June 11, 2005
Meles speaks
Reuters got the first interview with Meles Zenawi yesterday. I would have been there if I hadn't been "detained" for about half an hour down the road between Urael Church and the Atlas Hotel. Federal police caught me lurking around after a minor clash between young men and police in the Bole Tele area.
As ever, there had been conflicting reports. One person said youths had been putting rocks in the road to block traffic and ran away when the federal police arrived. Another "witness" said the youths had started throwing stones after police started arresting young men hanging around a barber's shop. He added that the police opened fire - but I didn't hear any shots.
The bit that I saw for myself was when the federal police started driving up and down the road, arresting the youths who had taken shelter in various shacks and the grounds of Urael church.
Once they had spotted me they held me for a bit then asked me to get into one of the trucks. But then the rest of the photographers (and two passing election observers) arrived and used a bit of snapper solidarity to stop me getting in. A few phone calls to the embassy and Reuters, and a lengthy check of everyone's paperwork, eventually sorted it all out and we were allowed to go - with an apology from the senior officer.
Back to the real story.
The main line from the interview was that Meles Zenawi defended the use of force against demonstrators this week.
"Things were beginning to get out of control. At that stage it was prudent to stop this with forceful action," he said in his first public pronouncement on the unrest."My guess is that the worst is behind us, both in terms of the scale of disturbances and most certainly in terms of deaths involved."
"We deeply regret that lives have been lost, and if there has been an instance of excessive use of force, that is obviously something we will look into."
Here is the full story:
Ethiopia PM defends crackdown on poll unrest (Reuters)
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Friday defended a crackdown on post-election unrest in which security forces shot dead at least 26 people but said the worst of the violence was now over.
Posted by aheavens at June 11, 2005 5:19 AM