Ethiopia lessons in repression: violations of academic problems, HRW

Human Rights Watch
I. SUMMARY
Being educated can be a risky business in Ethiopia. Students and teachers, often among the most
politically active elements of society, are frequent victims of human rights violations including extrajudicial
killings, arbitrary arrest, and denial of freedom of association and expression. Ethiopian leaders since Haile
Selassie have targeted the academic community; the current government’s continuation of such abusive practices
emphasizes the serious obstacles facing Ethiopia before basic rights are respected and enforced not only on
university campuses but across the country.
This report focuses on three major abuses: repeated, unjustified use of lethal force by security forces to
put down political protests by students; continued repression of the independent Ethiopian Teachers’ Association,
whose members include many of Ethiopia’s most distinguished professors; and the stifling of independent thought
through denial of university autonomy and government control of activities on university campuses. The
government of Ethiopia, the ruling party of which has its roots in a student movement, has repeatedly failed to
hold those responsible for these violations accountable.
The Ethiopian government has long enjoyed substantial international backing in spite of its human rights
record. Eager to support Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, one of a generation of promising so-called new African
leaders who came to power in the early 1990s in the wake of years of devastating armed conflict, the international
community has been reluctant to criticize many of his government’s human rights abuses. Foreign powers
including the United States have said they preferred to support his efforts to bring peace. A senior State
Department official told Human Rights Watch that, after the attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001, the U.S.
is even less inclined to demand respect for human rights in Ethiopia because it is completely dependent on the
cooperation of this strategically located country, which borders Sudan and Somalia in the horn of Africa, as an
ally in the U.S. war on terrorism. Ethiopian government security forces have taken advantage of this international
climate to systematically repress students, teachers, civil society organizations, and journalists.
Time and again, government security agents have used lethal force to disperse student protesters with
deadly consequences. In March 2002, high school students in towns across Oromia Regional State took to the
streets to protest poor economic conditions and changes in education policy. In protest after protest, state police
forces used live ammunition to disperse unarmed students, resulting in five officially acknowledged deaths. In
the aftermath, hundreds of people were arbitrarily arrested and detained for an average of two months. Some
were tortured. Students and teachers bore the brunt of the arrests. The government dismissed a number of state
officials in the wake of the protests, but they were reportedly accused of encouraging demonstrators, not of using
force against them. The state president told reporters that the police had no choice but to shoot because police
lack non-lethal means of controlling the crowds and that they would continue to shoot students if the students
continued to misbehave.
Less than a year earlier, federal police Special Forces killed some forty civilians and arrested thousands
when students at Addis Ababa University (AAU) went on strike to demand academic freedom. The university
administration, ministry of education, and police commission all said publicly that the police acted illegally when
they entered the campus and fired at the students. A parliamentary committee held a public inquiry into the police
actions, but the government has not released any information concerning any prosecution or disciplinary measures
for those responsible. Most students have since returned to class, but they have been forced to drop their demands
for academic freedom. The government-dominated administration continues to ban the student union and student
newspaper.
The Oromia and AAU cases vividly demonstrate the Ethiopian government’s lack of respect for the rights
of students and civilians to demonstrate. The government has also failed to hold accountable security forces
accused of killing unarmed protesters in other cases. In June 2002, weeks after Special Forces killed at least
seventeen civilian protesters in the southern town of Awassa in one of the most egregious abuses in 2002, the
government claimed to have removed local officials implicated in the events. But these officials were reportedly
4
January 2003, Vol. 15,No. 2 (A)