UK Aid Should Respect Rights Ruling Permits Review of Development Agency’s Compliance

Ethiopia: UK Aid Should Respect Rights
Ruling Permits Review of Development Agency’s Compliance
JULY 14, 2014

(London) – A UK High Court ruling allowing judicial review of the UK aid agency’s compliance with its own human rights policies in Ethiopia is an important step toward greater accountability in development assistance.

In its decision of July 14, 2014, the High Court ruled that allegations that the UK Department for International Development (DFID) did not adequately assess evidence of human rights violations in Ethiopia deserve a full judicial review.

“The UK high court ruling is just a first step, but it should be a wake-up call for the government and other donors that they need rigorous monitoring to make sure their development programs are upholding their commitments to human rights,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director. “UK development aid to Ethiopia can help reduce poverty, but serious rights abuses should never be ignored.”

The case involves Mr. O (not his real name), a farmer from Gambella in western Ethiopia, who alleges that DFID violated its own human rights policy by failing to properly investigate and respond to human rights violations linked to an Ethiopian government resettlement program known as “villagization.” Mr. O is now a refugee in a neighboring country.

Human Rights Watch has documented serious human rights violations in connection with the first year of the villagization program in Gambella in 2011 and in other regions of Ethiopia in recent years.

A January 2012 Human Rights Watch report based on more than 100 interviews with Gambella residents, including site visits to 16 villages, concluded that villagization had been marked by forced displacement, arbitrary detentions, mistreatment, and inadequate consultation, and that villagers had not been compensated for their losses in the relocation process.

People resettled in new villages often found the land infertile and frequently had to clear the land and build their own huts under military supervision. Services they had been promised, such as schools, clinics, and water pumps, were not in place when they arrived. In many cases villagers had to abandon their crops, and pledges of food aid in the new villages never materialized.

The UK, along with the World Bank and other donors, fund a nationwide development program in Ethiopia called the Promotion of Basic Services program (PBS). The program started after the UK and other donors cut direct budget support to Ethiopia after the country’s controversial 2005 elections.

The PBS program is intended to improve access to education, health care, and other services by providing block grants to regional governments. Donors do not directly fund the villagization program, but through PBS, donors pay a portion of the salaries of government officials who are carrying out the villagization policy.

The UK development agency’s monitoring systems and its response to these serious allegations of abuse have been inadequate and complacent, Human Rights Watch said. While the agency and other donors to the Promotion of Basic Services program have visited Gambella and conducted assessments, villagers told Human Rights Watch that government officials sometimes visited communities in Gambella in advance of donor visits to warn them not to voice complaints over villagization, or threatened them after the visits. The result has been that local people were reluctant to speak out for fear of reprisals.

The UK development agency has apparently made little or no effort to interview villagers from Gambella who have fled the abuses and are now refugees in neighboring countries, where they can speak about their experiences in a more secure environment. The Ethiopian government’s increasing repression of independent media and human rights reporting, and denials of any serious human rights violations, have had a profoundly chilling effect on freedom of speech among rural villagers.

“The UK is providing more than £300 million a year in aid to Ethiopia while the country’s human rights record is steadily deteriorating,” Lefkow said. “If DFID is serious about supporting rights-respecting development, it needs to overhaul its monitoring processes and use its influence and the UK’s to press for an end to serious rights abuses in the villagization program – and elsewhere.”

Britain is supporting a dictatorship in Ethiopia

by David Smith

It’s 30 years since Ethiopia’s famine came to attention in the UK. Now, a farmer plans to sue Britain for human rights abuses, claiming its aid has funded a government programme of torture and beatings as villagers have been removed from their homes

One of hundreds of families in the Gambella region who have been forcibly removed from their homes. Photograph: Jenny Vaughan/AFP/Getty Images

“Life was good because the land was the land of our ancestors. The village was along the riverside, where you could get drinking water, go fishing and plant mango, banana and papaya. The temperature there was good and we could feed ourselves.”

This is how Mr O – his name is protected for his safety – remembers the home he shared with his family in the Gambella region of Ethiopia. The fertile land had been farmed for generations, relatively safe from wars, revolutions and famines. Then, one day, near the end of 2011, everything changed. Ethiopian troops arrived at the village and ordered everyone to leave. The harvest was ripe, but there was no time to gather it. When Mr O showed defiance, he says, he was jailed, beaten and tortured. Women were raped and some of his neighbours murdered during the forced relocation.

Using strongarm tactics reminiscent of apartheid South Africa, tens of thousands of people in Ethiopia have been moved against their will to purpose-built communes that have inadequate food and lack health and education facilities, according to human rights watchdogs, to make way for commercial agriculture. With Orwellian clinicalness, the Ethiopian government calls this programme “villagisation”. The citizens describe it as victimisation.

And this mass purge was part bankrolled, it is claimed, by the UK. Ethiopia is one of the biggest recipients of UK development aid, receiving around £300m a year. Some of the money, Mr O argues, was used to systematically destroy his community and its way of life. Now this lone subsistence farmer is taking on the might of Whitehall in a legal action; a hearing took place in the high court in London last Thursday, but judgment on whether the case can go ahead has been reserved. Mr O and his legal team now await a decision on permission from the judge, who will declare whether there is an arguable case that can go forward to a full hearing.

“The British government is supporting a dictatorship in Ethiopia,” says Mr O, speaking through an interpreter from a safe location that cannot be disclosed for legal reasons. “It should stop funding Ethiopia because people in the remote areas are suffering. I’m ready to fight a case against the British government.” The dispute comes ahead of the 30th anniversary of famine in Ethiopia capturing the world’s gaze, most famously in Michael Buerk’s reports for the BBC that sparked the phenomena of Band Aid and Live Aid. Now, in an era when difficult questions are being asked about the principle and practice of western aid, it is again Ethiopia – widely criticised as authoritarian and repressive – that highlights the law of unintended consequences.

Mr O is now 34. He completed a secondary-school education, cultivated a modest patch of land and studied part-time at agricultural college. He married and had six children. That old life in the Gambella region now seems like a distant mirage. “I was very happy and successful in my farming,” he recalls. “I enjoyed being able to take the surplus crops to market and buy other commodities. Life was good in the village. It was a very green and fertile land, a beautiful place.” So it had always been as the seasons rolled by. But in November 2011 came a man-made Pompeii, not with molten lava but soldiers with guns. A meeting was called by local officials and the people were told that they had been selected for villagisation, a development programme the government claims is designed to bring “socioeconomic and cultural transformation of the people”.

Mr O says: “In the meeting the government informed the community, ‘You will go to a new village.’ The community reacted and said, ‘How can you take us from our ancestral land? This is the land we are meant for. When a father or grandfather dies, this is where we bury them.’”

The community also objected to the move because they feared ethnic persecution in their proposed home and because the land would not be fertile enough to farm. “Villagisation is bad because people were taken to an area which will not help them. It’s a well-designed plan by the government to weaken indigenous people.”

Land grab in the Gambella region in March 2011. Photograph: John Vidal for the Guardian

The army used brutal means to force the villagers to resettle. Mr O says he witnessed several beatings and one rape, and he knows of several women who contracted HIV as a result. Some people simply disappeared. He claims to have witnessed soldiers, police and local officials perpetrating the abuses. The  villagers, including Mr O and his family, found themselves in a new location in Gambella. He says there was no food and water, no farmland, no schools and no healthcare facility. Jobs, and hope, were scarce.

So in 2012 he dared to return to his old village and tried to farm his land. It was a doomed enterprise. In around April, he claims, he was caught and punished for encouraging disobedience among the villagers. Soldiers dragged him to military barracks where he was gagged, kicked and beaten with rifle-butts, causing serious injuries. He was repeatedly interrogated as to why he had come back. “I went to the farm and was taken by soldiers to military barracks and locked in a room,” Mr O recalls. “I was alone and beaten and tortured using a gun. They put a rolled sock in my mouth. The soldiers were saying: ‘You are the one who mobilised the families not to go to the new village. You are also inciting the people to revolution.’ Other people were in different rooms being tortured, some even killed. Some women were raped. By now they have delivered children: even now if you go to Gambella, you will meet them.” He reflects: “I felt very sad. I had become like a refugee in my homeland. They did not consider us like a citizen of the country. They were beating us, torturing us, doing whatever they want.”

In fear for his life, Mr O fled the country. The separation from his wife and children is painful. He communicated indirectly with them last year through a messenger. “I am sad. The family has no one supporting them. I am also sad because I don’t have my family.”

But such is the terror that awaits that, asked if if he wants to return home, he replies bluntly: “There’s nothing good in the country so there is nothing that will take me back.”

Modern Ethiopia is a paradox. A generation after the famine, it is hailed by pundits as an “African lion” because of stellar economic growth and a burgeoning middle class. One study found it is creating millionaires at a faster rate than any other country on the continent. Construction is booming in the capital, Addis Ababa, home of the Chinese-built African Union headquarters. Yet the national parliament has only one opposition MP. Last month the government was criticised for violently crushing student demonstrations. Ethiopia is also regarded as one of the most repressive media environments in the world. Numerous journalists are in prison or have gone into exile, while independent media outlets are regularly closed down.

Gambella, which is the size of Belgium, has a population of more than 300,000, mainly indigenous Anuak and Nuer. Its fertile soil has attracted foreign and domestic investors who have leased large tracts of land at favourable prices. The three-year villagisation programme in Gambella is now complete. A 2012 investigation by Human Rights Watch, entitledWaiting Here for Death, highlighted the plight of thousands like Mr O robbed of their ancestral lands, wiping out their livelihoods. London law firm Leigh Day took up the case and secured legal aid to represent Mr O in litigation against Britain’s international development secretary, whom it accuses of part-funding the human rights abuses.

Mr O explains: “The Ethiopian government is immoral: it is collecting money on behalf of poor people from foreign donors, but then directing it to programmes that kill people. At the meeting, the officials said: ‘The British government is helping us.’ Of all the donors to Ethiopia, the British government has been sending the most funds to the villagisation programme. “I’m not happy with that because we are expecting them to give donations to support indigenous people and poor people in their lands, not to create difficult conditions for them. They should stop funding Ethiopia because most of the remote areas are suffering. The funds given to villagisation should be stopped.” Mr O did not attend last week’s court hearing at which Leigh Day argued that British aid is provided on condition that the recipient government is not “in significant violation of human rights”. It asserted that the UK has failed to put in place any sufficient process to assess Ethiopia’s compliance with the conditions and has refused to make its assessment public, in breach of its stated policy.

Starving families lift sacks of food at a Red Cross feeding centre in Ethiopia. Photograph: Steven L Raymer/National Geographic/Getty Images

“There are credible allegations of UK aid money contributing to serious human rights violations,” states Leigh Day’s summary argument. “In particular, there is evidence that the ‘villagisation’ programme is partly funded by the defendant’s payments into the promotion of basic services programme.” The concerns have led to a full investigation by the World Bank, it adds.

Rosa Curling, a solicitor in the human rights department at Leigh Day, says: “It’s about making sure the money is traced. When you’re handing over millions of pounds you have a legal responsibility to make sure the money is being used appropriately. The experience of the village is absolutely appalling. We’re saying to the Department for International Development (DfID), please look at this issue properly, please follow the procedure you said you would follow, please talk to the people who’ve been affected. Look at what happened to Mr O and his village. They haven’t done that.”

Mr O offered to meet British officials, she adds, but they decided his refugee camp was too dangerous. He offered to meet them in a major city, but still they refused. “They haven’t met anybody directly affected by villagisation.” Curling urges: “If you’ve got money, trace it and put conditions on it so it’s not being used like this. It completely defeats the point of aid if it’s being used in this way. We’re talking about millions of British pounds.”

The view is echoed by Human Rights Watch. Felix Horne, its Ethiopia and Eritrea researcher, says: “Given that aid is fungible, DfID does not have any mechanism to determine how their well-meaning support to local government officials is being used in Ethiopia. They have no idea how their money is being spent. And when they are provided [with] evidence of how that money is in fact being used, they conduct seriously flawed assessments to dismiss the allegations, and it’s business as usual.

“While they have conducted several ‘on the ground’ assessments in Gambella to ascertain the extent of the abuses, they have refused to visit the refugee camps where many of the victims are housed. The camps are safe, easy to access, and the victims of this abusive programme are eager to speak with DfID, and yet DfID and other donors have refused to speak with them, raising the suspicion that they aren’t interested in hearing about abuses that have been facilitated with their funding.”

DfID is set to contest the court action, denying that any of its aid was directly used to uproot Mr O or others affected by villagisation. A spokesman says: “We will not comment on ongoing legal action. The UK has never funded Ethiopia’s resettlement programmes. Our support to the Protection of Basic Services Programme is only used to provide essential services like healthcare, schooling and clean water.” Shimeles Kemal, the Ethiopian government’s state minister of communications, was unavailable for comment.

አርቲስት ዳምጠው አየለ አረፈ

• 1386

   
  EmailShare

 በስደት ለረጅም ዓመታት በኖርዌይ የቆየው ዝነኛው የባህል ሙዚቃ ተጫዋች አርቲስት ዳምጠው አየለ አረፈ።

በስደት በሚኖርባት ኖርዌይ ላለፉት ጥቂት ወራት በሕመም ሲሰቃይ የከረመው አርቲስት ዳምጠው ህመሙ ሲጠናበት ወደ ሃገር ቤት በኢትዮጵያውያን ድጋፍ የተላከ ሲሆን ከቤተሰቦቹ ጋርም ጁን 16 ቀን 2014 ከስምን የስደት ዓመት በኋላ ተገናኝኝቶ ነበር።

የሃገር ፍቅር ስሜት በውስጡ ያለው ይኸው ድምጻዊ በቅዱስ ገብርኤል ሆስፒታል ህክምና ሲከታተል እንደነበር የገለጹት ምንጮች ከቅርብ ጊዜ ወዲህ በመኖሪያ ቤቱ ሲታከም የነበረ ቢሆንም ወደማይቀረው ዓለም ይህችን ምድር ተሰናብቷል።

Free Andargachew Tsege Worldwide Campaign: An Urgent Call to Action

Mr Andargachew Tsege We call on all Ethiopians and democratic forces worldwide to  urgently focus on the most important task of the moment, that  of saving Ato Andargachew. The single purpose of the first phase  of our Global campaign should be very clear to all concerned.  The worldwide campaign aims to put all the pressure on the  Government of Yemen to secure the unconditional release of  Ato Andargachew Tsege immediately. We urge all Ethiopians around the world to focus on this single task. Call, email, and fax to the nearest  Yemen Embassy or consulate wherever you may reside. We also urge everyone to call and speak  politely but firmly. Our message should be very clear.Please use the sample letter and talking points  below when calling and emailing to Yemen Embassies around the world. Free Andargachew Tsige Special Taskforce Action A *Please send the letter or a modified version to Ambassadors and Consular offices of Yemen  in your nearest city via email or fax numbers July 2, 2014 Your Excellency Ambassador_______ We are writing to express our grave concerns regarding the unlawful and unwarranted  detention of Andargachew Tsege, Secretary General of Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice,  Freedom and Democracy while in transit at Sanaa International Airport on June 23, 2014. We are particularly concerned that the continued illegal detention of Mr. Tsege, a renowned  critic of the Ethiopian government is politically motivated and against international law.  Mr. Tsege who holds British citizenship was travelling with a UK passport at the time of his detention.  He is being held incommunicado with no explanation forthcoming from Yemeni authorities for  his illegal detention. We urge the Government of Yemen to release him immediately and unconditionally. Mr. Tsege, a well-known pro-democracy and human rights activist in his ancestral homeland,  Ethiopia, presents no threat to Yemen or to the Yemeni authorities. Mr. Tsege was imprisoned in Ethiopia for his political activities during the ill-fated election of 2005  and has escaped assassination attempts by the dictatorship whose brutality, is well documented by  international human rights groups and the United States State Department. He has been convicted  and sentenced to death in absentia by the tyrannical regime in Ethiopia. It is now universally recognized that the Ethiopian regime subjects political opposition, human  rights defenders, journalists and critics of the government in general, to persecution including  threats, intimidation, arbitrary arrests and detentions, politically motivated trials, enforced  disappearances and extra-judicial killings. It’s unconscionable that the Government of Yemen would hand Mr. Tsege over summarily to  the security forces of the Ethiopian regime whose persecution of its critics at home and abroad is  well documented. The principle of non-refoulement is well established in customary international law, prohibiting  states, in this case Yemen, from extraditing Mr. Tsege to Ethiopia where he will certainly face  torture and even death by the brutal regime in Ethiopia. We respectfully urge the Government of Yemen: To respect its solemn obligations under international law and release Mr Tsege immediately  and unconditionally; To immediately inform his family and loved ones of his whereabouts To allow ICRC representatives to visit him wherever he is being held To stop any illegal renditions the regime in Ethiopia may have requested. We trust that Yemeni authorities would not engage in any harmful acts that would endanger the  well-being, safety and security of Mr. Tsege. Sincerely, Name Action B ***** For Callers to Yemen Embassies around the world, we advise all Ethiopians to call  and speak politely but firmly. Do not engage in verbal abuse as this is not our objective. The  following are brief talking points for all telephone callers: Mr. Andargachew Tsege, Secretary General of Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice,  Freedom and Democracy, was detained by Yemeni authorities. He has a British passport and was in transit at Sanaa Airport on June 23, 2014 when detained. His continued detention is contrary to international norms and conventions. Mr. Tsege is a well-known pro-democracy and human rights advocate in his ancestral  homeland, Ethiopia, presents no threat whatsoever to the Yemeni authorities. I am calling to express my concerns for the security of Mr. Tsege and to request his immediate  and unconditional release

አንጋፋው የነጻነት ታጋይ አቶ አንዳርጋቸው ጽጌ በየመን የፀጥታ ሃይሎች በቁጥጥር ስር መዋላቸውን ግንቦት 7 ዛሬ አስታውቋል::

June 30, 2014

ግንቦት 7 ዛሬ ለጋዜጠኞች እና ለአባላቶቹ በላከው መግለጫ የድርጅቱ ዋና ጸሃፊ አቶ አንዳርጋቸው ጽጌ ለስራ በሚንቀሳቀሱበት ሰአት ትራንዚት በአደረጉበት በየመን አውሮፕላን ጣቢያ ውስጥ በፀጥታ ሃይሎች መወሰዳቸውን አስታውቋል።

ንቅናቄው የየመን መንግስት አቶ አንዳርጋቸውን ለወያኔ አሳልፎ እንዳይሰጥ ከፍተኛ የሆነ ማስጠንቀቂያ የላከ ሲሆን ለሳምንት ያህል ውስጥ ለውስጥ ሲደረግ የነበረው ውይይትም በሁለቱ ወገኖች ሳይሳካ መቅረቱን በመግለጽ የመን ይህን ታሪካዊ ስህተት ብትፈጽም በወደፊቱ የሁለተዮሽ ሀገራት ግንኙነት ላይ የማይጠፋ ጠባሳ እና አስቸጋሪ ሁኔታ እንደሚፈጠር አስታውቋል፡፡

ድርጅታችን የሚያደርገውን የነጻነትና የዲሞክራሲ ትግል ከቶ ለአንዳፍታም ቢሆን አያቆምም ያለው ድርጅቱ፤ አቶ አንዳርጋቸው ራሳቸውን አሳልፈው ለሚወዷት ሀገራቸው እማማ ኢትዮጵያ መሰዋእት ለመሆን የተዘጋጁ የኢትዮጵያ የቁርጥ ልጅ መሆናቸውን እና መላው የኢትዮጵያ ህዝብ በዚህ አስቸጋሪ ሁኔታ ከጎናችን ሆኖ ትግሉን እንዲያጠናክርና  በየመን መንግስት ላይ ህዝቡ በያለበት ጫና እንዲያደርግ ጥሪ አቅርቧል።

እንደሚታወቀው በአለፉት ወራቶች የኢትዮጵያ መንግስት በአቶ አንዳርጋቸው ፅጌ ላይ የመግደል ሙከራ ማድረጉ የሚታወስ ነው።

Woyane is a dead and deadly regime walking

Ethiopians must be very attentive to safeguard the safety of our people and the integrity of our country from a dead and deadly regime walking. We must warn the officials and the cadres of the regime to abandon Woyane like their colleagues or ultimately pay for all the crimes of the Woyane. There would be no excuses not to abandon the regime and expect a safe haven to hide or run.

by Teshome Debalke

The defection rate of Woyane’s officials and cadres are increasing faster than ever. In recent news several individuals including the Deputy Communication Minster Ermias Legesse, the Federal Prosecutor Tewodros Behar, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange Executive Director Anteneh Assefa, and the General Manager of the Endowment Fund for Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT) Getachew Belay Wendimu is the sign of a dead and deadly regime walking.

The testimony of the former Deputy Communication Minster Ermias Legesse 1 2 3 / alone is sufficient to the extent of the crimes of Woyane to abandon it. Others choose to remain silent as cowards from telling what they know. They will be sought out as conspirators of the regime’s crime for the rest of their lives.

Things are not going well for Woyanes. Desperation is setting in among the officials and the rank and file of the cadres of ruling regime Woyane. They are searching for a place to run for dear life.

There are no armed oppositions surrounding them to surrender yet. There is no popular uprising to overthrow the regime yet. They are afraid of the same regime they have been serving most of their adult life going to use them as fall guys for its extensive crimes to buy time.

The inner circles of TPLF are scared to their pants from each other and are in a no-way-in no-way-out position the regime put them in. It is like being in hard place and a rock. The grandfather of Woyane Sibhat Nega is seen shuttling back-and-forth to calm down the Gangs of Adwa to stick with each other or else.

The ethnic puppets Woyane assembled and use to justify its crimes are in more crises than ever. Used and abused as front men by TPLF’s ethnic agenda, they sensed they are disposable to get out of the jam the regime got itself in to save face. Stuck from getting out of their predicament of serving the criminal enterprise of TPLF they are looking for escape route out of the reach of the regime’s assassins.

The vocal Diaspora apologists are also looking for an easy way out of their association with Woyane. With very little options for their transgression against the people of Ethiopia for far too long, economic growth and peace and stability became the only safe things to say to feel better. The popular badmouths of Woyane are also toning down their insult of Ethiopians on behalf of TPLF– sounding more patriotic that unite Ethiopians than Woyane lovers. If it wasn’t for the perk, they would have bailed out sooner than later singing Tobia Hagre woy mot.

The top enchiladas of the regime are also scrambling to stop the bleeding of Woyane by throwing all kinds of bizarre propaganda as they go. Accordingly, terrorist are surrounding us is becoming the quick way of buying time until they find a better diversion.

Other developments are, the numbers of Woyane’s officials’ family abounding the country to settle around the world. ’According to the advocacy groups that follow up these case most of the families of high officials are seeking residency permits as investors while the low ranked cadres are applying for political asylum. Sources inside the regime reviled the operatives of the regime are issuing passport and legal papers for substantial fee to smuggle officials to preferred destination of Western countries.

Others that fear Diaspora oppositions in Western countries prefer to migrate in African countries, South Africa in Africa and Thailand and Malaysia in Asia being the preferred destination.

As much as many corrupt officials and their families are free to migrate anywhere around the world with stolen public money without much challenge, oppositions rarely challenge them with all legal means available in the countries of their destinations.

Ethiopians have a long way to go to setup legal groups to challenge the officials of the regime and their families that committed crimes of atrocities and corruptions. Medias can’t any longer seat ideal and watch when the regime officials and their family launder public money in front of our nose. Political parties can no afford to squabble over minor differences than saving their country and protecting their people they want to rule. Individual Ethiopians no longer can pretend the little benefit they may have gotten from Woyane in a form of land is sufficient to abandon their people and country for the criminal enterprise of TPLF.

It is time to standup and be counted

Switzerland, thank you for granted resident status to Ethiopian Airlines Co-Pilot

June 6, 2014

Ethiopian Current Affairs Discussion Forum (ECADF)

Your Excellency Mr. Marco Renna
Ministere Public de la Confederation
The Government of Switzerland

Dear your Excellency Mr. Renna:

Click here for PDF

In the name of 90,000,000 voiceless, freedom lovers and Justice seekers of Ethiopians, we would like to express our heartfelt appreciation and thanks to you, your government, the Swiss Federal office of Justice, and the Swiss people in general for standing by the rule of law and justice, rejecting the extradition of Ethiopian Airlines Co-pilot Hailemedhin Abera and granting him a stay in Switzerland. The Co-pilot diverted his own aircraft on February 17, 2014 and landed safely in Geneva while none of the 202 passengers and crew injured; and to that matter none of them notice the diversion.

Your Excellency:

Hailemedhin, wanted to let the world exactly know and pay attention to the brutality of the current regime, the gross human right violation and heinous crime being committed by the current regime of Ethiopia. Level of atrocity and human rights violation is beyond the limit of tolerance. That is what Hailemedhin wanted to testify, and the Swiss justice system understood very clearly and showed it in its action, we thank you for that. His message was and is clear; he did not do it to advance a better life of his own. He was one of the few privileged who had a good career with stable income to enable him live luxuries life in a country where about 40% of the population live under poverty line. But the suffering of his fellow citizens, mass arrest and torture of journalists, human right defenders, and political leader under fabricated crime, disappearance of citizens without explanation, the regimes impunity towards his critics, would not allow him to sit and see. He did it in a way that international community would understand.

Your Excellency:

In current Ethiopia, under the rule of Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF), freedom of belief and creed are violated, freedom of expression is jeopardized, critical opinion against the regime is not tolerated, poor farmers are forcefully being evicted from their ancestral land and left to die in bushes, government sponsored ethnic based skirmish are threatening regional stability, and the list goes on. This is a known fact by Western governments but they are deliberately avoiding from holding the dictatorial regime accountable. The Ethiopian situation is very volatile and fragile, if Ethiopia falls into chaos, the whole region will follow, that is what Hailemedhin wanted to portray in his action. Otherwise, he had countless opportunities to seek asylum be it in the United States of America, Canada or Europe.

Your Excellency:

Hailemedhin action was a call to freedom loving countries like Switzerland to listen to the plight of the Ethiopian people. Switzerland listened to his call and rejected the regimes quest for his extradition. We urge the Swiss government to listen to the main call of Hailemedhin and discontinue any association with the current regime of Ethiopia and be exemplary to the rest of the world.

At this juncture, we would like to bring to your attention that the people of Ethiopia are reaching the point of no return. If the present level of atrocities and terror continues by the dictatorial regime and the silence of western governments to the plight of the people, the brutality and abuse of this tyrant regime will continue. We are afraid that the situation could be out of control. This regime has prepared enough recipes that would lead the international community to witness another Rwanda.

Once again, we thank on behalf of 90,000,000 Ethiopians for standing by the rules of law, justice, democracy, human rights and for granting Hailemedhin Abera a stay in Switzerland. We also hope Switzerland will grant him a refugee status.

God Bless You and the peace loving People of Switzerland.