Exiled Ethiopians say U.S. must push Ethiopia on democratic reforms

Published: 2008-02-01

SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) -- Two exiled Ethiopian opposition leaders are calling for a tougher U.S. stance toward their country, saying Ethiopia's role as a wedge against radical Islam in the Horn of Africa is coming at too high a cost in internal repression. Hailu Shawul, chairman of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, and Bedru Adem, an elected member of the coalition's central committee in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, made the charge in separate interviews in San Francisco. The nation of 80 million is the Bush administration's strongest ally in the war on terror in the volatile Horn of Africa, yet the relationship requires tolerating a high level of repression within their country, they said. "The Bush administration supports the regime," Adem told Catholic San Francisco, the newspaper of the San Francisco Archdiocese. "They think they are against terrorism. But the government is terrorizing its own people day and night." Adem and Shawul were in San Francisco to visit allies among Ethiopian emigres and members of the Catholic community as part of a campaign in North America and Europe to step up international pressure on the Ethiopian government to implement democratic reforms.

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