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Ethiopia's UDJ opposition leader faces fresh challenges
Judge Birtukan Mideksa. who is from the country's largest Oromo ethnic group, is the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history

Ethiopia's UDJ opposition leader faces fresh challenges

Jimma Times

The leadership of Ethiopia's biggest opposition party, the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), faces fresh threats from the Ethiopian government after the party made statements that angered Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling party. UDJ's chairperson Judge Birtukan Mideksa told her supporters in Europe that her party never asked for pardon to the government to be released from jail last year.

The Meles government wants her to renounce her statements or face life imprisonment.

UDJ-Andenet is a party born out of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) party which won the most number of opposition seats in parliament after the disputed 2005 election in Ethiopia. The post-election violence killed almost 200 protestors, with police shooting bullets in the head of civilians, while some bystanders were also gunned down. This election crisis, and the following imprisonment of the CUD leadership, tarnished the image of the Ethiopian government worldwide but Birtukan and her colleagues were later released after allegedly signing an apology letter to the government.

According to local media, the federal police has warned Birtukan Mideksa's party and gave a three-day ultimatum to rectify her statements. Jimma Times sources state that she had organized a meeting to discuss this new problem with the leadership committee and supporters, but the final decision from this meeting is unknown.

One UDJ official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told a Jimma Times correspondant in Ethiopia that Birtukan should apologize for her statement because it would not make a difference. "The world already knows who killed the 200 civilians in 2005 and the world knows the rationale for this apology letter drama, so Birtukan should rectify her words in Sweden to avoid going to jail for the regime's crimes the second time," he added.

Many opposition supporters in Ethiopia still want to see the policemen who shot the civilians to be held accountable but they are concerned such pursuit will lead to opposition leaders being put back in prison. According to sources in the capital, various pro-government private newspapers in Ethiopia are taking advantage of this crisis by connecting the unrelated resignation interests of UDJ officials to the police ultimatum in order to portray an internal division inside the UDJ.

Next national elections in Ethiopia are scheduled for 2010 but it is unknown whether opposition parties will participate.

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Comments 16 comments for this article
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Added: December 25, 2008. 10:08 PM GMT
woyane is the most wicked, criminal group in world history!!
Anonymous
Added: December 25, 2008. 10:43 PM GMT
bertukan, please say what woyane wants and save yourself and your family grief
dawit
Added: December 25, 2008. 11:45 PM GMT
UDJ should be very careful with the Reporter and Ethiochannel newspapers in ethiopia. they are both agents of the TPLF killers who are dreaming of breaking apart andenet party the same way they divided kinjit
i recommend no executive staff of udj to make any comments, any contact with these woyane newspapers
God bless our heroes UDJ and Birtukan!!!!!!!
DR
Added: December 26, 2008. 02:48 AM GMT
weyane is trully shameless!!
it is amazing that the murderers are out there free but weyane is chasing innocent people who never owned a single gun in their lives
Anonymous
Added: December 26, 2008. 06:08 AM GMT
these nafxenya groups will always break apart because they have no support not because of the minority dictatorship

and putting ms.mideksa the lone oromo face on this nafxenya megafest will not fool our oromo people. we are not stupid
warso
Added: December 26, 2008. 07:52 AM GMT
I can believe why everyone claiming Woyane this or that. She (Birtukan)want to be famous over nonsense. She disrespected the governement by denying the paper she signed. She is playing hide and seek with the government and I hope that they put her back to Kalati prison when she belongs.

If you want to be a part of anything in Ethiopia, you must be respectful of everyone involved. You can not just disrespect the governmet and the people so that you can hope on to a Minilik palace.

I rather have Islam rule Ethiopia than this Kahadi protestestant. She denied her culture and country by accepting foreing religion.

Anonymous
Added: December 26, 2008. 02:29 PM GMT
hell or heaven
Dear birituke,



you missed your compass first when you made your unprecedented political marriage with old abyssinians and second when you played games with criminal wayane. 'WEDESH KETEDEFASH, BIREGTUSH AYIKIFASH'. BEAR THE CONSEQUENCE OR REPENT AND SAVE YOURSELF FROM QALITI. you guys act as mature politicians, and use 'the end justify the means' if you want to stay in politics. otherwise all of you will go bak to your cells down there. sorry for that, but that is the fate awaiting for you.



cibsaa dhogasa
Added: December 26, 2008. 03:26 PM GMT
let`s stand
we have to be rational to judge both paries.ok what is wrong with TPLF?
ethiopia is better than ever with TPLF.i dan`t mean that it is best with TPLF.
let`s open our eyes
Anonymous
Added: December 26, 2008. 06:11 PM GMT
let us be patient, weyane's days are numbered
Anonymous
Added: December 27, 2008. 10:14 AM GMT
For UDJ to survive, it should have clear position on Oromo's right to Self-determination!
For UDJ to survive, it is not enough to put an Oromo lady in a leading position, but it should articulate clear position on the right of Oromos to self-determination. Not only talking about change, but the direction of change they want to bring must be clear.

I hope we will see a change in the coming new year. Change is not bad, but the question is to what or which direction? I know Abeshas need a change towards forging a UNITARY Ethiopia, with no respect for rights of different nations in the empire. But to their Merdo, the change needed by Oromos is otherwise.

Here is the suggestion from Oromos on the issue regarding how to live in Unity with Abyssinians. The whole message sounds: good GURBITINNAA is better than bad GAABICHAA!

Whenever we read Abeshas crying for unity, we need to ask them: before or after liberty? (the mode of question patients ask their doctors). For us Oromos, Unity at the cost of our national Liberty is unthinkable. But after being liberated, we can discuss on the issue, wether we think the benefit of unity is more than its challenge!

Till now we had two relations, which failed to unite us:

- Bad Gaabichaa (symbol for unitary system till 1991), where Oromos suffered under domination of amharas, and

- Bad Debbalinnet (symbol for federalism from 1991 till now), where Oromos suffered under domination of Tigarus.

Just learning from these two bad experience, here is the priority set up we Oromos want that Abeshas should understand. I think, to put things in priority, we need to live in the future together as follows:

1) in good GAABICHAA, if the marriage is really based on love. As far as I understand, our “marriage” was based on XELEFAA (forced marriage), not on love. That is why the hitherto marriage is rather bad marriage, which definetly will lead to divorce!

2) in good DEBBAALINET, if the “unity” we need is based on free will. As far as I know our hitherto “unity” is a forced unity at gun point, so that it will be lost at gun point!

3) in good GURBITINNAA (symbol for independence longed by oppressed nations), which is better than bad GAABICHAA and bad DEBBAALINET! It is better to live in peace as GOREBET than to fight each other to death by living in one home!

4) If the above three good options fail, the only alternative will be the last: MEGEDAADEL (be devided in clans and kill each other).

It is our all responsibility to avoid this last option and to try to forge one of the first three. I believe the marriage based on love is utopia. Yet optimal solution is UNION based on free will. If these two good options fails, good neighbourhood is better than the bad alternative aka killing each other whereas living in one common home! Can you people crying about YE IMIYE ANDINET agree on this??”
Fayyis
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