Ethiopia lessons in repression: violations of academic problems, HRW

ETHIOPIA: TIMELINE OF KEY EVENTS AND ASSAULTS ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM SINCE 1991
1991 — The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) toppled the Derg military regime
which had been responsible for the Red Terror, ending a decade of civil war and promising freedom and respect
for human rights.
1992 — The EPRDF government began to target the Ethiopian Teachers’ Association (ETA) for harassment after
the association suggested reforms to the educational system. In the years to come, government tactics would
include repeated discrimination against and arbitrary arrests of ETA leaders and sympathizers, assassination of a
leading member in 1997, and confiscation of the organization’s assets.
January 4, 1993 — Students at Addis Ababa University (AAU) took to the streets in protest of a planned
referendum on Eritrean independence. Security forces fired live ammunition into the crowd of unarmed students
and beat and arrested large numbers of students.
April 1993 — AAU summarily dismissed more than forty professors who had been critical of the government.
Several of them have since been repeated victims of arbitrary arrest and intimidation. Ten years later,
intellectuals continue to cite the “chilling effect” these firings have had on academic freedom.
1996 — Arrests of ETA leaders Shimalis Zewdie and Dr. Taye Woldesmayat.
May 1997 — Assefa Maru, acting director of the ETA, gunned down by police. No proper investigation of the
killing has ensued.
1998 – 2000 — Border war with Eritrea.
February – March 2000 — Arrests of Oromo AAU students protesting government failure to extinguish forest
fires. High school students also protested; one was killed and up to 300 were arrested.
October 2000 — Oromo students protested the move of the capital of Oromia state from Addis Ababa to Nazret,
leading to the arrests of at least four students.
December 2000 — Police responded violently to students protesting living conditions at Awassa Teachers
College. Students were beaten and arrested.
December 20, 2000 — AAU students were arrested and beaten after a fight erupted when a Tigrean student used
the word “galla,” a derogatory word for Oromos. A series of related incidents followed in colleges and
universities across the country.
April 2001 — AAU students went on strike demanding academic freedom, including the rights to organize a
student union and publish a student newspaper and removal of armed uniformed police from campus.
Government forces killed some forty students and other civilians and arrested thousands, some of whom were
tortured. High school, college, and university students around the country demonstrated in solidarity, and police
responded to these demonstrations with excessive violence as well.
September 2001 — Government police on AAU campus were replaced by private security guards. The
government did not remove other barriers to freedom of association and expression for members of the university
community.
February 2002 — Government security forces disrupted an ETA conference on education for all and HIV/AIDS.
More than forty teachers were arrested for attending the meeting.
Human Rights Watch
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January 2003, Vol. 15,No. 2 (A)