(Oromedia) Mr. Dawit Geleta the higher expert of the Oromia Water Works Design and Supervision Enterprise defected in Western Australia on 12 September 2015.

The Oromia Water Works Design and Supervision Enterprise higher expert Dawit Geleta, has announced that he is defecting because the government had “brought untold miseries and sufferings” on the Oromo people.

Mr Dawit stats that his main cause to defect is the human right violations carried out against the Oromo people all over Oromia.

Oromo anger

According to sources, Mr Dawit  has decided to defects because the Oromo people were not being democratically represented.

“OPDO is being prevented from becoming an autonomous organisation representing the Oromo national interest in the government and is reduced to a rubber stamp for TPLF rule over Oromia,” he said.

“As a result thousands of  Oromos have perished in detention centres from torture.”

He said that Oromo resources were being looted in order to develop the Tigray, the region where the dominant part, Tigray People Liberation Front is from.

Suspicious

Mr Dawit told to our sources that he found it impossible to work and he felt unsafe at this time.

“When you remain an Oromo nationalist they suspect you,” he said.The Oromo form the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia.

In April 2014, security forces in Oromia clashed for several days with Oromo students demanding the regime to halt the displacement of Oromo farmers from their ancestral land, and the inclusion of Oromo cities and surrounding localities under Finfinnee administration under the pretext of development aid for farmers. More than 200 students died in the unrest.

The defection is the continuous sign of ethnic tension within Ethiopia.

There is no immediate comment from Oromia.

Ethiopia holds more than 70,000 persons, including some 2,500 women and nearly 600 children incarcerated with their mothers, in severely overcrowded six federal and 120 regional prisons. There also were many unofficial detention centers throughout the country, including in Dedessa, Bir Sheleko, Tolay, Hormat, Blate, Tatek, Jijiga, Holeta and Senkele.

Diaspora Action Australia recently held its second Friends Event of 2015 in Melbourne.

Lensa Dinka, DAA Director Denise Cauchi and Marama Kufi from Oromia Support Group Australia at the DAA Friends Event.

The diaspora organisations we work with consist largely of refugees – people who have remarkable stories of survival. On this occasion, we had the privilege of hearing from Lensa Dinka, a leading member of the Oromo community in Melbourne, who spoke about her own story of escaping war and oppression in the Oromia region of Ethiopia.

Lensa is a courageous woman who was born within the Oromo ethnic group. The Oromo people, who make up 40 per cent of Ethiopia’s population, have lived with conflict in their region for more than 100 years.

Lensa and her family were forced to leave their home during the civil war in Ethiopia in the 1970s. Amid the turmoil and violence, Lensa, her six brothers and two sisters were separated from their parents; their grandmother took them into her home and Lensa took on the task of looking after her younger siblings.

In 1991 the government collapsed and renewed conflict between political and rebel groups broke out; this time Lensa escaped to Sudan as a refugee. Lensa sheltered in Sudan until she was forced to flee from that country’s own civil war, and she was granted a Humanitarian visa, allowing her to travel to and live in Australia.

Lensa was reunited with her father before she came to Australia, however her search for her mother was a lengthy process. Neither the Red Cross nor Lensa’s friends in Ethiopia could find her mother initially. After many failed attempts to locate her mother, Lensa finally decided to send a letter to Ethiopia addressed to her mother and patiently awaited a response. Lensa held out hope that her mother was still alive and that she would hear from her – she also understood that the letter might be returned to her unopened.

Her moving story ended with her finally reconnecting with her mother.

Lensa also spoke about the many contributions that refugees make to Australia. In her own case, after coming to Australia in 1999, she went on to study nursing and since then has nursed thousands of patients. She reminded us that refugees are “not just consumers,” but are valuable contributors to the community. She also spoke of the great strength of many people in her country of birth.

DAA would again like to thank Lensa for sharing her valuable and courageous story with all of the people present at our Friends Event.

Diana Rincón

-Writer

Source:http://diasporaaction.org.au/blogs/lensa%E2%80%99s-story-about-oromia-and-her-search-her-mother

United States Senator Al Franken

United States Senator Al Franken is among a delegation of bi-partisan US senators and congregational members visiting five African countries in a bid to bolster and foster bilateral trade ties, a statement from the senator’s office in Washington stated. The trip starts this weekend.

Countries to be visited by the delegation include Senegal, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Gabon, with a brief stop in Cape Verde.

Franken’s state is home to the largest concentration of Somalis outside of Africa and he plans to meet with Somali refugees while in Ethiopia which hosts a large contingent of them, second only to Kenya.

The state of Minnesota also boasts the largest concentration of Ethiopian immigrants after Washington, DC with the most dynamic of the Minnesota Ethiopians belonging to the Oromo community.

The Oromos have had longstanding grievances against the Ethiopian government regarding marginalization of their community. While in Ethiopia, Senator Franken is scheduled to discuss their plight with Ethiopian government officials, according the senator’s spokesman, Michael Dale-Stein.

During the trip, Sen. Franken will be visiting renewable energy projects, agriculture projects, and health care facilities. Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware is the organizer of the trip.

The other Minnesotan in the delegation is Rep. Betty McCollum. Others on the delegation include Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), and several other members of Congress.

“With Minnesota being home to so many vibrant African immigrant communities, collaborating with these countries could help support many Minnesota industries—including our agricultural and energy sectors—and would help us build bilateral trade relations,” said Sen.

Franken. “Beyond that, this bipartisan trip is particularly important to me because I’m planning to meet with Somali refugees and also discuss the crisis facing the Oromo people, which are both things that many families in our state deeply care about.”

Source: http://mshale.com/2015/08/21/senator-franken-headed-ethiopia-discuss-plight-oromos-somali-refugees/

The news item published on Advocacy for Oromia on July 9th saying “At least six Oromo university students were also among three journalists and two bloggers released from Ethiopian prison yesterday, according to various reports,” was incorrect as five of the six  students mentioned in the story are still in Qilinto, a prison in the outskirts of the city Finfinnee.   

It was reported in the news that  the freed Oromo university students include “Adugna Kesso, Bilisumma Dammana, Lenjisa Alemayo, Abdi Kamal, Magarsa Warqu, and Tofik Rashid.”  However, only the last,  Tofik Rashid, was released and the rest are still in Qilinto.

All were students who were arrested by security agents from various universities located in the Oromiya regional states. No charges were brought against many of them in the last year and three months.
The arrest of unknown numbers of Oromo University students followed a May 2014 brutal crackdown by the police against university students who protested when a master plan for the expansion of Addis Abeba, the city originally home to the Oromo, was introduced by the federal government.

The 10th Addis Abeba and Oromia Special Zone Integrated Development Master plan, which was in the making for two years before its introduction to the public, finally came off as ‘Addis Abeba and the Surrounding Oromia Special Zone Integrated Development Plan.’

The government claims the master plan, which will annex localities surrounding Addis Abeba but are under the Oromiya regional state, was aimed at “developing an internationally competitive urban region through an efficient and sustainable spatial organization that enhances and takes advantage of complementarities is the major theme for the preparation of the new plan.”
The students protested against the plan and the federal government’s meddling in the affairs of the Oromiya regional state, which many legal experts also say was against Article 49(5) of the Ethiopian Constitution that clearly states “the special interest of the State of Oromia in Finfinnee.”

Charges against university student Nimona Chali were dropped without explanation and he was released some two months ago. 

Two months ago, student Nimona Chali, one of the detained students, was released from jail without charges. Student Aslan Hassen died in prison in what the government claimed was a suicide. However, many believe he was tortured to death. No independent enquiry was launched to investigate his death.

Alsan Hassan died while in police custody. Government says it was a sucide, but many say he died of torture. 
By the government’s own account, eleven people were killed during university student demonstrations in many parts of the Oromia regional state. However, several other accounts put the number as high as above 50.

 Bilisumma Dammana            Alsan Hassan                         Tofik Rashid

A4O’s Note: We would like to apologize for any inconvenience the original story might have caused our readers and the families of the students who are still incarcerated