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The Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes (Portuguese Socialist Party) hasn’t dropped her guard against Ethiopia since she led an electoral mission to Addis Ababa in 2005. She helped to persuade Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to oppose sending a mission to observe the Ethiopian elections in May. Separately, Gomes organised a conference on violence to women in Ethiopia, jointly with the British MEP Julie Ward and the general secretary of the NGO Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Marino Busdachin, at the European Parliament on 4 February. During the conference, doctor Baro Keno Deressa accused the Ethiopian security forces of committing rapes in the Oromia Regional State while Badal Ahmed Hassan, professor of agronomy at Helsinki University denounced on behalf of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF, opposition) that the army was forcibly recruiting local youths into militia. Ana Gomes also urged the EU to adopt a firmer stance with the Ethiopian authorities and condemned the funding of dams by the European Investment Bank (EIB).
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