According to information provided to the International Press Institute (IPI), journalists reporting on violent street clashes in Addis Ababa between police and students protesting over the 15 May parliamentary elections have come under increased pressure from the authorities. On 7 June, the Information Ministry revoked the accreditation of five Ethiopian journalists, Taddesse Engidaw and Assegdech Yiberta of Deutsche Welle and Helen Mohammed, Temam Aman and Bereket Teklu of Voice of America (VOA), who were accused of filing "unbalanced reports" on the elections.

Ethiopia has put an opposition leader and his deputy under house arrest hours after clashes in the capital city left 22 dead, an EU observer has reported. Hailu Shawul heads the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), which denies organising student protests in Addis Ababa at alleged election fraud. Addis Ababa has seen three days of street protests at the ruling party's alleged massive use of fraud at the polls.

As may be recalled, state repressive measures against the Ethiopian free press journalists has markedly subsided over the past several months. At present, however, the government seems to have resumed the repression once again. The Ethiopian Free press Journalists' Association (EFJA) has been quite worried about these recent unwelcome developments.

Blindness in Ethiopia results from a wide range of natural and man-made factors, and is also linked to underdevelopment and armed conflict. Neglect, discrimination and lack of awareness means blind people have little access to education, employment, information and other forms of social participation. Information and communication technologies are, however, beginning to overcome these barriers.

Ethiopia’s national elections were heading to a stormy conclusion this week as the country’s two largest opposition groupings refused to accept provisional results showing that the ruling party had held on to power. The main opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) threatened to boycott the next parliamentary session and hold protests if its claims of irregularities in 139 constituencies were not investigated properly.

In May elections, Ethiopian voters made their mark for change, but shortly after the elections the government declared a state of emergency, banned demonstrations and declared victory. Makeda Tsegaye questions why the international community has chose to remain silent about these actions. "Why is the hotly contested election in Ethiopia not getting even one third of the attention that the former Soviet Republic of Georgia received via popular media such as CNN and BBC, which reported the event live from the small European nation? Is it because what is expected from a poor black African nation is nothing but starvation and war?"

Despite being Africa’s oldest independent nation, endowed with adequate natural resources and massive social capital, most people in the world associate Ethiopia with grotesque starvation and war. Indeed, these two unfortunate episodes have easily caught the attention of popular media such as CNN and BBC and the international community. But why is an equally important but rather positive episode not drawing as much attention?

On May 15, 2005, for the first time in the history of the country, some 25 million Ethiopians turned out to vote in the country’s historic parliamentary and regional assembly elections. The huge turnout was prompted by the participation of various political parties who presented an alternative political and economic agenda to people desperate for a change. International observers, including former president Jimmy Carter and his team, and the European Union team led by Ms. Anna Gomez, monitored voting in some of the polling stations. The observers admired the general discipline and peaceful participation of the public, while at the same time highlighting some of the irregularities in the polling stations that they visited.

It is important to note that Ethiopians’ participation in the election, which was characterized by remarkable discipline and peaceful attitude, occurred amid the ruling party’s unconstitutional, illegal and intimidating acts prior to and during the election, including harassment and detention of supporters of the opposition parties mostly in the rural areas. It was these unlawful and clearly undemocratic acts by the ruling party that prompted Human Rights Watch to describe the election as a ‘hollow exercise’ in some parts of the country. Nevertheless, taking advantage of this window of opportunity, Ethiopians have made their demands for a better life and better future clear in an unprecedented way. One week prior to the election, the peoples of Ethiopia demonstrated their support for the opposition parties in the most disciplined and constitutionally approved manner. They repeated the same discipline and peaceful demand for change during the May 15 elections. On the other hand, the opposition parties reported to the National Electoral Board major irregularities in many rural polling stations where their observers were barred whilst expressing their optimism in other areas. What followed this remarkable process is at the crux of this piece.

A day after the election, the ruling party declared a state of emergency in the capital and ordered a month-long ban on demonstrations. Shortly after this announcement, they claimed victory using the state controlled media while admitting defeat in the capital, although votes were still being counted. Worse yet, the National Electoral Board decided to announce results piecemeal, as opposed to publishing provisional results from all constituencies on Saturday May 22, 2005 as originally planned. The National Electoral Board, which is not entirely independent, failed to provide an explanation for the delay. Unsurprisingly, the delay in vote counting elicited major concern amongst the public, especially in light of the ruling party’s repeated claims of victory. In fact, some delayed results appear to have reversed previous results which had been reported in favor of the opposition parties. In the face of all these atrocities, the peoples of Ethiopia could not peacefully protest and defend their votes due to the month-long ban imposed on them by the ruling party. These undemocratic actions of the ruling party are apparent to representatives of the international community within and outside the country. In addition, in March 2005, the international community witnessed the expulsion of three American Civil Society Organizations, namely International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute and IFES that had been working with the National Electoral Board for not more than two months.

The following questions, therefore, remain: why has the international community chosen to be silent? What are the world’s most democratic nations saying about the ruling party’s unconstitutional and undemocratic measures to tamper with people’s votes? It was quite encouraging to see the European Union‘s press release on May 25, which tacitly condemned the ruling party’s undemocratic and illegal use of the public media, and manipulation of the electoral process in general. How long will it take the US to effectively react to the ruling party’s decision of banning post-election demonstration besides “monitoring the situation closely"? Surprisingly, the best resolution that the 21-member Foreign Ambassadors group could come up with on May 22 was to say that "we ask all political leaders to engage in constructive dialogue.” Are we still talking about political parties? Isn’t it clear that Ethiopians have already expressed their will for a change in the most responsible and peaceful manner? Isn’t democracy about responsible citizens exercising their democratic rights to positively change the course of development and governance in their own country? Or is this version of democracy considered a luxury when it comes to Africa?

What happened to the unwavering support that the peoples of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia enjoyed in their contested election of November 2004? Why is the hotly contested election in Ethiopia not getting even one third of the attention that the former Soviet Republic of Georgia received via popular media such as CNN and BBC, which reported the event live from the small European nation? Is it because what is expected from a poor black African nation is nothing but starvation and war? Would this not be a good opportunity for the global proponents of democracy to demonstrate that people’s peaceful protest can bear results irrespective of their geographic location in the world? Or is this not considered an option at all for Africans ‘whose fate is predetermined as eternal misery and oppression’?

At this historic moment in the lives of many innocent, hardworking and peace-loving Ethiopians, the world owes those starving children, battered mothers and frustrated farmers a REAL answer.

* Makeda Tsegaye is an Ethiopian woman with a Masters degree in International Peace Studies (with specialization in Economic Development and Peace) currently working for an international development agency in Nairobi, Kenya.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Ethiopia's main opposition party on Monday threatened to boycott the next parliament unless its complaints of alleged vote rigging in last week's general elections were resolved. Hailu Shawel, leader of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), said his party would not join any government if it believed that the elections were unfair.

"The plan by Ethiopia civil society to publically launch the Global Call to Action Against Poverty was intended to generate collective action meet the Millennium Development commitments. Civil society in Ethiopia is the first in the region to create public awareness of the MDGs and this we had been led to believe is a result of openness at the part of your government to address the MDGs. The decision to postpone the national launch of the Global Call to Action against Poverty by your government was therefore uncalled for.  Noting that the Ethiopian Government is a democracy, we would assume that such action would not find space in your government.   More so in the country that has been central in applauding the principles of the African Union and the economic empowerment of the African people."

Ethiopia's biggest opposition coalition accused the ruling party of using "illegal" means to cling to power on Tuesday after it claimed election victory while votes were still being counted. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) said late on Monday it had won enough votes in Sunday's polls to form the next government, although results have not been officially tallied.

Strapped for cash, Ethiopians in the capital Addis Ababa have discovered a new way of campaigning for elections - the text message. Mobile phones are a recent phenomenon in Ethiopia, one of the least developed countries in the world, only emerging in cities and towns in the past five years.

As parliamentary elections approach, the Ethiopian authorities have established new institutions that suppress speech and political activity in the country's most populous region, Human Rights Watch said in a report released this week. At the same time, officials have continued to detain and harass perceived political opponents. The 44-page report, "Suppressing Dissent: Human Rights Abuses and Political Repression in Ethiopia's Oromia Region," documents how regional authorities and security forces have used exaggerated concerns about armed insurgency and "terrorism" to justify the torture, imprisonment and sustained harassment of their critics and even ordinary citizens in the central region of Oromia.

On the 24th day of April 2005, the civil society in Ethiopia was scheduled to officially launch the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) campaign under the motto "Enough with Poverty!" "Enough with Poverty" is part of the GCAP and the MDG campaign organized by a range of civil society actors in Ethiopia, including national coalitions; women, youth, students and teachers associations; community based organizations; associations of the physically disabled and poor peoples associations. The city government of Addis Ababa, in an official letter written on 18 April 2004 and copied to the federal and city police commissions, cancelled the public gathering and postponed it for an indefinite period of time. The authorities gave no reason for canceling this peaceful demonstration other than stating in the letter that "… [they] found it necessary to postpone the public rally for various reasons…."

This paper from the Drylands Coordination Group in Norway looks at the links between gender and HIV/AIDS and food security. It aims to address the challenges that HIV/AIDS and gender inequality pose to development efforts in relation to food security in Ethiopia, in particular on the coping mechanisms related to food security among men and women suffering from HIV/AIDS.

The burning of the Guji-Oromo houses is the latest move in the effort to remove the Guji and Kore people from within the boundaries of the National Park so that it can be developed and managed by the Netherlands-based African Parks Foundation as a wildlife viewing park for well-heeled tourists. It is a condition of the African Parks Foundation contract that no people be present in the Park. Included in the development plans is a fence around part of the Park to keep local people out and wildlife in.

A coalition of Ethiopian groups announced plans on Wednesday to file a lawsuit against the country’s electoral commission, saying that new rules could prevent thousands of local observers from monitoring May’s legislative elections. "We believe this decision by the National Election Board [NEB] is in contravention of the national election law of Ethiopia, and violates our constitutional rights," said Netsanet Demissie, director of the Organisation for Social Justice (OSJ), which comprises 35 Ethiopian organisations.

The number of AIDS-related deaths in Ethiopia could reach 1.8 million by 2008 unless the country takes steps to reduce the current prevalence rate and provide treatment for those living with the disease, according to a report released on Wednesday, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. The 38-page report, titled "Ethiopia HIV/AIDS Emergency Plan," was conducted under the direction of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief by health officials from the United Nations, the United States, and the Ethiopian AIDS secretariat and health ministry.

A meningitis outbreak in Ethiopia has claimed the lives of 40 people and infected more than 433, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told IRIN on Wednesday. Vivian Vansteirteghem, head of health and nutrition at UNICEF-Ethiopia said the country needed US $2.4 million to bridge a funding gap for vaccines and treatment.

Ethiopia may be one of the world's poorest nations but it plans to become information-rich with a massive investment in internet access. Prime minister Meles Zenawi is planning to provide universal net connectivity for the country over the next few years.

The continuing stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea could lead to another war, a senior Eritrean government official said on Friday, noting that under international law, Ethiopia continued to occupy Eritrean territory. Under the Algiers Peace Agreement of December 2000 – which ended a two-year war between the two countries - they agreed to accept the decision of an independent boundary commission on where the border between them should be.

Executive Member of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association (EFJA) Tamiru Geda has condemned the thirteen-year long blatant and systematic violations of freedom of expression by the Meles regime, one of the leading African 'predators of the press'. In a statement he sent from Europe (U.K) to EFJA on 26 March, 2005, Tamiru underlined that press freedom is one of the basic human rights that Meles Zenawi continues to violate. "Since Meles Zenawi has come to power, so many journalists have been thrown in jail, beaten, killed, harassed, intimidated, gagged and forced to live in fear."