Opposition supporters being punished

 (AP):

Ethiopia is denying opposition supporters food, other aid, loans and government services in a widespread effort to suppress political dissent, Human Rights Watch said in a report released yesterday.

Much of the aid being denied to ordinary Ethiopians is provided by foreign governments such as the United States and Britain and international financial institutions like the World Bank, Human Rights Watch said in its report Development Without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia.

"The Ethiopian government is routinely using access to aid as a weapon to control people and crush dissent," said Rona Peligal, the global rights group's Africa director. "If you don't play the ruling party's game, you get shut out. Yet foreign donors are rewarding this behaviour with ever-larger sums of development aid."

Ethiopian government officials were not immediately available for comment.

According to the group, Ethiopia received US$3 billion in aid in 2008. Donors have privately told Human Rights Watch they are aware of the allegations but they do not know the extent of the alleged abuse. The donors, however, have not conducted an independent assessment into how aid is used in Ethiopia, the group said.

Barred from safety-net programmes

The report said rural villagers reported that many families of opposition members were barred from participation in the food-for-work or 'safety-net' programme that supports seven million of Ethiopia's most vulnerable citizens.

Human Rights Watch also documented, in interviews conducted over six months in 2009, how high-school students, teachers, and civil servants were forced to attend indoctrination sessions on the ideology of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front as part of the capacity-building programme funded by foreign governments.

Attendees at training sessions reported that they were intimidated and threatened if they did not join the ruling party and superiors told teachers that ruling party membership was a condition for promotion and training opportunities, the report said.

In the past, some of Ethiopia's donors have suspended aid in response to allegations of abuse by Ethiopia. Fol-lowing violent protests against the results of the 2005 election, during which 193 people were killed, the World Bank and other donors suspended budget support, funding that is not pegged to any particular project and is spent at the discretion of the Ethiopian government.

Afterward, when the suspension was lifted, donors then channelled that money directly to district governments, many of which are controlled by members of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's party.