February 7/2003

REMEMBERING THE DISAPPEARED

The ruling EPRDF under Prime Minster Meles Zenawi persists in its refusal to account for the dozens of political prisoners "disappeared" by it since 1991. The EPRDF officials continue to deny flat out that they ever had these prisoners under their custody though numerous witnesses have affirmed to the contrary.

 Tsegaye Gebre Medhin, Sitotaw Hussein, Yishak Debre Tsion, Belete Amha, Hagos Bezabih, Teklai Haile Sellasie, Azanaw Demile, Ms Aberash Berta, Tesfaye kebede,Lemma Mekonen, Abebe Ainekulu, Demissie Tesfaye, Berhanu Ijigu, colonel Kale Kirstos Abai ...teachers, trade unionists, political activists, workers, peasants, students, soldiers and officers... the list is long. Sadly enough, the names of the above and that of many others do not appear in the reports of the international human rights organizations. Why?

SOCEPP persists in registering the names of the disappeared and in calling for an account from the EPRDF that detained and disappeared them. SOCEPP calls on Ethiopians to raise their voices demanding a full report on the fate of the above and all the others who have been "disappeared". The fight against "forgetting" is one of the objectives that led to the establishment of SOCEPP in the first place. The EPRDF must be made to give an account other than the flimsy denial. International human rights groups and the local such body must also break their silence on the fate of the many "disappeared" including the ones mentioned above .

SOCEPP