From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Mar 26 2010 - 17:26:34 EST
Ethiopia cracks down on biggest ethnic group: party
Fri Mar 26, 2010 3:57pm GMT
By Barry Malone
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia's most populous ethnic group is being
targeted in a government crackdown ahead of the country's first national
election since a disputed 2005 poll, an opposition party said on Friday.
The Horn of Africa country's last election results were challenged by the
opposition and international observers. About 200 protesters were killed by
security forces in street riots and the main opposition leaders imprisoned.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said they were trying to oust him.
"They are cracking down on the Oromo ethnicity because we are such a large
group, not only many in men, but the Oromia region contains a lot of
resources," Bulcha Demeksa, leader of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC)
said.
Ethnic Oromos, who make up 27 million of the country's 80 million people,
have not held power in modern Ethiopian history. Ethiopia has more than 80
ethnic groups.
The nine considered the most powerful by the government, including the
Oromos, administer their own federal regions.
Meles comes from the Tigryan ethnic group, who make up only 6 percent of the
population but dominate the political and military elite.
The OFC, part of eight-party coalition Medrek, said candidates were beaten
and tortured to scare them into leaving the party. It said opposition civil
servants in Oromia had been transferred to remote regions and refused time
off to campaign.
"We in OFC appeal today to friendly countries and their envoys in Ethiopia,
and to the people of Ethiopia at large, to support us," the party said in a
statement.
The Ethiopian government says opposition candidates are not intimidated.
"This is a democracy," Bereket Simon, government head of information, told
Reuters this week. "We are continuously widening political space."
Analysts say Medrek -- or the Forum -- is the main threat to the 19-year-old
government of Meles, but his Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic
Front (EPRDF) coalition is expected to easily win the May 23 poll.
The opposition says this is because they are harassed and jailed. The
government says the opposition is trying to discredit a poll it has no
chance of winning.
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