OCTOBER 21/2006

STATEMENT ON AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS DAY

The 20th Anniversary of the signing of the African Charter on Human and People's Rights highlights not the success in respecting human rights in Africa but in the gross violation of the rights enshrined in the Charter signed by almost all African countries.

Due process and the rule of law are non existent in many African countries. The violations of basic rights are far too common and widespread. Illegal detention, torture and summary execution are the norms. Democracy is a mere buzz word directed at donors who have conveniently closed their eyes and ears. The free press is harassed by determined predators. Secret prisons and inhumane detention conditions proliferate. Fanatics are let loose to use ethnic identity and religious differences as the basis for repression and discrimination. Unelected "leaders" hold power and repress the people. If truth be told, the Charter is a mere paper, ignored by almost all. In Africa, the violation of human rights is brutally and systematic, from Mauritania in the West to Somalia in the Horn, from Sudan to Malawi, from Nigeria to Burundi….

In Ethiopia, the illegal regime of Meles Zenawi wobbles on with repression and violence as its crutches. The regime was ousted by the general election of 2005 but it held on illegally to power after massacring dissenters and jailing hundreds of opposition figures including some 22 journalists. More than 50,000 prisoners languish in the official and secret prisons and labour camps of the brutal regime. All the rights enshrined in the African Charter have been trampled upon by the EPRDF regime led by Meles Zenawi. Sadly but unsurprisingly, the regime enjoys the open and tacit complicity of the donor countries who give precedence to political considerations rather than to the respect of human rights. Addis Ababa is the seat of the African Union but the regime in Ethiopia is one of the worst violators of human rights in Africa. The bitter irony of this situation cannot be lost on anyone.

Every anniversary of the African Human Rights Day affords the AU countries the chance to pat themselves on the back with the AU leading the futile exercise. The reality is grim and contrary to this. In Africa, the human rights Charter has yet to be respected.