Self Determination,Freedom, Equality and Democracy For Oromo people In Ethiopia: Oromo Protesters’ funeral processions turn into protest as government carries violence to burial grounds

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Oromo Protesters’ funeral processions turn into protest as government carries violence to burial grounds

The Oromo protests have expand in scope and size to stop, what protesters have put as decades-old marginalization, evictions, and politically-motivated killings and imprisonments of Oromos in Oromia, in addition to stopping the Addis Ababa Master Plan. As the Oromo protests grow in depth and size, Oromo students are joined, according to media reports, by Oromo farmers, teachers, workers, medical practitioners, athletes and other sectors of the society to wage the Oromo protests. In response to these Oromo civilian protests, the Ethiopian Federal government has mobilized its Special Paramilitary Police forces from other States, such as the Somali State and the Amhara State, in addition to dispatching mechanized army units to protest areas in Oromia. The government’s heavy-handed response to the escalating Oromo protests have led to the deaths of more than 50 Oromo civilians, as per the latest estimates.

While undertaking this paramilitary-police invasion of the State of Oromia, the Ethiopian government’s officials have taken to airwaves on state-owned media outlets to promise that the Master Plan ‘would be brought forward for public deliberations’ – the government has been promising this for the last year and half, but to no avail; rather, some parts of the Master Plan are said to be already underway. According to observers, this has exacerbated the situation since the Ethiopian government’s officials have blatantly continued to dismiss the ongoing peaceful Oromo protests as legitimate voices of the people saying “NO” to the Master Plan; having been given no other channel for protests, Oromo students in particular, and the Oromo public in general, are paying with their lives to say “NO” to the Master Plan. The government’s heavy-handed response emanates from its basic lack of understanding that the Oromo protests are legitimate broad-based people’s demands for rights; when protest movements reach such a point, no amount of military repression can stop them; rather, each death leads to more affected people to join and continue the protests.

According to new reports, the Ethiopian government has carried the violence into burial grounds: disrupting and harassing, and in some cases, shooting to maim and kill, mourners as they weep for and bury their loved ones. For this reason, funeral processions are no longer sober moments only, but moments to stage protests against the Master Plan and against the killings — and against the overall unjust system the Oromo have been subjected to for far too long — funeral processions have become moments to vow to continue the protests of the martyred. When the government refuses to bring forward those responsible for the killings of the unarmed peacefully-protesting Oromos and when the government refuses to take the ongoing Oromo protests as a “NO” say of the people against the Master Plan, justice becomes carrying the torches of the martyred and moving on the Oromo National protests to their final victory.

The following are photos from some of the funeral services held for the recently killed Oromos. The first segment of this topic was presented here (an excerpt is given below).