An appeal from addis ababa university

Concerned Ethiopian university students Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 

Dear Ethiopians, 

We believe you have been following the sad political development in our country as regards to the recent conflict between distinguished university professors on the one hand and the dictatorial regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on the other, which is trying hard to destroy the teaching-learning process and endanger the future of the younger student population. 

The conflict charachterized by the resignation of our instructors is a continuation of the need of the government to place an absolute control over the universities and colleges, and make them amenable to official dictat. As though the arrests and killings of university students last year were not enough, the criminal regime is taking further destructive measures that have clearly thrown the future of the university students in danger. 

Already fear of university closure is in the air. On the other hand, functionaries of the regime are spreading news as if we the university students were demanding legal action against our teachers who are resigning. If we had even a limited freedom, we would have made it clear that our enemy, the enemy to the free academic process in the country, is not our instructors but the government that is using the Ministry of Education as its strong arm to destroy institutes of higher learning in the country. The government is trying hard through its media and tabloid papers to deceive the Ethiopian public that the students were angry that their "right to evaluate university teachers" has been violated and rejected by those who are leaving the campus. 

Such baseless news reports are fabricated by the government in order to crush the united force of students, teachers and the Ethiopian society at large which the government fears would turn to public protests throughout the country, and bring about its downfall. 

We the students at Addis Ababa University know that relatives of govenment officials and their children will not be affected if the already weakened universities and colleges in the country are abandoned by the remaining academics. Because the children of our current inhuman leaders will not be disrupted due to the collapse of public higher institutes of education in the country. They have sent and can send their children abroad for further learning while leaving the country in chaos. For instance, it is a public secret that the daughter of the prime minister is following her high school education at a private American college in Boston, Massachusetts, where $250,000 US dollars (about 4 million birr) is budgeted for her alone. 

The question here is why does the prime minister deny the future of we the children of the poor working people of our basic right to education, while expending such a huge tax-payer's money of Ethiopians on his family members away from Ethiopia? In short, today we find ourselves in a very dire situation where a regime sworn to destroy our country is moving fast and hard. Our appeal is to all Ethiopians, at home and abroad, to stand by our side and express our suffering to the whole world. Hence we have passed the following decisions: 

1. We condemn the newly formed Committee To Resolve University Problems as the committee is another government attempt to legalize and implement its divisive policies against colleges and universities.
2. We condemn the appointment of Professor Andreas Eshete as a university president. We call on Professor Andreas to relinquish his new appointment if he is truly not in service of the dictatorial regime opposed by millions of Ethiopians.
3. We call on all Ethiopian opposition parties in our country and abroad to come out in this most trying time and show their support and solidarity with your children at the university, and condemn the government for its ongoing attacks on basic human rights and freedom.
4. We believe there are thousands of Ethiopian professionals and academics at various universities around the world, mainly in the United States and Europe. We call upon you to come together and express your support for your younger college-age brothers and sisters who have entered the darkest moment in their history. 
5. We call on all Ethiopians around the world to show the kind of unity you showed when our country was invaded by Shaebia during the war with Eritrea, and try to save your country's younger generation from the danger we are facing. 
6. We call on all diplomatic and international communities in Addis Ababa to take notice of the criminal acts of the government, condemn it with unequivocal terms, call for the respect of the right of students to an academic environment free from the intervention of a monstrous regime. 
7. We call on all human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch to condemn the dictatorial regime of Meles Zenawi, and pressure western democratic governments to take immediate punitive action against the enemy of the Ethiopian people, which is the government.

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