Ethiopian Action for Unity and Democracy

ETHIOPIAN DEMOCRATIC ACTION LEAGUE
Spokesperson: Gashu Habte, Ph.D.

For Immediate Release
December 29, 2000

Starting in mid-January, a high-level trade delegation of the ruling Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) will tour the United States. Its first stop will be Washington DC. On January 14, Ethiopian embassy will host a reception and dinner for the Trade Mission, U.S. government and World Bank officials, businessmen, potential investors and other invited guests. The following day, January 15, the Trade Mission will host a conference inside the embassy.

It is important to note that the Trade Mission is coming to the USA to cover up: (a) the biased economic development activities in favor of the Tigray region of three million people, at the expense of 60 million Ethiopians who live in the rest of the country, and (b) the voracious build up of the TPLF business empire.

Directly through its officials and indirectly under the cover of NGOs, the TPLF business empire is controlling a multitude of industries, including manufacturing, services, trade, information and transportation. It is competing with and often pushing private enterprises out of business.

As the result of a deliberate neglect of the country by the TPLF regime, poverty level has grown from bad to worse; millions of our people live in extreme poverty where they go without food for days; more than half of the population in urban areas outside of the Tigray region are unemployed; once eradicated diseases such as malaria and typhoid are back and ravaging the country, except Tigray; hundreds of thousands of children live in slums and in the streets; teenage girls are sold to Arab countries and Gulf States to serve as prostitutes and slaves; many of them are returning to Ethiopia deformed due to torture and overwork, mentally ill, and in many cased dead.

Yeshiworq Desta, who is recently sentenced to death in Bahrain, is just one of the tens of thousands of victims of the economic and political woes in our country under the regime of Meles Zenawi.

The TPLF Trade Mission is coming to the USA to cover up these horrible conditions in our country.

Ethiopian Democratic Action League, in collaboration with other civic and political organizations, will expose and challenge the TPLF ministers during their tour of the USA.

We call on all Ethiopians in the Washington DC area to join us in confronting these corrupted, greedy TPLF ministers, merchants and cadres
of disinformation on January 14 at 4:00 PM and January 15 at 4:00 PM in
front of the Ethiopian embassy

We also call on any one who might be thinking of attending the conference
called by the TPLF ministers to think of our people back home. We call on
you to boycott the conference. We appeal to your Ethiopiawinet.

Let us give voice to our people back home.

SPONSORS (listed in alphabetical order)
All Amhara People’s Organization – Washington DC Office
Council of Concerned Nationals for Ethiopian Security
Ethiopian Medhin Democratic Party
Ethiopian National Congress
Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party
Hibre Hizb
Moa Anbessa
Task Force

Incredibly cruel methods are being used to punish political dissidents in Ethiopia. According to a report issued on November 25, 2000, by Solidarity Committee for Ethiopian Political Prisoners (SOCEPP), Meles Zenawi’s regime in Ethiopia has built “underground” prison cells that are dug deep into the ground for holding political prisoners. There had been reports about these dark underground prison cells where political prisoners are held and made to die in an extremely cruel way deprived of food, medicine and clothes. Their extensive use in several parts of Ethiopia by the Meles regime has now been exposed by a high ranking security official of the regime named Fiseha Hailemariam who has recently defected.

Ethiopian Democratic Action League joins SOCEPP in calling for an immediate international inquiry into this charge of inhumane and shockingly crule act by Meles Zenawi’s regime in Ethiopia.

The harassment by Meles Zenawi’s regime against independent journalists is also intensifying. Late last month, the regime has arrested the vice president of Ethiopian Free Journalists Association (EFJA), Ato Zegeye Haile. His lawyer and EFJA officials are unable to contact him.

Currently there are over 15,000 prisoners of conscience in Ethiopia. Dr Taye Woldesemayat, Fitawrari Mekonnen Dori and thousands of other prisoners of conscience–including political and civic activists, journalists and average citizens who voice criticism against the regime’s dictatorial ethnic apartheid policies–continue to languish in TPLF’s disease-infested jails under inhumane conditions. Many of the prisoners are dying in prison deprived of medical treatment.

We call on every one to help expose these and other gross human rights violations being committed by Meles Zenawi’s ethnic apartheid regime by making phone calls and writing petition letters to governments around the world and international institutions such as the United Nations, OAU and others. Please also join us in the bi-weekly demonstrations we are holding in Washington DC in front of the Ethiopian embassy and the U.S. Congress. The next demonstration will be held in front of the Ethiopian embassy on December 6, 2000 from 12 noon – 1 PM.

Give voice to the voiceless.