December 26, 2003

More than 300 innocent people have been killed in Gambella (Western Ethiopia) while more than 50 have been murdered in Kebridehar (eastern Ethiopia, the Ogaden) as a result of the discriminatory ethnic politics of the ruling EPRDF. In all the killings, local people and observers have affirmed that the federal police or the officials and soldiers of the ruling EPRDF have taken direct part.

In Gambella, several sources have made it clear that the federal police killed dozens of people while claiming to attempt to control the troubled situation that followed the killing of eight UNHCR workers by armed rebels reportedly backed by Eritrea. However, there is ample evidence to prove that the regime has for long fanned and manipulated the ethnic problems between the Nuers and the Anuaks and that it had favored one against the other (in most instances against the Anuaks) to "divide and rule". The slaughter of more than 300 people has thus been blamed on the EPRDF and its policy of ethnic division and denial of rights while resorting to repressive actions against innocent people. In Kebridehar, where the number of imprisoned people increases in leap and bounds,13 elders who had petitioned the Prime Minster for justice have found themselves in prison. Colonels Getachew and Gebre Yohannes as well as the political chief of the Korahe zone, Hailu Shibel, have been named as the main culprits in the ongoing gross violations of the rights of the people in the area. On\ce again, the authorities are blamed for backing the Galili ethnic group against the Gahas and provoking the murder of more than 50 people. Detained people have been denied due process and are only released after paying exorbitant sums. The attempt to pleas for justice has led to the detention for more than three months now of 13 elders including Ato Mohamed Kelas, Abduaman Omar,Mohamed Harsi Abdi, Sheikh Mohamed Gerad, Abdisemed Ahmed Abdi and others.

The ethnic politics officially pursued by the ruling EPRDF has been likened by some to a pseudo Apartheid while many have condemned it as an outright violation of the human rights of the people. It can be asserted that the policy had led to several bloody conflicts costing thousands of lives and the favoring of one ethic group over all the others has been discriminatory and anti democratic. Time and again, SOCEPP had joined others in calling for an end to the ethnic politics and the violation of rights that it had entailed. The deaths in Gambella and Kebridehar, as the previous bloody events in ArbaGugu, Arka, Water, etc, highlight the EPRDF's refusal to change or abandon its destructive ways.

The ruling EPRDF is responsible for the lives lost in Gambella and Kebridehar and those directly responsible for the deaths are n one other than the originators of the disastrous ethnic policy and those who are engaged in directly applying it by force of arms.

SOCEPP calls on the international community to condemn the ethnic politics of the EPRDF and the murderous ethnic clashes it continues to provoke at such a high cost of lives.