Eight killed, 43 wounded in Ethiopia clashes
Nov 1, 2005 (ADDIS ABABA) — At least eight people were killed and 43 wounded in the Ethiopian capital on Tuesday in clashes pitting police against protestors and rioters amid soaring new tensions over disputed May elections.
Police said eight people, including two of its officers, had been killed and 43 wounded, including 20 of its officers, in running street battles in Addis Ababa that they blamed on the country’s main opposition party.
The toll was announced in a statement read on national television that said the entire leadership of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) had been arrested and warned journalists they may also be detained.
“The government will arrest editors and printers who have been publishing baseless reports and CUD propaganda,” the statement said. It did not elaborate.
A CUD lawyer said six of the party’s top officials, including chairman Hailu Shawel and vice chairman Berhanu Nega, had been detained by security forces following the clashes in downtown Addis Ababa.
Doctors at five Addis Ababa hospitals visited by AFP said they had received the bodies of five people killed by gunshots, 29 people with bullet wounds and a large but undetermined number with other assault injuries.
The violence erupted on the second day of planned opposition-led election protests in the downtown Mercato and Piazza areas, centers of deadly poll-related violence in June, when at least 37 people were killed.
The government and CUD each blamed the other for the latest unrest.
“It is part of a plan to disrupt the peace and stability of this country,” Information Minister Berhan Hailu told AFP. “The incident today is a continuation of previous disruptions.”
CUD spokesman Geschew Shiferaw, one of the six party officials arrested, denied Berhan’s allegations and accused the police of overreacting to peaceful protests over alleged fraud in the May 15 vote.
“The measures that police took this morning in the Mercato were excessive,” he told AFP shortly before he was taken into custody. “Things were quiet. The street action was totally created by the government.”
An initial police statement said the violence began when a gang riding in a minibus attacked a high school and started looting.
But witnesses said it started when angry crowds turned on police trying to arrest taxi drivers who were protesting the election.
They said heavily armed riot police had moved against rock-throwing rioters in the Mercato following the arrest of about 30 taxi drivers who had heeded an opposition call to honk their horns to protest alleged vote fraud.
However, as was the case with the June violence, many of the injured claimed to have been simply innocent bystanders caught up in the melee.
Hunagnaw Tefery, a 25-year-old tailor who was being treated at Saint Paulos Hospital, said a police officer had broken his right arm with a fierce blow from the butt of a gun as he was heading home from work.
“People were running everywhere, policemen were shooting and hitting us with sticks and the butts of guns,” he said. “I tried to run, but I was hit on the arm by a policeman.”
The violence came after the CUD called at the weekend for a series of protests against the elections, culminating in a five-day general strike to begin later this month.
Official results from the May elections gave the CUD 109 of the 547 seats in parliament, but the party maintains it won and has accused the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) of rigging the polls.
The CUD’s elected MPs are boycotting the legislature and last month were stripped of their parliamentary immunity amid EPRDF allegations that the party was preparing the violent overthrow of the government.
The government has said the new protest measures are unlawful and vowed to take all steps necessary to preserve the peace.
Nearly 100 opposition members have been arrested on weapons charges since September, according to official figures.
(AFP/ST)