Appeal to the International Community
To: UN Secretary-General
New YorkEuropean Parliament
European Commission President
European Council
BrusselsBelgium, Office of the Prime Minister
Belgium, Ministry of the Foreign Affairs
BrusselsUS Office of the President
US State Department
Washington, D.C.Ethiopian Human Rights Council
Addis AbabaAmnesty International
LondonHuman Rights Watch
Washington
21 April 2001
Re: Massacre of Innocent Children and Civilians by the Government of Ethiopia
We Ethiopians have once again been forced to witness the merciless massacre of innocent students and children whose only crime has been their quest for justice, freedom and rule of law. Although this is not the first time for the present regime in Ethiopia to massacre innocent students and other civilians in broad daylight for no reason, the current round is unique in many respects. The way it started is particularly puzzling.
The Addis Ababa University has always been unique all over the world as the only academic institution which maintains an illegal and underground in-campus prison, where security police have the unenviable reputation of committing all sorts of physical and mental tortures and other crimes on university students. These practices have been there since the days of the notorious dictator Mengistu Haile-Mariam; only that their use has become more widespread under the current regime.
There is always a natural limit to what human beings could bear, and when this limit was reached, on 9 April 2001, students presented their request, in the most peaceful manner, for that mysterious prison to be closed and for the security police running it to be replaced by civilian guards who would be more humane in their treatment and less efficient in their abilities to commit physical and mental tortures on students. They also requested university officials to, inter alia, respect their human and constitutional rights to personal privacy, freedom of opinion, expression and organization, and their academic freedom as students in the country's oldest and topmost academic institution.
True to its traditional style, however, on 11 April, the regime replied to these requests by sending its heavily-armed police force with clubs and bullets who went to each and every student dormitory and turned the student residences into a blood bath. The result was obvious: innocent children were massacred in broad daylight. A young female student who was clubbed to death by the police became the heroine martyred for the cause of freedom for which so much innocent blood has been spilt. Up north, between 11 and 13 April, police murdered one other male student in Mekelle University whose body was later thrown into a pond outside the town to fake accidental drowning.
The students continued their cry for justice so that the perpetrators would be brought to justice and account for their crimes. But, the Government went back to its routine silencer - the cruel use of force. The merciless and inhumane way in which police handled the crisis this time provoked public anger and outcry. However, on 17 and 18 April, the Government and its repressive apparatus reacted to the public outcry in an even more savage way, wantonly massacring young people in the streets of Addis Ababa. According to the latest figures from Reuters, the human toll has reached 41 deaths, including an eight-year old child, and more than 250 injuries, almost all of them caused by bullet wounds.
Moreover, instead of answering the most basic question of academic freedom and closing the infamous underground in-campus torture centre, the authorities found it easier to close the entire university for the indefinite future - the only centre of torture in a university campus was more important than almost the only centre of intellect in the country.
The students who have been forced to leave university campuses first took refugee in church compounds and mosques, but only to be forced out by the police even from such places of worship. More worryingly, the police have taken them to unknown places and their safety is currently under serious and imminent danger.
Seeing all this and more, we members of the Ethiopian Community in Belgium condemn in the strongest terms the savage use of force by government security forces. We further call upon all governments, relevant international organizations, human rights groups and all peace-loving human beings to take notice of the atrocities being committed by the Government of Ethiopia against innocent students and children and put pressure on the Government to respond to the following urgent demands:
- Full investigation must be made into the nature and extent of atrocities committed;
- Innocent people arrested and/or taken to unknown places solely for their peaceful participation in the protest must be released immediately and unconditionally;
- The perpetrators must be brought to justice without delay;
- Sufficient and prompt compensation must be paid to the families of the murdered and those who have been disabled by police clubs and bullets;
- The Addis Ababa University must be reopened immediately with all the fundamental and legitimate requests of the students addressed adequately, democratically, and legally; and
- The Government must stop its inhumane and barbaric use of force as a means of suppressing citizens' legitimate and peaceful requests for the respect of their human and constitutional rights.
Blessed are those who die for justice!Guns kill not the demands for justice but only their demanders!
CC.Ethiopian Prime Minister's Office, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
[Opinions in this article are solely that of the writer.]