His Excellency Meles Zenawi
Office of the Prime Minister
P. O. Box 1031
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Via fax: 251-1-55-2020
Your Excellency:
The African Studies Association is a national association linking specialists on Africa all across the academy and the institutions of government and of civil society, in all parts of the United States. As the leading association of Africanists in North America, the ASA is committed to supporting the progress of the countries and peoples of Africa and promoting better knowledge about and understanding of them. Therefore, it was with deep concern that the members of the governing board of the Association learned of the developments of April and May, 2001, which have undermined the autonomy of Addis Ababa University and which continue to threaten the rights of assembly and freedom of expression guaranteed by the 1995 constitution of Ethiopia.
We know of Addis Ababa University as one of Africa's outstanding institutions of higher education, one with an international reputation for scholarship and the training of students. Many of its faculty are our colleagues and their achievement in maintaining the academic standing of Addis Ababa University through the repressive years of rule by Haile Selassie and the Derg has earned our admiration and respect.
We were dismayed to learn that government police had entered the university campus, disrupted a peaceful and lawful student assembly, and were subsequently responsible for the deaths of dozens of students. We were equally dismayed to learn that decades of struggle by the university to achieve a charter of autonomy were frustrated by your government's refusal to recognize that charter. Finally, we were dismayed to learn of the arrests of Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, a founding member of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, and Dr. Berhanu Nega, a prominent economist at Addis Ababa University. These scholars are well known in the United States; their reputations for scholarly integrity and responsible social action transcend the borders of Ethiopia.
These developments have damaged Ethiopia's reputation and placed at risk the achievements of your government. We urge you to recognize the autonomy of AAU and the rights of its students freely to organize and express themselves. We urge you to ensure a fair and open trial for Mesfin and Berhanu. We urge you to establish responsibility for the excessive violence of April, and to require appropriate, public disciplining of the agencies involved.
The international reputation for original research which scholars associated with Addis Ababa University have achieved is a precious national asset. We urge you not to waste it.
Sincerely yours,
Catharine Newbury
President, African Studies Association
cc:
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
U.S. Department of State
Washington, DC 20520
Fax: (202) 261-8577
Ambassador Berhane Gebre-Christos
Ethiopian Ambassador to the United States
Embassy of Ethiopia
3506 International Drive, NW
Washington DC 20008
Fax: (202) 686-9551
Ambassador Tibor P. Nagy
Embassy of the United States
P.O. Box 1014
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Fax: 251-1-551-328