Rastafarians stage protest - Urge UN to 'free Ethiopia now'

BASIL WALTERS , Observer staff reporter
Monday, May 08, 2006

Placard-bearing members of the Imperial Ethiopian World Federation (IEWF), on Friday staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the Lady Musgrave Road offices of the United Nations, calling on that body to lead an initiative for the restoration of a monarchical government in Ethiopia.
In a letter addressed to the resident representative of the UN, Juan Carlos Espinola, the IEWF reminded the UN of its obligations as the custodian of international morality, and urged it to liberate Ethiopia from the Marxist oriented pseudo-democracy of Meles Zenawi and restore the constitutional monarchy of Emperor Haile Selassie I.
"On this day, the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Ethiopia from the clutches of Fascist colonialism, Rastafarians and loyalist Ethiopians of the IEWF, seek to remind the United Nations, the custodian of international morality, of its obligations to uproot and obliterate oppressive, inhumane, and dictatorial vestiges in the international community without compromise," ran the letter, over the signature of Junior Anderson, first vice-president of the IEWF.
"We're here calling for a free Ethiopia and appealing to the United Nations and its members, which since 1974 have turned a blind eye to the atrocities that have been visited upon Ethiopia from Mengistu to Zenawi, Junior Anderson told the Observer Friday.
"We are calling on the United Nations and its members that support the illegal government of Zenawi to stop from doing so. And we are not stopping until Ethiopia is freed," he added.
Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie I, was forced into exile approximately 32 years ago, as a consequence of the Soviet backed coup of September 12, 1974, which resulted in the eventual overthrow of the legal constitutional monarchy of Ethiopia.
According to the members of the IEWF, this cold war soviet strategy plunged Ethiopia into the evil and oppressive Marxist Military Junta dictatorship of Colonel Mengistu and his consorts. This, the Rastafarian organisation says, only served to cultivate the seeds of poverty, ignorance and diseases, which characterised Ethiopia for much of the 1980s.
"These bankrupt Stalinist policies of the Mengistu regime are still present in Ethiopia today under the guise of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, headed by the cowardly dictator Meles Zenawi," the letter to the UN further stated.
It said that if Meles' policies which are deemed divisive, are not averted, they will destroy the long held territorial integrity of Ethiopia, which will be replaced by a Milosevic brand of ethnic policies.

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