Ethiopian police arrest hundreds of opposition supporters
Sept 29, 2005 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopian authorities have arrested hundreds of opposition supporters and killed one in the past 11 days before a major opposition rally scheduled for this weekend, opposition leaders said Thursday.
They said the rally has now been postponed because the government placed conditions for it to be held.
Beginning Sept. 19, authorities had arrested 859 opposition members across the country and security forces had killed one opposition member in the Amhara region, 400 kilometers south of the capital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s two main opposition groups said in a statement.
“The whereabouts of hundreds of people is also not yet known throughout the country,” the Coalition for Unity and Democracy and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces said. They also said their supporters in custody were being beaten.
Government officials weren’t immediately available for comment.
Beyene Petros, vice chairman of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, said a major rally the opposition parties had scheduled to hold in Addis Ababa Sunday has been postponed because the government said the parties needed to unconditionally accept the results of Ethiopia’s controversial May 15 parliamentary elections.
“We refuse to do that because we need to hold meetings with our members to decide our next action on the matter,” Beyene said, adding the opposition didn’t plan to overthrow the government as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and other officials have alleged.
The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front party was declared the winner of troubled May parliamentary polls that saw dozens killed by police in demonstrations in Addis Ababa to protest alleged election fraud.
European Union observers and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have expressed serious concerns about the elections, but also said that overall the experience would encourage democracy. It was the first election in Ethiopia’s history that foreign experts were allowed to observe.
(AP/ST)