Ethiopia’s PM accuses opposition leader of treason

Oct 15, 2005 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia’s prime minister on Saturday accused the country’s main opposition leader of treason for leading his party in a boycott of parliament and urging protests against the results of disputed May elections.

Speaking to reporters at a news conference, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi also defended a move earlier this week to strip boycotting lawmakers from the Coalition of Unity and Democracy (CUD) of their parliamentary immunity.

“The chairman of CUD has publicly declared his, and his party’s, intention to remove the government through street violence,” he said. “That is an act of treason in any country under any language.

“Any treason is a serious crime wherever it is,” Meles said, referring to CUD leader Hailu Shawel whose party has alleged massive fraud in the May 15 elections and called for the formation of a national unity government to oversee new polls.

Shawel could not immediately be reached for comment but has in the past denied ever calling for the violent overthrow of the Meles government and said the CUD would use only peaceful, legal means to protest.

Most of the CUD’s 109 elected MPs have refused to attend the new session of parliament, dominated by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Front (EPDRF), which opened on Monday.

A day later, lawmakers re-elected Meles as prime minister and passed an EPRDF-backed bill stripping the boycotting MPs of their immunity, a move decried by the opposition as the first step in massive crackdown on dissent.

Meles defended the move on Saturday, saying that the lawmakers affected by the law had never enjoyed parliamentary immunity because they had refused to take up their seats and that authorities had no plans for a mass round-up of political foes.

“Legally speaking, many will tell you that as far as they are not sworn-in they are not members of the parliament, therefore they do not enjoy the rights a sworn-in parliamentarian enjoys,” he said.

Meles said despite the move and the treason accusation his government was still keen to resolve the standoff, which erupted into violence in June when police opened fire on crowds during election protests in the capital, killing at least 37.

“The government wants a political solution rather going through (the courts), it has no intention to round-up or arrest anyone,” he said. “Dialogue and other options are not affected by the lifting of immunity, we are ready to talk.”

(AFP/ST)