Ethiopia opposition says jailed leader ignored by West

By Barry Malone

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The West is ignoring a jailed Ethiopian opposition leader to keep the Horn of Africa stable despite her being this week named on a United Nations list of arbitrary detainees, her party said on Friday.

Birtukan Mideksa, leader of the Unity for Democracy and Justice party (UDJ), was first jailed with other opposition leaders when the 2005 election turned violent. She was pardoned in 2007 but re-arrested last year accused of violating that pardon.

"This matter is being more or less hushed," Seye Abraha, a senior UDJ official, told reporters in Addis Ababa.

"They talk of security and stability in the absence of democracy and respect for human rights. We are cursed by geography."

Analysts say Ethiopia has been a key U.S. ally in its fight against terrorism.

Seye warned that repression in Ethiopia could eventually destabilise the region.

"A country with a lot of internal problems, a country that is also in a region that is rampant with a lot of security problems, could take down the region (if) the political problems in this country are not corrected on time," he said.

Birtukan had been seen by regional analysts as the country's foremost opposition politician and critics of the government say she has been jailed because of the threat she could pose at this year's parliamentary elections.