美国国家公共电台 NPR Ethiopia Grapples With The Aftermath Of A Deadly Weekend

Ethiopia Grapples With The Aftermath Of A Deadly Weekend

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

We're going to listen to sounds now that the Ethiopian government does not want you to hear. The sounds seem to be evidence of a government crackdown on peaceful protests. Amnesty International says nearly 100 people were killed this past weekend when soldiers fired live bullets in different areas of the country. After nearly a year of anti-government protests in Ethiopia, this weekend was one of the deadliest yet. NPR's East Africa correspondent Gregory Warner says there has been a furious attempt on both sides to explain this violence.

GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE 1: The videos trickled 2 out slowly on social media - slowly because those posting them had to use special software to get around a government internet block. This video showed thousands of people in the streets of the northern Ethiopian town of Gondar. And there were two significant things about this video. One was the sheer size of the crowd. This is a country where civil protests are usually banned. But the second was the location. For the last nine months, anti-government protests have erupted further south among one historically marginalized ethnic 3 group called the Oromo. Now, the protests have spread to a second group, the Amhara.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in Amharic).

WARNER: These two groups have different local issues, but what they share is an antipathy 4 to the rule of a third minority ethnic group called the Tigray. They say the Tigray elite 5 have a cartel-like grip on the government, its military and the fast-growing economy. Other videos were more painful to watch. They purported 6 to show the government response to these demonstrations 7 - police beating unarmed protesters while women gasped 8.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken).

WARNER: Witnesses say Ethiopian soldiers even fired directly on the protesters, killing 9 almost a hundred people. And even days after those weekend confrontations 10, witness reports were filtering back to the capital - reports of casualties, reports a door-to-door raids by police. Tsedale Lemma is editor-in-chief of the Addis Standard. It's one of the few Ethiopian magazines that risks open critiques of the government. She talked to me over a scratchy cell phone from Addis Ababa.

TSEDALE LEMMA: We're hearing who's been wounded, who's in hospital, who's been killed, not to mention those who have disappeared without a trace.

WARNER: Meanwhile, she described an Orwellian spectacle on state-run television - what she called ferocious 11 PR to discredit 12 the protests.

LEMMA: Very ferocious PR work. People are being paraded in the TV, being made to denounce the protests and people denouncing even the use of Facebook.

WARNER: Denouncing the use of Facebook as a dangerous tool in the hands of hate mongers. And if you watch those state-run TV broadcasts, what you'll be told is that these protests are fueled by ethnic separatists, even ethnic terrorists. The activists 13 dispute this. They say their beef is with the government, not with any one ethnic group.

LEMMA: I don't see that people are deliberately 14 orchestrating ethnic violence in the country, but of course the government is eager to identify it as such.

WARNER: Because in Ethiopia, politics is ethnicity, and ethnicity is geography. The country is formally divided into autonomous 15 ethnic states, each with its own ethnic government. Political parties are organized along ethnic lines. And so any critique of the central government will automatically take on ethnic dimensions. The protesters impugned 16 the elite Tigrayans, the government officials and army generals who they say have a chokehold on the country. The government says they're fomenting 17 ethnic war against the whole Tigrayan people, rich and poor. In the fragile ethnic balance that is Ethiopia today, the battle to claim that narrative 18 could be just as important as the battle in the streets. Gregory Warner, NPR News, Nairobi.