Ethiopia reform wave rolls on, opposition no longer “terrorists”

ADDIS ABABA, (Reuters) - Ethiopia fired its prisons chief and took three opposition groups off its “terrorist” list yesterday, the latest steps in Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s bold push to shake the African giant from decades of security-obsessed rule.

The sacking of the head of the prison service, along with four senior colleagues, came hours before a Human Rights Watch report that detailed torture at one notorious prison and urged the government to hold officials to account.

Announcing the dismissals, Attorney General Berhanu Tsegaye said prison officers must respect individual rights outlined in the constitution, a rare public rebuke to the country’s security apparatus.

His remarks echoed Abiy’s stunning criticism of security forces last month in which the 41-year-old, who holds a doctorate in peace and security studies, acknowledged widespread police brutality and likened it to state terrorism.

“Does the constitution stipulate that prisoners should be flogged and beaten? It does not,” he told a televised sitting of parliament. “Police flogged. This is unconstitutional. Police were terrorists.”

In office for just three months, Abiy has turned politics on its head in the Horn of Africa nation of 100 million.

Foremost among his reforms was the launch last month of peace talks with neighbour and sworn enemy Eritrea, against whom Ethiopia waged a 1998-2000 border war in which 80,000 people are thought to have died.

He has also rescinded a state of emergency and announced plans to partially open up the economy, including attracting foreign capital into the state-run telecoms company and national airline - both mouthwatering investment prospects given Ethiopia’s size and pacy growth.

Following the recent release of political prisoners, parliament ruled on Thursday the Oromo Liberation Front and the Ogaden National Liberation Front, two secessionist groups, and the ‘Ginbot 7’, an exiled opposition movement, were no longer “terrorist” groups.

The shake-up by the polyglot former soldier from the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest, has won plaudits from Asmara to Washington and drawn comparisons to the 1980s ‘perestroika’ reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

However, it has also attracted opposition from hardliners in the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the ethnic Tigrayan party that has dominated the ruling EPRDF coalition - and by association the country and economy - for nearly three decades.

Two people were killed in a grenade blast at a massive pro-Abiy Abiy Ahmed

rally in Addis Ababa last month, with the finger of blame pointed at those opposed to his reform drive.

There has been no claim of responsibility but the attack underscored the scale of Abiy’s challenge and raised fears - including from Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki that Ethiopia’s new leader may not prevail.

“Ethiopia is now at a turning point or transition. What is the destination? How will this be achieved?” Isaias said last month in Asmara’s first response to Abiy’s peace overtures.

In Tigrayan areas near the Eritrean border, locals criticised Abiy’s olive branch to Asmara, while the TPLF warned that it would “not take part in any process that harms the people of Tigray”. (Reuters) - The United States yesterday sanctioned three Nicaraguan officials, including the country’s police chief and the head of its oil company, for human rights abuses and corruption, the U.S. Treasury Department said.

The three officials sanctioned are Francisco Javier Diaz Madriz, Nicaragua’s police commissioner; Fidel Antonio Moreno Briones, the secretary of the Managua mayor’s office; and Jose Francisco Lopez Centeno, president of the state-owned oil company Petronic and vicepresident of Albanisa, a private company that imports and sells Venezuelan petroleum products.

The sanctions were imposed on the officials because of concerns over the “ongoing crisis in Nicaragua,” including “violence perpetrated by security forces and others that have resulted in the death of at least 220 demonstrators, and nearly 1,500 injured,” the statement said.

Under the sanctions, assets belonging to the officials in the United States are blocked and U.S. citizens are prohibited from engaging in transactions with them or entities they own or control, the Treasury said in a statement.

“The violence perpetrated by the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega against the Nicaraguan people and the efforts of those close to the Ortega regime to illicitly enrich themselves is deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable,” Sigal Mandelker, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.

In 2007, Ortega’s government started receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in oil cooperation from Venezuela. Most of those funds are run by Albanisa to finance social projects and build a business conglomerate to pay back the loans.

Protests began in April against Ortega’s perceived corrupt and authoritarian regime. Police and masked militias fired at the protesters, leaving more than 200 people dead.