Ethiopia is regularly cited as an African success story; the economy is growing they cry, more children are attending school and health care is improving. Yet the development there depends on “state force and the denial of human and civil rights”, the Oakland Institute relate. The ruling party, the EPRDF, uses violence and fear to suppress the people and governs in a highly centralised manner. Human rights are ignored and a methodology of murder, false imprisonment, torture and rape is followed. The country remains 173rd out of 187 countries in the UN Human Development Index and around 40% of the population live below the extremely low poverty line of $1.25 a day, – the World Bank worldwide poverty line is $2 a day.
The ethnic Somali population of the Ogaden, in the southeast part of the country, has been the victim of extreme government brutality since 1992.
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