Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-12-Speech-3-163"
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"en.20051012.16.3-163"2
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"Mr President, many of us believed that, with the May election, there was a democratic breakthrough in Ethiopia. How wrong we were! In the very days following the election, the Meles government showed that it had difficulty accepting that the opposition had had great success. Laws were made, restricting the opposition’s ability to act. The regime is again exercising tight control over the media, there have been repeated arrests of opposition politicians, and peaceful demonstrations have been brutally crushed by the security police, something that led to more than 40 deaths in June.
The events of the last few days unfortunately confirm the picture. The negotiations between the opposition and the government party broke down a few days ago after the government had refused to discuss what, in my view, was a quite natural desire for democratic reforms. As a consequence, a number of opposition members chose not to attend parliament’s forthcoming sitting. The consequence was a law removing these members’ immunity. Those members of the opposition who did attend the sitting were refused the right to participate in the proceedings.
We in this House know that such methods have nothing to do with democracy. In the resolution we are now debating, we are going through the events following the May election. Our intention is not, in the first place, to criticise the government and the government party. Our intention is partly to show the unease, identical to that expressed by Commissioner Michel, that we feel about the developments in Ethiopia and partly to call on both parties to begin negotiations and make use of the opportunity for peaceful and democratic development in Ethiopia, as strongly supported by the May election.
The EU wishes to contribute to positive development in Ethiopia and, in particular, to support the work designed to reduce poverty, but all that can only succeed within the framework of conditions in which the principles of democracy are respected, as well as human freedoms and rights. This is something that the Meles government needs to work on. Otherwise, it is in danger of losing its friends, something that, in the end, would have repercussions for the poor population."@en1
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