Ethiopian Police Re-Arrest Opposition Leader Birtukan Mideksa

By Jason McLure
http://www.bloomberg.com/
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Ethiopian federal police re-arrested opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa a year after she was released on a pardon following her arrest during the country’s disputed 2005 elections.
Mideksa, a leader of the now-dissolved Coalition for Unity and Democracy, was taken into custody today, said Temesgen Zewde, a lawmaker, who is a member of Mideksa’s new party, Unity for Democracy and Justice.
“She has been arrested,” Zewde said in an interview in the capital, Addis Ababa. “No charges have been made public yet. We don’t know exactly where she is being held.”
Mideksa was arrested after refusing to acknowledge that she had requested a pardon that led to her release from jail in July 2007, said Bereket Simon, a spokesman for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. She and dozens of other opposition leaders were initially jailed following the 2005 elections and sentenced to life in prison following a May 2007 trial on treason charges.
Security forces killed at least 193 protesters in Addis Ababa in the aftermath of the 2005 elections. Mideksa was jailed along with 126 other opposition leaders, journalists, and activists after disputing government claims of victory in the ballot.
Her release along with 37 others in July of 2007 came after the opposition leaders signed a letter admitting “mistakes committed both individually and collectively,” according to an Amnesty International report.
Life Sentence
Simon suggested Mideksa could again face life in prison.
“She said she didn’t ask for a pardon and the government tried to advise her that she has been freed from jail because of the requested pardon,” Simon said, in a phone interview from Addis Ababa. “She didn’t budge. Technically and legally the verdict has to be implemented.”
Mideksa and other leaders were released in two pardons authorized by Zenawi in July and August of 2007 after mediation by Ethiopian elders. Some opposition leaders, including former Addis Ababa mayor-elect Berhanu Nega, have chosen exile in the U.S. and Europe. Mideksa stayed on in Ethiopia and had planned to contest the 2010 national elections with her new party.
A lawyer and former judge, Mideksa has drawn support from Oromos and Amharas, Ethiopia’s two largest ethnic groups. Zenawi’s government, which has ruled Ethiopia since 1991, is dominated my members of the Tigray ethnic group.
Fifteen members of another opposition party, the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, were arrested in late October and early November and accused of supporting the separatist Oromo Liberation Front. The move comes as Ethiopia’s parliament is set to approve a new law that would effectively outlaw most non-governmental groups from promoting human rights, democracy, or conflict resolution.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via the Johannesburg bureau at abolleurs@bloomberg.net.

Desperate Eritrea becomes Iran’s Ally on the Ongoing Israel- Iran Confrontation

Source: Ethiomedia
Iran deploys soldiers, ships and submarines at Assab Port
Israel warns Iran against Assab deployment
Prospects of wider war run high: analysts
WASHINGTON, DC - Twenty-five Eritrean naval soldiers and officers have fled to Yemen aboard two speed boats, an Eritrean opposition website reported on Tuesday.
"Among those who have sought shelter in Yemen are three captains," asena-online.com said. The source didn't give details when the naval crew surrendered to Yemeni officials, nor was the news report verified by independent sources.
Abdella Jaber, a senior official with the ruling party of President Isaias Afwerki, was negotiating with Yemeni government officials for the deportation of the soldiers, the source said.
Earlier last week, Asena reported that Iran was deploying troops at the Red Sea Port of Assab in exchange for renovating the Assab Oil Refinery.
Iran's troop deployment at Assab Port was confirmed on Tuesday by InfoLive.Tv, which reported that " Iranian ships and submarines were deployed ...at the Eritrean port town of Assab at the Horn of Africa in the Arabian Sea just below the Strait of Hormuz."
The Israeli-owned news source said: "It appears that Iran is using the pretext of an accord it signed with Eritrea to revamp a Russian built refinery there to station its troops and maintain a strong military presence with full command of the Straits of Hormuz. At the same time as the world's second largest importer of gasoline, its deal with Eritrea guarantees it a constant supply free from international intervention. The President of Eritrea has already granted Teheran complete and exclusive control of the Eritrean Oil Refinery."
With the prospect of an Iran-Israel confrontation running high, Ethiomedia analysts say there is a huge possibility that the region may turn into a war theater. "Ethiopia's U-turn from troop pullout to redeployment of troops in Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia is undoubtedly part of the equation of an impending war unless major powers intervene to disrupt the breakout of war," one observer said.