Ethiopian dictatorship uses food aid to punish dissent: HRW

Human Rights Watch has accused the Ethiopian regime of using food aid to punish political opponents.

HRW reports that farmers who do not support the ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi are rebuffed in their attempts to gain access to loans, fertilizer and seeds.

The NGO added families of opposition members are banned from a food for work project which supports seven million poor people in Ethiopia.

These are particularly heinous acts in a country suffering from chronic food shortages.

Ethiopia is one of the world's largest recipients of foreign aid, receiving over $3 billion from abroad in 2008.

Despite these actions and the de facto dictatorship's repressive crackdown on dissent, HRW noted that foreign aid to the regime doubled between 2004 and 2008.

Guinea slaughter was 'premeditated', says NGO

A recent report by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch concluded that massacre by the Guinean 'security' forces which killed over 150 was in fact premeditated.

The country's military dictator Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara had blamed the killings on out-of-control members of the military and Red Berets (presidential guard). The argument seemed plausible as army discipline has long been a problem in the country, especially the mutiny-turned-coup attempt of 2-3 February 1996, which I lived through.

Dadis also had the audacity to partly blame the demonstrators, who'd gathered to peacefully protest his decision to break his promise and run in next January's presidential election.

This remarkable piece of reportage by France 24 (unfortunately available only in French) reveals beyond any shadow of a doubt the messiah complex that has clearly seized Dadis.

HRW found that members of the Presidential Guard carried out a premeditated massacre of at least 150 people on September 28 and brutally raped dozens of women. Red berets shot at opposition supporters until they ran out of bullets, then continued to kill with bayonets and knives.

The Africa director of HRW said, "Security forces surrounded and blockaded the stadium, then stormed in and fired at protesters in cold blood until they ran out of bullets. They carried out grisly gang rapes and murders of women in full sight of the commanders. That’s no accident."

HRW also discounted claims that the massacre was provoked. It obtained video evidence showing that the crowd in Conakry's main stadium had a "peaceful and celebratory atmosphere" with "singing, dancing... and even praying."

The NGO added that it has not seen any evidence that any opposition supporters were armed, and no security officials were wounded by opposition supporters at the stadium, suggesting that there was no legitimate threat posed by the opposition supporters that required the violence that followed.

It added that the violence started as soon as the Presidential Guard savages entered the stadium and "began firing point-blank directly into the massive crowd."

Human rights' giant dies in plane crash

Last Thursday, 49 people were killed when a plane crashed near Buffalo, NY. One of the victims was Alison Des Forges of Human Rights Watch.

Des Forges was regarded as the world's leading expert on the 1994 Rwandan genocide and its aftermath and has testified many times at the Rwanda war crimes tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania. She wrote the report "Leave None to Tell the Story," which is considered the seminal work on the genocide, as well as several other influential reports on post-genocide Rwanda.

HRW adds, Clear-eyed and even-handed, Des Forges made herself unpopular in Rwanda by insisting that the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front forces, which defeated the genocidal regime, should also be held to account for their crimes, including the murder of 30,000 people during and just after the genocide.

Though "just" a human rights activist, Des Forges was one of those people who made a huge impact on behalf of justice from a position of little inherent power. She was an inspiration to human rights activists and proponents around the world.

Des Forges was 66.

Guinean junta summons industry leaders, is warned by Human Rights Watch

From: Friends of Guinea blog

Note: Reprinted with permission.

Guinea's military junta summoned industry leaders earlier this week, including representatives of the country's lucrative and controversial mining sector, before a commission investigating corruption.

Meanwhile, the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch called on the junta to hold members of the former regime accountable for human rights' abuses.

"Guinea stands at an historic crossroads," said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Improving the chronic human rights problems that have undermined the civil, political, social, and economic rights of the Guinean population for decades must be a top priority of the current government."
Since 2006, Human Rights Watch has done extensive research into patterns of human rights abuses against ordinary Guineans, including torture, extrajudicial executions, widespread extortion, and the brutal repression of street protests. The evidence in the vast majority of these cases shows that the abuses have been committed by members of the security forces, but the government has rarely investigated these cases, much less brought those responsible to justice. This failure to act, coupled with a weak judiciary, characterized by a lack of independence from the executive branch, inadequate resources, and corruption, has left ordinary Guineans with scant hope for redress.

In 2007, then-head of state Lansana Conté agreed to set up a commission to investigate extrajudicial killings and other abuses related to the repression of that year's general strike. However, the commission never really started its work. In an interview with Radio France Internationale, Dufka called on Dadis to order the commission to start its work and cooperate with it.