#OromoProtests

World | Fri Apr 1, 2016 11:12am EDT

Related: WORLD, AFRICA

Ethiopia opposition say land-protest arrests aimed at deterring future demonstrations

ADDIS ABABA | BY AARON MAASHO

• 
  
• An Ethiopian opposition group said on Friday that police had arrested more than 2,600 people in the last three weeks for taking part in land protests and that the government was thereby aiming to deter future protests.

Plans to requisition farmland in the Oromiya region surrounding the capital for development sparked the country's worst unrest in over a decade, with rights groups and U.S.-based dissidents saying as many as 200 people may have been killed.

An opposition coalition said the arrests over protests in the four months up to February came despite government assurances of clemency.

Representatives of the government were not immediately available for comment.

Authorities scrapped the land scheme in January and pledged not to prosecute the demonstrators, while Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn issued an apology in parliament last month saying his administration would work to address grievances over governance.

Despite the pledges, the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum (MEDREK) said 2,627 people have since been "illegally rounded up" and remain under custody.

"It is an act of reprisal," MEDREK's chairman Beyene Petros told Reuters.

"The whole purpose why they are increasing their witchhunt is to simply stop the public from planning or initiating any future public protest," he added.

The coalition said in a statement that the arrests took place in 12 different areas of Oromiya, Ethiopia's largest region by size and population.

The second-most populous nation in Africa with 90 million people, Ethiopia has long been one of the poorest countries in the world per capita, but has made strides toward industrialization, recording some of the continent's strongest economic growth rates for a decade.

But reallocating land for new developments is a thorny issue in a country where the vast majority of the population still survives on small farms. The opposition says farmers have often been forced off land and poorly compensated.

(Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Yaa'ii 1ffaa Jaarmiyaa TUBDI Irratti Gaaffii fi Deebii H/D ABO Obbo Daaw...

#OromoProtests

Ethiopia protesters: No, we don’t have self-rule in Oromia state

By Ludovica Iaccino

Oromo people protesting against planned expansion of capital Addis Ababa in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest stateEtana Habte)

UK (IBTimes) — Protesters and activists in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest state, have denied they have self-rule in the region, contrary to a governement’ statement given to IBTimes UK. Abiy Berhane, minister counsellor at the Ethiopian Embassy in London said earlier in March people already rule themselves in Oromia, they use Oromo as the official language, they have their own budget and a regional parliament that rules on all political, economic and social aspects.

Who are the Oromo people?

The Oromo people are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and their population amounts to more than 25 million (around 35% of Ethiopia’s total population).

Oromo people speak Afaan Oromoo, as well as Amharic, Tigrinya, Gurange and Omotic languages. They are mainly Christian and Muslim, while only 3% still follow the traditional religion based on the worshipping of the god, Waaq.

In 1973, Ethiopian Oromo created the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which stemmed from the discontent over a perceived marginalisation by the government and to fight the hegemony of the Amhara people, another large ethnic group in Ethiopia.

OLF – still active today – also calls for the self-determination of the Oromo people. It has been deemed as a terror organisation that carried out violent acts against people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. The group has always denied such allegations, claiming its mission is to terminate “a century of oppression” against the Oromos.

Read more about Oromo people

However, some Oromo people denied the claims made by the official. Activist, author and PhD candidate at London’s Soas University, Etana Habte, told IBTimes UK there is no self-rule in Oromia, where people do not trust the region’s ruling party coalition, Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization (OPDO).

“Opdo is an organisation of ex-war captives established by the TigrayanPeople’s Liberation Front (TPLF) inTigray in 1990, when the latter failed to co-opt the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF),” he alleged.

“Oromia’s regional council, Caffee Oromiyaa, has never had any history of independent decisions, it has been approving what is put on the table byTPLF. If Oromia has no self-rule, no regional council of itself, talking about budget and independent decisions is only a mere waste of time.”

Opdo has not responded to a request for comments on the allegations.

Climate of fear

Oromia has been rocked by the deadly protests that erupted in November 2015 against a government draft plan − later scrapped − that aimed to expand the boundaries of the capital Addis Ababa.

Activists claimed some 400 people, at least 200 according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), have been allegedly killed by security forces. The government denied the allegations of violence and claimed legitimate protestshave been infiltrated by people who aim to destabilise the country.

Although the government scrapped the plan, demonstrations are continuing, with peoplecalling for self-rule, the liberation of political prisoners, the end of what they perceive as “military regime” in the region and the cessation of an alleged crackdown by security forces on “peaceful and unarmed” demonstrators, mainly students and farmers.

This happened yesterday in Dire,close to Bishoftu town Addis, Detention camp reportedly set ablaze during

“The regime is using new strategies to punish Oromia. Amenities have been cut in most urban centres, the regime has brought down all independent TVs and radio broadcasts from overseas, closed selected websites and social media websites. It is doing this in an attempt to breakdown the nerve centre of the protests,” Habte alleged.

#OromoProtests Oromo Youth (not TPLF) can ensure the freedom of Bekele Gerba & other political prisoners in Ethiopia

“There is a serious climate of fear in the public and there is no guarantee that any person would come back home safely once they leave. This situation has convinced people that the state targets you simply because you are Oromo. Amnesty International’s report published in October 2014 titled, Because I am Oromo: Sweeping Repression In The Oromia Region Of Ethiopia, is an absolute representation of unfolding realities.”

Habte also denied protesters are seeking secession, although it is a right guaranteed by the constitution. He denied that the government started public consultations, contrary to what Berhane told IBTimes UK.

“People are heard time and again saying: ‘We don’t want to be ruled by a government who has killed our loved and respected ones’. It seems too late, but if the regime wants to solve the current crisis, it has to address it at a national level and with national representation.”

#OromoProtests

Ethiopia's Oromo people demand equal rights in protests

Largest ethnic group in Ethiopia continues to rally against the government despite crackdown.

Charles Stratford | 26 Mar 2016 11:55 GMT | Africa, Ethiopia, Human Rights, Politics

Wolonkomi, Ethiopia - 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.

Protests continue

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.

A 'marginalised' community

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.

Government rejects claims

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".

#OromoProtests

The Rotten Foundation of Ethiopia’s Economic Boom

Published: Mar 23, 2016 Filed under: Ethiopian News Politics - 2,007 Views

Brutal repression was the secret to the country's rapid rise. It could also bring it crashing down again. For those who would speak frankly about politics in this landlocked East African country, the first challenge is to find a safe space.

But on a recent evening in Adama, a city in the heart of a region reeling from the largest protest movement Ethiopia has faced in decades, most people seemed at ease. University students poured out of the city’s main campus, spilling into claustrophobic bars and pool halls. Others crowded around a cluster of aging taxis, jostling for a quick ride home.

Though it is one of the largest cities in Oromia — where members of Ethiopia’s Oromo ethnic group have taken to the streets in recent months in unprecedented numbers to protest their political and economic marginalization — Adama has remained mostly quiet.
Hidden beneath the casual veneer of daily life, however, lurks a deep-seated suspicion of the government, which has built a massive surveillance apparatus and cracked down violently on its opponents. Citizens feel they have to watch what they say, and where they say it. At the hangouts where crowds have gathered, a political statement might be overheard. Out on the sidewalks, government spies could be on patrol. Inside the university campus, security officials are on the lookout for suspicious behavior.

In a way, the recent unrest is rooted in Ethiopia’s rapid economic rise. The federal government claims to have notched double-digit GDP growth rates over the past decade, but its rigid, top-down approach to developing industry, and attracting foreign investment, has resulted in mass displacement and disrupted millions of lives. This, in turn, has heightened ethnic tensions that today threaten Ethiopia’s reputation for stability.
Read More Here

Image:Families of those who killed in the Oromia Protest morns to their relatives. 

#OromoProtests

The U.S.A., UK, Germany, France, Italia, Canada, Australia and others: Tell the Ethiopian government that you are not financing the killing of Oromo women & children.

The U.S.A., UK, Germany, France, Italia, Canada, Australia and others: Tell the Ethiopian government that you are not financing the killing of Oromo women & children.

This petition is awaiting approval by the Avaaz Community

10,000

945

945 signers. Let's reach 10,000

Why this is important

Dear Global Citizens,
We are writing on behalf of Oromo women and children who are dying and suffering in the hands of the Ethiopian government security forces. The Ethiopian government led by the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), a former guerrilla army, only represents six percent of the Ethiopian population. However, Oromo people who are the single largest ethnic/national group and represent 45 to 50 percent of the people in Ethiopia are denied the right to freely determine their social, economic, political, cultural and environmental affairs. In the absence of Oromo leadership, the TPLF government implemented policies that evicted millions of Oromo farmers from their farms and left millions of women, and children in poverty and famine.

Oromo people are an egalitarian society. Before the incorporation of Oromia into the Ethiopian empire, the Oromo people were ruled by democratically elected leaders known as Gada and Siiqee system. Siiqee is an Oromo women’s institution, organized to bring checks and balances in gender relations. Therefore, the Oromo people believe that under consecutive Ethiopian rulers, they have made backward social changes. Moving back from freely electing their leader (governed by democratically elected groups) and flourishing Siiqee institution (fostering gender equity) to languishing under dictatorial regimes that have no agenda for women’s rights. When the Oromos demand for self-rule, they are demanding to freely develop their institutions i.e. Gadaa and Siiqee and using these institutions in solving their problems.

The consecutive Ethiopian minority rulers denied the Oromo people the right to freely determine their social, economic, political, cultural and environmental rights. Violation of such rights is responsible for the famine, poverty, child and maternal mortality, higher illiteracy, and lack of clean water in Oromia. At present, over 18 million Ethiopians, mainly Oromos, are facing starvation and dependence on food aid. Oromo women and children are dying prematurely from starvation and preventable diseases. Oromo women who witness this are determined to change the political system that is putting them at risk and they are actively participating in peaceful demonstrations.

More potent than the hunger, malnutrition and disease is the brutality of the TPLF government of Ethiopia. Since November 2015 the Ethiopian government security forces have been indiscriminately killing peaceful demonstrators. The Ethiopian government is stifling any news on its own brutality in the killing of peaceful Oromo demonstrators, women and children indiscriminately.

Although, the European Union, USA, Canada and many other humanitarian organizations have expressed concerns and condemned these acts of killing the Ethiopian government has upgraded its attack against the Oromo, taking it to the proportion to genocide. As of today, about 400 Oromos have been killed, including many children and pregnant women. Many thousands have been maimed and over 12, 000 are imprisoned and tortured. Women and children are among the maimed, imprisoned and tortured. In the meantime, the Ethiopian government is still benefiting from the financial and political supports provided to it by Western governments. Their tax payers’ money is used to support the government that kills women, children, elderly people, and peaceful Oromo citizens.

We are writing to ask you join us to stop the Ethiopian government from killing, imprisoning and torturing women, children and other sectors of the Oromo society. We ask you join us in signing this petition to make sure that the tax payers’ money sent to the Ethiopian government is not used to kill children and women. We are asking you to do so and further influence your respective governments on behalf of the defenseless Oromo children, women and elderly.

Sincerely


See for more details

Sirnee was shot dead merely for shielding her child from the shooting Ethiopian soldiers. She was an Oromo mother who died along with her child. Oromo women are taking the brunt of the brutal military repression against peaceful Oromo protestors demanding the respect of their constitutional rights. The Ethiopian totalitarian regime has turned its defense forces against its own citizens.

Soldiers are shooting indiscriminately, killing, maiming, imprisoning and torturing unarmed protestors. Since Oromo protests started in November 2015, over 400 peaceful protestors have been murdered, including many children and pregnant women. Oromia is a bloodbath. Four months into the protests, the brutal bestiality shows no sign of relenting.

Soldiers are breaking into homes and university dormitories, terrorizing and savagely raping women and students. They are gang raping girls as young as 12. Women are particularly targeted for rape to emasculate men and break the spirit of Oromo protestors. But you won’t hear much of this because the brutal regime has effectively stifled all voices of dissent. It is now muzzling journalists to shut down any news of its atrocity that could come out of that country.

We call on all global citizens with a passion for human rights and fundamental freedoms to help us stop this bestiality against Oromo women. Will you join us?

For more Information:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/03/15/un-human-rights-council-general-debate-under-item-4

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/group-ethiopia-forces-kill-rape-clashes-protesters-376....

hhttps://www.hrw.org/news/2016/03/15/un-human-rights-council-general-debate-under-item-4ttp://www.ohc....

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/missionrape
..
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=rape+as+a+tool+of+war&&view=detail&mid=517CBE7D6B3E8A8D9A59517C....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4078677.stm

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2013/03/20133168949374179.html

#OromoProtest

#OromoProtest

Part-5 | Video Chronicle of the Oromia-Wide Oromo Protests (from Dec. 9,...

Part-1 | Video Chronicle of the Oromia-Wide Oromo Protests (from Nov. 29...

Part-1 | Video Chronicle of the Oromia-Wide Oromo Protests (from Nov. 29...

Oromo protesters: ‘We are still on the streets because we want self-rule’

(IBTimes-UK) Hundreds of people from Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest state, are still protesting on the streets calling for self-rule. An activist who spoke to IBTimes UK on condition of anonymity explained that Oromo people, Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group, were also protesting against the alleged violence carried out by security forces against demonstrators.

Protesters in Oromia first took to the streets in November 2015 to voice their dissent against a government draft plan that aimed to expand the boundaries of the capital Addis Ababa. They argued the so-called “Addis Ababa master plan” would lead to forced evictions of Oromo farmers who will lose their land and would undermine the survival of the Oromo culture and language.

UN Human Rights Council: General Debate under Item 4

UN Human Rights Council: General Debate under Item 4