Thank you, Chairman.
On behalf of the Ethiopian National Congress I express sincere gratitude for the honour this sub-committee has given us to appear at this meeting and present our perspectives on human rights conditions in Ethiopia and the basic needs of the Ethiopian National Congress.
The ENC is a civic organisation. It was set up in 1997 and has two main purposes. One is to assert the right of Ethiopians to exercise freedom from fear, intimidation and abuse of their basic rights. It works to create an environment in which citizens can enjoy the benefits of exercising such freedom. For the ENC, working to create such an environment means informing citizens of the rights to which they are entitled, enabling them to assert those rights, engaging in capacity building for exercising basic rights and facilitating processes that would lead towards empowerment for asserting basic rights.
We have been working on various fronts to put these beliefs and practices into practice. Specifically, we have been creating a dialogue between citizens and political parties in opposition to the Ethiopian Government. Governments have the responsibility and the power to ensure that such basic rights are upheld, and ideally therefore the ENC should also work with the State in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, the policies of the Ethiopian Government and the atrocities of its security forces have prevented the type of civic activism for which the ENC stands. As an organisation dedicated to promoting civic values, the ENC believes that respect for human rights is basic to freedom and prosperity in a country of 65 million people. The success of our work on the problems detrimental to such freedoms will be a positive contribution regionally in Africa too.
There are problems in Africa, especially in Ethiopia. Two main problem areas we address are good governance, or governance in general, and the issue of rights in education and health. Environment is critical for Ethiopian people. Ethiopians are together trying to assert their rights to education, health, work, food, environmental recovery, land ownership and so on. The popular demands for justice, better policies on basic needs and an end to the abuse of human rights confirm the regime's dismal record on human rights as widely reported in international circles. These include subjecting Ethiopians to arbitrary arrests, imprisonment without trial and disappearances and murders in broad daylight.
Such persecution has forced many into exile to seek asylum and refuge. The regime's acts of repressions have affected practically all aspects of civic life. Due to bad governance, the country is suffering from a mesh of crises unparallelled in its recorded history of more than 2,000 years. On record is the largest famine in Africa, the third largest prevalence of AIDS in Africa, increasing youth unemployment and indescribable hopelessness, the emergence and rapid rise of child prostitution, the trafficking of young women to the Middle East and elsewhere, the destruction of existing educational and health structures, dismissals of large numbers of highly qualified and much needed professionals in education, health, judicial and other fields and the worst repression of press freedom, with Ethiopia at times having the largest number of imprisoned journalists.
Most of these problems arise from bad governance and the deprivation of the rights of citizens to develop because of excessive government control. Repression is characteristic of the single party dictatorship which is the government in Ethiopia. Nominally a federal state, the Tigré People's Liberation Front, TPLF, is in control of the economic resources and the forces of coercion. The TPLF at the apex, with the supreme officer of the party as prime minister, created client ethnic based parties between 1991 and 1993. These are described by foreign observers as "loyal opposition" or "affiliated parties." They occupy 518 out of 548 seats in the parliament. The control by the TPLF of the single party cadres extends down to the smallest sections of the ethnic based administrative units. They have similar control in educational, health, judicial and other public service institutions. They infiltrate hospitals, schools, students and labour unions and even welfare, social and sporting associations. The spread of the cadres, drawn from the rank and file TPLF membership, represents a highly centralised control by a single ethnic based party.
The same hold on the security forces has enhanced the government's power of repression with impunity, and there is a general sense in the population of the dismal hopelessness of seeking redress. Lack of respect for the integrity of the person, arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life and intimidating behaviour are everyday occurences and practices by the armed forces. During elections, for instance, violations by the security forces often result in civilian deaths. Such unlawful killings within the last year alone reached an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 around the country. The government does not take disciplinary measures against the perpetrators even when they have been identified and apprehended. They took no action, for instance, against the persons responsible for the pre-election and post-election killings in 2000 and 2001.
I now turn to the crackdown on educational and health institutions. The ENC believes that the attacks on education and health have been the most "foundational". Beginning from the dismissal of 41 university professors, including myself, in February 1993, to the dismissal of 40 medical doctors, including my younger sister, on 23 May 2003, wastage of human resources has been continuously affecting schools, hospitals and other institutions. The additional personal stories in the document supplied are there to show that the effects are widespread. Almost every person in Ethiopia is affected.
The nation's youth has been the most negatively affected. The standard of primary, secondary and tertiary education has gone downhill. With the requirement for students to pay their way beyond junior secondary school, access to serious education has been drastically curtailed. The Ethiopian Teachers Association ETA, and others who have been protesting at such drastic policies have been suffering crackdowns, imprisonment, murder, arrests and disappearances while harassment of officers and teachers throughout the country have made the ETA infamous in the EU and elsewhere. The innumerable cases of repression have resulted in intense fear and a general state of insecurity of lives and livelihoods. Family and social lives have been disrupted and there is a general breakdown of law and order. Reports by Amnesty International and other human rights bodies condemning flagrant abuses of human rights show evidence of systematic repression in Ethiopia.
At the ENC we have thought seriously about these issues and worked on possible solutions. We have come to believe that, by now, the impacts of the repressions are deeply rooted; they cannot be easily removed. Neither condemnations of the government which perpetrates the abuses nor representations to it seem to improve human rights in Ethiopia.
At the Ethiopian National Congress, therefore, we have identified a few solutions. Two of these are now our priority areas. Most of them are listed on page 1. One is a long-term solution and it involves working with the youth in Ethiopia. The other is a short-term answer. It involves work with those interested in good governance -political activism. The work with the youth may be described thus: the youth are affected by poverty, famine and AIDS and the young population is suffering from the worst of the country's problems in that sense. Youth is particularly affected also by the lack of access to educational institutions and quality education as well as unemployment and hopelessness. Symptomatic of the general breakdown and demoralisation is the ease with which thousands and thousands of young women have now become victims of trafficking - across the Middle East, mostly - and subsequent gross abuses.
The ENC, which is basically aimed at creating an enabling environment in which Ethiopians can assert the right to respect for their human rights, has responded to the problem with a two-fold proposal: one is to engage in research based civic education to reverse the hopelessness of the youth; the second aims to facilitate the emergence of an alternative political leadership. Research based civic education is essentially geared to help youth orientate themselves towards self-help. The two part programme has already begun to lay the foundations in Ethiopia for widespread and responsible engagement in environmental recovery. Some of our volunteers are doing research to identify the scale and social base of the trafficking of young women out of their homes and eventually out of the country. This has to do with the youth,
Our other work is to create an enabling environment for everybody, if possible. In the major initiative to create an environment in which Ethiopians can engage in politics without fear and intimidation, we have facilitated co-operation among leaders currently in opposition to the regime in Addis Ababa. Leaders from different political parties have been engaged in dialogue, with our consultation, to work out common minimum principles and strategies for peacefully challenging the regime. The spirit and practice of this engagement by the ENC is widely supported by Ethiopians both at home and abroad.
An instance of this occurred as recently as last Saturday, 12 July 2003. In my capacity as chairperson of the ENC, I chaired a "virtual town hall" meeting, arranged via teleconferencing. It was an international meeting, attended by members of the public and representatives of a coalition of opposition political parties. The coalition had come about through the efforts of the ENC which had been mediating their agreements since its inception in 1997. Citizens at that meeting questioned and challenged the representatives of those parties to give clear and honest replies. On their part, the parties showed that respect for political, economic, social, environmental and other rights of Ethiopians in all walks of life is high on their agenda. They promised us they will not tie down Ethiopians to ethnic territories and ethnic identities. The amicable dialogue was obviously much needed. To many who expressed their opinion afterwards, it signified the beginnings of a hopeful, transparent and sensitive political future, with new leaders and actors. The dialogue last Saturday represents the beginnings of a practice that can be universally recognised as one of the basic tenets of citizens' political rights. It must have a future. In Ethiopia we cherish such rights. The ENC has laid the ground for asserting ways to support its continuity. We consider the dialogue with the opposition parties a way of building a more stable and peaceful future with accountable governments - and this is critical in Africa. Accountable governments are critically missing, not least in Ethiopia for the last 25 years or so.
In the long-term, we hope that the success of the ENC's endeavours will set the scene for increasing mutual benefit between Ethiopia and the international community, not least the countries of the EU. It is time for all of us to go beyond saying, as has been stated for centuries, "Ethiopia is full of potential" - and latterly a "basket case" too. If its basic human rights are freed up, so too will be its potential.
In conclusion, the ENC intends to ensure the continuity of the dialogue it has facilitated between Ethiopian citizens and political activists and leaders. We are now looking for dialogue for expanding the working relationships we have with civic organisations, political parties and governmental and other institutions in Europe and North America. We have reached the stage at which the implementation of our programmes requires assistance from the international community. We would sincerely appreciate capacity building support as well as political representation.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to make our case. I will, of course answer any queries. My colleague here, who happens to be my husband also by the way, is a member of what the ENC describes as Friends of Ethiopia. Non-Ethiopians who are sympathetic to our cause and who support us we describe as Friends of Ethiopia - and he, too, can answer questions, if need be. Thank you.
