DEMONSTRATE IN ADDIS ABABA
The Ethiopian People's Movement Council LEPMC] reports that a peaceful demonstration of some 500 students in Addis Ababa May 15 was brutally suppressed by the police, five or six being clubbed unconscious, Highty-two students were arrested, including eighteen girls. Nineteen teachers were hauled in for interrogation, six of them being detained.
The demonstration was organized to protest against the dismissal of ten students on charges that they had organized a new student union following the banning of their former council in reprisal for a massive demonstration last February demanding an immediate land reform, equitable distribution of the land and the abolition of serfdom. .
In protesting the dismissal of their ten school mates, the students were putting into practice the resolutions adopted by the Fourth Annual Congress of the National Union of Ethiopian University Students held May 4-8, 1964, in Addis Ababa, The students resolved to "protect the rights and privileges of students, such as freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of worship, etc., and also to stand against any infringement on students! rights of associations and/or travel...3; to render any justified opposition to any government's move to detain student leaders fighting for student rights and privileges;...to eliminate the evils of suffering and oppression regardless of any reprisals from governmental and/or other authority organisations;...to participate in the political and economic life of their societies and to see to it that the political and social systems of their countries should be in line with the general will of the: people..."
The Ethiopian People's Movement Council issued a statement expressing its solidarity with the students which was read over the -radio. -The EPMC statement declared: "Clubbing our heroic students cannot stop the revolutionary and democratic movement in our coun-= try. Nor can it save the monarchy whose fall will be similar to that of Russian Czarism -- the organised gang of exploiters and assassins...Ethiopian students! Ally yourselves with the moving force of history -- the masses of the people. Bring the masses for-~ ward to storm this ruthless system of parasitism which leaves noth-= ing to them like the locusts that starve them every year. Throw stones at this glass house called monarchy until it is utterly shattered. The EPMC is with you. Have no fear; only those who live on guilt have reasons to fear. The EPMC congratulates you, Be vigilant. Be united. Be organised. Long live the revolution{"