Ethiopia turns its critics into untouchables
Globe and Mail, Canada - July 27, 2007

Dressed in a black Adidas track suit and seated amid a comfortable clutter of term papers and political science tomes in his modest office at Addis Ababa University, Prof. Merera Gudina hardly looks like a menace. But, ever since he was elected to parliament two years ago, people have been avoiding him.

There was, for example, the time that local mechanics were too terrified to repair his car when it broke down on the way back from his mother's funeral east of Addis.

"The mechanic said somebody was giving him a signal and they ran away and we had to transport the car to Addis," Prof. Gudina said. "What they do is that they don't touch me as a person, but people in contact with me, after I leave an area, they harass them or detain them or whatever they want," he said of government security agents.

Optimistic visitors from the United States, which will give $500-million (U.S.) in aid to Ethiopia in 2008, like to point out that the Ethiopian opposition pulled off a feat that would be unthinkable in America or Europe when they unseated more than 150 ruling lawmakers two years ago ...