E-mailed to blackinformant.com and other members of The Conservative Brotherhood by ethiopundit
=====
Below is a link to a letter smuggled out of jail by Ms. Bertukan Mideksa, one of the 131 members of the Ethiopian opposition who are on trial for their lives for alleged genocide and treason.
Their real crime was winning an election and not staying silent about the regime’s violent campaign to stay in power indefinitely.
Sphere: Related ContentBy Bertukan Mideksa
January 24, 2006
A specter is haunting the EPRDF (Ethiopian Revolutionary Democratic Front)–the specter of Kinijit (a name for the Coalition for Unity and Democracy which is an alliance of opposition parties that won every seat in the election of 2005 where foreign observers were present and by all non-governmental accounts most of the rest of the country as well.
). Reports are seeping through the prison walls into my cell that cities and towns all over the country are exploding, furiously burning with the quest for freedom. In schools and colleges people of tender ages are articulating and demanding their liberties with extraordinary air of confidence and dedication. Priests are dumbstruck when young men approach and ask them to tell and live the truth as God requires. The tormentors couldn’t muster up enough courage to face and address these heroic men. Instead they decry them as Kinijit and try to exorcize the specter.
These protestors are ‘romantic’ youths. They may not be partisans of some clearly articulated ideology or world view. Rather, their romanticism consists in a dedication to freedom, adventure, risk, emotion and living life to the hilt. These men and women are fearless. When they are beaten and jailed, they come back for more. (more…)
