Thinking of Burma - two years after the bloodbath of Addis

Thinking of Burma - No longer a bear, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Here is Fred standing by a wall in Addis Ababa. This was two days after the Ethiopian government forces (police and army) killed over 40 protestors and arrested over 2,000 people after they came onto the streets to try to overturn the election result which everyone (including the EU observers) had been fixed by minority ruling faction.

The streets were as good as empty everywhere by this stage (on the day of the murders we had been in Lalibela, arriving in Addis luckily a day later) and were relatively safe, although army convoys patrolled the main streets of the city.

The regime is still in power and sits cosily next to the US on its War on Terror, even getting help from the Americans to invade and occupy neighbouring Somalia.

And not only that... the Ethiopian minority governement is moving against Somali people living in its own borders in the Ogaden, denying them food supplies. If Ethiopia is really not interested in the people living in the Ogaden, why do they just not give up claims to the area and give it back to the Somali people. These people, by thway, have Queen Victoria to thabnk for giving their land away to the Ethiopian Empire (as it was then). It was the Empire's reward for having beaten the Italians at Adwa in 1897.

Who are the real terrorists?