ADDIS ABABA — 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: New York Times
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