(BBC)A joint undercover investigation by BBC Newsnight and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has uncovered evidence that the Ethiopian government is using billions of dollars of development aid as a tool for political oppression.<\/p>\n
Posing as tourists the team of journalists travelled to the southern region of Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
There they found villages where whole communities are starving, having allegedly been denied basic food, seed and fertiliser for failing to support Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.<\/p>\n
The investigation has also gathered evidence of mass detentions, the widespread use of torture and extra-judicial killings by Ethiopian government forces.<\/p>\n
Yet Western donors including Britain \u2013 which is the third largest donor to Ethiopia \u2013 stand accused of turning a blind eye by continuing to provide aid money despite being warned about the abuses.<\/p>\n
The aid in question is long-term development aid, not the emergency aid provided in response to the current drought in Ethiopia and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa.<\/p>\n
Government response<\/p>\n
Ambassador Abdirashid Dulane, the Deputy Head of Ethiopia\u2019s UK Mission, has rejected the allegations saying that the Newsnight\/Bureau report \u201clacked objectivity, even-handedness\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sole source of the story was opponents of Ethiopia who have been rejected by the electorate, and time and again it has been shown that their allegations are unfounded\u201d.<\/p>\n
Our reporters visited one village in southern Ethiopia with a population of about 1,700 adults.<\/p>\n
Despite being surrounded by other communities which are well fed and prosperous, this village, which cannot be named for fear of reprisals, is starving. We were told that in the two weeks prior to our team\u2019s arrival five adults and 10 children had died.<\/p>\n
Lying on the floor, too exhausted to stand, and flanked by her three-year-old son whose stomach is bloated by malnutrition, one woman described how her family had not eaten for four days.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are living day to day on the grace of God,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Another three-year-old boy lay in his grandmother\u2019s lap, listless and barely moving as he stared into space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are just waiting on the crop, if we have one meal a day we will survive until the harvest, beyond that there is no hope for us,\u201d the grandmother said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Abandoned\u2019<\/p>\n
In another village 30 km (19 miles) away it was a similar story.<\/p>\n
There our team met Yenee, a widow who along with her seven children is surviving by begging, eating leaves and scavenging scraps from the bins in the nearest town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation is desperate,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have been abandoned\u2026 It is a matter of chance if we live or die.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two villages sit just 15km (9 miles) either side of a major town, surrounded by other communities where the populations are well fed and healthy. They are in desperate need, but no-one is helping.<\/p>\n
According to local opposition members they are being punished for failing to vote for the ruling party, the Ethiopian Peoples\u2019 Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which Mr Meles leads.<\/p>\n
Further north a group of farmers alienated by Mr Meles\u2019 government met the BBC\/Bureau team at a secret location on the edge of a remote village.<\/p>\n
One farmer described how he had been ostracised for failing to support EPRDF: \u201cBecause of our political views we face great intimidation. We are denied the right to fertiliser and seeds because of political ideology,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Buying support\u2019<\/p>\n
The Ethiopian federal and regional governments control the distribution of aid in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
Professor Beyene Petros, the current vice-chairman of the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Forum, an alliance of eight opposition parties known as Medrek, told our reporters that aid is not distributed according to need, but according to support for the EPRDF:<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost all of the aid goes through the government channels\u2026 in terms of relief food supply and some of the safety net provisions, they simply don\u2019t get to the needy of an equitably basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a great deal of political differentiation. People who support the ruling party, the EPRDF, and our members are treated differently. The motivation is buying support, that is how they recruit support, holding the population hostage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Beyene said that the international community, including the British government, is well aware of the problem and that he has personally presented them with evidence:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe position of the donor communities is dismissive\u2026 they always want to dismiss it as an isolated incident when we present them with some proof. And we challenge them to go down and check it out for themselves, but they don\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Accountability<\/p>\n
The UK International Development Minister Stephen O\u2019Brien issued a statement in response to the allegations raised by the investigation, saying:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take all allegations of human rights abuses extremely seriously and raise them immediately with the relevant authorities including the Ethiopian Government, with whom we have a candid relationship. Where there is evidence, we take firm and decisive action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe British aid programme helps the people of Ethiopia, 30 million of whom live in extreme poverty. We demand full accountability and maximum impact on the ground for support from the British taxpayer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Newsnight also gathered evidence of a crackdown and human rights abuses in Ethiopia\u2019s Somali region, the area bordering Somalia and Kenya, also know as the Ogaden region.<\/p>\n
Ethnic Somali rebels from the outlawed Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and Ethiopian government forces have been fighting for control of Ogaden since the 1970s.<\/p>\n
The media and most aid agencies are banned from the region.<\/p>\n
Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries of the world, is currently suffering from horrific drought.<\/p>\n
Many of those fleeing the ensuing humanitarian crisis have headed to Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya.<\/p>\n
It is the largest refugee camp in the world, and the vast majority of the 400,000 people there are from Somalia, but among them are an increasing number of Ethiopians from the Ogaden.<\/p>\n
\u2018Revenge killings\u2019<\/p>\n
Abdifatah Arab Olad, an Ogaden community leader, told our reporters that up to 100 refugees are arriving every month with tales of killings and the burning of villages by government troops.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever fighting has taken place between the rebels and the army, for each army member that is killed, the military go to the nearest town and they start killing people,\u201d he said. \u201cFor each army member killed it equals to 10 civilians losses.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the corner of a makeshift shack in the camp, an old woman who had arrived from Ogaden three weeks earlier described being arrested along with 100 others in her village.<\/p>\n
She said they were taken to a jail where they were locked up in a shipping container, and picked out on a nightly basis to be tortured:<\/p>\n
\u201cThey beat me then started to rape me; I screamed and fought with them\u2026 I tried to bite them\u2026 they tied me this way,\u201d she said, gesturing to her legs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey raped me in a room, one of them was standing on my mouth, and one tied my hand, they were taking turns, I fainted during this\u2026 I can\u2019t say how many, but they were many in the army,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Assaulted when pregnant\u2019<\/p>\n
Other women in the camp also said they had been arrested and accused of being members of the OLNF.<\/p>\n
They included one who said that she was eight months pregnant when she was detained and raped by eight soldiers:<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were beating me while I was being raped, I was bleeding,\u201d she said, describing how one soldier stamped on her stomach and beat her with the stock of his rifle:<\/p>\n
\u201cI fell unconscious when I saw my baby\u2026 a man jumping on your stomach, you can imagine what happened to the child, very big kicks blows with the back of a gun. As a consequence of that the child died.\u201d<\/p>\n
We cannot substantiate these individual allegations. But other credible sources have reported similar stories of the widespread use of rape by Ethiopian security forces against women in the Ogaden.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Newsnight, Ethiopia\u2019s Ambassador Abdirashid Dulane said that the claims of rape and torture were a \u201crehash\u201d of old allegations that the Ethiopian government had answered time and again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ethiopian government is governed by the rule of law, and human rights and democratic rights are enshrined in the Ethiopian constitution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n