EU calls for public inquiry into Tepi, Awasa killings

The European Union has called on Ethiopia to hold a public inquiry into clashes between security forces and protesters that left 128 dead, diplomats told IRIN on Wednesday. Three ambassadors representing the EU member states urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure an "open transparent and public" inquiry into the incident. The clashes erupted after an ethnic group in the Tepi Region, some 700 km southwest of Addis Ababa, protested over the result of local elections. The EU's call comes after Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi discussed the killings with EU head Romano Prodi. They also discussed the May shootings in Awasa in which at least 17 people were killed in clashes between demonstrators and police. The EU has also called for an inquiry into that incident. Diplomats said that Zenawi was "deeply concerned" by the killings. The appeal by the EU also follows a weeklong diplomatic mission it sent to Tepi to establish what had happened. The Netherlands Embassy led the five-member team. It presented its findings last week to the president of the region, Haile Mariam Dessalegn, and urged him to support an open inquiry. "We don't want this pushed under the carpet," a senior diplomat told IRIN. "We want an investigation and the people responsible for ordering the killings, both for Awasa and Tepi, to be held to account." The EU is one of the largest donors of development aid to Ethiopia, and has pledged some US $480 million over the next five years. They have also given money for the establishment of a Human Rights Commission and an Ombudsman. Tepi Killings The Tepi killings, in March, erupted after the Sheko-Mezhenger People's Democratic Union Organisation demonstrated against the outcome of the December 2001 elections, saying it won more than one of the local districts - known as Woredas. After an investigation, the National Election Board ruled that the elections were fair; sparking tensions between the local administration and the union. Then, around 300 demonstrators marched into Tepi, capital of Yeki District; armed with spears, machetes and rifles, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council said. In the fighting that followed between police, the Sheko, and the Mezehenger ethnic groups; 24 people were killed among them five policemen and an official from the local administration. Then, special police were deployed into the area, the rights council said, along with troops from neighbouring Gambella Region. After the initial skirmishes a month-long wave of retaliation against the Sheko left 128 dead, although opposition groups put that figure higher. Sources who visited Tepi - a fertile coffee growing region in the Southern Nations and Nationalities People's Region - told IRIN that locals had complained that a mass grave existed although the diplomats had not seen any evidence of this. "One village were visited was effectively razed to the ground," one source said. "Scorch marks were on the tress were their houses had been burned. The villages we visited were empty. Clearly people had fled." The rights council estimated that 1,177 houses were set ablaze in the first days of the incident. "We welcome the move by the European Union," Hailu Makonnan, the secretary-general of rights council, said. "We will have to see if it bears fruit." A spokesman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said local authorities were conducting an investigation whose findings would be submitted to the federal government.