Parliament establishes panel to probe violence

A panel to investigate post-election clashes in Ethiopia, where some 88 people have been killed by security forces since June, will publish its findings in three months, parliament ruled on Tuesday. The decision came after the lower House of People's Representatives approved the establishment of an 11-member panel to probe the killings in June and November. Opposition leaders condemned the inquiry - ordered by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi - as a "whitewash" before the panel’s members were even elected. "We do not expect anything credible to come out of this," said Beyene Petros of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, who voted against the commission in parliament. "It will not investigate the causes or the trigger of the violence," he maintained. "Maybe the government has something to hide." Senior government officials said that responsibility for the troubles that have damaged Ethiopia's image both at home and abroad will be determined by the law courts. "This investigation commission will not look at the causes of the killings. This would be left for the court," said Shiferaw Jarso, a senior member of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has held power since 1991. The investigation will assess the damage caused and determine whether armed police and troops who opened fire on the protesters used excessive force. Parliament will announce the names of its 11 members next week. Demonstrations over the May elections and subsequent violence have plunged the country into a political crisis and sparked serious concern among Ethiopia's aid donors. Top opposition leaders have already been arrested and held on suspicion of trying to overthrow the government, a charge they deny. At least a dozen journalists are behind bars, and foreign donors have said they will review aid to the country. Government and state media have laid the blame at the door of the Coalition of Unity and Democracy (CUD), Ethiopia’s largest opposition group that won 109 seats in the 547-seat parliament. Its legislators who announced a boycott of parliament in October were threatened with arrest and stripped of their immunity. Some CUD lawmakers, however, have returned to parliament. On Sunday, jailed CUD leaders who were arrested on 1 November but not charged announced they would go on a hunger strike to protest their incarceration. At least 46 people died early this month in protests over the disputed 15 May elections. In June, 42 were killed in similar demonstrations. The protests began after the main opposition parties accused authorities of rigging the polls that returned the ruling party to power. Among those who died in the violent clashes were at least eight policemen, several of whom were wounded when a grenade was thrown into their vehicle, according to police. Authorities said that they had freed more than 9,000 detainees who were found not to have been directly involved in November’s violence. Police have refrained from making any new announcements about prisoners being released, and opposition members maintained that arrests were continuing.