US Assistant Secretary of State travels to Ethiopia, concrete actions expected on human rights, press freedom

ESAT News (March 29, 2016)

US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski will travel to Ethiopia on Tuesday as part of a follow-up on president Obama’s July visit to Addis Ababa, according to a press release issued by the US State Department.

Mr. Malinowski is expected to meet with Ethiopian government officials although the department did not give details of the issues he would raise with the Ethiopian government.

It is widely expected that the Assistant Secretary would have human rights and press freedom on his agenda, in addition to fighting terrorism in the Horn. The Ethiopian government, the darling of the West, had gotten away with numerous human rights violations and attack on freedom of the press. The tyrannical government dodges open criticism and consequences to its human rights violations, including the recent use of deadly force against peaceful protesters in the Oromia region of Ethiopia, as US and other powers see the tyrannical government as an ally against the Islamic fundamentalists in Somalia.

President Barack Obama’s remark in Addis Ababa in July that the despotic minority regime was “a democratically elected government” came as a shock to many Ethiopians who saw the remark as a mockery of democracy and a cruel joke against those who suffer under tyranny.