Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PROTESTS & INVASIONS
The 15 May 2005 elections returned the EPRDF and Zenawi to power, but while the elec-
tion run-up and the voting polls were witness to few irregularities, there were numerous re-
ports by EU observers about questionable vote counting at the constituency level and the
announcing of the results by state-run media.
In the years leading up to the elections, dis-
content with the government had been growing
and then, during the election campaigning, op-
position parties alleged cases of intimidation
and arrests of their supporters. On the morning
of 15 May, when the first results were first an-
nounced, it appeared that the opposition parties
had made sweeping gains, but then later that afternoon the EPRDF announced that, aside
from in Addis itself, it had in fact won a majority of seats. Straight away opposition parties
and supporters cried foul play and mass protests broke out in Addis. Government troops ar-
rested thousands of opposition-party members and killed 22 unarmed civilians. Similar
protests and mass strikes occurred in early November, which resulted in troops killing 46
civilians and arresting thousands more. Leaders of political party Coalition for Unity and
Democracy, as well as owners of private newspapers, were also arrested and charged with
inciting the riots. The government's actions were condemned by the EU and many Western
governments, but the election result stood.
Although only published locally,
Eritrea's War
by
Paul Henze delves into the 1998-2000 Ethiopia-
Eritrea War.
In 2006 Ethiopia launched an invasion of
Somalia in order to dislodge the Islamic Courts
Union (ICU), which had gained control of much
of the country (and ironically brought the first
semblance of peace Somalia had seen in years).
By the end of the year Ethiopian troops had
pushed the ICU back to the far south of
Somalia, but they soon found themselves
tangled up in a messy guerrilla war, with the ICU slowly beginning to win back lost
ground. Many observers suspected that Eritrea was secretly arming and aiding the ICU in
its war with Ethiopia. Unwilling to get bogged down in a long and bloody battle in
Somalia, Ethiopia called for an African Union (AU) force to take its place and the Ethiopi-
ans began to withdraw in early 2009.
Despite the official withdrawal, the Ethiopian military made repeated incursions over the
border to fight al-Shabaab (the Islamic militant group who rapidly replaced the ICU after
Despite a slightly condescending view of the 'prim-
itive negroes' Alan Moorehead's
The Blue Nile,
which depicts the history of the river, land and
those who sought its source, remains a classic of
the genre.
