US, Ethiopia hold talks on human rights and governance, Patriotic Ginbot 7 on the agenda

US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski who traveled to Ethiopia on Tuesday as part of a follow-up on president Obama’s July visit to Addis Ababa had held discussions with Ethiopian government officials on issues of human rights and governance.

The US Assistant Secretary met with State Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Taye Atskeselassie to co-chair the 6th Bilateral Democracy, Governance and Human Rights Working Group, according to a press release issued by the US Embassy in Addis Ababa.

Details are scanty but on the agenda at the table was also Patriotic Ginbot 7, an armed group based in Eritrea, the ongoing protest in the Oromia region and public discontent and uprising in the Amhara region.

A major donor to the Ethiopian government, the US has been under criticism for not using its leverages on the tyrannical regime, one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists. An ally of the US against the fundamentalists in the Horn of Africa, the minority government has gotten away with extrajudicial killings, mass incarceration and attack on the press.

ESAT News (March 31, 2016)