Summer
 1995 massacre of Bosnians, another human tragedy is
 unfolding in the green valleys of the Dedessa region
 of Ethiopia where Mr. Meles Zenawi's secret troops
 called Agazi Militia are torturing, starving, and
 killing political detainees from Addis Ababa. The
 latest reports indicate that as many as 500 people
 have already been shot and buried at mass burial
 sites, and almost 50 people have died en-route to the
 concentration camps. In fact, there is fear that it is
 a matter of time before diseases, torture and outright
 random killing by this government Agazi militia
 fashioned after the monstrous Interhuame militia of
 Rwanda kill the majority of the more than 43,000
 political prisoners from Addis Ababa. While news has
 been slowly coming to Addis that Mr. Meles' Agazi
 militia has built a death camp in the Dedessa valley,
 it was only this weekend that an international news
 agency (Channel 4 of the UK) had broken the news to
 the outside world. Confronted by this frightening
 news, the usually timid Mr. Tim Clarke who represents
 the EU in Ethiopia sounded symphatetic to the victims
 while his colleague Mr. Robert Dewar, the UK's
 ambassador has preferred to appease the increasingly
 violent and Nazi-style appetite of Mr. Meles Zenawi.
 The US is yet to make any official statement on this
 impending genocide. In the Ethiopian community inside
 Ethiopia and outside the country, there is increasing
 nervousness that the only noise that the West will
 make will be, sadly, after the fact.

 At this stage where the lives of more than 43,000 are
 threatened by an Interhuame-styled Agazi militia in a
 death camp, Ethiopians plead with the rest of humanity
 to come to their rescue by stopping this mad man,
 Meles Zenawi. For the EU which pays almost a billion
 Euro per year to Meles, and the World Bank which
 offers him and his cronies another $ 500 million, this
 is a crucial time where the have to exercise their
 power to stop this nightmare. It is the $1.5 billion
 that these two organizations give to Meles that pays
 for the salary and weaponry of the Agazi militia. Will
 the good citizens of the European Union and the United
 States approve their tax money being used to support a
 murderous militia ready to kill 43,000 in Dedessa
 concentration camp, 30,000 in Bir Sheleqo
 concentration camp, 18,000 in Ziway concentration
 camp, 8,000 in Denkoro Chaka concentration camp, 9,000
 in Shoa Robit concentration camp, innocent young
 Ethiopians and bury them in mass burial sites?

 We think the next 10-15 days leading to Christmas of
 2005 will be very critical for the World to stand up
 for the rescue of lives before 115,000 innocent
 Ethiopian men and women. All the world has to do is to
 speak up and stand up to this mad man who thinks he
 can kill thousands of people to stay in power. The
 tragedy could be averted if the more than 120
 embassies and consulates in Addis Ababa stand up for
 human life. Sadly, a tragedy of no parallel will
 indeed occur if all these diplomats representing the
 weak as well as the mighty powers of the world prefer
 to appease the new monster of Africa, Mr. Meles
 Zenawi. History, as Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
 said in 1936, will judge the world if no action is
 taken to save these 115,000 lives.

=================================================
http://www.ethiopians.com/blog/2005/11/view-from-ngos-meles-graziani-had.html

I work with one of the largest NGOs working with vulnerable children in
Ethiopia. I have been deeply troubled and traumatized by recent events
in Ethiopia. I have witnessed ruthless killings of minors as young as
ten years old.

When stone throwing youths, most of them unemployed angry young men with
no political motives other than their own grievances, expressed their
frustrations in protests, the armed militia responded by firing live
ammunitions indiscriminately into crowds. I have seen with my own eyes
when security forces killed and injured at least seven young kids around
Piazza who were fleeing for their lives. Eyewitness accounts have
confirmed that security forces brutally shot defenseless protesters even
in areas where there were no protests. Though the government media
reported that the number of people killed in was 42 local residents
estimate over 200, which needs to be independently verified.

Some of those killed were street kids whose bodies have been disposed by
government troops. The inhuman treatment of innocent people was so
widespread that the troops rounded young men from their homes en mass.
So far the police have said that they have released nearly 9000 people
who were not involved in the riots from harsh concentration camps. The
fact that all those people were detained without due process of law
shows the extent to which the government is violating basic human
rights.

Returnees from the detention centres are claiming that they were held
against their wills in appalling conditions and some were apparently
tortured. There is also a report that the detainees were shaved off with
shared razor blades exposing them to infectious diseases such as
HIV/AIDS. Beatings and degrading treatment is reportedly rampant in the
concentration camps. Detainees are also said to be given a roll of bread
a day.

It is estimated that over 10,000 detainees have still been held against
their will and without due process of law in degrading and inhuman
conditions including in Didesa, a remote military camp, were the weather
is harsh and yellow fever is widespread.

I call upon the international community including the International Red
Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Save the Children and
Unicef to investigate the gross human rights violations and crimes
against humanities being perpetrated by the government troops and
security forces. I urge the partners of the Ethiopian government
especially the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom
to take a firm stand against the authorities who have been killing,
torturing, and jailing their critics. I also call upon the Prime
Minister of Ethiopia, Mr. Meles Zenawi, to stop behaving ruthlessly and
inhumanely against unarmed civilians. May I remind the His Excellency
that there is time for expiry of military power and the likelihood of
facing justice.

The government of Ethiopia should be held to account to any appalling
crimes it is committing against its own vulnerable poor people including
the unemployed, orphans, street children and women.

Act now urgently.

Tania Martinet
Relief Worke
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