Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) openly monitored and reported on the human rights situation in the country. Several civic organizations, including EHRCO, the Ethiopian Economic Association, the Inter-Africa Group, and the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce convened panel discussions that allowed EPRDF and opposition candidates to air their programs before urban voters, mainly in the capital. The Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association conducted training for women candidates. EHRCO critically analyzed the polling operations in its public statements and reports and denounced abuses when they occurred.

These freedoms continued to be denied to the Human Rights League, which was founded in 1997. Not only did the government refuse to register it, but it arrested eight of its board members shortly after they applied for registration and confiscated its office records and equipment in 1998. Garuma Bekele, executive secretary of the league, and also editor of Urji, and Addisu Beyene, secretary of the Oromo Relief Association and prominent rights advocate, together with some fifty other prominent Oromo civic leaders, remained in jail since their arrest in October 1997. Their trial for conspiracy with the OLF continued in camera. Family members were banned from attending the trial, although they could visit the prisoners. Fear of repression forced other groups, such as the Ogaden Human Rights Committee, to conduct their monitoring activities clandestinely, and to report their findings abroad.

There was some progress toward the establishment of national and international institutions for the protection and promotion of human rights. Days before the end of its five-year tenure, the outgoing parliament in July unanimously approved bills establishing the Ethiopian human rights commission and the office of the ombudsman. Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said during a visit in October that her agency would open a regional office in Addis Ababa to work with the countries of the Horn of Africa and the OAU.