ETHIOPIA: An Ethiopian opposition leader who visited Ireland last summer is now in prison in his own country, facing a possible death sentence. Dr Berhanu Nega (47), who is the elected mayor of Addis Ababa, has embarked on a hunger strike as a protest.
During his Irish visit at the end of last June, Dr Nega met officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs. In an Irish Times interview at the time, he said Ireland should reconsider its relationship with the Ethiopian government.
"We want Ireland and the rest of the donor community to be committed to Ethiopian democracy, not to any particular regime," he said. He did not want any cuts in food relief, but "the message has to be clear".
An economist by profession, Dr Nega is one of 131 senior opposition figures, including 10 elected members of parliament, as well as professors, judges and journalists, who are currently detained.
They were arrested following mass street protests last November in which at least 46 people died at the hands of the police. Most of those arrested were charged with treason, but some are being prosecuted for allegedly urging genocide against the Tigrayan ethnic group.
The maximum sentences for the crimes they are charged with range from 25 years in prison to the death penalty, according to Ethiopia's penal code. Minimum sentences for some of the charges are three years' imprisonment.
Dr Nega, who is married and has two children, is also vice-chairman of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD).
He received his PhD in economics at the New School for Social Research in New York in 1991 and served as a professor at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania for three years before returning to his homeland in 1994.
Ethiopia is one of Ireland's eight "programme countries" which receive bilateral government-to-government aid on a long-term basis. Last year the Government contributed €30 million to Ethiopia in Official Development Assistance (ODA).
Calling on the Government to cease all aid to Ethiopia and distribute the money through other channels, chief executive of the aid agency Goal, John O'Shea, said: "Surely the evidence is now incontrovertible and compulsive and the Irish Government cannot be left with any other option."
He said the Government knew that the Ethiopian security forces had killed people on the streets - "but for some extraordinary reason they are continuing the aid". This was "an ostrich-like attitude".
"We have not taken a penny away from Ethiopia. They are bereft of ideas in the Department of Foreign Affairs and see no other way of getting rid of this huge amount of money in overseas aid. The tail is wagging the dog. This is not about what governments want to do, this is about what bureaucrats want to do," Mr O'Shea claimed.