Successes

HR 2003

EACA has been working with many elected officials and congressional staff to get HR 2003 passed into law. From the inception we have been working with various civic organizations across the nation at the grassroots level to build broad support for HR 2003 so that it can become law. EACA continues to work with various organizations, individuals and elected public officials to expand support and get HR 2003 enacted.

City of Takoma Park, MD

EACA played a critical and active role in the adoption by the city of Takoma Park of a resolution supporting the House Bill HR 2003 (the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act, at that time it was HR 5680). EACA members urged the city’s elected representatives to support HR 2003, by exposing to them the disastrous human rights record of the Ethiopian government and the plight of the Ethiopian people.

Ana Gomes

EACA was honored to hold an event for Ana Gomes in the Washington DC Hilton Hotel, together with other civic groups. Honorable Ana Gomes, Member of the European Parliament, became part of the history of the momentous elections in May of 2005 in which she served as the EU chief election observer. EACA and other groups sponsored a banquet arranged in her honor to thank her for her service and for providing an honest and candid assessment of the elections in Ethiopia. She had an opportunity to address the crowd and share her experience and her love for Ethiopia.

Georgetown University

EACA collaborated with various groups to organize a demonstration against Georgetown University’s highly inappropriate recognition of the wife of Meles Zenawi and honouring her in the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which both defamed Dr. King’s legacy as well as insulted all those who suffered the repression and human rights abuses of the Meles regime. EACA gave an interview to Georgetown University’s newspaper The Hoya on the demonstration, and contacted various administrators and academics at the University urging them to retract the award to Meles Zenawi’s spouse.

World Bank

In 2006, EACA had substantive face-to-face discussions as well as written communications with World Bank representatives on the World Bank’s and the donor community’s decision to provide a very large loan to the Ethiopian government at a time when bad governance in Ethiopia was in its trough. The World Bank’s Country Director responded directly to our open letter by submitting a letter to Ethiomedia.com.

EACA initiated contact with the Council on Foreign Relations to call for a roundtable on Ethiopia’s political developments and the conflict in Somalia. Together with representatives from other civic groups and political parties, EACA members participated in the ensuing roundtable in order to voice various issues of concern to EACA and the wider pro-democracy Ethiopian community.