Re: Inciting hatred without absolution- Negaso Gidada volunteers and Accepts Guilt and Wants to be Punished or to be accountable as he put it....
This a very interesting story unfolding in Minnesota. The former President claims there was a lot of injustice done to Ethiopia under his watch and wants to be accountable if Ethiopia decides to charge the case.
Will the current Ethiopian Government Charge Negaso Gidada based on his own admission. Will this be an issue at the next meeting of Ethiopian Parliament.
This is a very good and interesting development, accpeting responsiblity for crimes committed under ones watch. Is he really saying he is reponsible or trying to pass the buck off and yet point fingers at others.
Please read the following interesting "Ethiopian parliamentarian summer brake activities,.....
Twin Cities Planet, Minnesota
Posted: Sat, 07/28/2007
Plight of ethnic groups in Ethiopia discussed at U
conference
By Abdi Aynte , Minnesota Monitor
15,000 Oromo in Minnesota include many victims of
torture, persecution.
Seldom does a former head of state express remorse
about crimes committed under his watch, but that's
exactly what Dr. Negasso Gidada, the former president
of Ethiopia, told more than 100 people Thursday
evening at the University of Minnesota.
Speaking at the Oromo second annual international
human rights conference, Gidada said he's "ready to be
accountable for crimes I committed … and those
committed by the Ethiopian government" during his
tenure.
Most of the people in attendance were Oromo, the
largest of Ethiopia's 86 ethnic groups. Gidada also is
an Oromo, but the current regime is dominated by a
minority ethnic group called the Tigre. He held the
largely ceremonial post of president between 1995 and
2001.
Now an opposition member in the Ethiopian parliament,
Gidada admitted that the "rule of law was enforced
brutally" while he was president. But he reiterated
that he couldn't stop most of those crimes, because
the power lied with the Tigre prime minister.
More than 15,000 Oromo refugees, the largest anywhere
in the country, live in Minnesota, according to the
Oromo-American Citizenship Council, which helped
organize the event.
The State Department's human rights index ranks
Ethiopia, a close U.S. ally in the war on terror, as
one of the worst human rights violators in the world.
Oromo-Americans said they are particularly
disappointed with how the United States turned its
back on the protection of human rights in their
country.
Ethiopia is already fighting a proxy war for the U.S.
in Somalia, said Professor Abdi Samatar, a panelist
who teaches geography and global studies at the
University of Minnesota.
"With blessings from Washington, the Ethiopian
military killed thousands in Somalia since January,
displaced 450,000 and destroyed one-third of
Mogadishu's infrastructure," said Samatar, who studied
Ethiopia closely as a Fulbright scholar seven years
ago.
A study by the Minneapolis-based Center for Victims of
Torture found in 2004 that 69 percent of all Oromo men
and 37 percent of women in Minnesota were victims of
torture -- one of the highest percentages among
refugees in the state.
`Color of your passport matters'
Minnesota is also home to the largest Anuak ethnic
population in the United States. When Ethiopian
soldiers were in the middle of killing more than 400
Anuak people in three days in 2003, Obang Metho,
executive director of the Anuak Justice Council,
called the U.S. State Department.
According to Metho, who also spoke at the event, the
woman who answered his 1 a.m. call told him: "'People
are killed over there all the time,'" and the phone
went dead. Metho, who now lives in Canada, called back
five minutes later. The woman chided him but before
she could take her next breath, he interjected that
U.S. citizens could be among the dead. Then he hung up
on her.
The woman called back with a frantic question: "'Do
you know where they live? Their Social Security
numbers?'" Metho supplied whatever information he had.
Less than two hours later, he received a call from the
U.S. embassy in Addis Ababa, informing him that staff
members were on the way to Gambella, where the
massacre was under way. But they needed his help.
"At that time, I learned that the color of your
passport matters," he said.
Hope in legislation
Members of the Ethiopian community in Minnesota and
across the nation, who organized a massive rally
Thursday morning at the state Capitol, are hoping for
eventual passage of a bill that cleared a subcommittee
in the U.S. House of Representatives last week.
The bill, authored by Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J.,
connects U.S. financial and military assistance to
Ethiopia to improved human rights, freedom of the
press and democracy.
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who spoke at the
Oromo human rights conference through video uplink,
told the audience that he supports the bill.
"Those who committed human rights violations ought to
be brought to justice," he said.
