The Oromia Support Group (OSG) has recently released a shocking human rights abuses report detailing the photos and names of Oromo men and women who have been murdered, injured or raped by anti-Oromo mobs or Ethiopian government security officers or arbitrarily detained for supporting or sympathizing with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in central, eastern, western and southern Oromia as well as in the Amhara region. OSG has taken on the immense responsibility of documenting the horrific human rights abuses being committed by the Abiy administration and its security apparatus. The international community’s silence and complicity regarding these horrifying crimes is incredibly troubling (Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just months ago). The authors of the report write:

The extra-judicial killing and arbitrary arrest of OLF supporters since December 2018 has created a situation in Oromia very similar to that in 1991-2 when thousands of OLF supporters were killed and scores of thousands detained and tortured. The good will and support for Ethiopia from the international community helped to maintain the abusive regime of Meles Zenawi, then in power. The current silence about killings and widespread imprisonment is eerily reminiscent of that time. Many reports have been sent to OSG since December 2018 and this report is a summary of the information received.

This report includes information about 163 extra-judicial killings and the arbitrary detention of at least 933 all due to their suspected support for the Oromo Liberation Front, which officially returned to Ethiopia in September 2018.

It is critical to re-emphasize the parallels that OSG is drawing between when the OLF was kicked out of the Ethiopian government in 1991-2, its supporters detained and murdered in mass, and the arbitrary arrests, detainments and murders being committed by the Abiy administration today against Oromos who are OLF officials or who support the OLF. It is a clear indication of an infuriating paradox: that while the Abiy administration and its tightly-controlled election board has given the OLF a pathway to participation in the upcoming 2020 elections, the Abiy’s security apparatus is also undermining and attacking OLF members, officials and supporters. This paradox is a terrible harbinger of what is to come in 2020.

The report has been published here:

Warning: the report contains graphic images.