Ethiopian lawmakers approve post-election violence report

March 21, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia’s parliament approved a report clearing the security forces over post-election violence in 2005, in which 193 civilians and six policemen died, state media reported Wednesday.

The report has already been rejected by the opposition for being too lenient on the government’s actions.

“Security forces took the necessary legal and proportional measures to protect” the stability of the country, said the report, according to the state media.

The violence in Addis Ababa and other cities in June and November 2005, which sprang from protests over the May elections, “occurred due to the infancy of the democratic system of the country”, the report said.

The figures compiled by the inquiry were more than three times higher than the government’s official death toll of 54 that arose from two bouts of unrest. The bloodshed provoked strong protests from Western donors.

Opposition groups have dismissed the report as “baseless”, arguing that it failed to hold the state accountable for the bloody crackdown.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has expressed regret for the deaths. But he has blamed the main opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), which the authorities have accused of trying to foment a coup.

Nearly the entire CUD leadership is currently on trial on charges ranging from treason to genocide and conspiracy for calling for nationwide protests against the results of the polls that they allege were rigged.

The main opposition CUD argued that the results had been rigged.

(AFP)