Muluneh sees a vibrant CUDP despite threats

By Our Staff Writer
November 11, 2007

Debebe Eshetu, the Kinijit delegation leader to Canada, is being accorded a warm welcome by supporters of the opposition party upon arriving at the Welsh Society Hall in Vancouver City. Seen at the center of photo is the Seattle-based attorney Shakespear Feyissa, who along with some friends from Seattle travelled to Vancouver to express solidarity with friends there. (Ethiomedia photo: Nov 10, 2007)

Muluneh Eyoel urges support for CUDP

Muluneh Eyoel, Secretary of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP) told a worldwide teleconference on Sunday there were major government hurdles when it comes to exercising one own rights contained in the constitution.

Muluneh, who finalized a campaign heading a high-level CUDP delegation to Europe but addressed the conference as an individual member of the popular opposition, warned against the dangers of reducing CUDP-Kinijit to its now-defunct four coalition partners. The four were dissolved in the run-up to the 2005 elections.

The ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had almost wiped the opposition party out of existence following its defeat at the May 2005 in which CUDP-Kinijit, among other things, swept all 23 parliamentary seats in the Ethiopian capital, and did well in the rest of the country.

Now the re-emergence of CUDP as a popular party after all the arrests and killings is seen as a threat to the ruling Zenawi party state-owned media have launched a relentless campaign aim of intimidation.

The ruling party says there is no such thing as CUDP-Kinijit, while CUDP-Kinijit officials like Muluneh are saying we are alive and kicking.

"There is only one CUDP-Kinijit. The only group that would benefit from dissolving our party is the ruling party. The people should oppose any attempts to fragment Kinijit into its previous parts, and start as if we were in the pre-Kinijit era of 2005," Muluneh stressed.

Though CUDP has no legal recognition by the ruling Meles Zenawi party, CUDP leaders believe the enormous popular support the opposition party enjoys would enable it to win legal recognition from the state-controlled Election Board.

CUDP leaders who led various delegations to North America and Europe were accorded a reception usually reserved for very popularleaders. Such hero's welcome to the opposition leaders who spent the last few months amongs the Ethiopian Diaspora in the United States, Canada, Europe and South Africa has sparked a scary propaganda by the Zenawi regime, which is almost threatening to jail the opposition leaders upon their return to their country.

Observers believe the radio campaign in Ethiopia against CUDP leaders is aimed at intimidating the opposition leaders into seeking asylum for fear of arrest. If they return, the campaign has been falsely accusing the opposition leaders of colluding with what the regime calls "armed opposition groups" and attempts at supporting HR 2003, a human rights bill which passed unanimously in the US House of Represetnatives and is pending a debate in the US Senate.

"We are going back to our country," Muluneh said with an assertive tone, a decision also shared by many CUDP leaders, including Bertukan Mideksa, who led the high-level delegation to the United States, as well as Debebe Eshetu, leader of the CUDP delegation to Canada.

The teleconference was organized by veteran Ethiopian journalists Dawit Kebede, Kinfu Assefa (both of EMF) and other journalists like Abebe Belew of Addis Dimts and Elias Kifle of Ethiopian Review.