May 2/ 2005

Assefa Maru, a family man, was one of the leaders of the Ethiopian Teachers Association and a well known human rights activist, who was murdered outside his house on the morning of May 8/1997. The police pretended that he, unarmed, "was resisting arrest". Assefa's murderers came in Land Rovers donated to the police by the British government.

Demands for justice by Assefa's wife Shewaye Gebeyehu, by his ETA colleagues, by human rights organizations and the people at large have been ignored by the EPRDF government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. And for good reason. SOCEPP has learnt from a reliable source that the decision to murder Assefa Maru was made in a secret meeting of the top echelons of the ruling TPLF/EPRDF.In attendance were Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, the late Kinfe Gebre Medhin (in charge of the security apparatus) and Sebhat Nega the old founder of the ruling Tigrean front/the TPLF/. The decision to brutally execute Assefa was to give the "opposition a lesson" and to decapitate the ETA whose other top leader, Dr. Taye Welde Semayat, was to purge years of prison before being released due to public protest and pressure. In the tightly controlled regime of the EPRDF, accidental killings of personalities like Assefa Maru are not liable to happen and the decision to kill often comes from the PM's inner circle of four or five top TPLF officials.

SOCEPP joins the family and friends of Assefa Maru in demanding justice and the trial of the murderers, both those who ordered the killings and the ones who carried it out. As before, SOCEPP also deplores the close ties the British and German governments have with the repressive security and police apparatus in Ethiopia an calls upon them not to abet and assist in the violation of the rights of the Ethiopian people.