Ethiopia denies using food aid for repression
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ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia rejected on Thursday claims by a rights group that it manipulates food and other aid to clamp down on opposition parties.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report on Tuesday that it had documented cases of opposition supporters in rural areas being denied emergency food aid and access to a long-running food-for-work scheme.
Both schemes are foreign-funded and HRW said donors, including the United States and Britain, were shutting their eyes to repression.
"Aid is not wasted in Ethiopia and is distributed effectively to all who require it," the Ethiopian foreign ministry said in a statement. "Income distribution is graced with fairness and justice."
The government statement said the World Bank, the IMF and the United Nations had verified the fairness of aid distribution in Ethiopia.
"Our previous efforts to engage with HRW have been met with contempt," the statement said. "The organisation seems bent on undermining the democratic process in Ethiopia."
Ethiopia is one of the world's largest recipients of foreign aid, receiving more than $3 billion in 2008, according to HRW.
Ethiopia is a key Western ally in the Horn of Africa, where it is seen as a bulwark against militant Islamism. It also wants to attract foreign investment in large-scale farming and oil and gas exploration.
The rights group said that repression of the opposition was ramped up ahead of the ruling party's overwhelming election victory in May.
The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front and allies won 545 seats in the 547-member parliament in a vote that was criticized by the United States and the European Union.
It is amazing how Food Aid can be converted into a political drama, when the US is actively using private money to influence electioins and it not considered a crime to buy or influence a vote in the US and then it becomes such a great crime some where else.
These donations come from outside the system. It may be Human Rights Watch in Ethiopia and the TEA Party and KOCH borthers in America.
Imagine, who is calling faul. The same Harvard MBAs and Lawyers who allowed the worst crash in history by criminal marketing of false securities, derivatives and hedge funds that do not exist.
The same crooks want to pontificate about justice and human rights. Ethiopians know better and call a spade a spade!
They need to be told the truth and made accountable for their blasphemy!
These goons need A Global COFFEE Party Network to talk to them!
Ethiopia denies stifling opposition by withholding aid
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia rejected charges by Human Rights Watch that it was using donor aid to suppress political dissent, in a statement issued Thursday.
Ethiopia "categorically rejects that it politicises the use of development aid in any shape or form," said the foreign ministry statement.
The New York-based watchdog had said in a report Tuesday the Ethiopian government was denying development aid both to farmers who did not support the regime and families of opposition members.
Rejecting the allegation, the ministry statement said that a probe by a group of donors in January had found that the aid money was being used as intended.
"The allegations made by the Human Rights Watch simply do not reflect reality," the statement added.
"Indeed this would apppear to be an attempt by Human Rights Watch to gratuitously blackmail the international community as part of its ongoing vendetta against the government of Ethiopia."
In its report, the rights group said donors were turning a blind eye to the "repression" in the Horn of Africa country.
"Donors who finance the Ethiopian state need to wake up to the fact that some of their aid is contributing to human rights abuses," the group said.
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