Gateway Pundit has been doing a fantastic job rounding up what’s been going on for the past two days. Students all over the country were peacefully protesting the rigged elections, when the army and police broke it up with brutal force.

At the Addis Ababa Tegbare’ed (Technical School), police tried to disperse about 200 peaceful student protester today by brutally beating them. Construction workers threw stones at the police in support of the students. Several of them were arrested, as well as other non-students who joined the protest in the morning. Sapa-AP

The police beat up the protesters using butts of their rifles and batons. About 100 students inside the college were rounded up by riot police and forced to sit on the ground after the crackdown on today’s protest. Many students were escorted off the campus by police, holding bloody rags to their heads. Sapa-AP

“Students sitting on the ground in the campus were being beaten harshly by the police,” Okutsu, a drafting teacher at the college, told Reuters before police hurried him away. Reuters

“The police came running into the college, beating students and hitting them over their heads with their batons. It was very scary and they were very aggressive and did not want to calm the situation down. It didn’t last long, only five to 10 minutes, because we are young and they had guns and batons,” said Liya Tsion, a student of information technology. Sapa-AP

Several students at St. Mary Collage have been brutally attacked by police as they, too, held peacefully rally. Other people in the area who were sickened by the savage attacks on the students threw stones at the police.

In other places, people clashed with troops in Ambo who are angry at the savage treatment of students.

About 300 students of the Jimma University have been brutally attacked by police and taken away as they came out in support of AAU students today.

Similarly, at Debub University in Awassa police savagely attacked and injured hundreds of peaceful student protestors.

Students in Alemaya University in Harar also joined the protests that started in AAU. Through out the night and continuing in the morning students staged a protest rally. They chanted slogans against EPRDF’s vote rigging. In the afternoon, armed forces entered the campus and started beating and rounding up the students. The detained students were taken to unknown destination.

A demonstration is also going on at the Dire Dawa campus.

Protests are now going into their third day, with taxi drivers and store owners joining the students against the government. The government has begun surrounding the households of opposition leaders with troops. They have just opened fire on protestors in the city who began throwing rocks at them. The Ethiopian Review is calling for a nationwide strike, and as things are going, that looks like a possibility.

The focus from now on needs to be, not reelection or vote recount, but the immediate resignation of Meles Zenawi’s criminal regime. The opposition parties must lead the students, civic associations, religious groups, trade unions, and the society at large, including Ethiopians abroad, to demand the resignation of Meles Zenawi and all high level officials who are ordering the savage attacks on peaceful students. Until the Meles regime resigns, a nationwide general strike needs to be called.

If this doesn’t happen, the sacrifices the students and others are paying with their lives will be in vain. This will also embolden Meles and gang to continue brutalizing the people.

Sooner or later, Meles will go after the opposition parties. There is no doubt about that. After he finishes off the students he will turn his guns on the opposition leaders. Join the students and the workers now and provide the necessary political leadership to the struggle.

Let’s not expect help from the international community. This is about time Ethiopians inside the country and abroad must take matters into their own hands and liberate Ethiopia from the murderous thugs.

The saddest part I find about that is that they don’t even expect help from the international community anymore. After Jimmy Carter rubberstamp certified the elections, and the EU observers only later criticized it, I don’t see why they would. We definitely failed them. Here’s my advice: don’t expect any help. It most likely will not come. Stop waiting, and take your country back while the opprtunity exists.

For further commentary, see Weichegud! ET Politics and Ethiopundit.