By Aaron Maasho
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Dozens of university students protested in
Ethiopia's capital on Tuesday, demanding an end to police crackdowns that
followed months of demonstrations over plans to requisition farmland in the
country's Oromiya region late last year.
The government
wanted to develop farmland around the capital, Addis Ababa, and its plan
triggered some of the worst civil unrest for a decade, with rights groups and
U.S.-based dissidents saying as many as 200 people may have been killed.
Officials suggest
the figure is far lower but have not given a specific number.
Ethiopia has long
been one of the world's poorest nations but has industrialized rapidly in the
past decade and now boasts double-digit growth. However, reallocating land is a
thorny issue for Ethiopians, many of whom are subsistence farmers.
Authorities scrapped
the land scheme in January, but sporadic demonstrations persist and, on
Tuesday, students from Addis Ababa University marched in two groups toward the
embassy of the United States, a major donor, holding signs that read "We
are not terrorists. Stop killing Oromo people."
Such protests are
rare in a country where police are feared as heavy-handed and the government is
seen as repressive.
A government
spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ethiopia's Prime
Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has promised to address grievances in the Oromiya
region and says he blames rebel groups for stoking violence.
Opponents blame harsh police tactics.
"The aim was to
highlight the abuses carried out in the region," one student told Reuters,
saying he did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals.
"We waved white
cloth to indicate that we were peaceful protesters. But police started beating
us up," he said.
New York-based Human
Rights Watch said last month that protesters it spoke to and who had been
detained after the outbreak of demonstrations in November had been subjected to
severe beatings and never appeared before a judge.
The group said women
suffered sexual assaults and mistreatment. It said one 18-year-old student was
"given electric shocks to his feet".
Officials dismissed
the report as not worthy of comment.
(Editing by Edith Honan and Louise Ireland)
Source: Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment