Ethiopia expels three American democracy-building groups

By MATTHEW J. ROSENBERG, Associated Press Writer

LONDON, 30 March 2005 (AP) — Ethiopia on Wednesday ordered three private American groups that promote democracy to cease operations in the Horn of African nation and gave their foreign staff 48 hours to leave, officials with two of the groups said.

Field missions from the groups — the National Democratic Institute, the International Republic Institute and IFES — were in Ethiopia helping prepare the country for May 15 general elections.

Foreign staff from all three were called to the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday and told by Ethiopian authorities they had two days to leave, officials from two of the groups said. The Ethiopians, the officials said, told the groups they were being kicked out because they were not properly accredited. Both officials said their groups had earlier applied for accreditation.

The officials — one in Washington, the other in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — spoke on condition of anonymity, saying all three groups were pushing to get back into the country and did not want to further upset the Ethiopians.

Ethiopian officials were not immediately available for comment.

All three groups are based in Washington and focus on building democracy in the developing world. They had relatively small staffs in Ethiopia — IRI and IFES each kept only one foreign staffer in the country.

An official from one the groups said members of all three organizations believed they were being expelled in a broad Ethiopian retaliation to recent U.S. criticism of Ethiopia’s human rights record — especially a U.S. State Department report released earlier this year.

The report, one of the annual human rights updates the U.S. government prepares for every country, said Ethiopia had made progress in respecting human rights in 2004, but noted that police lacked needed training and continued to employ excessive force, the judiciary remained overburdened and lacked capacity and there were still restrictions on freedom of the press.

The elections in Ethiopia, a country of 25.6 million, would be only the third democratic ballot in the nation’s history. All the elections have been won by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front.