Fw: Letter to G8 Countries and World Bank/IMF

Petition Letter to G8 Countries and World Bank/IMF

Please send the petition letter below to the following leaders of G8
countries, and the heads of IMF and World Bank. Help stop the proposed $1
billion World Bank loan from getting into the hands of the corrupt
dictatorial regime of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia. Any foreign assistance
should be given to local community self-help associations, instead of
corrupt dictators. They have stolen and squandered billions of dollars
loans in the past several years, leaving the debt to the poor people.

After sending the petition letter, please forward a copy to us at 
tegbar@juno.com. This will help us track participation level.

Thank you for the support.

Ethiopian Democratic Action League
Spokesperson: Gashu Habte
E-mail: tegbar@juno.com, Tel/Fax: 703 866 0709
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PETITION LETTER 

TO:  Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Canada
        *E-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca 

        The Honourable Lloyd Axworthy, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Canada
        *E-mail: mina10@dfait-maeci.gc.ca

        Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, France
        *premier-ministre@premier-ministre.gouv.fr

        Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
       *E-mail: posteingang@bpa.bund.de 

        Prime Mnister Yoshiro Mori, Japan 
        *E-mail: jpm@kantei.go.jp 

        President Vladimir Putin, Russia
        *E-mail: president@gov.ru 

        Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, UK
        *E-mail: info@hm-treasury.gov.uk

        President Bill Clinton, USA
        *E-mail president@whitehouse.gov 

        Mr Larry Summers, US Secretary of the Treasury
        *E-mail: OPCMail@do.treas.gov

        Mr Horst Köhler, Managing Director, IMF
        *E-mail: publicaffairs@imf.org 

        Mr. James D. Wolfensohn, President, the World Bank Group
         *E-mail: Info@worldbank.org , cunit3@worldbank.org


I appeal to you to stop any financial assistance to the ethnic apartheid
regime of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia. It will only prolong the suffering of
the people of Ethiopia by encouraging the dictatorial regime to continue
committing gross human rights violations and engaging in anti-democratic
practices and massive corruption.

Currently, Meles Zenawi’s regime has locked up over 15,000 prisoners of
conscience in disease-infested jails. The regime’s ethnic apartheid
policy is causing the death and displacement of tens of thousands of
Ethiopians, and is one of the main obstacles to the economic development
of the country.

The regime is among the leading human-rights offenders in the world, and
number one in Africa as the enemy of the press. To suppress freedom of
the press, in addition to harassing and jailing journalists and editors,
the regime creates deliberate scarcities of imported materials such as
printing paper to methodically force newspaper publishers to discontinue
free press activity.

The regime’s failed development policy is poke-marked by bad land policy,
heavy taxation, and a preferential fertilizer, seed, and credit scheme
that left farmers debt ridden and poor.  Millions are now facing
starvation due to the regimes neglect of food security provisions while
stocking up abundant food supply in its favored region, Tigray. The
regime uses credit given to farmers for the purchase of fertilizers, for
instance, as a stealthy weapon to gain unfair votes, to maintain their
political dominance.

The aspirations of ordinary Ethiopians for multi- party democracy and
economic freedom have been dashed by ethnic apartheid governance policy,
and by an unprecedented corruption in all government levels involving
misappropriation of government privileges and public property into a vast
private business empire of the ruling party.

These are some of the bad problems that the dictatorial government led by
Meles Zenawi had wrought on the people of Ethiopia. Any support given to
Meles Zenawi’s government constitutes a license to deny fundamental
human, economic, social and political rights grossly lacking in Ethiopia.

I appeal to you to stop financing the ethnic apartheid tyranny in
Ethiopia until it releases all the prisoners of conscience, improves its
human rights record, and engage in a serious dialogue for national

reconciliation with opposition parties. Until then I urge you to help the
people through accountable non-governmental organizations and self-help
community associations, not the corrupt dictators.

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