Ethiopian clashes alarm AU and US

[SOO MAAL]

At least 27 people were killed on Wednesday as armed police clashed with demonstrators in the Ethiopian capital, prompting calls for restraint from the African Union and the United States.

 

Almost 150 were injured in fighting after the main opposition party called for protests against May elections it insists were rigged.

 

The opposition Coalition of National Unity and Democracy (CUD) has had about 1 000 of its members, including its entire leadership, arrested in a vast nationwide operation, according to one member who did not wish to be identified.

 

US State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said late on Wednesday: "We call on all parties to immediately show restraint, to step back from the current environment of heightened political tension, and call on the Ethiopian government to establish an independent commission to investigate today's public demonstration and those of June 8, in which dozens of demonstrators were killed.

 

"We call on the Ethiopian government to release all political detainees, including the many opposition supporters arrested in recent weeks," he added.

 

Earlier, the Addis Ababa-based AU Commission's chief Alpha Omar Konare appealed for calm and dialogue and said African nations are ready to help Ethiopia end its nearly six-month crisis.

 

A diplomat based in Addis Ababa and witnesses said Wednesday's violence erupted when police moved in to certain districts to arrest opposition leaders, prompting angry residents to throw stones or erect barricades.

 

The latest fatalities bring to at least 35 the number of people killed and to nearly 200 those injured in two days of unrest in Addis Ababa, where the opposition has defied government warnings not to stage protests against May elections it insists were rigged.

 

Wednesday's deaths were reported by medical sources in three of the city's five main hospitals, who said some of the many dozens injured were in a critical condition, mostly from gunshot wounds.

 

Many of the injured at Zewditu hospital were women and young people, including one 13-year-old girl.

 

Information Minister Berhan Hailu said a police officer died and 54 of his colleagues had been injured.

 

He squarely blamed the CUD for fanning the unrest.

 

"The situation is now under control. This is a continuation of yesterday's riots [and] it is still the CUD who is calling on the people to demonstrate," he told a press conference.

 

On Tuesday, at least eight people, including two police officers, were killed and dozens wounded during similar confrontations in Addis Ababa, a stronghold of the opposition.

 

Eyewitness Assefa Degefa said security forces attempted to enter an area locally known as French Legation to arrest CUD vice-president Bertukane Mideksa, but rowdy youths blocked the road, prompting police to fire in the air and throw tear-gas canisters as protesters hurled stones.

 

The government, which has accused the opposition of attempting to foment a coup, had warned that the new protest measures were unlawful and that it would take all steps necessary to preserve the peace.

 

Over the weekend, the CUD called on Ethiopians to boycott products of government-owned industries, to shun state-run media and to honk their horns in protest between Tuesday and Thursday.

 

The party also called for a five-day general strike to begin later this month.

 

The CUD, which officially won 109 seats in the polls, accuses the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front of rigging the elections and is boycotting Parliament.

 

CUD lawmakers were last month stripped of their parliamentary immunity amid the allegations of plotting to overthrow the government.

 

Nearly 100 opposition members have been arrested on weapons charges since September, according to official figures.

 

In Washington, the State Department's McCormack said the US deplores "the use of violence and deliberate attempts to provoke violence in a misguided attempt to resolve political differences".

 

"We call on the opposition to refrain from inciting civil disobedience during this time of heightened tension," he added. -- Sapa-AFP

[Camel Mlik]

These clashes are very alarming to what is to go down in Ethiopia in the months to come or even weeks.

 

Don't they see Somalia and where they stand to day. We overthrow our government and we are without one for more than 15 years now. But we Somalians have learned that a bad government is better than no government.I just wished that lesson would have been learned cross Africa.

[Oda_Nobunaga]

Wrong No government is better than Tyrany

If the Ethiopian people remain docile than they will never change thier condition.