Protest in City Heights of Controversial Ethiopian Consulate Meeting

San Diego Free Press

Local Ethiopian Community Invited to Attend Meeting, Allege They Were Kicked Out for Protesting Ethiopian Government’s Human Rights Abuses
by Anna Daniels

Lines of taxicabs were parked along Fairmount Avenue in City Heights yesterday afternoon–Sunday April 28. Police cars were parked in front of the Golden Hall East African Community and Cultural Center where approximately sixty people were holding a protest that spilled into the adjacent parking lot. Signs with “Stop Human Rights Abuses” were visible among the group waving Ethiopian and American flags.
According to protesters, the Ethiopian Consulate from Los Angeles was barricaded inside the cultural center with an undetermined number of members of the San Diego and Los Angeles Ethiopian Community. The Consulate was attending a widely publicized meeting to promote the purchase of bonds to build a controversial dam in Ethiopia that threatens the livelihood of thousands of indigenous peoples.
Protesters maintained that flyers advertising the meeting had been left in City Heights Ethiopian markets and restaurants. One woman told me that when the protesting group entered the cultural center they were met with invectives, hostility and intimidation before being dispersed from the meeting which had been publicized as open to the public.
Protesters were anxious to describe the current conditions in Ethiopia under a government led by the minority Tigray tribe. Someone handed me the 2012 US State Department Human Rights Watch which detailed the Ethiopian government suppression of journalists and bloggers and the alarming incidences of imprisonment and torture. There is no independent press in Ethiopia and dissenting political views are often treated as “terrorism.”
The enormous dam under construction in Ethiopia, undertaken by the current government/Tigray minority, has become a flash point for inter-tribal tensions. The protesters represented non-Tigray ethnic and tribal groups who described being left out of the dam planning process, despite the profound impacts it would have upon their villages.
Because the funding for the dam has not been fully secured, the government has demanded that the populace pay directly for the needed bonds. Protesters described the pressure brought to bear on businesses and individuals to make “donations” for the bonds. Protesters that I spoke with emphasized that dissenters are imprisoned under horrendous conditions. “We have freedom here in this country, but our families have no such freedom,” was repeated by men and women holding both the American and Ethiopian flags.
According to the Ethiopian Review, “The Ethiopian National Transitional Council (ENT) has sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) demanding an investigation into the legality of the Nile dam bond sales that are being conducted in the US. The letter challenges the commission that the sales are in violation of the US trade laws and the Ethiopian Embassy in the US has no legal ground to do such business. ”
There were a few signs protesting the World Bank decision to fund the dam project. I asked protesters what response they feel is important from the US government. Many of them said that we cannot keep supporting the Ethiopian government politically and economically when we have reports outlining the extent and severity of human rights abuses there. They supported sanctions, if necessary, to pressure the government as well as a full fledged investigation of the legality of the bond process being carried out here in the United States.
While the protesters included activists from Los Angeles, the majority of the people were residents of San Diego, and more specifically City Heights, where so many taxicab drivers and their families live. Cars driving past honked their horns in support. At one point, parishioners from a local Ethiopian church joined the group. Protesters described a tradition of Muslims and Christians living side by side in Ethiopia. They emphasized that the protest was not a reflection of religious divisions. No one spoke about the Ethiopian government’s recent active persecution of Muslims.
Human Rights Watch describes the current situation in Ethiopia:

The death in August 2012 of Ethiopia’s powerful prime minister, Meles Zenawi, led to new leadership but seems unlikely to result in tangible human rights reforms. Ethiopian authorities continue to severely restrict freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Thirty journalists and opposition members have been convicted under the country’s vague Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, and security forces responded to protests by Muslim communities with excessive force and arbitrary detentions. The Ethiopian government continues to forcibly resettle hundreds of thousands of rural villagers, including indigenous peoples, as part of its “villagization” program, relocating them through violence and intimidation, and often without essential services.

There is perhaps an even larger story to consider here. The dam constructed in Ethiopia will have consequences upon another eleven countries which rely heavily upon the Nile for agriculture, fishing and electrical power. This raises the obvious concern that the next war in the region may not be about politics at all. It will be about water.