Don’t miss our Friends Event on 15 April: guest speaker Dr Trevor Trueman, founder of UK-based Oromia Support Group, and the Iranian Women’s Choir
(France 24 TV) — In recent months, Ethiopia has seen its worst unrest in a decade. Members of Ethiopia’s Oromo ethnic group, which feels left out of the country’s booming economy, have taken to the streets in protest.
Protesters are calling for equal rights and an end to what they call corruption, land grabs and government oppression. Some Oromo families have been forced off their land, and the government refuses to officially recognise the Oromo language. The government has cracked down on the protests, and activists and human rights groups say over 200 people have been killed.
FRANCE 24’s reporter spoke to the families of several victims.
(France 24 TV) La colère des Oromos, laissés-pour-compte du développement éthiopien
L’Éthiopie a connu ces derniers mois d’importantes manifestations qui ont parfois été réprimées dans le sang. Des membres de l’ethnie Oromo, qui représente un tiers de la population, sont descendus en nombre dans les rues pour revendiquer l’égalité des droits. Ils dénoncent notamment la corruption et la confiscation de leurs terres.
Émission préparée par Emerald Maxwell et Laura Burloux
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Largest nation from Oromia of East Africa continues to rally against the government despite crackdown.
(A4O, 26 March 2016,Wolonkomi, Oromia) – Six-year-old Abi Turi and her nine-year-old brother Dereje have not been attending classes in Wolonkomi.
Their school was closed in January as the Ethiopian government began what its critics call a crackdown on protests by the Oromo, the country’s largest ethnic group.
It is uncertain how many people have died in clashes between security forces and protesters since November, when a series of demonstrations began.
Local estimates put the figure at between 80 and above 200. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has said that more than 200 people may have died in about six months, a figure the government denies.
“With regards to allegations from human rights groups or self-styled human rights protectors, the numbers they come with, the stories they often paint, are mostly plucked out thin air,” Getachew Reda, the information minister, told Al Jazeera.
Abi and Dereje’s mother was among those shot in January. She was hit by a bullet in the neck. Despite receiving medical treatment, she died of her wounds in March.
“The little girl cries and keeps asking where her mother is. We feel her pain,” said the children’s grandfather Kena Turi, a farmer. “The older one cried when his mother was shot and died, but now it seems he understands she’s gone.”
Oromo students began rallying to protest against a government plan they said was intended to expand the boundaries of Addis Ababa, the capital, into Oromia’s farmland.
Oromia is the country’s largest region, and many there believe the government did not want to redevelop services and roads, but that it was engaged in a landgrab.
Though the government shelved its “Integrated Development Master Plan” due to the tension, protests continued as the Oromo called for equal rights.
In February, another anti-government rally turned violent. Nagase Arasa, 15, and her eight-year-old brother Elias say they were shot in their legs while a demonstration happened near their home.
READ MORE: Oromo protests continue amid harsh crackdown
“I was in the back yard walking to the house when I was shot,” Nagase told Al Jazeera.
“My brother was in the house. I couldn’t walk I was bleeding. Then I was hit again when I was on the ground I felt the pain then my brother came to help me and he was shot too.”
Ethiopia has an ethnically-based federal system that gives a degree of self-rule to the Oromo people.
But the Oromo opposition, some of whose members have been detained, says the system has been corrupted by the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front.
Merera Gudina, an Oromo politician, said that members of his community feel marginalised — excluded from cultural activities, discriminated against because of their different language, and not consulted in political or economic decisions.
With double-digit growth over the last decade, Ethiopia has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, but the majority of the Oromo remain poor.
“Until the Oromo’s get their proper place in this country I don’t think it [dissent] is going to go. The government wants to rule in the old way; people are resisting being ruled in the old way,” Gudina said.
READ MORE: Ethiopia accused on bloody crackdown
Reporting and recording human rights abuses is also risky, activists told Al Jazeera. Local and foreign journalists said attempts were made to intimidate them, with some detained.
Al Jazeera spoke with local reporters who said they were too afraid to even try and cover the issue.
“It’s very dangerous. Everybody is living in fear. They imprison people every day. People have disappeared. Doing this work is like selling my life,” a human rights activist told Al Jazeera, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Kumlachew Dagne, a human rights lawyer, said there was a need for “public forums and consultation for debates on public policy issues” to allow for different views to be heard. He added that the protesters who were injured or killed had not been armed.
“Many of those people were killed after the protests took place many of the people were shot in the back some were shot in the head, which shows that these people were not armed,” he said.
“They were peaceful demonstrators. That is consistent with reports we had from victims’ families.”
The government rejects such claims as exaggerated or fabricated.
“People, whether they are civilians or security officials who have been involved in an excessive use of force, will be held responsible,” Reda said.
He said the government would consult with the Oromo people and “address the underlying problems”.
(Advocacy for Oromia, 14 March 2016) Athlete Dejene Gezimu has won the 2016 Vitality Liverpool Half Marathon and raised Oromo (athletic nation) national flag in the events.
The 22-year-old Oromo athlete, who has a string of other race wins under his belt, recorded a personal best for the half marathon with a time of 01:06:59 – averaging five minutes and seven seconds per mile.
He was 50 seconds faster than his nearest rival, Benjamin Douglas, who was runner-up.
The fastest woman to finish the 13.1-mile course, run in warm sunshine, was Michelle Nolan in a time of 01:20:20 – averaging 6 minutes and eight seconds per mile.
Meanwhile the winners in the 10 mile race were Connor McArdle, on a time of 58 minutes and 41 seconds, and Michelle King in 01:11:26.
Here are the top five male and female competitors in each of the races.
1: Dejene Gezimu – 01:06:59
2: Benjamin Douglas – 01:07:49
3: Daniel Kestrel – 01:08:09
4: Richard Burney – 01:08:40
5: Nathan Kilcourse – 01:09:21
1: Michelle Nolan – 01:20:20
2: Gemma Connolly – 01:21:25
3: Kirsty Longley – 01:22:18
4: Elissa Morris – 01:22:41
5: Charlotte Mason – 01:24:50
By Tsegaye R Ararssa
(Advocacy4Oromia, 11 March 2016) It was widely reported yesterday that the PM has finally uttered words of apology for the misrule of his government in Oromia and beyond. The apology doesn’t say in words but apparently it is meant to express remorse for his regime’s acts that caused:
a. the death of over 500;
b. injury to hundreds more;
c. the arrest and detention of tens of thousands;
d. the disappearances of numerous Oromos;
e. the destruction, bombing, vandalizing of properties including school and university buildings;
f. the disruption of the normal life of the people;
g. the illegal suspension/removal of the civilian administration of Oromia; and
h. the widespread practice of terrorizing the Oromo civilian population (including by killing children and elderly citizens).
I won’t go into the interpretation of what this statement of apology means and as to whom it is directed (to the people or to his own folks/bosses in the ‘government’). I would rather take him at his word and demand that he matches up his action with his words in the spirit of not letting this pass as a usual political sleight of hand, or an empty political gesture.
I like to stress that, normally, apology comes as an admission of one’s mistake, as a recognition of responsibility for the wrongs done to the victims of one’s acts, and as a first step towards making amends. (At an individual-personal level, apology is a sign of showing remorse.)
When it is done as an act of state, it needs to be done as a matter of principled commitment to justice, sovereignty of the people (supreme importance of their will), accountability of government, and out of a conviction that, we as a country, collectively, seek to atone for, and distance ourselves from, the injustice perpetrated in the name of the state. As such, it requires the existence of a sense of remorse and an unswerving commitment not to let it happen again. This commitment is not just about making amends for the misdeeds of the past but an act of promise, a vow, about the future. It is a way of saying (in the Post-Rwanda language of the now exhausted phrase) NEVER AGAIN!
So, if the PM wants this to be beyond an empty political gesture (and a fake gesture to placate the angry public), he needs to do more. First of all, he should admit that the political road to a solution has long been exhausted. Finding a political solution was supposed to happen way before politics ended and military action has taken over.
Of course, we have been insisting that the politics has undergone closure long ago when the public space was completely occupied merely by TPLF/EPRDF (after the fake election of May 2015). In my view, the politics had experienced total closure since Election 2010 when all legal-political dissent was ruled out of the public sphere. The closure of the public space (facilitated by the constellation of laws on political parties, civil society organizations, freedom of press and information, and counter-terrorism laws) was followed by a form of rule that deploys law as ‘war by other means’. Election 2015 was clearly a ‘war by other means’ especially to the Oromo and all the ‘other’ peoples of Ethiopia (whose land and resources were vetted for ‘legal’ looting and plunder).
So, this new use of the language of apology, coming only after the exhaustion of politics in Ethiopia–only after unscrupulously imposing a military rule on the country, especially in Oromia and Gambella–becomes too little too late, if not amusing altogether.
But if the PM wants to achieve something more than a cheap political sleight of hand (which will never win any Oromo to his side anyway!), then he should do the following:
1. Remove the army from Oromia and send the soldiers back to their camps or to wherever they were relocated from.
2. Restore the civilian administration of Oromia and facilitate for them to make a publicly transparent discussion about the crisis, take a stance, take political responsibility, call a snap election on a short order, and dismiss the parliament leaving the administration of the region in the hands of a care taker government for the interim;
3. Take political responsibility for his own action and for his cabinet’s reckless words and deeds. In other words, he should demand that his wayward Ministers–such as Abay Tsehaye, Getachew Reda, Tewodros Adhanom–resign immediately. If he can’t secure their resignation as a sign of their political responsibility for their utter political and moral failure in handling the protest (which I do not suspect they will do!), then the PM himself should step down. He should resign. Yes, THE PRIME MINISTER SHOULD RESIGN.
4. Immediately establish an impartial and independent inquiry commission in order to investigate the atrocities and ensure the legal responsibility of the perpetrators. Given the fact that all the institutions (including the Human Rights Commission and the Courts) have shown their partiality and lack of independence thus far, we do realize the near-impossibility of forming such a commission. It is therefore imperative for the government to allow an international body (e.g. a UN special rapporteur) to conduct the inquiry and ensure that perpetrators be brought before justice.
6. Repeal the Master Plan, the Oromia Urban Development Law, and all other laws facilitating land grab in Oromia and in the entire country (e.g.the Lease law, investment laws, and other policies and plans to create industrial zones, investment sites, and recreation parks) UNCONDITIONALLY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY. Stop the implementation of the Master Plan even within the confines of the ten sub-cities of what is traditionally known as the suburbs of Addis Ababa. STOP LAND GRAB ACTIVITIES DONE ILLEGALLY with out consultation, consent, or adequate, proper, and effective compensation.
7. Return land taken from farmers back and compensate all of them for their loss. Provide replacements for those whose lands have been developed. Provide all basic social services (housing, health, and education) to all those whose life and livelihoods have been disrupted by the evictions. This ought to be done most urgently.
8. Release ALL persons arrested in relation to the protest against the Master Plan and the land grab attendant to the plan. Release all Oromo political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. Interrupt processes of all political trials and release ALL prisoners of conscience that have long suffered in the prisons and detention centers of Ethiopia.
9. Work towards the implementation of the Special Interest of oromia over Addis Ababa in the interim. For a lasting solution, work closely with all political groups and all stakeholders towards finding a more suitable location to serve as a seat for the federal government. This act requires a constitutional amendment taking account of all the possible best practices on choice of capitals in federations.
10. Start a sincere negotiation with all political groups to transit out of this crisis and to let Ethiopia to begin its political life again, anew. This PM has an extraordinary opportunity to win by loosing (because he has lost) and to pave the way for a genuine transformation of the state and democratization of the politics thereby helping Ethiopia to begin again, to start anew, to be at it afresh.
So doing will help us bring politics back to where it belongs. So doing will stop the war the country is languishing in, the war we are all conscripted to by default, owing to the state-sanctioned end of politics.
So doing will help you, Mr Prime Minister, go beyond using apology as a political sleight of hand. And it will, hopefully, provide you the opportunity to redeem yourself, to take the higher road–the road never traveled in Ethiopia–and to make you a statesman in the proper sense of the word.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/tsegaye.ararssa/posts/545326878961657
Image copyrightAFPAs protests in Ethiopia over the rights of the country’s Oromo people continue, Addis Ababa-based journalist James Jeffrey considers if they are threatening the country’s unity.
The latest round of bloody protests over Oromo rights had a tragically surreal beginning.
A bus filled with a wedding party taking the bride to the groom’s home was stopped at a routine checkpoint on 12 February near the southern Ethiopian town of Shashamane.
Local police told revellers to turn off the nationalistic Oromo music playing. They refused and the bus drove off.
The situation then rapidly escalated and reports indicate at least one person died and three others were injured after police fired shots.
The exact details of the incident are hard to verify, but what is clear is that days of protest followed, including armed local militia clashing with federal police, leaving seven policemen dead, the government says.
Oromia at a glance:
Why Ethiopia is making a historic ‘master plan’ U-turn
Since last November, Ethiopia has seen a second phase of the recent unrest in the Oromia region which has been unprecedented in its longevity and geographical spread.
The region is the largest in Ethiopia and the Oromos, who make up a third of the population, are the biggest of the country’s more than 80 ethnic groups.
Initially the protests were in reaction to a plan to expand the administrative border of the capital, Addis Ababa, which is encircled by Oromia.
But even after the region’s governing party, the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation, which is part of Ethiopia’s governing coalition, shelved the plan in January, protests have continued.
“There is a strong sense of victimhood, extending back 150 years,” says Daniel Berhane, a prominent Addis Ababa-based political blogger, covering Ethiopia for the website Horn Affairs.
“People remember the history. The scars are still alive, such as how the Oromo language was suppressed until 20 years ago.”
Despite there being an ethnic basis to these protests, observers say that the deeper issues behind them, frustrations over land ownership, corruption, political and economic marginalisation, are familiar to many disenchanted Ethiopians.
Image copyrightAFPThe numbers killed since November following clashes between protesters and security forces given by international rights organisations, activists and observers range from 80 to 250.
The government has dismissed various death tolls as exaggerations, and said that a recent report on the situation by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) was an “absolute lie“.
Ethiopian citizens had a right to question the plan to expand Addis Ababa, but the protests were hijacked by people looking to incite violence, according to government spokesman Getachew Reda.
He says the security forces have faced “organised armed gangs burning down buildings belonging to private citizens, along with government installations”.
A security analyst who closely watches Ethiopia says “there could be radical elements and factions taking advantage, but you cannot define a movement by isolated events”.
Despite violent incidents, the protests have been described as “largely peaceful” by HRW and observers in Ethiopia.
“There is a perception of lack of competence in governance on the ground,” Mr Daniel says.
“There were easy remedies to appease initial protests, it was not hard science, but the right actions were not taken.”
In its defence, the government says it heeded the call of the people when it came to concerns over the Addis Ababa plan, and observers say the government deserves credit for withdrawing it.
Image copyrightReutersBut the same political observers add that the government must allow Ethiopians to exercise their constitutional right to protest, and handle events in a way that does not escalate violence.
The government has said that the protests and information about them have been manipulated by foreign-based opposition groups who are using social media to exaggerate what is going on for their own ends.
“The diaspora magnifies news of what is happening, yes, but no matter how much it agitates, it cannot direct [what’s happening] at village level in Ethiopia,” says Jawar Mohammed, executive director of one of those accused of fomenting conflict, US-based broadcaster Oromia Media Network (OMN).
“This is about dissatisfaction.”
Image copyrightAFPMr Jawar says the imprisonment of leaders of the Oromo Federalist Congress party, Oromia’s largest legally registered opposition political party, along with thousands of other Oromo political prisoners, makes it difficult to negotiate a lasting solution.
“Also what is the UK and US doing? As major donors to Ethiopia they should be taking the lead to get the government to work out an agreement.”
This is a long way from the heady days of Ethiopia’s new federal constitution after the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1991.
That introduced a decentralised system of ethnic federalism, but this jars with the dominance of the governing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which, along with its allies, holds every seat in parliament.
“The ruling government is a victim of its own success,” the security analyst says.
Image copyrightAFP“The constitution it developed made promises and people trusted the EPRDF. Now people are demanding those rights and the government is responding with bullets and violence.”
He adds that the government has expanded basic services and infrastructure, and appears to respect different cultural and ethnic identities, but it cannot reconcile this with its more authoritarian decision-making process.
The government’s hitherto successful job of holding together this particularly heterogeneous federation is not about to crumble, according to observers here.
But things may get worse before they get better, unless underlying sources of friction and frustration are addressed.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35749065?post_id=10207768920172696#_=_
(Advocacy for Oromia, 6 March 2016) Ethiopia, a nation fighting the worst famine in decades and popular unrest, brought a very old concept of punishment back–chain gang! New pictures circulating on social media show Suri tribesmen on trucks tied-together with ropes.
In the latest twist, Ethiopian security forces have consulted the 1955 field manual from the state of Georgia to punish inmates. The neck of a Suri tribesman is tied to the upper arm of another. The men also appear to be tied-together at the knees. They are bleeding from their scalps.
Abdi Lemessa/Facebook
Surma tribesmen tied-together by the neck and upper arm, Ethiopia, March 2016
Abdi Lemessa/Facebook
Suri tribesmen tied-together by Ethiopian Security Forces, March 2016 (Abdi Lemessa/Facebook)
Surma people have been protesting against displacement in the name of investment by Ethiopian government. Sources told The Horn Post, governmental institution, The Metals and Engineering Corporation (METEC) started building sugar factories on the lands of Suri tribes, and it is facing resistance.
Surma is a collective name used for the Suri, Mursi and Me’en tribes residing in South Sudan and southwestern Ethiopia, with a total population of over 180,000. These tribes were among the seven tribes threatened by Ethiopian National Park, according Native Solutions to Conservation Refugees’ report in 2007.
In what appeared to be a prophecy, Kendrick Lamar’s recent Grammy performancewas partly Surma-inspired, and featured a chain gang.
Ethiopia is pleading for foreign aid to help feed more than twelve million people hit with the worst drought in decades, and in need of emergency food aid. At first, the government played down the number of people who fell victim to the drought brought on by El Nino. Slowly but surely, it admitted the number is well over 12 million. Some reports estimate more than 20 million Ethiopians are facing food shortage.
Since November 2015, Ethiopia is trying to shake off protests in Oromia regional state that started as an opposition to Addis Ababa Master Plan, which later morphed into demand for regime change. Ethiopia dismissed these protests as plots from Eritrea and “anti-peace forces” in diaspora.
(Advocacy for Oromia, 6 March 2016) On Thursday, March 3, 2016, the CSIS Global Health Policy Center hosted a conference on Ethiopia’s health system, its successes, and enduring challenges.
This event featured three expert panel discussions on the challenges to the U.S. – bilateral relationship, the major infectious diseases that continue to plague the country, and Ethiopia’s regional leadership in the Horn of Africa. On this day CSIS also launched three new CSIS reports on Ethiopia, based on a recent research mission to Ethiopia to examine the country’s health system.
Panel 1: Democracy, Governance, and the U.S. – Ethiopian Bilateral Relationship
Sarah Margon
Washington Director, Human Rights Watch
Terrence Lyons
Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution, George Mason University
Semhar Araia
CEO, Semai Consulting; Founder, Diaspora African Women’s Network
Moderated by:
Richard Downie
Deputy Director and Fellow, Africa Program, CSIS
(A4O, 5 Marcha 2016) “The concern is that the government would simply claim this land and use it without providing any kind of compensation to the farmers and pastoralists who are currently using that land.”
Ethiopia has been heralded as a model for economic growth, with average growth rates of 10% between 2003 and 2014 earning it the name “African tiger”, in reference to Asia’s industrialisation boom until the 1990ies.
Yet development has come at a price. In order to keep up with its ambitious development goals, the Ethiopian government designed the “Addis Ababa Master Plan” for the expansion of the nation’s capital, which would displace and effectively disown a large share of the country’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo. The ensuing protests by the Oromo community, launched in November 2015, “are tapping into much deeper grievances”, since the Oromo have been “marginalised economically, politically, culturally even, […] suppressed by repeated governments over the years,” Leslie Lefkow holds.
Despite media reports of brutal government crackdowns against protestors, Lefkow argues that there has been little response from the international community: “Ethiopia is one of the world’s biggest aid recipients, […] it’s one of the largest recipients of foreign aid in Africa. […] It [Ethiopia] is seen as a success story when it comes to development. So there is also political unwillingness to raise human rights issues, which are I think often seen by international donors and partners as inconvenient.” The Ethiopian governments eventual withdrawal of the Addis Ababa Master Plan in January can hence be solely attributed to the domestic outrage it caused.
Leslie Lefkow is the Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division.
The interview was recorded in Amsterdam on January 22, 2016 at the HRW office.
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