Ethiopia’s religious leaders appeal for peace
Nov 6, 2005 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia’s religious leaders called for peace Sunday, after a week of bloody clashes between demonstrators and police left at least 46 people dead and thousands in police custody.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said an independent commission would investigate whether police used excessive force to quell last week’s violence and similar protests in June, in which at least 42 people were also killed.
“An independent inquiry body will be set up to investigate these problems together,” Meles told the state-run television late Saturday before traveling for the Germany-Africa Cooperation Forum.
Ethiopia had been under intense pressure from the U.S. and the European Union — the African country’s main donors — to urgently investigate the recent clashes, which started Tuesday after peaceful protests Monday over the disputed May 15 elections.
The vote, which was seen as a test of Meles’ commitment to reform, gave his Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front control of nearly two-thirds of parliament.
Opposition parties have accused the ruling party of rigging the vote, and said the election and vote count were marred by fraud, intimidation and violence.
Meles has blamed the main opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy for the violence and vowed that opposition officials would be prosecuted.
An estimated 4,000 people, including some opposition figures, have been arrested, Western diplomats said, citing opposition groups, government officials and human rights organizations.
Dozens of people, including journalists and opposition members, have gone into hiding.
But while the protests were sparked by the election dispute, many Ethiopians believe they reflect growing frustration over abject poverty in this nation of at least 70 million.
Leaders of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, the Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, the Roman Catholic Church and Evangelical Church issued a joint statement Sunday appealing for calm, saying: “Let peace be our agenda.”
About 40 percent of Ethiopia’s population is Muslim, and 50 percent follows the Orthodox Church.
Families began to collect bodies of people killed during the protests for mourning and burial.
Ethiopia’s capital was calm for a second day, and security forces maintained a strong, visible presence. Violence that had erupted in key provincial towns also appeared under control.
Residents, however, were worried that violence could erupt again because the government has not pursued a political solution to problems that triggered the protests.
“We have suffered too much, and it is time for the violence to stop,” Tigist Salome, 42, said as she left Trinity Church in Addis Ababa, where Emperor Haile Selassie is buried. “No one wants bloodshed. We want peace.”
(AP/ST)