Kaliti On a Sunday Afternoon

Also in the news: Lawless Regime in Ethiopia: American chronicle,

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Kaliti On a Sunday Afternoon

Lewit

Today is Monday, which means that yesterday Kaliti’s political prisoners were permitted the fleeting opportunity to visit with family members and friends.

Early on Sunday afternoon the visitors gathered beneath the sniper towers and formidable prison archway, waiting to glimpse their loved ones and relay cryptic messages of hope, news and inspiration.

Beginning at 3pm, the guards inspected the visitor ID cards, while those inside the compound meticulously recorded the name and residence of the visitor next to the name of the prisoner they wished to visit; “CUD-supporters” were additionally registered on a separate list (to “harass at a future date”, one assumes, should civilian targets ever become in short supply.)

Ferenji visitors have now been completely prohibited from visiting Kaliti, as I discovered yesterday—information the guards conveniently neglect to share until after the registration process is completed and we have been duly noted as “persons in support of the opposition”.

Those still allowed beyond this point then removed their shoes and subjected themselves to an invasive physical inspection intended to prevent the entrance of “anything and everything”—gifts, food, electronics, paper.

For the immediate family members granted special permission to deliver food and personal items, the procedure was even more grueling: the list of prohibitions is extensive—subject to the whims and temperament of the guard on that particular day—and most often quite ridiculous, with the most recent additions being black clothing (representative of a state of mourning and therefore favored by prisoners during court appearances) berberi and tea bags; food is also subsequently searched (using the same dirty fork for each person and dish!) and family members made to eat a portion of the food themselves in front of the guards.(More...)

Lawless Regime in Ethiopia

Sophia Tesfamariam

American chronicle

...• Meles Zenawi's security and military apparatus massacred 44 University students in cold blood in Addis Ababa in 2001.

• On May 2002, Meles Zenawi's forces massacred over 100 people in Awassa, his forces committed illegal acts against innocent citizens who were demonstrating against a change in the administrative status of Awassa. Security agents used machine guns mounted on armored vehicles to fire into a group of unarmed peasants, workers, women and children. Twelve of those killed were children.

• In what was described then as "Africa's Kosovo", the shameless bigoted leader of the Tigrayan minority regime in Ethiopia, in 1998 and 1999 deported over 80,000 innocent Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin and confiscated over a billion dollars worth of their hard earned belongings right under the watchful eye of the African Union, UN and EU Ambassadors. Manifesting his ignorance of Japanese-American history, he had the audacity to say, "The Ethiopian government has the unrestricted right to expel any foreigner from the country for any reason whatsoever. Any foreigner, whether Eritrean, Japanese, etc., lives in Ethiopia because of the goodwill of the government. If the Ethiopian government says 'Go, because we don't like the colour of your eyes,' they have to leave." Nevertheless, he got away with his bigotry and crimes.

• Dubbed “Operation Sunny Mountain” by Meles Zenawi and his minority regime, plans to procure Annuak territory, a zone coveted by corporate interests for its oil and gold, were laid out at a top-level cabinet meeting in Addis Ababa led by Meles Zenawi on September 2003. At that meeting, “the militant ethnic cleansing of the Anuaks” was openly discussed and a coordinated military operation to systematically eliminate Anuaks began on 13 December 2003. The minority regime in Ethiopia willfully burned villages, massacred hundreds of Anuaks and Nuers and caused over 15,000 inhabitants of Gambela to flee to neighboring Sudan and Kenya.

• Meles Zenawi’s minority regime rigged the May 2005 Elections, stole the people’s votes and ignited the nationwide protests that have plagued Ethiopia for the last 8 months. Having declared a “State of Emergency” on 16 May 2005, and after taking full command of the police, security and army apparatus, the genocidal regime has detained all the opposition leaders, journalists, civil society leaders and opposition supporters on trumped up charges of treason and inciting violence, and detained over 40,000 Ethiopians all over the country while its military and security forces have massacred over 200 people since the elections.

• Ethiopian police shot and killed two people and wounded many more during disturbances at celebrations marking the Orthodox Epiphany. Hundreds of riot police were deployed in various parts of Addis Abeba, adding to the terror in the city. (More...)

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