Kagame's leading challenger in the presidential election scheduled for August is Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.
Kagame's leading challenger in the presidential election scheduled for August is Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.
Kagame, who has not allowed her to register her candidacy, jailed her briefly a month ago, and today (May 28, 2010) he jailed her American attorney, Peter Erlinder, lead defense counsel in the Military-1 trial at the U.N.'s International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda.
Opposition leader and former judge, Birtukan Mideksa, has again been imprisoned (Dec. 2008) by the US-backed regime of Meles Zenawi
And from: ADDIS ABABA, July 20 (Reuters) – Ethiopia's highest court on Tuesday rejected a case brought by the country's opposition against the ruling party's landslide May election victory, finally exhausting legal appeals for the defeated parties.
The ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its allies won 545 seats in the 547-member parliament. Both a European Union observer mission and the United States criticised the overwhelming victory.
…
Medrek and other opposition parties alleged widespread pre-poll intimidation during a campaign in which both sides claimed candidates and activists were murdered. Medrek also said there was some vote rigging.
Eight-party Medrek won just a single parliamentary seat in the poll. The other seat went to an independent candidate.
The aftermath of the May 23 poll is being watched by Western diplomats in a country that is a growing destination for investment and is Washington's key ally in the Horn of Africa, where it is seen as standing against Islamic militancy.
So do you think Washington will do anything to encourage more free and representative government in Ethiopia? Ethiopia has been one of the principle US and western proxies for interfering in Somali affairs. I'm willing to bet that looking, and not all too carefully at that, is all the US and western governments will do for Ethiopian democracy. So far the US and EU have blithely ignored the electoral regularities and atrocious human rights record of Ethiopia's Zenawi.
EU and U.S. say poll short of international standards
The 2005 elections ended with the then opposition disputing the government's victory. Riots broke out in Addis Ababa in which 193 protestors and seven policemen were killed. The top opposition leaders were jailed until 2007.
The lone opposition member to win a seat in parliament:
Girma won his seat in Addis Ababa's Mercato district, seen as Africa's biggest open-air market and one of the city's poorer areas.
“I won because a lot of my voters were merchants who are economically independent,” he said. “They weren't civil servants or unemployed and subject to the same forms of intimidation as a lot of other people. I was lucky.”
Girma's victory was slim, however, and he only beat his ruling party opponent by a margin of 114 votes in a constituency where both he and his father were born.
(Reuters)
The strongest of the opposition leaders, Birtukan Mideksa, is still in jail serving a life sentence. The conditions in Ethiopian prisons are dreadful, as I wrote in Guantanamo in Ethiopia. Birtukan Mideksa's health is deteriorating. Meles Zenawi and his western allies may not have to worry about the threat she poses to their political expediency much longer if she does not get proper medical attention and care.
In Ethiopia the US has acted as an enabler of anti democratic practices, pouring aid and encouragement on Meles Zenawi, regardless of his dreadful human rights record. Meles is also a great favorite of US Senators and Congressmen who are members of the politically powerful religious cult, The Family, who help appropriate and funnel millions of US taxpayer dollars to his regime.
… the Ethiopian government got its fingers burnt when it held multi-party elections in 2005 that it almost lost — and has been busy clamping down on opposition parties and free speech ever since.
________
UGANDA
In Uganda elections are coming up in the next year, in early 2011. Uganda is a great favorite of the US Africa Command, and of the Pentagon in general. Along with Burundi, Uganda provides the proxy warriors acting on behalf of the US and EU in Somalia known as AMISOM. Uganda also provides soldiers employed by US military contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world. Uganda's President Museveni is also a great favorite of the Senators and Congressmen who are members of The Family, who help appropriate and funnel millions of US taxpayer dollars to his regime. Continued
Source: http://crossedcrocodiles.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/africom-undermining-democracy-in-east-africa/
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