Reuters: In Ethiopia a secret committee orders killings and arrests of civilians February 29, 2024

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ethiopia-violence-committee/

Denialism as a strategy of epistemological violence meted out against Oromo identity in Ethiopia: Making sense of the pervasive propaganda against Oromummaa – Addis Standard July 21, 2023

https://addisstandard.com/op-ed-denialism-as-a-strategy-of-epistemological-violence-meted-out-against-oromo-identity-in-ethiopia-making-sense-of-the-pervasive-propaganda-against-oromummaa/

Conversation with Faisal Roble: State of the Horn of Africa/ UMD Media January 17, 2022

Executive Order on Imposing Sanctions on Certain Persons With Respect to the Humanitarian and Human Rights Crisis in Ethiopia September 19, 2021

The White House: Executive Order on Imposing Sanctions on Certain Persons With Respect to the Humanitarian and Human Rights Crisis in Ethiopia

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021•PRESIDENTIAL ACTIONS

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a)), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, find that the situation in and in relation to northern Ethiopia, which has been marked by activities that threaten the peace, security, and stability of Ethiopia and the greater Horn of Africa region — in particular, widespread violence, atrocities, and serious human rights abuse, including those involving ethnic-based violence, rape and other forms of gender-based violence, and obstruction of humanitarian operations — constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.  I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

The widespread humanitarian crisis precipitated by the violent conflict in northern Ethiopia has left millions of people in need of humanitarian assistance and has placed an entire region on the brink of famine.  While maintaining pressure on those persons responsible for the crisis, the United States will seek to ensure that appropriate personal remittances to non-blocked persons and humanitarian assistance to at-risk populations can flow to Ethiopia and the greater Horn of Africa region through legitimate and transparent channels, including governments, international organizations, and non-profit organizations.  The United States supports ongoing international efforts to promote a negotiated ceasefire and political resolution of this crisis, to ensure the withdrawal of Eritrean forces from Ethiopia, and to promote the unity, territorial integrity, and stability of Ethiopia.

Accordingly, I hereby order:

Section 1.  The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to impose any of the sanctions described in section 2(a) of this order on any foreign person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State:
     (a)  to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in, any of the following:
          (i)   actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, or stability of Ethiopia, or that have the purpose or effect of expanding or extending the crisis in northern Ethiopia or obstructing a ceasefire or a peace process;
          (ii)   corruption or serious human rights abuse in or with respect to northern Ethiopia;
          (iii)  the obstruction of the delivery or distribution of, or access to, humanitarian assistance in or with respect to northern Ethiopia, including attacks on humanitarian aid personnel or humanitarian projects;
          (iv)   the targeting of civilians through the commission of acts of violence in or with respect to northern Ethiopia, including involving abduction, forced displacement, or attacks on schools, hospitals, religious sites, or locations where civilians are seeking refuge, or any conduct that would constitute a violation of international humanitarian law;
          (v)    planning, directing, or committing attacks in or with respect to northern Ethiopia against United Nations or associated personnel or African Union or associated personnel;
          (vi)   actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Ethiopia; or
          (vii)  actions or policies that undermine the territorial integrity of Ethiopia;
     (b)  to be a military or security force that operates or has operated in northern Ethiopia on or after November 1, 2020;
     (c)  to be an entity, including any government entity or a political party, that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, activities that have contributed to the crisis in northern Ethiopia or have obstructed a ceasefire or peace process to resolve such crisis;
     (d)  to be a political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality of the Government of Ethiopia, the Government of Eritrea or its ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Amhara regional government, or the Amhara regional or irregular forces; 
     (e)  to be a spouse or adult child of any sanctioned person;
     (f)  to be or have been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of any of the following, where the leader, official, senior executive officer, or director is responsible for or complicit in, or who has directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in, any activity contributing to the crisis in northern Ethiopia: 
          (i)    an entity, including a government entity or a military or security force, operating in northern Ethiopia during the tenure of the leader, official, senior executive officer, or director;
          (ii)   an entity that has, or whose members have, engaged in any activity contributing to the crisis in northern Ethiopia or obstructing a ceasefire or a peace process to resolve such crisis during the tenure of the leader, official, senior executive officer, or director; or
          (iii)  the Government of Ethiopia, the Government of Eritrea or its ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Amhara regional government, or the Amhara regional or irregular forces, on or after November 1, 2020; 
     (g)  to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, any sanctioned person; or 
     (h)  to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any sanctioned person.

Sec. 2.  (a)  When the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, has determined that a foreign person meets any of the criteria described in section 1(a)-(h) of this order, the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to select, in consultation with the Secretary of State, one or more of the sanctions set forth in subsections (a)(i)(A)-(E) or (a)(ii)(A)-(B) of this section to impose on that foreign person:
          (i)   the Secretary of the Treasury shall take the following actions as necessary to implement the selected sanctions:
               (A)  block all property and interests in property of the sanctioned person that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person, and provide that such property and interests in property may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in;
               (B)  prohibit any United States person from investing in or purchasing significant amounts of equity or debt instruments of the sanctioned person;
               (C)  prohibit any United States financial institution from making loans or providing credit to the sanctioned person;
               (D)  prohibit any transactions in foreign exchange that are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and in which the sanctioned person has any interest; or
               (E)  impose on the leader, official, senior executive officer, or director of the sanctioned person, or on persons performing similar functions and with similar authorities as such leader, official, senior executive officer, or director, any of the sanctions described in subsections (a)(i)(A)-(D) of this section that are applicable.
          (ii)  the heads of the relevant executive departments and agencies, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, shall take the following actions as necessary and appropriate to implement the sanctions selected by the Secretary of the Treasury: 
               (A)  actions required to deny any specific license, grant, or any other specific permission or authority under any statute or regulation that requires the prior review and approval of the United States Government as a condition for the export or reexport of goods or technology to the sanctioned person; or
               (B)  actions required to deny a visa to and exclude from the United States any noncitizen whom the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, determines is a leader, official, senior executive officer, or director, or a shareholder with a controlling interest in, the sanctioned person.
     (b)  The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section apply except to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted before the date of this order.  No entity shall be blocked pursuant to this order solely because it is owned in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, by one or more sanctioned persons, unless the entity is itself a sanctioned person and the sanctions in section 2(a)(i)(A) of this order are imposed on the entity.

Sec. 3.  The prohibitions in section 2(a) of this order include:
     (a)  the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; and
     (b)  the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

Sec. 4.  (a)  The unrestricted immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of noncitizens determined to meet one or more of the criteria in section l of this order, and for whom the sanctions described in section 2(a)(i)(A) or section 2(a)(ii)(B) of this order have been selected, would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and the entry of such persons into the United States, as immigrants or nonimmigrants, is hereby suspended, except when the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security, as appropriate, determines that the person’s entry would not be contrary to the interests of the United States, including when the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security, as appropriate, so determines, based on a recommendation of the Attorney General, that the person’s entry would further important United States law enforcement objectives.
     (b)  The Secretary of State shall implement this order as it applies to visas pursuant to such procedures as the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, may establish.  
     (c)  The Secretary of Homeland Security shall implement this order as it applies to the entry of noncitizens pursuant to such procedures as the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, may establish.
     (d)  Such persons shall be treated by this section in the same manner as persons covered by section 1 of Proclamation 8693 of July 24, 2011 (Suspension of Entry of Aliens Subject to United Nations Security Council Travel Bans and International Emergency Economic Powers Act Sanctions). 

Sec. 5.  (a)  Any transaction that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, causes a violation of, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited. 
     (b)  Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

Sec. 6.  I hereby determine that the making of donations of the types of articles specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in this order, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 2 of this order.

Sec. 7.  For the purposes of this order:
     (a)  the term “entity” means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization;
     (b)  the term “Government of Ethiopia” means the Government of Ethiopia, any political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including the National Bank of Ethiopia, and any person owned, controlled, or directed by, or acting for or on behalf of, the Government of Ethiopia;
     (c)  the term “Government of Eritrea” means the Government of Eritrea, any political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including the Bank of Eritrea, and any person owned, controlled, or directed by, or acting for or on behalf of, the Government of Eritrea;
     (d)  the term “noncitizen” means any person who is not a citizen or noncitizen national of the United States;
     (e)  the term “person” means an individual or entity; 
     (f)  the term “sanctioned person” means a foreign person that the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, has determined meets any of the criteria described in section 1 of this order and has selected, in consultation with the Secretary of State, one or more of the sanctions set forth in section 2(a) of this order to impose on that foreign person; and
     (g)  the term “United States person” means any United States citizen, lawful permanent resident, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

Sec. 8.  For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked or affected by this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that because of the ability to transfer funds and other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render those measures ineffectual.  I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in this order, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1 of this order. 

Sec. 9.  The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, is authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order.  The Secretary of the Treasury may, consistent with applicable law, redelegate any of these functions within the Department of the Treasury.  All executive departments and agencies of the United States shall take all appropriate measures within their authority to implement this order.

Sec. 10.  Nothing in this order shall prohibit transactions for the conduct of the official business of the Federal Government by employees, grantees, and contractors thereof.

Sec. 11.  The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, is authorized to submit recurring and final reports to the Congress on the national emergency declared in this order, consistent with section 401(c) of the NEA (50 U.S.C. 1641(c)) and section 204(c) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1703(c)).

Sec. 12.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
          (i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
          (ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
     (b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
     (c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

                             JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. 

THE WHITE HOUSE,

    September 17, 2021.

WPF: Many autocrats kill people. It takes a particular kind of leader to kill a country. This is what the Ethiopian Prime Minister is doing. July 20, 2021

The Tigray-Amhara Boundary Should be Resolved by Constitutional Means

July 2021 Employee of the Month: Abiy Ahmed

by ALEX DEWAAL on JULY 19, 2021

The ‘Employee of the Month award’ is bestowed on the person who has done the most to harm the cause of world peace in the last month. Image: “A Conversation with Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia” by World Economic Forum is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed inherited a state. He sacrificed it to the dream of an empire. On his current trajectory, Abiy’s political obituary will be that he left Ethiopians with neither state nor empire.

Many autocrats kill people. It takes a particular kind of leader to kill a country. This is what the Ethiopian Prime Minister is doing.

There was a moment when Abiy was seen indispensable to solving Ethiopia’s problems. Today he is the problem.

At the United Nations Security Council meeting on July 2, western nations put their emphasis on human rights and humanitarian calamity, while Kenya (representing the African nations) and China focused their concern on preserving the Ethiopian state. None of them subscribed to the Ethiopian government’s official narrative.

As if to confirm their fears, three days later Abiy made a speech in parliament and announced that he was closing thirty of Ethiopia’s sixty embassies. He said he didn’t think that his country’s diplomats were value for money, and suggested that the diaspora were doing a better job. Africa’s oldest and most esteemed diplomatic corps, which was built up by Emperor Haile Selassie after World War II and nurtured by successive regimes, is being willfully destroyed.

In the same speech, Abiy denied that his army had suffered a defeat in Tigray, and said that he could raise and train 100,000 special forces in a month, and a million soldiers if need be. The rout of the Ethiopian National Defense Force in Tigray was due in part to Abiy’s dismantling of the army as an institution, which he began almost as soon as he took office. Huge numbers of foot soldiers along with new tanks and drones cannot compensate for lack of generalship, doctrine and strategy. Abiy is simply arming Ethiopians to kill and die.

Abiy’s economic policy of liberalization and attracting foreign investment has been sacrificed to the war, which has consumed the government’s budget, destroyed a significant part of its industry and service sector, and shattered its reputation among international financial institutions and private sector investors.

Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in April 2018 at a time of crisis in Ethiopia. ‘Crisis’ is a relative term. The economy was growing fast, the country had functioning state institutions envied by its neighbors, the ruling party was finally moving towards being an arena for genuine political debate, and the country was at peace with all its neighbors save one—and was well positioned to impose peace terms that would compel Eritrea to demilitarize and democratize. The government faced no military threats at home or abroad; it was Africa’s largest contributor to United Nations and African Union peacekeeping operations; Ethiopia enjoyed strong relations with the U.S., Europe, and China. Middle Eastern that countries it had long regarded as strategic challengers—Egypt and the Gulf States—were at bay.

Abiy came to power because a largely non-violent democratic protest movement caused the head of government to step down and the core element in the ruling party and security sector—the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)—to step aside.

After 27 years in power, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had dismally failed on democracy and human rights, but had won Ethiopia an enviable reputation for stability and growth. Ethiopia’s state capacity was not an automatic inheritance of its long history as an independent polity. Ethiopia’s state had been built by decades of statesmanship at the top, investment in institutions, and lifelong dedication by civil servants.

Many African leaders in ‘crisis’ countries envied Abiy the political capital he possessed and the opportunity to build on strengths and remedy weaknesses. Viewed by many as a reformer, he also enjoyed considerable popular support. His early steps seemed to manifest that promise—releasing political prisoners, inviting opposition parties back, lifting censorship, reaching out to Eritrea.

Abiy made grand promises to everyone, and everyone loved it. He basked in the glory. He took the accolades far more seriously than he should have done. Drawing on his Pentecostal faith and his personal sense of destiny, Abiy refashioned the myth of Ethiopia as a nation chosen by God. He dispensed with any humility and readiness to reflect upon and learn from error. In short, Abiy had a messianic vision but lacked the basics of statecraft.

Abiy did not bring Ethiopia to this precipice alone. His predecessor, Prime Minister Haile Mariam Dessalegn, failed to lead and allowed the country to drift into turmoil. Hailemariam compounded rather than remedied the problems he inherited from Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Getachew Asefa, former head of security, was responsible for many of the most egregious abuses of the EPRDF government—and when Abiy issued an arrest warrant for him, he fled to Tigray where the TPLF elevated him to their central committee. Before and during the current war, the TPLF spokesman, Getachew Reda, prefers posturing and point-scoring to problem solving. Berhanu Nega, leader of the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (EZEMA) party, has cultivated a nostalgic imperial-nationalism that has been instrumental in driving the war fever in Addis Ababa and parts of Amhara region, and Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen has connived with this effort. Legions of twitter warriors roar incendiary nonsense on social media. Foreign actors who indulged Abiy’s egomania share responsibility. Above all, Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki seized his moment to become godfather to Ethiopia’s self-destruction, pursuing his long-held ambitions of seeking to crush Tigray and bring Ethiopia to its knees.

Helped by these men—whether adversaries or allies—Abiy has brought Ethiopia to the brink of political, economic, and reputational collapse. He has made Ethiopia the land of famine once again (though he denies that there is hunger in Tigray), and the land of gang rape for the first time (something he jokes about). He banned opposition parties, imprisoned dissenters, closed newspapers and detained journalists. He has destroyed the army while making needless enemies at home and abroad. His friends—notably Pres. Isaias—are more dangerous to Ethiopia than his enemies. Abiy rushed into a preventable war and bragged about it.

These are all sufficient reason for Abiy to warrant Abiy’s award as ‘employee of the month’—the individual who has done most to stand in the way of peace. But what singles out Abiy is the culmination of his folly, which is contemplating the breakup of Ethiopia—the secession of Tigray—as preferable to his accepting the reality that he has failed. The measure of a statesman is handling adversity. In the face of the calamities of the last months, Abiy has preferred to live in a bubble of illusion rather than take the necessary and painful steps to salvage his country. He is sustaining that bubble with incendiary mobilization of ethno-national passions that he cannot control. His most recent statement, speaking of Tigrayans as an incurable disease and an invasive weed is aptly described as ‘a textbook example of dehumanizing speech and incitement to genocide.’ The havoc Abiy is unleashing and the hatred he is fomenting will surely outlast his tenure in office.

Many autocrats cause appalling suffering to their people, but historians assess them as having built states. PM Abiy is responsible for immeasurable human distress—mass killings, rape, torture and starvation. But he is also leaving a legacy of deliberately turning Ethiopia into a fragile and quite possibly a failed state.

The New York Times: After Sudden Defeat, Captured Ethiopian Soldiers Are Marched to Prison July 3, 2021

After Sudden Defeat, Captured Ethiopian Soldiers Are Marched to Prison

The scale of the loss suffered by one of Africa’s most powerful armies was on vivid display on Friday as thousands of government troops were paraded through Mekelle, the regional capital of Tigray.

MEKELLE, Ethiopia — Thousands of Ethiopian prisoners of war were paraded through the regional capital of Tigray on Friday as jubilant crowds lined the streets to jeer the captives and cheer the Tigrayan forces who only days earlier had routed one of Africa’s most powerful armies.

Many of the soldiers bowed their heads and cast their eyes downward. Some had to be carried on stretchers, and others wore bandages freshly stained with blood.

The swift defeat of the Ethiopian forces was a stunning reversal in a civil war that has led to the displacement of nearly two million people in the Tigray region, widespread hunger and reports that civilians were subjected to atrocities and sexual violence.

The parade of prisoners served as a pointed rebuke to Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who had proclaimed in a speech on Tuesday in the national capital, Addis Ababa, that reports of his troops’ defeat were “a lie.” He had declared a unilateral cease-fire, he insisted, for humanitarian reasons.

Mr. Abiy had actually declared victory last year, only about a month after he initiated the military operation in Tigray in November — but the fighting had continued for seven more months.

Flanked by Tigrayan fighters, the columns of defeated Ethiopian soldiers had been marching for four days from the quickly established battlefield camps where they had been held since the fighting ended this week. They flooded the streets of the Tigrayan capital, Mekelle, and were taken to a large prison on the northern edge of the city.

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A 14-year-old dashed out into the street to run alongside the column, shouting her admiration for the leader of the Tigrayan forces, calling him a “lion.”

“All these soldiers tried to kill us,” the girl, Mearge Gebroemedhin, said a few moments later, referring to the Ethiopian government forces. “But the Tigrayan soldiers showed their mercy. I am proud of our soldiers.”

While some in the crowd jeered the soldiers, the onlookers focused much of their anger on the Ethiopian prime minister, Mr. Abiy.

Nearly eight months before, Mr. Abiy had sent his forces to Mekelle to wrest power from the region’s leaders, declaring the move was necessary because the Tigrayans had held local elections without permission from the federal government, and had tried to capture an Ethiopian military base.

Now the victorious Tigrayan leaders are back in Mekelle, reoccupying their former offices.

In a lengthy, exclusive interview soon after he arrived from his holdout in the mountains, Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of the ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, said that his fighters had captured more than 6,000 Ethiopian soldiers.

He said that Tigrayan officials have been in touch with the International Committee of the Red Cross, and would soon release the low-ranking soldiers, but would keep officers in custody.

Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war must be given food and clothing, and protected from violence, intimidation and “public curiosity.” There was no immediate indication that the Ethiopian soldiers had been mistreated, or whether marching them through the streets of Mekelle amounted to a violation of the Conventions.

Ever since Ethiopia announced a unilateral cease-fire on Monday and pulled its troops out of Mekelle, Tigray has experienced electricity, telecommunications and internet blackouts. The consequences will exacerbate an already dire humanitarian situation, according to the United Nations.

International aid agencies warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe and said it was unclear if the rebel victory would allow international assistance to start reaching those most in need in the Tigray region, which is bordered by Eritrea to the north and Sudan to the west.

The U.N. said that at least 350,000 people in the conflict-ravaged region had entered a state of famine. The U.S. Agency for International Development put its estimate for those facing famine conditions at 900,000.

On Thursday, a bridge was destroyed that provided vital access over the Tekeze River to the town of Shire in central Tigray, where the U.N. estimates there are between 400,000 and 600,000 internally displaced people living in dire conditions.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the bridge had been destroyed by troops belonging to the Amhara Special Forces and the army of Eritrea, the country to the north of Tigray, which had fought as allies with the Ethiopian troops.

“The bridge’s destruction will have an impact,” said Claire Nevill, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program.

Redwan Hussein, an Ethiopian government spokesman, said on Friday that two bridges connecting the Tigray region had been destroyed, but denied that the government or allied forces were responsible. He blamed the Tigrayans.

One aid agency employee who was traveling through Tigray on Thursday said that there was “little to nothing” entering the region at the moment and that food trucks had been prevented from getting there by troops along the border with the Amhara region.

In the interview, Mr. Debretsion said that Tigrayan leaders were working to bring in international aid as swiftly as possible.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said at a Security Council briefing on Friday that she is hearing reports that getting aid into Tigray is “more difficult” now than it was a week ago — which is “not an indication of a humanitarian cease-fire, but of a siege.”

She added, “The Ethiopian government can and should prove this analysis wrong by providing unhindered movement of humanitarian supplies, commodities, and personnel into and throughout Tigray. If they do not, we believe hundreds of thousands of people could starve to death.”

Analysts say that Mr. Abiy, who has served as Ethiopia’s prime minister since 2018 and who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for making peace with Eritrea and instituting domestic democratic reforms, now faces tremendous political challenges.

The alliance Ethiopia forged with Eritrea and fighters in the Amhara region could fracture as Ethiopian troops continue to pull back from direct engagement, and Tigray fighters go on the offensive.

“The Amhara support for him will eventually dwindle,” said Mehari Taddele Maru, a professor of governance and geopolitics at the European University Institute. “The one thing that was holding things together in the Amhara region was the anti-Tigray sentiment. Once the Tigray matter is out of the game, the glue that held his support together is no longer there.”

Getachew Reda, a senior Tigrayan leader, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that Tigray’s forces would not hesitate to enter Eritrea, and even might try to advance toward its capital, if that is what it would take to keep Eritrean troops from attacking again. And he claimed that in recent days, Tigrayan forces had killed many Ethiopian troops and militia fighters.

Since June 30, fighting has continued between Tigrayan and Eritrean forces in northwestern Tigray, close to the contested towns of Badme and Shiraro, U.N. security documents show.

“We want to degrade as many enemy capabilities as possible,” Mr. Getachew said. “We are still in hot pursuit so that enemy forces will not pose a threat to our Tigray in any way.”

As Friday wore on, many of the marching Ethiopian soldiers who arrived at the jail appeared hungry and exhausted. They were put in cells, men separated from women.

They had passed through a gauntlet of Tigrayans celebrating their capture. Adanay Hagos, 23, who had walked alongside the soldiers yelling at them, later explained that he was so angry because some of his friends had been killed by Eritrean troops allied with the Ethiopian army.

“This is just one step,” he said. “They invaded our land from the west and the south. Until they leave, the war is not over.”

A statement from The Oromo Federalist Congress on the Ethiopian June 2021 Sham Elections June 26, 2021

A statement from The Oromo Federalist Congress on the Ethiopian ‘Elections’

For over the past three years, the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) has been expressing its position and concerns regarding the political direction of Ethiopia and has been working tirelessly in advising for the creation of a favorable condition for the realization of the right political environment for a successful democratic transition. Our party repeatedly underlined the fact that only a broader understanding among the political forces of the country through a meaningful political dialogue can take the country out of the existing political dead-end.

However, the ruling party that believes in a domination of one group and determined to rule in perpetuity at all costs repeatedly has frustrated our quests for political dialogue by turning them into a ‘dialogue of the deaf, which in turn have led the country to wallow under an endless political quagmire.

The on-going political theater under the name of “national election” we have witnessed yesterday was the direct consequence of the rigid stand taken from the side of the ruling party. And as we feared all along – the election from which our party has been forced out was proved to be a fixed game and orchestrated by the ruling party – a very fact that finally being understood by those parties stayed in the election as it can be read from the complaints they are making. As it is to be recalled, the election was not able to seriously attract the attention of our citizens as a result of which voters registration deadlines had been postponed at least three times. Far worse, as even the Election Board admitted – there were seventy-nine election stations that the board itself did not know while no elections were taken place in hundreds of constituencies across the country because of security reasons. And in regions like Oromia, because of the absence of those who could help the ruling party’s political drama in several places, there were only nominal presence of a very few opposition parties while in hundreds of constituencies the ruling party cadres had to compete by themselves unopposed. What also should be noted is that as the Tigray Administrative Region was in the middle of a war, the entire region was out of this election. In a nutshell, about 50% of the population of the country was out of this election process. To be sure, the outcome of such a political drama and what it meant to the future of our country is not difficult to predict.

As even our own political rivals understood it, the fact that the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and our party, the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) not be able to take part in this election would not spell well for anyone. Above all, in the eyes of the Oromo youth who have paid the ultimate sacrifices to bring about this three-year-old political change that was expected to transit the country to stability and democratic governance, missing the two Oromo parties they overwhelmingly support in the election definitely leaves a black spot in the history of the Oromo people’s struggle for freedom and democracy. To say it in the clearest language possible, this can be taken as a second betrayal to the struggle of our people for their democratic rights and self-rule.

Finally, we repeat again and again that there will be no miraculous shortcut to fulfill the three greatest needs of our country: lasting peace and stability, birth of democratic Ethiopia that equally house all its citizens and a prosperous country that provides better opportunities to the millions of its citizens – without a genuine all-inclusive political dialogue based on a common road map.

Therefore, from our end, we are suggesting the following as a way forward to all the political forces of the country to take them seriously:To start an immediate talk for the establishment of all-inclusive Government of Salvation that can undertake the aborted reform of governmental institutions;To start an immediate all-inclusive and honest political dialogue to sort out the country’s our standing political problems;

Based on an agreed common road map, to hold an all-inclusive ‘free and fair’ election within one year that can be acceptable to and respected by all of the peoples of Ethiopia.

At the end, at this very decisive moment in the history of our country promising to play our share of the game genuinely and positively, we call upon the peoples of Ethiopia and the international community to stand with us in our endeavor to create lasting peace and true democratic transition.

Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC)

Addis Ababa: June 23, 202

Read the the following related articles and views on Ethiopia’s crises from social media and Oromian Economist sources:-

Oromo Liberation Front calls for an interim ‘salvation government’ in Ethiopia following ‘unacceptable’ election

In 27-page report, Human Rights Watch asks Biden to hold war criminals in Ethiopia’s Tigray region accountable

Statement by High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell and Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič, on the killing of three humanitarian workers in Tigray

Ethiopian leaders said they would ‘wipe out’ Tigrayans: EU envoy

CNN: Condemnation builds over deadly government airstrike in Tigray

Urgent appeal to stop the Invasion of Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz regional States by Eritrean Forces June 13, 2021

Urgent appeal to stop the Invasion of Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz regional States by Eritrean Forces. 

Open Letter to His Excellency Antony Blinken,
Secretary of State, United States
2201 C Street N.W.
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary Blinken:

We, members of the Oromia Global Forum – a global alliance of 45 Oromo civic, professional, faith-based organizations, and scholars – would like to bring to your attention the invasion of Oromia by Eritrean soldiers, in a serious escalation of the civil war in Ethiopia by Abiy’s government. We are seriously concerned that the invading armies of Ethiopia and Eritrea will cause yet another human tragedy in Oromia at a similar or even larger scale than they caused in Tigray.

As you know, an untold number of people have been killed and victimized due to the war in Tigray, exposing over five million people to a severe risk of famine.  We believe that millions of people may suffer cruel and slow death by starvation if the international community does not immediately take drastic measures to provide a safe passage for humanitarian aid in Tigray. Consequently, we wholeheartedly support your administration’s actions and the Senate and House resolutions calling for immediate withdrawal of Eritrean forces from Tigray and the rest of Ethiopia, the call for an immediate ceasefire and free access to humanitarian aid for Tigray.

Unfortunately, as the international community is focusing on the crisis in Tigray, Abiy Ahmed’s regime is expanding the war into Oromia by deploying – reportedly – more than 30, 000 Eritrean troops and Amhara militias. It has been reported before that some Eritrean forces are already in Oromia doing what they have become famous for – killing, looting, and destabilizing communities. Since June 1, 2021, two additional divisions of Eritrean forces, the 37^th and 58^th divisions – consisting of more than 30, 000 troops – are being deployed in multiple directions to the Northern, Western, Eastern, Central Oromia, and Benishangul-Gumuz regions. Isaias’s expansion of the war into Oromia and Benishangul makes his ambition of controlling Ethiopia abundantly clear, disproving the argument that The TPLF provoked Eritrea to get involved in the war in Tigray.

Oromia is the largest regional state in Ethiopia about ten times larger than Tigray Regional State in geographical area and population, contributing about 60% to Ethiopia’s economy. The escalation of conflicts in Oromia and the foray of Eritrean mercenaries, known for their brutality, deep into Oromia will create a greater human tragedy, potentially displacing millions of people, exposing them to starvation.

Dear Mr. Secretary,

We are proud Americans who have personally experienced the agonies of war and displacement, are taking action to stop the devastating wars in Ethiopia. We applaud your leadership as America’s chief diplomat as you push for a peaceful and just resolution of the conflict in Tigray. We appeal to your good office to apply the necessary political, economic, and diplomatic pressures for the withdrawal of Eritrean mercenaries and the Amhara militia from Oromia immediately before a severe tragedy befalls millions of people. Unless the world community, led by your good office, takes prompt action the Horn of Africa will soon sink into chaos, humanitarian catastrophe and famine of biblical proportion aided by the pandemic that is already raging in the region out of control.

Finally, we earnestly believe that as America’s top diplomat and principal voice on international issues, you have a unique position and responsibility to alleviate the incredible human sufferings in Ethiopia.  We sincerely thank you for your interest in the wellbeing of all the people of Ethiopia.

Sincerely,

cc. Mr. António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General
cc. Mr. Jeffrey Feltman, US Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa
cc: Senator Christopher Andrew Coons

Ethiopia: Ethnic Cleansing in Amhara region: Wollo Oromo, isolated within Amhara Region, were attacked by Amhara militia in Oromia Special Zone and adjacent zones At least 13 villages were razed to the ground April 6, 2021

REPORT 55 April 2021: Ethnic cleansing in Amhara Region; collapse of democracy and rule of law; attacks in Guliso; massacre of migrants in Yemen

Wollo Oromo, isolated within Amhara Region, were attacked by Amhara militia in Oromia
Special Zone and adjacent zones from 19-22 March (pp.9-12) and 25-28 March (see Late
News, pp.25-6) . At least 13 villages were razed to the ground. The militia went on a rampage of killing, raping and burning homes and crops (illustrated below, around Kemise).
In five villages in Jille Dhuguma district and ten villages in the adjacent district of Artuma Fursi alone, at least 79 named farmers and their wives were killed, not counting those killed in Ataye town. Eye-witnesses reported hundreds dead, ‘bodies everywhere’ and over 10,000 displaced.
In a press release, the OLF wrote of killings by Amhara militias elsewhere – in Tigray and in Benishangul-Gumuz Regions – and that Amhara Liyu Police were deployed throughout Wallega and in West and North Showa. Earlier in the year, on 15 February, Amhara militia attacked villagers in an adjacent area of E Wallega, Gida Ayana, killing dozens and wounding more (p.17).

Click here to read the full OSG REPORT 55 April 2021: Ethnic cleansing in Amhara Region; collapse of
democracy and rule of law; attacks in Guliso; massacre
of migrants in Yemen

Ethiopia: The Amhara militia and the special forces committed Genocide/ ethnic cleansing against Wallo Oromo March 30, 2021

The Amhara militia and the Amhara special forces have been conducting mass killings and ethnic cleansings against the Oromo people in Wallo, Oromia special Zone in Amhara regional state, in North Shawa zone and in Metekele (Benishangul Gumuz state).

‘የአማራ ልዩ ሃይል እና ሚሊሻ በወሎ ህዝብ ላይ ባደረገው ወርራ ከ 19/03/2021 እስከ አሁኗ ሰአት ድረስ በሰው እና በንብረት ላይ የደረሰው ጉዳት። የተገደሉ 135 ሰዎችየቆሰሉ 182 ሰዎችከእርግዝና ጋር ተያይዞ የሞቱ እናቶች 3ከቤታቸው ተፈናቅለው ጫካ ውስጥ የወለዱ እናቶች 3የተቃጠሉ ቤቶች ብዛት 1539ከቤታቸው የተፈናቀሉ ሰዎች ከ 40,000 በላይ ይህ ዳታ በአጣዬ፣ በታችኛው ዝግባ እና ላይኛው ዝግባ ውስጥ የደረሰውን ግድያ፣ ቁስለኞች የተቃጠሉ ቤት እና የንብረት ውድመትን ሳያጠቃልል ነው። ዳታውን በዝርዝር በዝሁ ገፄ ይዤ እመለሳለሁ/አሳውቃችኋለሁ።’ https://www.facebook.com/ismail.aliwo

Empayerri Jiguu qaba February 14, 2021

Empayerri jiguu qaba: Waa’ee angoo irratt Amaaraa fi Tigreen gara laafina walitt agarsiisanii hin beekanii. Inni ammaa, kan lamuu walitt dhinuun mamii taa’aa jiru. Kanaaf, Godinichi keessa deebi’amee caasamuu barbaadee jira. Hammeenyi walitt raawwataa jiran, isuma eengaddaa fi kaleessa Oromoo irratt raawwataa bahanii. Isaan keessa kan sagalee mormii agarsiise hin turre. Qaama ciruun, ibidaan gubuun, tuutaan gudeeduun, qaccee balleessuu fi beelaan adabuu yaaluun, waan salphisu fi laalessaa ta’e hunda ilmoo namaatt raawwachuun aadaa saaniitii. Kana baruuf seenaa saanii Yekuno Amlak hanga Minilikitt dubbisuu dha. Kanaaf, Oromoon olhaanummaa saanii fagoott ofirraa eeguu qabuun gorfama. Oromoon, aangoo hammaa bahaa ummata haa ta’uu abba abaa kam irratt raawatu balaaleffachuun aadaa saaniitii. Jarri kan ofii irratt raawwachuu yaadan, Oromooon nurraan ga’e jedhani firisanii iyyuu. “Iji abshaalaa utuu hin rukutamin boosiin” jecha saaniitii. Empayerri Itophiyaa dharraa qabeenya Oromiyaa fi jibba Oromoo irratt hundaawe. Kana fiixaan baasuun akeeka saaniitii. Eenyu jala ta’uyyuu, empayerich Oromoo fi kolonootaa nagaa waan hin yaadneef diigame kolonooti bilisa ta’uu qabu. 

Uumaan Oromoo, dhaabi sammuuquwii fi aadaan waatattaa saanii jaraan addaa. Sana irra haanuuf, garajabeessi Bulgu Frankenstein murni Tigree Oromoo hacuucuuf ummate, isatis garagalee barbadeessaa jira. OPDOn maqaan Oromoodha malee nameeenyaan nafxanyaa ta’ee jira. ABOn kan takaalamee furga’uu dadhabef maaliif akka ta’e nuu ifaa jira. Mootummaa Oromo fixaa jiru, nafxanyaa waliin dhaabbatanii Oromoon “Ttaranyaa” dha yoo jedhan ammawoo maal nu yaadaniitu? Qondaaloti maqaa Oromoo qabaatanii ummatoota biraa miidha jiran, Oromoos isaantu fixaa jira. 

Hidhamtich Jawar fi jaallewan saa haala hamaa lubbuuf sodachisu keessa jira. Murni maqaa Oromoon daldalu hamma Jawar Oromoof waan gumaache lakkaawuu danda’a? Innu gumaacha Jawar ta’uun ifaa mitii? Halagaa jala lixanii dutaniif gaalichi ni trata malee deemsa hin dhaabu. Hoongaatuun hongaatullee, geerarsa hin dadhabduf yeelaluu. Afaan walabummaa, bilisummaa fi tokkummaa lallabaa bahe, faallaa saaf yoo banamu ni ajaawaa. Kanaaf callisuu wayya ture. Yoo Oromummaa isaan keessatt hafte jiraatte, michuu saaniin Oromoo irraa ajjeechaa dhaabi haa jedhaanii, haasaan biraa hafaa dha. 

Ergamsi kan Masaraa Minilik qabatan hunda tokko. Oromoo aangoo dhabsiisuun deegsanii Oromiyaa dhuunfachuu dha. Haalli akka durii isaaniif mijjaawaa hin ta’uu. Oromoon daddaaqina malee tokkummaan kaanaan kan jala dhaabbatu hin jiru. Oromummaan dhiiga mitii, ilaalchaa. Farra Oromummaa kan labsan diinaa, qubi itt qabamuuf saaxilamuu qabu. Yaadaan adda tahuu fi ilaalchaan farra Oromummaa ta’uun adda adda. Diinni gootota Oromoo marsuun kan ajjeese ajjeesee, kan biyyaa baase, baasee kan hidhe, hidhee itt roorrisaa jira. Tokkummaan ka’anii ofirraa finqilchuu dha. Kan darbe barumsa godhannee fulduratt haa dhiichinuu. 

Kanaaf Kanneen hidhaa keessa taa’anii salphina saba keenya arguu manna du’uu nuu wayya jedhan meeshaa tokkittii qaban agabuun dirree waranaa seenanii jiru. Isaan oolchuun qabsoo Oromoo oolchuu dha. Gaaffii saanii gaaffii ofii godhatanii kan danda’aniin diinatt bobba’uu dha. Kan ala jiran hidhaa sammuu yoo ta’e malee hidhaa qaamaa keessa hin jirani. Kanaaf isaan irra wayyaa hojjechuu ni danda’u. Dubbiin saa akka saanii lubbuu ofii biyya ofii dabarsanii kennuuf qophee ta’uu fi roorroo ofirraa gatuuf murteeffachuu gaafata. Murannoo ummata Oromo qofa kan mootummichi akka gaaffii saaniif deebii kennu gochuu danda’u. Yoo tarkaanfii ariifachiisaa fudhachuu dadhabuu saaniin, hogganoota saanii kana irra hamtuun geese sabichaaf qaanii guddaa ta’a. Hogganoota keenyatt ni amanna taanaan tarkaanfii kana waan fudhataniif akka qabanis amannee waan hoggansa saanii fiixan baasu hunda gumaachuu dha. Haalichi Bilisummaan jiraachuu yk du’a jedhanii ka’uu gaafataa jira. Oromiyaan haa jiraattu!

https://www.facebook.com/100002499302910/posts/3710702962356311/?sfnsn=scwspmo

Awash Post: Oromo hunger strikers in mortal danger in Ethiopia February 13, 2021

Oromo hunger strikers in mortal danger in Ethiopia 

Calls grow for immediate US intervention to spare Jawar Mohammed, Bekele Gerba, and other political prisoners on the 17th day of the strike. By QABBANEE WAQAYO, Awash Post 13 February 2021

Prominent Ethiopian democracy advocates Jawar Mohammed and Bekele Gerba, along with 22 other political prisoners, are in the third week of a hunger strike, which began on January 27. Doctors, lawyers, and their families warn that the detainees are getting weaker and are now at risk of organ failure or other complications. At least five of the strikers collapsed this week and were rushed to the hospital.

On Friday, Bekele Gerba, deputy chairperson of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), was denied medical treatment after his doctors determined that he needed urgent medical attention and demanded his transfer to the hospital.

Held for more than 7 months based on trumped-up charges, the prisoners went on hunger strike as a measure of the last recourse to demand an end to their unjust detention and the harassment and crackdown of their political parties and their members. The strikers are individuals of considerable popular following, particularly among the Oromo youth, and pose a direct and significant electoral challenge to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his party.

Jawar, Bekele, and Hamza Borana are among the leading members of the opposition OFC party. Michael Boran, Abdi Ragassa, and Gammachu Ayana are among the key members and organizers for the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Together, the individuals and their respective parties are seen as credible threats to Abiy’s chances for victory at the polls. Their arrest and detention angered Oromos across the region, and their deaths would almost certainly plunge Ethiopia into an unprecedented political crisis. The Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, comprising a majority of the country’s population.

Jawar, Bekele, and Hamza, in particular, played a critical role in the pro-democracy Oromo youth movement that ushered Abiy into power in April 2018. However, as the Prime Minister consolidated power and secured his position, formidable Oromo opposition forces became targets of repression and crackdown. The arrest of these highly visible public figures was carried out last year, within hours of the assassination of the popular Oromo artist and activist Haacaaluu Hundeessaa in Addis Ababa, which occurred the evening of 29 June 2020,

Charges brought against Jawar and several members, supporters, and activists of the OFC and OLF though couched in criminal terms, are unfounded. Their detention is political. The defendants and their lawyers contend that the indictment is a blatant overreach and abuse of power meant to remove Abiy’s adversaries from the democratic competition. Their trial is widely perceived as a deliberate and systematic attack against ethnonational movements and the right to self-determination of nations and nationalities protected under the current constitution. The extended detention and nearly eight months of legal wrangling are driven by the ruling party’s desire to remove its most outspoken and popular opponents from the political field before the election.

By late January, the prisoners launched the hunger strike to demand release and an end to what has become a systematic campaign of repression and disenfranchisement against Oromo and other marginalized peoples in the country. In a letter they sent to the Court, Jawar, Bekele and their co-defendants spoke about the Oromo youth who sacrificed their lives to bring about the change in Ethiopia and how those in power betrayed the cause of Oromo and others, systematically excluding genuine voices from the upcoming election and the national conversation about the future of the country. “Because we are no longer able to use the usual tools of non-violent protest and activism from inside the prison,” the letter noted, “we are resorting to the only form of protest available to us.”

So far, the government has chosen to ignore the issue. The hunger strike is taking place as international attention is focused almost exclusively on the war and the humanitarian crises in the northern Tigray region. In other parts of Ethiopia, however, public discontent was on full display this week. Secondary school students in various cities across the east, west-central, and southern Oromia came out to demonstrate, demanding the immediate release of these political figures. Members of the Oromo community across the U.S. and around the world are also staging solidarity rallies. The political crisis and the return of street protests in Oromia underscore the complete reversal of Ethiopia’s promised democratic transition.

Election prospects

In fact, the mounting public concerns over the well-being of the hunger strikers adds another layer to the myriad crises facing Ethiopia. The economy is in dire straits. The COVID-19 pandemic has blunted the growth of the Ethiopian economy. The already high youth unemployment is on the rise. Ethiopia is involved in border disputes with neighboring Sudan. Negotiations over the mega Nile dam with Egypt and Sudan have repeatedly broken down.

Political and ethnic tensions have characterized the tenure of the Abiy government. The last two years saw high-level political assassinations, massive displacement of civilians, and brutal and widespread restrictions on independent voices and opposition activities. Several regions have been under Command Post and communications blackout for nearly two years. Tensions reached a fever pitch in November after Abiy’s government launched a military offensive against opponents in the Tigray region. The fallout from the declaration of hostilities and humanitarian crises unleashed by that war has turned Abiy, the 2019 Peace Laureate, into an international pariah.

As the Abiy regime sets its sights on elections scheduled for June 5, 2021, crackdown and repression against Abiy’s critics and opponents, have intensified. Many of the current crises in Ethiopia result from the Abiy administration’s unilateral decision to postpone elections scheduled for August 2020 using a dubious constitutional process to claim extended legitimacy. The power struggle between Abiy and leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) escalated in September after the latter held regional elections defying Abiy’s orders. Federal authorities responded by withholding budget subsidies. Tensions blew over in November after months of war preparations on both sides.

Conflicting accounts of the war in Tigray have been made impossible for the media to cover or confirm due to a communications blackout imposed in the region. As the world’s attention remains fixed on Tigray, the crises in other parts of Ethiopia, particularly in Oromia and the Beni Shangul Gumuz region, are also unfolding under total darkness. Political discontent across the Southern region, including in Wolaita and Sidama, continue to deepen over the government’s refusal to address statehood demands and implementation.

Given the destruction and the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Tigray and the crackdown against opposition forces across the country, the forthcoming election cannot be deemed credible or seen as a reliable democratic exercise. The conditions for a free, fair, and competitive election are simply not in place. Holding an election under the current situation serves only one purpose: to consolidate Abiy’s authoritarian grip on power while his viable opponents languish in prison, silenced and facing bogus charges. Importantly, unless some dramatic and well-supported alternative is introduced and a pathway negotiated among a range of stakeholders, it would not address any of the country’s explosive challenges. It would simply sharpen and exacerbate them.

Clearly, Bekele, Jawar, and other ignominiously detained political leaders have decided that they would rather die bringing attention to these grievous injustices than being inadvertently complicit in the travesty they see unfolding from behind bars.

National dialogue 

The political crisis in Ethiopia is urgent, and the stakes could not be higher.  Dealing with this unprecedented crisis demands a sober and mature reflection on the country’s complex past and the diverse political loyalties, views, and sentiments that organize and structure contemporary debate about Ethiopia’s future. The government’s authoritarian turn and its fierce determination to silence every critical voice and impose its preferred vision of the future on Ethiopia’s diverse population will have calamitous consequences far beyond the country’s borders. Ethiopia is already facing an existential crisis, and the very continuity of the Ethiopian state as a united and cohesive entity is on the line.

The Tigray war already ruptured the thread that tied the Ethiopian body-politic together; the government’s imperious march to impose a new political settlement has proven deadly.  It is the primary driver of the war in Tigray. In fact, the hostilities in the north drew attention from the mounting challenges in other regions, particularly those areas in Oromia and the Southern region where illegal Command Posts have been in effect since 2018. The risk of state disintegration is likely without external intervention to salvage a semblance of peace and balance.

To avoid further bloodshed and the prospect of state collapse, Prime Minister Abiy must be encouraged to demonstrate leadership in prioritizing the country’s well-being. If advised to return the country to the transitional process and begin the indispensable work of promoting reconciliation and building national consensus, he might play a constructive role in facilitating a plausible pathway forward for Ethiopia. The only way to avoid plunging Ethiopia into the abyss is by initiating an all-inclusive national dialogue and securing a constitutional settlement for the country. This requires, first and foremost, releasing all political prisoners and widening the political space, once again, to facilitate and foster a spirit of dialogue. Such a national dialogue must precede the election to have any legitimacy or impact.

However, it appears that the government is planning to muddle through until the election, where Abiy hopes to secure a five-year mandate in a poll in which he would be the only real contender and the outcome of which is predetermined. Having jailed popular opposition voices within Oromia, the largest electoral constituency in the country, and Addis Ababa, the metropolis where the federal government sits, Abiy seems to believe that securing the five-year mandate will allow him much needed time and authority to consolidate power further and micromanage Ethiopia’s political settlement.

Ethiopia’s allies and partners, particularly the U.S. government, could play a critically important role by understanding this broader context for the crisis in Ethiopia and acting to intervene. Abiy had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to usher in a democratic transition. Unfortunately, he has squandered enormous national and international goodwill, which was topped off by the Nobel Prize.  To pursue an all-inclusive national dialogue is to try to salvage Ethiopia’s configuration as the world knows it.

This project has far-reaching geographical and historical consequences for Ethiopia and U.S. interests in the region. As President Biden rekindles relations with Africa, Ethiopia should be atop that agenda. The Biden administration must prepare for a frank and open conversation with Abiy and other players in the region, making clear that an election with only one contestant is not acceptable and cannot receive the support or recognition of the United States.

In the short run, the lives of highly visible and respected individuals are at mortal risk. The clock is ticking. The prisoners themselves point to the fates of others. More than 30,000 young people who demonstrated peacefully to bring democratic rights to Ethiopia are detained in Oromia alone.

Jawar Mohammed, Bekele Gerba, Hamza Borana, Abdi Ragassa, Gammachu Ayana, and other pro-democracy leaders and advocates of nonviolent social change are violently treated and jailed to facilitate Abiy’s political advantage. They must be released immediately and unconditionally. To avert the enormous consequences that will inevitably follow their deaths in detention, the U.S. government must lead the international community in proactively and publicly calling for their release.

Related from Oromian Economist sources:-

Aljazeera News: Ethiopia: Concern grows over health of jailed political leaders

Ethiopia and the perils of war January 10, 2021

Ethiopia and the perils of war

In conversation with Eritrean human rights activist Paulos Tesfagiorgis

Pierre Beaudet, Canadian Dimension / January 8, 2021

AFRICAHUMAN RIGHTSWAR ZONES

Paulos Tesfagiorgis was the head of the Eritrean Relief Association (ERA) and one of the senior cadres of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) from the 1970s until the liberation of the country in 1991. While EPLF liberated Eritrea, opposition forces in Ethiopia, under the leadership of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and its coalition partners, also succeeded in establishing a new government in Addis Ababa. The hope then was that both Ethiopia and Eritrea would cooperate in rebuilding. But that did not come to pass. Under the leadership of the EPLF and new president Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea escalated a border skirmish into an all-out war which caused a great deal of destruction and animosity for another two decades. Like many of his former comrades, Tesfagiorgis was forced into exile. Many senior EPLF and government cadres were detained and disappeared, never to be seen again.

Recently, in 2018, there was a shift in power with the arrival of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who looked to be a champion of peace and democracy. He pushed the TPLF out of the commanding heights they had occupied for many years. He released political prisoners and relaxed control over the press. And he signed a peace accord with Eritrea. His actions inspired confidence and resonated with a large swath of Ethiopian society. He appeared to have a strong mandate to pursue and consolidate his reform agenda.

It was not too long, however, before conflict erupted once again. The battle between the TPLF and members of the new Ethiopian power circle, to which the prime minister seemed beholden, finally exploded dramatically in 2020 when the TPLF pulled out of Addis, held its own elections, and took over the Ethiopian military bases in Tigray, apparently to pre-empt the prime minister from using them against Tigray. The Ethiopian government responded by launching a full-scale invasion of Tigray on November 4. Two months later, Ethiopian military forces are now occupying the main towns, including the Tigrayan capital, Mekelle, with the support of Eritrea. TPLF battle-hardened troops went into the hills, promising a battle to the finish, and to make Tigray the “burial ground of the invaders.”

What are the prospects for peace, now, at what appears to be the beginning of a protracted war? What can be expected from other Horn of Africa countries? Canadian Dimension put these questions to Tesfagiorgis, who has been carefully observing the situation by keeping in touch with many of his former comrades and friends in Ethiopia, Tigray and Eritrea.

What is happening on the ground in Tigray?

It is very difficult to know much under the circumstances. Apparently, battles are taking place in many regions of Tigray. More than 70 percent of the Ethiopian army is now in Tigray. According to Mesfin Hagos, Eritrea’s former chief of staff and minster of defense, the Eritrean president sent 11 mechanized divisions, four infantry divisions and two commando divisions in addition to providing intelligence, logistics and heavy armaments. This makes one wonder who is doing the actual fighting. Despite this enormous deployment, TPLF seems to be able to inflict major losses, including destroying tanks and heavy armaments and taking prisoners of war, although so far we have not seen related footage or photos. Nonetheless, human and material costs seem to be quite high on the Ethiopian side. Although the extent of the TPLF’s losses is unknown, we can presume they have also sustained serious damage but it is likely that they were well prepared. They know how to fight, and they know their terrain. They can also count on the support of most of the people in Tigray who might not necessarily like the TPLF’s policies and practices, but who will support them in face of an Ethiopian assault which has already badly affected civilians.

Is the situation heading towards a protracted war?

I see it as a real possibility. Despite their quantitative strength, I do not think the government forces can crush the TPLF easily. There are many questions about the quality of their military leadership, since until 2018 the Ethiopian army was led by TPLF senior commanders who have defected en masse to join the resistance. Ethiopian soldiers who come from various nationalities do not necessarily have the training and motivation that one finds on the Tigrayan side, united by the call to “defend the nation.” Ethiopia, one should not forget, is still a very poor country, despite its relative economic success in the past decade and half, and thus will not be able to sustain a fight with a well-organized, well-trained and highly motivated army without its economy collapsing or the country risking ultimate disintegration.

Can the involvement of Eritrean forces make a difference?

If the evidence that we have until now is confirmed, the Eritrean military is playing a leading role. Although militarily effective, this could be dangerous politically. The conflicts between Eritrea and Tigray, and more specifically between EPLF and TPLF, are deeper and have a long history. Eritrean domination and participation in the war would appear as a foreign invasion. That would make Ethiopians, let alone Tigrayans, very uncomfortable. All in all, I see the possibility of a protracted war that will sap Ethiopia’s energy, distract its attention from resolving the many problems that it is encountering in different places, and put a damper on economic activity and development projects.

Was this disaster unavoidable?

It is a complex and multi-dimensional crisis; nothing could have been easily resolved. It would have required years, perhaps decades, to build a genuine political space, institute dialogue as a participatory political process and improve the lives of ordinary people. There were some positive signs in 2018 as Ethiopia moved towards democratization to some extent. The sort of “ethnic federalism” that emerged in the 1990s had its limitations, but it also had benefits. Ethiopia had to find a way out of the oppressive heritage of the feudal regime of Haile Selassie and the barbaric military junta of Mengistu, who had cultivated the idea that the country was the property of the Amhara elite, and that the others were all ignorant peasants. Ethiopian federalism was based on ethnicity, a system that sought to empower the historically subjugated and the minority ethnic groups. It was not easy to redesign the constitution and the governance structures of this type of federalism so that finances, power and resource-sharing, security, services, etc. functioned as they should. Another challenge is that minorities also live within minorities. It was unclear whether they would be asking to assert their identity and claim their right to govern themselves and whether they would be treated as equal to the minorities among whom they live. The TPLF, which dominated the government, did try, but did not really understand the complexity of the situation, nor, in the later years, was it adequately prepared. The marginalized are now expected to rally around the newly created Prosperity Party and Prime Minister Abiy, which claim to have come up with some sort of a reform agenda, but without the required depth, relevance, sophistication, patient dialogue and negotiations.

But then, everything has broken down…

I think that Abiy and the new Ethiopian ruling class were unable to grasp the consequences of the conflict with TPLF, even before the dramatic escalation of the last two months. The thinking was that the new government could force the TPLF to accept the inevitable—losing their grip on power in Addis and remaining silent forever.

Abiy miscalculated…

Despite many differences between political and social groups and ethnic identities in Ethiopia, there was a deeply felt and shared desire that Ethiopia no longer be ruled by the TPLF. But it seems a strategic mistake to think that they can easily be dislodged in Tigray. Abiy did not understand that the TPLF is rooted in the society for historical reasons. Bear in mind too that last summer the TPLF won a huge majority in the Tigray elections, which were, by the way, transparent, free and fair. This can also be taken as a new mandate given by the people to the TPLF to govern the region. At the end of the day, going to war against the TPLF was and is a serious failure of leadership and of statecraft; it is a failure to think beyond the present and appreciate the damage that it can cause to people’s lives and livelihood as well as to the economy and the unity of the country.

Tell us a bit more about the role of Eritrea in this confrontation.

I have suggested before that the huge Eritrean military presence is one of the reasons that Ethiopia can maintain its occupation of Tigray. It seems that Afwerki had planned this war a long time ago. He had an axe to grind with the TPLF whose forces had defeated him in the war of 1998-2000, which he took as a personal humiliation. Apparently, Abiy looked up to the Eritrean leader when it appeared that the conflict with Tigray was intensifying. He wrongly believed that the solution was to eliminate the TPLF or at least undermine it strategically through quick surgical military action. What a blunder!

Eritrea will ultimately pay the price.

I am extremely sad that my country is involved. It is not that Eritrea has no issues with the TPLF. The non-acceptance of the border decision and refusal to implement an international ruling has left bad blood between Eritreans and the TPLF. The nearly two decades of no-war-no-peace that ensued from this refusal gave the Eritrean dictator an excuse to suspend all freedoms, democratization, development and the implementation of a constitution that was made by the people. But if one thinks about peace and reconstruction, reverting to war is madness. War begets war. It is only a matter of time. Military conflict can only exacerbate and complicate the relationship for a long time, delaying cooperation and integration that is much needed in the region. My country, my people, young and old, will bear the burden of the ongoing war. Only candid discussions and a patient dialogue can lead to reconciliation, by telling the truth about the damage inflicted on both sides and looking for a long-term solution that would promote peace, security and prosperity for the peoples of Eritrea and Tigray and the people of Ethiopia more broadly.

What about Ethiopia? Who will pay?

Ethiopia was regarded as an anchor of peace and stability in the Horn of Africa region with all its problems. No more! As a matter of fact, it now runs the risk of becoming a source of instability in the region with unimagined consequences. A revealing side story is that Ethiopia is now pulling out of United Nations peace keeping operations in Somalia and South Sudan. Abiy, after having won the Nobel Peace Prize for his effort to make peace with Eritrea, seems to have gone to war with his own country, against his own people. Tigrayans are Ethiopians! They will always remain there. In the meantime, there is a renewed political squeeze in the rest of Ethiopia: political party leaders are in prison, some parties have been deregistered, and others have stated they will not participate in the 2021 elections in the present climate of intimidation. Ethiopia seems to have gone back to the dark days of the 1980s when extrajudicial killings were the order of the day, and slaughter, displacement and a heavy cloud of silence and fear dominated everyday life. Independent media that flourished in the last few years have resorted to self-censorship.

What about security?

It is evident that security is threatened in many regions of Ogaden, Afar, Beni Shangul and other places. There is unrest in many parts of Ethiopia, including armed resistance, massacres, and ethnic cleansing. Militias are taking the law into their own hands; these are ill-trained, ill-disciplined, marauding criminals creating chaos and destruction. They can easily turn into mercenaries, doing the dirty work of whoever pays them more. The recent massacre in Mai Kadra, where the bodies of over 600 civilians were recovered, is said to have been committed by militias. Whether they were Amhara or Tigrayan militias does not make much difference, although initial investigations seem to indicate that Amhara militias committed the massacres.

What about the situation in Oromia?

As I indicated earlier, the regular Ethiopian defence forces are needed in many other places in Ethiopia, but they are concentrated in Tigray. The dissatisfaction that expresses itself in violence in Oromia has not been addressed yet and might not be if the tactic that is being employed by the government is to instill fear through imprisoning their leaders, accusing them of terrorism and shooting them in broad daylight, instead of creatively confronting the huge problem of youth unemployment that manifests itself in sporadic destructive activities.

What about the situation of the Tigrayans outside Tigray?

Ethnic profiling is being practiced against the Tigrayans in the rest of Ethiopia, especially in the capital, Addis Ababa. Tigrayan businesses are closed. Tigrayans cannot access their bank accounts. Tigrayans are dismissed from government jobs and prevented from travelling. They are refused boarding on Ethiopian Airlines, for example. This is not going to disappear, especially if the military campaign fails and the invasion of Tigray is not quickly lifted. This might also escalate into massacres that will complicate peace efforts in Ethiopia for generations and discourage Tigrayans from wanting to remain a part of Ethiopia.

What is the role of global actors in all this?

The United States, which was historically an ally of Ethiopia, is expressing its discontent with the ongoing violence and the involvement of Eritrea. At this point, it is hard to discern a real strategic approach by the international community. The European Union and China, which have big economic stakes in Ethiopia, have little political influence and leverage, and additionally, limited capacities to pressure the Ethiopian government to change course.

And the regional powers?

The main regional governments such as Sudan and Kenya seem to have a problem with Ethiopia. Both in the past and at present, Egypt and Ethiopia have had many conflicts, mainly revolving around the waters of the Nile River. Sudan, on the other hand, has had several land-based conflicts with Ethiopia that are threatening to get out of hand. Eritrea is clearly on the side of Ethiopia and sees chaos as suiting its designs. Djibouti is quiet, perhaps wisely. Somalia supports Ethiopia but without throwing any meaningful weight around one way or the other, as the government is unstable and dependent on outside forces for its own security. Because of the many aggravating crises in these countries, it is unlikely that they can intervene with the necessary means and sufficient credibility to promote some sort of peace process. What exacerbates this passivity is the historical fact that the policy of many states in the region has been locked into the false principle that the “enemy of my enemy is my friend.” All these countries have supported their neighbours’ opposition groups. To close this chapter, foreign intervention in the affairs of the Horn countries is a historical reality. No one can believe that Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, which have become the “new friends” of Ethiopia, can play any constructive role except dispensing money to different warring factions. What they have done in Yemen, Libya, Syria indicates that no one has confidence they can play a constructive role or bring about any positive change.

Does this sustain the TPLF’s hope of finding regional allies?

The rumour is that the TPLF is already lobbing Khartoum and Cairo, at least to gain open access to these countries and obtain some passages for supplies, as was the case with the Eritrean liberation movement and the TPLF until 1991. But in the current confused and dangerous situation, external states will think twice before getting involved with forces, on both sides, which are playing with fire. But the longer this conflict continues the more it risks drawing in other interested parties, complicating the situation even more.

In this very dark moment, what can we hope for?

I would be surprised if there are no sane voices in Addis Ababa or the rest of Ethiopia for that matter. I am certain there are many who not only disagree with the war but who are pained by the loss of life, loss of resources and loss of opportunities. Many academic and research institutions have sprouted up in Ethiopia. Many professionals and highly skilled and experienced people exist. They have also witnessed the mistakes and blunders of the TPLF and, I very much believe, were ready to participate in correcting them. There is a new generation out there that must strive to move beyond the conception of Ethiopia as a centralized state dominated by a single ethnic group. The present and future well-being of Ethiopians depends on jettisoning the pan-Ethiopianist vision, which is as unjust as it is unworkable.

Young Tigrayans and other Ethiopians have gone to the same universities in Ethiopia. Many have come to study in Mekelle University in Tigray and lived safely, interacting with each other. These are potential allies. Given the opportunity, they could make genuine efforts to resolve these seemingly intractable problems and lay the foundations for all citizens to live in harmony as one people in a peaceful country.

Ethiopia has gone through several interesting stages in its history. It had its glorious days when it defeated outside conquerors and established modern institutions. It also had its dark times. In the end it has proved incredibly resilient.

What can we expect from the current rulers both in Ethiopia and Tigray?

I would hope that some of the leaders will stop the killing and resolve their differences politically through dialogue. Yes, it would be a not so small miracle! On the Ethiopian side, the grave mistakes committed by Abiy must force serious rethinking within the ruling group. We can hope that some people will step up and challenge the idea that smashing the TPLF or suppressing other regional identities is a sustainable policy. The TPLF must also do some hard thinking. They cannot risk an endless war that would ruin Tigray for decades. It might be difficult to change their mindset informed by their past history of military success under difficult conditions, but they have enough young members who can help to shift their politics of force and manipulation to a politics of negotiation, power-sharing and respect for those who do not think like themselves.

Dialogue is not always easy; it can also be time consuming. But, in the end, it can work and the reward benefits everyone—the country and the people—helping to usher in the bright future that Ethiopia and Ethiopians deserve.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Pierre Beaudet is active in international solidarity and social movements in Québec. He teaches international development at the University of Québec Outaouais campus in Gatineau. He is founder of the Québec NGO Alternatives, and editor of Nouveaux cahiers du socialisme.

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Awash Post: Jawar Mohammed: The war in Tigray is a result of Ethiopia’s mismanaged transition December 1, 2020

Jawar Mohammed: The war in Tigray is a result of Ethiopia’s mismanaged transition

Ethiopia is back in the global spotlight once again with the outbreak of the war in Tigray. I am saddened but not surprised. For anyone with a cursory understanding of the fragility of Ethiopia’s transitional politics, the escalation of tensions between the federal government and the Tigray state into a full-blown military conflict does not come as a surprise. The tell-tale signs were there for everyone to see as the warring parties openly prepared their respective forces for the eventuality of an all-out armed confrontation.

While the specter of war had been hanging over our heads for at least two solid years, the weeks before the formal commencement of the war were particularly alarming. As antagonisms between the federal government and the Tigray state reached a climax, federal and Tigray state media outlets regularly showed military parades, highly drilled commando paratrooper units, and red-beret Special Forces performed in mock-operations in an apparent show of force. All indications were that clashes were in the offing in a not so distant future. Then came November 4, 2020: The country woke up to the news of yet another deadly war.

We, in the Oromo Protest movement, had precisely anticipated this danger long before the drums of war began to reverberate between Finfinne and Mekelle, and put a considerable amount of effort in a desperate attempt to avert the unfortunate bloodshed. Regrettably, all political actors and outside stakeholders -including us- failed to prevent the war despite having ample time and incentive to do so in what now appears to be a collective failure of imagination. But why did we fail?

Below I will highlight some of our efforts and reflection as to why we could not attain the desired outcome in the interests of setting the record straight and as a useful lesson as we continue to navigate the treacherous terrains of Ethiopia’s utterly mismanaged political transition. Note that since I don’t have access to my journal and other useful reference materials as I sit inside the four walls of a prison cell, I rely on retrieved recollections from memory to outline the sequence of events on the topic.

Long before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed emerged as chairman of the then ruling coalition and eventually took over the stewardship of the transitional process -in fact way before the Oromo Protests erupted- we knew that one of our main tasks was designing a strategy to dislodge the principal handlers of the authoritarian regime from power without plunging what was already a polarized country into a civil war, or even worse, without turning it into a failed state.

We believed that the process of inducing change into a minority-dominated authoritarian rule and its aftermath would have extremely dangerous consequences if not carefully handled. Our fear of a carelessly handled regime change possibly leading to a civil war and/or state collapse, was based on the following assessments of present and historical factors.

History of Ethiopian state formation

Ethiopia is a polity created via the conquest of various national groups, and the successive nation-building projects attempted through forced assimilationist policies aborted with the rise of the national question. The last attempt at nation and state-building through the formation of a multinational federation was also undermined by the authoritarian nature of the regime. Thus, the failure to build a state whose legitimacy is unquestioned by constituent national groups led to the birth of competing nationalisms.

In such a situation, the contest between the power holders and its challengers is highly likely to take an ethnic dimension as each side taps into those competing nationalist narratives, paving way for horizontal conflicts among various national groups. By the time we were designing the strategy against the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), these competing nationalisms were already robust and institutionalized. The risk for horizontal conflicts to arise and transform into a civil war was very high.

Nature of the regime 

EPRDF was dominated by the coalition’s senior partner, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), whose political base is a minority ethno-linguistic group representing merely six percent of Ethiopia’s population. When such minority political groups disproportionately dominate power, as much as holding power yields disproportionate material and sentimental dividend to members and affiliates of this group, the loss of this power or threat thereof, poses perceived or real existential threat both to their accumulated wealth and/or to their safety.

Although authoritarian rules of this type mostly enrich only a small clique of voracious sharks in the upper echelons of power, the fear of existential threat is usually shared by the rank and file within the party structure as well as by the entire population from which the dominant group hails.

The power holding political elite also tap into this fear to mobilize the mass and thereby insulate themselves from potential harm. Given this scenario, power contestations between those in power and their challengers could easily turn into a horizontal ethnic conflict. The fact that institutions of the federal government were dominated by elites of TPLF’s minority group meant that such a sense of existential threat and subsequent horizontal conflict could fracture those institutions, risking state collapse. I have written about this in 2010 on Tigrayan Nationalism. Our concern was exacerbated when we witnessed events in Syria and how a threatened power holding minority could wreak havoc, as I argued here in September 2012.

The above factors weighed heavy on our minds when designing a strategy to induce change towards a democratic transition in Ethiopia. The core principles of our strategic approach were as follows:

1. While demanding that the TPLF cede power by mounting pressure through popular protests that indicated that change was inevitable, we also advocated that they should be given assurances against a punitive redistribution of wealth, aggressive persecution, and prosecution for past crimes should they give up federal power without further bloodshed. The assurances would also include a guarantee of autonomy for the Tigray Regional State so it could continue to be protected by federal forces against external threats. It was agreed to clearly and repeatedly communicate this to them formally and informally.We were very much aware of the gross human rights violations and corruption the TPLF dominated EPRDF had been engaged in. After all, Oromos and Oromia were the primary victims of brutality and exploitation. Yet, as painful as it is, we felt that sacrificing justice would be necessary to avoid a catastrophic civil war and broaden the chance for the transition into a sustainable democratic system.
2. To reinforce this assurance and reduce uncertainty, it was believed that we should adopt a non-violent popular movement rather than an armed struggle. We believed civil disobedience posed less existential threat than armed confrontations. Furthermore, the transition should be through reform rather than overthrowing the regime entirely, and that is it should be led by reform-minded elements or factions within the ruling party who hold onto power rather than the opposition. We thought it would be simpler to assuage fears by the TPLF leadership of aggressive persecution, if they relinquished power to members of their ruling coalition than opposition groups that they considered more hostile.
3. During the resistance movement, civilian members of the minority group should be protected to reduce the development of a sense of collective insecurity among the Tigrayan people. This was effectively implemented during the four and half years of the Oromo Protest. No Tigrayan was harmed by protesters. Even senior political and security elites were spared from direct attack. These strategies worked better than we could hope for. The resistance movement overall cost us thousands of lives but the TPLF finally understood that it was no longer tenable to cling on to power in the face of mounting pressure. The leaders wisely accepted the golden parachute, agreeing to hand over power to then OPDO, and retreated to their home state.

It all went according to plan thus far but our scheme had a second phase. The first, as discussed above, was dislodging the TPLF from power without causing a civil war in the process. The second phase was reintegrating and reconciling TPLF members to be part of the new democratic multinational federation. We believed that reconciling and reintegrating them was as crucial for the success of the transition as carefully dislodging them from power was.

It was the failure to effectively implement this second phase that significantly contributed to the current crisis. There are many reasons and enough blame to go around on why this phase failed. From my perspective, the following are a few of them:

1. The plan to implement the second phase began to falter from the very beginning of the transition. On the eve of the transition, tension began to increase between TPLF hardliners and the incoming reformist team. At the ruling coalition council’s meeting convened to elect new leadership, the TPLF lodged a harsh and abusive criticism on the designated chairman and Prime Minister-elect, Abiy Ahmed, and went as far as refusing to cast even a single of their 45 votes for him. This created a bitter rift between the group that needed to be reconciled and the person responsible for presiding over the reintegration process.
2. Another reason is that those tasked with implementing the second phase had different understandings, motivations, and tactics from those who planned it. In other words, those who came to power to lead the transition and those at the forefront of the protest movement had a different understanding of the way forward. The freshly minted “reformist” leaders saw the TPLF as a mortal threat to consolidating power rather than an old regime that could be useful to facilitate the transition process if properly reconciled with and reintegrated into the plan.Part of the problem was that individuals who came to play a decisive role in government were not active participants in the negotiations that led to the transition – not only did they not share our concerns nor did they feel that they should abide by the terms of those agreements. Instead of actively reassuring TPLFites and the larger Tigrayan elite, they pursued aggressive purging, harsh criticisms of their track records, and persecution of many key members of the TPLF including army generals and businesses. This led the TPLF and majority Tigrayan elites to believe they were deceived into giving up power with false promises strengthening the position of hardliners and silencing moderates.They immediately resorted to aggressive and combative rhetoric, having felt that they immediately became a target despite holding onto their end of the bargain to relinquish power. Their fear was exacerbated by how the peace deal with Eritrea was handled. Their exclusion from the peacemaking process with their archenemy made the TPLF feel the reproach was motivated by the desire to create an alliance against them rather than a sincere effort to end the decade’s long hostility between the two countries.Those who ascended to federal power also had reasons to feel insecure and threatened by TPLF’s deep state. They suspected TPLF operatives to be behind several acts of violence, such as communal clashes and the attempted assassination of Abiy himself. For the new power holders, the TPLF was sabotaging the reform effort as a means of blackmailing and undermining the federal government. The TPLF did not do much to reassure them either. In fact, harsh criticisms forwarded by some of its senior officials against the Prime Minister further heightened the sense of insecurity by the central government.The grenade attack at the rally organized in support of the new Prime Minister in June of 2018 was officially blamed on former chief of intelligence, Getachew Assefa, yet he was re-elected to the Executive Committee in a clear act of aggression. The fact that key elites in both camps had known each other for long has also resulted in personalized animosity. More importantly, leaders of the two sides grew up under an authoritarian culture where imposing one’s views and interests on the other with the use of force was a norm, and reaching compromises to bridge differences was regarded as a sign of weakness.
3. It was obvious that the ruling coalition needed to reform, or at least rebrand itself, to remain in power and remain relevant. In fact, the coalition partners had agreed to reform the party even before the transition had begun. It was also obvious that TPLF’s dominant role would be reduced to reflect the new power order. And such reduction of power would create sour feelings in various sectors, hence the need for careful negotiations, power bargains, and discussions. Yet no such negotiations and discussions were undertaken during the early period of the transition.

On the contrary, such possibilities were deliberately avoided in favor of false harmony. For instance, at the 11th EPRDF Congress in Hawassa, the TPLF gave 100% of its vote to PM Abiy to continue as chairman of the coalition; this was despite their increasing resentment and fear towards his actions such as the purging of Tigrayan security and military officials and his right-wing leaning political rhetoric that contradicted EPRDF’s core leftist ideology and the perceived threat Abiy’s rhetoric carried to their regional autonomy.

During the early months of the transition, at the time when deeper discussion and negotiations were needed, the coalition stopped its usual culture of holding regular meetings and debates guided by the coalition’s principles of ‘democratic centralism’ in which differences are supposed to be ironed out internally rather than exposed to the public.

The EPRDF’s Executive Committee of the 36 powerful individuals rarely met. Even the crucial issue of merging the party, which was agreed upon in Hawassa, was avoided until the last minute. There was no real and genuine discussion and negotiation about the matter. When the issue was finally tabled, it was presented as a take it or leave it to matter on both sides with no desire for finding a middle ground.

Instead of negotiations, power bargains, and persuasions, deceptions and threats were deployed in public from both sides. After such a badly managed merger affair, the bond that tied the Tigray region and the new power holders in the federal government was all but severed. In a polity where a single party rule from federal to village level was the norm, two parties with an ugly break up began ruling the federal and regional governments, making their relationship more cumbersome than that between two sovereign countries hostile to one another. After the merger fiasco, the enmity between the two sides became official and preparations to forcefully assert their respective interests began to be pursued publicly.

To say that the postponement of the regional and national elections due to the COVID-19 is the single most important factor that ignited the current conflict is to arrive at an erroneous conclusion.

The relationship between the two had been severely damaged way before the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I have argued in several interviews the two sides were already preparing for war long before election politics gripped public consciousness.

One could safely argue that the election postponement was a missed opportunity to reset the relationship and to negotiate an amicable political settlement but the two sides only used it as an opportunity to further de-legitimize each other as they prepared behind the scenes for today’s armed showdown. The postponement might have sped up the war, but for anyone closely observing Ethiopia, it was obvious that the two sides had made up their mind to settle their differences by the barrel of the gun rather than around the negotiating table. The writing was on the wall.

In the absence of mutually reassuring communication and negotiation, insecurity on both sides, that is TPLF’s fear of retribution for past misdeeds and Abiy’s concern of losing control due to acts of sabotage by TPLF’s deep state was worsening. Hence each side focused on taking defensive actions to neutralize perceived threats. Abiy by purging them from security and bureaucracy and TPLF by building its military capability and attempting to broaden its political and security alliance outside Tigray.

The securitization of the relationship facilitated for hardliners to dominate TPLF’s decision making while pushing Abiy and the federal government to rely on and come under increasing influence personalities and entities that advocated violent resolution of the TPLF issue. Sadly, international actors, perhaps underestimating the likelihood of a war breaking out, did little to diffuse the ever-growing tension. Even worse some foreign states and ambassadors took sides emboldening the quarreling forces to be more aggressive and combative.

Thus, the war in Tigray did not suddenly erupt due to the attacks on the Northern Command of the National Defense Forces. The Northern Command has been a hostage of the Finfinne – Mekele political gridlock for the last two years. The Tigray regional government had openly declared that no weapon could leave the region and the army’s movement had been severely restricted. As the tension increased, Tigray feared the federal government would use the Northern Command to forcefully take over the region from within the territory, while the federal authorities were worried that the heavy armament in possession of the Northern Command could be used by the TPLF to launch an attack not only within the regional state but even on the center.

In other words, the Northern Command was seen as a crucial element that could tip the balance of force in the power struggle between Finfinne and Mekelle. After squandering opportunities to negotiate a mutually reassuring deal during the early months of the transition and with external actors fanning the tension rather than pressing for resolution, the war was inevitable.

Finally, at the risk of self-praise, let me highlight some of those little efforts. As one of the people involved in designing the Oromo Protests strategies, I spent a considerable amount of time pondering, writing, and speaking to stakeholders about how to dislodge TPLF from power and safely reintegrate them. I played an active role in the first phase – in dislodging the TPLF – and tried to play a bit of an advisory (mediator) role in the second.

In the first phase, I had direct participation in the discussions and negotiations. In the second phase, I tried to urge the two sides charged with the matter to take reconciliation and reintegration as a priority. For instance, when PM Abiy and President Lamma came to the US, one of the main topics of our discussion was how to handle the TPLF conundrum.

Having had a positive reaction from them, I called President Debretsion while Abiy and Lemma were still in the U.S. and explained to him the urgency of this task. I also informed both Abiy and Debretsion that activists and public intellectuals would wage campaigns to shape public opinions in favor of reconciliation and reintegration. To work towards this end we would travel to Mekelle right after my return to Ethiopia. Both sides thought this was a good idea.

Upon my return, I communicated with both sides to arrange the trip to Mekelle. Those in Finfinne advised me to travel to Bahir Dar first to prevent possible suspicion and negative reactions from the Amhara side. Mekelle also agreed and I first traveled to Bahir Dar. However, my travel to Mekelle was repeatedly delayed and postponed primarily as the relationship between the two sides deteriorated. Those at the federal government were reluctant while Mekelle also grew suspicious of our true intentions. The plan was finally canceled when the former spy chief, Getachew Assefa, was elected to TPLF’s Executive Committee (EC) in defiance of the federal government’s arrest warrant against him.

Although the plan to travel to Mekelle to help with public opinion did not materialize, I did not give up lobbying for the two sides to solve their differences through negotiations. That tragic day the chief of armed forces and the president of the Amhara region were assassinated, I was extremely alarmed by how state media in Amhara and Tigray regional states were fanning the tension. I decided to reach out to veterans of the ANDM and TPLF in the respective regional states to plead with them to tone down the hostility and honor the martyrs of both sides.

This conversation developed into an idea of veteran politicians, drawn both from the EPRDF and opposition side, conducting back door negotiations between Mekelle and Finfinne to facilitate formal negotiations among the officials. Six individuals from both sides were selected. The plan was endorsed both by PM Abiy and president Debretsion. But for reasons I still don’t know it was abandoned before any face-to-face meeting was held. After the effort failed, I realized any effort to solve the problem amicably would prove futile. When we talked to them, officials of the two sides were more interested in soliciting our support for the inevitable confrontation.

Reconciliation and reintegration of TPLF was one of the primary focuses of my advocacy when meeting foreign diplomats as well. For instance, a few days after returning to Ethiopia I had meetings with ambassadors of some 20 countries including that of the U.S. and the European Union. In those meetings, I emphasized the crucial importance of resolving the TPLF/ Tigray issue for the success of the transition and emphasized that failure to reconcile would have serious ramifications for the country and regional stability. I urged these diplomats to put pressure on both sides to negotiate. In several meetings with foreign diplomats and officials in the last two and half years in the Horn Region, Europe, and the US, I have been pleading the same point, but I am not sure if it was taken seriously.

Conclusion

We dreamed of and planned for a peaceful transition to democracy. Nonviolently dislodging and then reintegrating the power holders in TPLF’s base was the centerpiece of our plan. We strongly believed successfully dislodging followed by reconciliation would be an essential component of not only successfully transitioning Ethiopia to democracy but also building on the multinational federal state by avoiding falling back into a catastrophic civil war. It did not work as we hoped.

While our plans to weaken and dislodge the TPLF turned out to be more successful than we had anticipated, efforts to reintegrate them into the transitional set up proved inadequate, forcing us to confront our worst fear – a civil war. Ironically, we choose to let EPRDF, the party that tyrannically ruled, continue to lead the transition believing that opposition taking over through regime change carries more risk of war.

Yet it is the split within the ruling coalition that brought about what we hoped to avoid. This reminds me of what the chairman of Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), Professor Merera Gudina, said at the start of the transition that ‘Abiy’s main difficulty was managing the EPRDF rather than dealing with the opposition’ or something to that effect.

As I jot down this piece, the war is raging and the federal government has said it was marching to capture Mekelle. Regardless of which side wins in key battlefronts or the war itself, it’s obvious that Ethiopia loses on multiple fronts. Even before the war erupted the much-hoped-for transition was severely harmed by confrontations of the two sides and several other factors.

The main reason why we wanted to ease out TPLF with the offer of a golden parachute – assuring them that they would not be targets of vengeful persecutions and punitive redistribution of wealth, they would preserve their regional autonomy as well as receive protection from foreign adversaries – was to save the federation from eventual fragmentation.

We operated with a working assumption that any perception of an existential threat by the TPLF, which dominated the political and security apparatus of the Ethiopian state for almost three decades, could lead to the collapse of some of the federal institutions it built and held together. A look into the impact this war is having on the cohesion of the Ethiopian army provides a glimpse into the disastrous outcome of this fallout.

The war in Tigray is a direct result of a poorly managed transition into a democratic dispensation, which should not be viewed as an isolated problem. It is a tragic collective failure of the country’s political leadership – all of us, not just Abiy and the TPLF. There is enough blame to go around. One person or party could bear larger or lesser responsibilities but we all played a role. Through our acts of omission and commission, we squandered this great opportunity for a peaceful democratic transition and placed the country at a horrible civil war that could rip it apart.

From my prison cell, I cannot pretend to be up to speed with everyday developments on the war and the efforts of external actors to end it before it causes irreversible damage. It would therefore be presumptuous of me to try to offer concrete recommendations with limited information at hand. All I could do for the time being is plead with all sides to give peace a chance; remind various political groups to refrain from fanning the war and instead exert pressure to end the hostility.

Even if this war ends with the defeat of the TPLF leadership, genuine efforts must be made to reconcile and reintegrate the disenfranchised Tigrayan political, security, and economic elites into the country’s governance structures. The defeat of TPLF does not necessarily mean the end of the ‘Tigrayan problem’ for the Ethiopian state. The resurgence of wounded Tigrayan nationalism is inevitable unless extra care is given to avoid the victimization of Tigrayans. For instance, the disputed border between Amhara and Tigray states should be carefully handled not to leave cause for future conflict.

The unfinished issue of the Eritrean border also requires sensitive handling. In both border disputes, a ‘winner takes it all’ approach must be avoided.

The international community and regional players should exert maximum pressure to save this country from further mayhem by insisting on the immediate cessation of hostilities and encouraging Ethiopia’s political forces to resolve their differences through an all-inclusive national dialogue.

Finally, if any actor, be it state or non-state, believes they can achieve victory through a war in this country, they are mistaken. Certainly, one can defeat the other on the battlefield, but neither side would be victorious in building a peaceful and sustainable political order. We are poised to lose the country if we keep insisting on advancing our particular interest through the use of force. In our part, during the Oromo Protests, we consciously chose to wage nonviolent struggle because we believed it would give us a better chance of bringing about a transition to a multinational democratic federal system.

At the OFC, we firmly believe -as always-that nonviolent struggle and an all-inclusive dialogue remain Ethiopia’s best hope to successfully transition into a democratic order, ensure enduring stability and achieve sustainable development, and are committed to abiding by these principles. It has worked for us in the past. We hope it serves us better in the future as well.

Jawar Mohammed
November 2020
Qaliti Federal Prison, Ethiopia

#OromoProtests Statement on Ongoing War in Ethiopia November 22, 2020

Statement on Ongoing War in Ethiopia https://oromoprotests.org/index.php/2020/11/21/statement-on-ongoing-war-in-ethiopia/ via @OromoProtestsHQ

Ethiopia: 52 Oromo nationals slaughtered on one day in Metekel by extremist militias November 15, 2020

(Metekel, 14 November 2020) 52 Oromo nationals slaughtered, 17 wounded (in critical conditions) and 18 kidnapped (their whereabouts unknown) by extremist/terrorist Amhara militias organised by Ethiopia’s deputy PM Demeke Mekonnen and illegally operating in Metekel (Benishangul Gumuz state). From one family alone 6 people murdered by this Oromphobic group.

Oromoota Matakkal aanaa Dibaaxeetti sababa eenyummaa isaaniitiin Sadaasa 14, 2020 otobusii keessaa gad guuramanii ajjeefaman.Ummani keenya yeroo ammaa bakak iyyuutti ajeefamaa jira. Mootummaan ummata kanaaf dubabtu hin jiru. Oromoon mootummaa ummata Oromoo bakak bu’u ijaarrachuuf kutatee hojjachuu qaba. Qaama biraa irraa waanti eegamu hin jiru. Ummanni keenya utuu geggeessaa quuqama uummatummaa qabu qabatee, akkanatti bakka argetti hin qalamu; hin ajjeefamu. Uummatni Oromoo akkanatti bakka hundatti ajjeefamuu keessaa kan ba’u, mootummaa isaaf dhaababtu yoo hundeeffatee dha.Mootumaman Ce’umsaa Biyyoolessaa Oromiyaa hatattamaan hundeeffamee ummata keenyaaf akka dhaqqabuuf haa goonu!! Kan caalu otuu hin dhufiin, ummata keenay haa baraarru!!

በአንድ ጀንበር 6 የቤተሰብ አባል ጨምሮ 43 ሰው መኪና ውስጥ የተጨፈጨፉ በጥይት የተገደሉ 9 አጠቃላይ 52 ሞት. ቁስለኛ 17ሰው. እስካሁን ታግተው የደረሱበት ያልታወቁ # 18 ሰው.

ዛረ በመተከል ድባጤ ወረዳ የተለያዬ ቀበለዎች በም/ጠ ምንስተር ደመቀ መኮኖን ትዛዝ የታጠቁት ርስት አስመላሾች ጥቃት አደርሳል፡፡ ከነዝህም ውስጥ 4 ኦሮሞች ትናንት ያፕ ቀበለ ስገደሉ ዛረ አንድ መክና ሙሉ ደግሞ ቅዶ ቀበለ ተገላል የማቾች 48 አስከረን ቡለን ሆስፕታል እየተመረመረ ይገኛል።እነዝህ ርስት አስመላሾች ባለፈው መከላከያ ወልቃይት ጠገደ ነፃ አወጣልን ርስት ለባለበቱ ተመለሰች ብለዉ አቧራ ስያነሱ ነበር።ዋና አላማቸው ርስት ማስመለሰ የሆነው በPP film Director ነት የተፈፄመ ስሆን አሁን በፀጥታ ማስከበር ስም የአማራ ልዩ ሀይል ወደ ስፍራው የተቀሳቀሱ ስሆን ነገ ደግሞ ርስት ለባለበቱ ተመለሰች እንደምሉ ይጠበቃል።PP ም የዘጎችን ደህንነት መጠበቅ አልቻላቹም በማለት መተከል በአማራ እንድትመራ ለማድረግ ድራማው እንደተሰራም የውስጥ ምንጮች ያረጋግጣል። የዝህም ማሳያ የምሆነው የአማራ ልዩ ሀይል ፀጥታውን ለማስከበር መላካቸው ስሆን ይህንን ኦኘረሽን በበላይነት የምመራ ም/ጠ ምስተር ደመቀ መኮኖን ነው።

Press Release (Oct. 23, 2020): OLLAA CONDEMNS THE CONTINUED STATE SANCTIONED VIOLENCE IN ETHIOPIA: MILITARY FORCES MURDERED FIVE YOUTH at THEIR HOMES IN NAQAMTEE, WESTERN OROMIA, ETHIOPIA October 24, 2020

Press Release (Oct. 23, 2020): OLLAA CONDEMNS THE CONTINUED STATE SANCTIONED VIOLENCE IN ETHIOPIA: MILITARY FORCES MURDERED FIVE YOUTH at THEIR HOMES IN NAQAMTEE, WESTERN OROMIA, ETHIOPIA
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Falls Church, Virginia (Oct. 23, 2020) – the Oromo Legacy Leadership and Advocacy Association (OLLAA) condemns the continued state sanctioned violence in Ethiopia. Today, October 23, 2020 government security forces brutally murdered five innocent young men in the city of Naqamtee, Western Oromia, Ethiopia in Kebele 05 near Qasso Secondary School. Naqamtee (Nekemte) is a vibrant city located 310 km west of Finfinnee (Addis Ababa), the capital city of Ethiopia. 

Top ten factors that have been hastening the collapse of Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed’s government October 7, 2020

Top ten factors that have been hastening the collapse of Abiy Ahmed’s government.

by Bontu Geda

10) Failure to understand how to deal with Habeshas (Both Amhara and Tigre).

9) Fear and lack of clue for negotiated power sharing (Both within and outside his own party).

8) Zealous obsession with project implementation rather than strategic long-term decisions.

7)Overestimation of the stupid Habesha project: ኢትዮጲያዊነት, which is falling apart at a speed of light.

6) Trying to please everyone.

5) Obsession with lies, even when not forced by situations.

4) Trying to use #Gandummaa as a means of divide-and-rule among Oromos. The faltering Oromo unity is only a temporary event. Oromos, are generally tolerant to act harsh. It is only the matter of time for that diamond-grade unity to come to become operational. That will be the end of the beginning for this man!

3) His Illusion about the nonexistent glorious Ethiopian history. The country has been #Jaanjoo since ever its formation! Most people, including the Habeshas who forcefully promote it, know this simple fact. He should have known as well!

2) Not understanding and addressing the ‘Oromo Question’. Everyone knows and recently started to acknowledge that this country is what it is because of Oromos. Ignoring the Oromo concerns will be the cause for the true demise of the rotten empire!

! 1) Endless ambition to forge a strong, unitarist central government. If there is only one chance left to save the crumbling empire, it is the multinational federation. This implies an ever weakening central government and burgeoning autonomy for Ethnic states. No force (Worldly or Heavenly) can maintain this country by overlooking the autonomy of multinational states!

PS: Namni dhagahu yoo jiraate, kuni gorsas ni ta’a. Namni dhagahu dhabamnaan, ‘himan didduun du’a hin diddu’, jennee dhiifna! #Kanuma.

Geneva Press Club – An Authoritarian Turn in Ethiopia: A Return to Autocracy? October 7, 2020

Oromia: Waamicha Qeerroo Marsaa 5ffaa #OromoProtests October 7, 2020

Ethiopian Democracy Veers Off Track: What’s at Stake September 30, 2020

Ethiopian Democracy Veers Off Track: What’s at Stake

by Seenaa Jimjimo, Just Security, September 28, 2020

Hacaaluu Hundessa’s only weapon was his music. His sentence for singing was death. One of Ethiopia’s most popular musicians, Hacaaluu sang of the plight of the Oromo — Ethiopia’s largest but historically repressed ethnic community. His June murder sparked protests around the country and, tragically, confirmed the very repression he sought to end. What’s more, his killing exposed the autocratic DNA of Ethiopia’s government, a regime that benefits from nearly $1 billion of U.S. aid every year while cozying up to China and crushing Ethiopia’s very pro-American constituency — the Oromo.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed used the protests following Hacaaluu’s murder as a pretext to jail his political opponents and shut off the country’s internet access, a blackout that has lasted for three weeks. Likely fearing a democratic electoral repudiation, Abiy also indefinitely postponed Ethiopia’s elections, under the guise of the coronavirus pandemic. While the parliament voted last week to hold elections, the entire electoral process and legitimacy of elections has to be called into question, when nearly every leading opposition figure has been jailed recently and when Abiy and his new Prosperity Party were never elected as such by the people.  Among the hopes for the 2018 transition was to implement reforms, including multi-party, multi-region federalism that would set the stage for 2020 elections. Finally, the Constitution calls for elections every five years, suggesting the only way for change, is to amend it.

Abiy’s chillingly anti-democratic actions are just the latest chapter of his illiberal regime. Amnesty International reported in May that under Abiy’s rule, which began when he was named prime minister in April 2018, as many as 10,000 people have been unjustly arrested and at least 39 people — including a 16-year-old boy — were killed in extrajudicial executions in Oromo-majority regions of Ethiopia.

Paradoxically, Abiy himself is an Oromo and the Oromo movement initially helped bring him to power. He came into office promising government reforms, he released prisoners, and in 2019 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for resolving a longstanding and deadly dispute with neighboring Eritrea.

But his refusal to protect the human rights of his own people, combined with his democratic backsliding, must be understood as a problem for Washington as well as for Ethiopia. As the largest country in East Africa, Ethiopia has been a vital partner in the U.S. global war on terror and could yet provide a bulwark to China’s expansion in Africa. But Ethiopia cannot reliably advance U.S. interests in East Africa if the government in Addis Ababa invites instability by repressing Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group. Ending this repression and cementing strong bilateral ties with the United States, as authoritarian countries like China seek more influence on the African continent, is the goal of the Oromo community for all Ethiopians.

Need for U.S. Pressure

This goal can most swiftly be met with pressure from Washington. Lawmakers, diplomats, and military officials in the U.S. responsible for providing security assistance and funding to Ethiopia should call on Abiy to immediately and unconditionally release the political prisoners he rounded up both before and after Hacaaluu’s murder. As a member of the Oromo diaspora in America, I treasure my protected right of free speech. But I am too frequently and sadly reminded that today in Ethiopia I could be jailed along with peaceful Oromo protesters — like human rights activist Jawar Mohammed — just for voicing my opinions.

Fortunately, the U.S. Congress agrees that this goal should be achieved. In April of 2018, The House of Representatives unanimously approved a resolution calling for the Ethiopian government to, “release all activists, journalists, and opposition figures who have been imprisoned for exercising their constitutional rights.” And last month, 20 members of the House wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressing concern about the “alarming” situation in Ethiopia, and urging him to “engage with the Ethiopian government and all other stakeholders to prevent violence and protect civilians, to promote stability and better dialogue, and to support continued progress toward strengthening democratic institutions.”

Congress should go one step further by holding to account anyone in the Ethiopian government who is responsible for human rights violations under the Global Magnitsky Act. The Oromo community has been heartened to see the bipartisan application of the Global Magnitsky Act across two presidential administrations to wield America’s considerable might to support voiceless minorities who would otherwise be forgotten, or even vanquished.

The same congressional resolution that called for the release of Ethiopian activists also urged the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to “engage in a cooperative effort…to advance democracy.” That clause has never been more needed. Afraid of being voted out of power, Abiy, citing the coronavirus, indefinitely postponed Ethiopia’s elections, which were originally scheduled to take place in May. Ethiopia would face a constitutional crisis should Abiy rule beyond the constitutionally mandated period for elections. And while the virus is, undoubtedly, a serious concern, Ethiopia could have safely held elections as soon as last month. In the United States, federal and state-level elections have occurred in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the tragic spread of the virus, and a number of elections have proceeded in Africa.

Attacks on Independent Media

A vital part of any robust democracy is a free, independent press. This includes opinion journalism and outlets dedicated to specific groups like the Oromo. Unfortunately, as observers at Human Rights Watch and other organizations have reported, the Ethiopian government has shut down independent media outlets, arrested journalists, and taken action against critics from various ethnic or political affiliations. That includes independent news outlets published in the Oromo language and those that report on issues important to the Oromo people. Diaspora blogs have sought to illuminate Oromo issues, but those outlets cannot replace shoe leather reporting in Ethiopia. With the government able to shut down the internet at will, the Oromo seeking news in their own language may soon be forced to rely on carrier pigeons.

Finally, it is my hope that an independent commission will be allowed to investigate Hacaaluu’s assassination. The government clearly has a conflict of interest in the outcome of this investigation and has actively spread disinformation about his killing. So far, the government has blamed Hacaaluu’s killing on the Egyptians (Ethiopia and Egypt are engaged in a major dispute over a dam) as well as on two separate Ethiopian ethnic groups, even as it decided against conducting an official autopsy. As the highest-profile victim of anti-Oromo violence, if Hacaaluu cannot receive justice, can any other Oromo expect it?

Hacaaluu’s assassination laid bare Ethiopia’s underlying fragility, which stems from the Ethiopian peoples’ anxiety about losing their democratic and human rights for good. Ethiopia has long been a stable U.S. partner in beating back terrorism and is well-positioned to confront burgeoning security challenges. But continuing any meaningful security or economic partnership requires a stability in Ethiopia that is authentic, sustainable, and consensus-driven, and that reflects democratic values. For the United States, promoting the rights of the Oromo and other oppressed groups in Ethiopia is a national security issue.

Congress has already laid out a blueprint that would help return stability to Ethiopia. For the sake of both our countries, it is time to act on it.

IMAGE: Members of the Oromo Ethiopian community in the US demonstrate in Washington DC, on July 17, 2020, in support the Oromo minority in Ethiopia. The death of musician and activist Hachalu Hundessa, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, on June 29, 2020, sparked protests around the world. (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)

Why a National Dialogue in Ethiopia Would Fail & Why it Would Succeed in a Sovereign Oromia September 26, 2020

Why a National Dialogue in Ethiopia Would Fail & Why it Would Succeed in a Sovereign Oromia

by Soretti Kadir – a storyteller, facilitator, and activist

Originally published by Media Ko: https://mediako.tv/opinion-pieces/

Find Media Ko on all social media @mediaoneko

A national dialogue or nationwide community dialogue is often promoted as the most productive path when a society is divided by beliefs, experiences, desires and destinies. In the case of Ethiopia, a national dialogue does not have the capacity to bridge the divides that exist in perceptions of history and its impact on current power and societal dynamics. However, a nationwide community dialogue convened in a sovereign Oromia republic could see this divide finally healed. I argue so for three key reasons. 

Firstly, for dialogue to create a story that can open opposing sides to the common humanity of the other, there needs to be an acceptance of one or more foundational truths. The foundational truth of the Oromo as it relates to the construction of the Ethiopian state is one that contradicts what promoters of Ethiopian nationalism believe is an uncompromisable truth of the founding of the Ethiopian state – that all people living within the boundaries of Ethiopia take a singular national expression as an intimate and personal identity. This truth is perceived as strengthening the Ethiopian national body politic and the rejection of this is seen as an effort to destabilize this same political construct.

Secondly, the Ethiopian state, from its inception until this very moment in time, has actively participated in emboldening the normalisation of anti-Oromo sentiment. This is in contradiction to the spirit of a constitution recognizing that Ethiopia is a multinational federation. The state has demonized high profile and grassroots leaders who promote a multinational agenda.

This leads to the final reason as to why national dialogue convened within the framework of the Ethiopian state will fail. Despite the right of people to identify more or less strongly with the national identity of their choosing within a multinational country, all attempts at dialogue happening now will center the Ethiopian identity as the common and most important denominator, dismissing that for many, identifying as “Ethiopian” is neither a priority, a need, or a part of any genuine process of healing.

In a sovereign Oromia, the state’s conceptual and practical power will take the truth of the Oromo from the margins and establish it as a common narrative in a way that takes diverse people through its narration educationally, compassionately, and authentically. By nature of something new being born, a sovereign Oromia has the opportunity to create a new community narrative that, backed by legitimization of the state, can build common ground without compromising on the Oromo’s, or any other people’s, right to be who they are. 

Creating Ethiopia was not a benevolent process. It did not involve willing parties sitting at a table and deciding that they would now like to come together under the Ethiopian umbrella. It was a brutal process of colonisation and displacement brought upon diverse and sovereign people in the southern, eastern, and western directions of the horn of Africa region. One of these peoples, the largest people in terms of population size, was the Oromo. Since monarchical rulers like Tedrows and Menelik II colonised the Oromo, there have been many forms of organized resistance against this imposed rule. The initial resistance to the earlier Abyssinian rulers did not subside because the Oromo mass saw that it was in their benefit to join the colonizing people in their nation-building project. Instead, it began to subside (only to resume with the next generation) because, despite fierce resistance, the onslaught was costing too much life. This is important to understand because there has never been a moment where the Oromo mass accepted that the Ethiopian nation-building project belonged to or served them until the rise of PM Abiy Ahmed

Abiy represented the opportunity that perhaps, despite the project of Ethiopia never seeing the Oromo mass as more than it could subject, things could change with Abiy, who was put in power by a grassroots movement led by Oromo youth and farmers and eventually joined by people in other regions in Ethiopia. That hope disappeared once Abiy’s idea of reconciliation revealed itself to be a regurgitation of the same story: forget what happened, you’re Ethiopian now, and the people who massacred your people to bring you Ethiopia should exist in our memory as a singular reality – as heroes.

Dialogue is predicated on the hope that when multiple truths emerge, a negotiation of emotional realities takes place to find a relationship between experiences that can honor all. It requires letting go of the old and creating something new, together. As one person, I believed that we could let go of our old imagination of Ethiopia and bring forth something entirely novel. I invested time and energy in manufacturing a dialogue framework of my own and pitching to anybody that would listen in Finfinnee, the country’s capital. I believed that once others understood how the founding of Ethiopia resonated with such a large portion of the people within its borders, our negotiations would surely lead us to desire the formation of new collective memories, to wanting genuine safety and justice for each other, and to the putting aside of the centralization of figures that could never be celebrated by your average Oromo, Sidama, or Somali household. It is not that Ethiopia can not eventually get there. It’s that in the context of how much people need a narrative that does not afford the Oromo a dignified place in the story of Ethiopia, the deep systemic – and community-level transformation needed will take generations. In that process, the Oromo who advocate for themselves as unapologetically Oromo, those who defend their lands and even those who do not show up with this vocality or visibility, will experience displacement, killing, torture, and marginalization. 

I just can’t imagine, considering the costs, that waiting it out could possibly be worth it. If the Oromo were to secure sovereignty over their lands, they would be in a systemic position to rewrite the story of who they are. I do not underestimate that this too will be a delicate process as there are millions of people of other ethnicities who call Oromia home. However, I believe that a story that is unapologetic about who the Oromo are, what they experienced in becoming assimilated into Ethiopia, and how that has led to the need of uncompromisable sovereignty is possible in a way that takes others on an authentic journey about the truth of the lands that they now call home.

If the state tells a different story, then the power dynamics can hold space for a new narrative to emerge and if that happens, I believe that the quality of the relationship between people of different language groups and ethnicities may have a real chance of being strengthened upon values of egalitarianism and humanity. What we have to realize in considering the value of this argument is that on the part of the Oromo, it is not, nor has it ever been, a finding of common humanity in the Ethiopian national identity that has kept peace between the Oromo and non-Oromos, as Ethiopianists and the state would like the world to believe. It has been the Oromo’s binding reverence of Safuu – the belief that in all moments is the need to protect and uphold a universal balance. This is what has made co-existence in Oromia possible. It is this same reverence of Safuu that requires us to now rectify one of the most significant imbalances that exists within the reality of the Oromo – the displacement from our lands, resources and Oromoness. 

The assassination by the Ethiopian state of popular Oromo artist and activist Haacaaluu Hundeessaa in late June 2020, the politically motivated arrest of Oromo politicians, journalists, activists and the extrajudicial killing, imprisonment and torture of politically active and non-politically active Oromo people across Oromia is a part of Ethiopian state culture. In an attempt to find a mechanism that could open up the national project of Ethiopia to people of diverse national identities, the 1995 constitution articulated a multinational framework and governance model for the Ethiopian state. In theory, this should have levelled the playing field and cultivated respect for regional sovereignty. The federal apparatus would have become a sort of roundtable where regions participated in shared rule and the genuine representation and negotiation of regional interests within this political centre. The multinational structure is an unrealised dream and the opportunity for this hope to be revived has been dangerously depleted by the systemic effort of the Ethiopian state to create an image of the Oromo as a whole, and in particular, of those protective of the Oromo national interest, as sub-human and unthinking.

This kind of assault is not something that one bounces back from. Its impact transcends generations and leaves a people and story stuck in a resistant position. In the case of the Oromo lands and people in Ethiopia, this narrative makes the ungoverned and unchecked exploitation of Oromo land and resources possible. If advocating the Oromo national interest is seen as borderline demonic and the saving grace is the further assimilation of the Oromo into the unitary Ethiopian state, then there is nobody to protect the agricultural and small business community in Oromia. There is no frame of reference that recognizes that cultural and economic sovereignty that matters.

When I look at other struggles against cultural and economic imperialism around the world, I wonder if other oppressed peoples had the chance to free themselves entirely from governance and storytelling frameworks that see them as collateral, would they wait? I don’t know, because it is also the best of human nature to remain patient on the course of collective transformation, but I think that it is equally beautiful to stand upright and say, enough is enough, I deserve to live free now, not tomorrow, not with the dream of freedom, but I deserve to live in the reality of freedom, now. Stories are compelling, and the story that has permeated the Ethiopian consciousness over the last 60 days and, in different forms, the last 100+ years, is a story that protects the idea that Ethiopianism in Ethiopia equals the best of humanity and anything competing equals the worst of humanity. This is the primary story of the state and its various apparatuses. No genuine dialogue can occur within such a  framework.

If national dialogue were to occur in the sovereign Republic of Oromia tomorrow, I think that the goal would not be to create a subversive or overt path for non-Oromo people to find and define themselves in the Oromo national identity. Instead, it would be purposed to, at a grassroots level, resolve dehumanizing and othering representations of people to each other to enable individual and collective healing and to create measures that act as organic barriers between communities and violence, in the future. Ideally, we would know of the success of this dialogue, not by the extent of the assimilation of identities, but by the successful integration of new dominant truths and stories, creating an opportunity for a nationalistic comradeship and solidarity over assimilation or submission. If national dialogue were to happen in Ethiopia tomorrow, it would hold no water because of the political persecution of Oromo political leaders, the ten thousand plus Oromo people currently being held illegally, and the extrajudicial killings in Oromia that, instead of being held to account, have been rationalized by the state.

But let us imagine that a national dialogue was still to be convened in Ethiopia despite all of the above. The goal would not be to create space for the acceptance of a multinational framework. It would hold the Ethiopian identity at the center, as the common ground, and success would be predicated on the strengthening of the ongoing assimilation process. The ends, in this context, immobilize and make valueless the means. The functionality of dialogue depends on the readiness of the conveners of this dialogue, and all of its participants, to embrace new truths. With the Oromo still experiencing the state as a colonial body, resistance politics feel essential to survival. And with the colonial body uninterested in relinquishing its exploitatory status over the Oromo and other nations, how can it arrive at a dialogue with the capacity to take from it, direction for the kind of deep-seated transformation that is required for Ethiopia to become an entity free of its violent past, and belonging anew to all that live within its borders? It can not. To wait another decade or so for it to be ready to, is not a price that I think the Oromo, or any other nation in Ethiopia, should have to pay. 

The Oromo concept of Safuu sees true togetherness as possible only when true sovereignty is honoured. It makes sense: how can I be connected to you when there is no whole me? Only I can tell you of my wholeness, that which gives me dignity and strength, this can not be decided for me. The conversation about self-determination is often considered politically, but it is first and foremost a matter of humanity. For dialogue to be productive for everyone, people must arrive within their power, and that power should never be formed at the expense of weakening others that come to the table. The goal should not be maintaining something old, but creating something new, and that only works if each party is as interested in the maintenance of the other’s humanity as they are in maintaining their own. None of these pre-conditions can be fulfilled in the Ethiopia we know today, nor, in reading all political activities indicating the direction in which Ethiopia is growing, should we expect it, at least without extreme loss of life in the next decade. In the new Republic of Oromia, the hope for this conversation to contribute to the initial nation-building efforts is more realistic. With the right dialogue practitioners, planning and nuanced execution, a national spirit that is honest about the past, respectful of diversity and collaborative in its future-making is possible to nurture. Oromo values exist not just to serve Oromo’s, but when they flourish, they will create a society of equal standing for all who respect these values. In the context where the Oromo interest over land and livelihood is less compromised (we still have work to do in protecting against vicious capitalist interest), the Oromo identity no longer living on the margins and under subjugation, and this new governmental paradigm protecting against any other identity ever experiencing the same marginalisation, we can imagine a political environment less in need of ethnic-based nationalism. With this kind of freedom, who knows what kind of political thought and vision may emerge from within communities? But before we can talk about building national consensus via dialogue, we have got to get free from the colonial empire that has tried and failed to fashion itself as a democracy. 

Ethiopia: Abiy Ahmed is a Security Threat in the extremely volatile region of the Horn of Africa! September 23, 2020

Abiy Ahmed is a Security Threat!

By Dr. Tsegaye Ararsa

Abiy Ahmed is the number 1 security threat in this extremely volatile region of the Horn of Africa. Peace has long been suspended in the entire region ever since he came to power and drove Ethiopia into chaos. Ethiopia has truly gone from crisis to crisis and a deeper and multifaceted set of crises.

Everywhere, across the country, the level of insecurity has risen. In most parts of the country, people live under the shadow of:

a) extra-judicial killings;

b) massacre of civilians;

c) political assassinations;

d) tortures;e) political rape;

f) arbitrary arrests;g) mass detentions;

h) evictions; and

i) various other acts of state terror.

Societal militarization through arming of vigilante groups has risen. Urban violence is rampant. Lawlessness and banditry has become the norm in some of the regions.

Abiy goes to the extent of randomly authorizing soldiers to “serve themselves” by confiscating money from people if people are seen with an amount that is above the legal limit.

Land grab, illegal settlement, an outright scramble for farmers’ land has been done before the watching eyes of officials who act as patrons to the criminals.

Virtually all the important opposition political leaders are in jail.Selected media outlets are targeted for arbitrary persecution. OMN is a case in point.

In the last two years alone, as per a conservative estimaate of the dead, over 3000 persons have been killed, and countless people have been subjected to enforced disappearance.

Millions have been internally displaced.

Victims of natural disaster such as flood, wild locusts, drought, environmental pollution, the global pandemic, and other local epidemics have all been left unattended to and unassisted by the government.

Development projects have been stalled.

Foreign relations, and treaties thereof, have been terribly mismanaged.

Foreign interferences that has compromised the national security architecture and has exposed strategic economic, military, and geopolitical, interests to risk has also been witnessed.

Constitutional institutions and their procedures are utterly undermined.

The defense forces’ constitutional responsibility is trivialized, and the army is threatened with the risk of being disbanded. They are publucly told that, unless they support Abiy’s personal right of rule (with or wothout election), they will soon be replaced by his ‘republican guards’ and ‘special forces’.

The Regional States’ constitutional authority is usurped or severely undermined. Those states which insisted on self-rule (eg. Tigray) are threatened with war.

Each nation’s sovereignty has been trampled upon and several times violently repressed.

Unconstitutional and unbridled use of power by the executive (treaty power, war power, emergency power, power over fiscal decisions, etc) has become the new normal.

The country’s international reputation and standing is at its lowest ebb. Our neighbours and strategic allies cannot trust Ethiopia anymore.

The internal instability, much of which is caused single handedly by Abiy’s political (and arguably psychological) insanity has thrown the country’s peace and security into chaos. This instability–especially the ebb in trust in Ethiopia’s leader–has now started to spill over to the countries in the region all of whom are currently unsure of how things unfold. The distant and not so distant superpowers who have a stake in the region are now openly looking for another reliable partner in the region.

Abiy is radiating peacelessness and insecurity to to the entire region. By default, he is exporting Ethiopia’s instability.

Internally, the country and its peoples are going through hell. Thankfully, though, it will end soon. In fact, it should end soon. And then, there will be a respite before hurrying on to start afresh. A respite is nigh. የእፎይታ ጊዜ ቅርብ ነው።

And then, … we will start again.

Yes, we will restore peace. We will free the oppressed. We will restore agency to the people. We will thereby restore sanity to public offices, and dignity and integrity to public service.And then, we will be “ready to run, to win, and to serve, in style”–again!

#Abiy_must_be_removed because #Abiy_is_a_security_threat! #Abiy_is_the_past!

Ethiopia: The same PM who denounced TPLF’s use of “terrorist methods to stay in power” September 22, 2020

The same PM who denounced TPLF’s use of “terrorist methods to stay in power”

Dr. Awol Kassim Allo

I just finished reading the 25 pages of terrorism and other charges against Jawar Mohammed and 23 other Oromo politicians. It is incredulous just how duplicitous this neo-Neftegna regime really is. The same PM who denounced TPLF’s use of “terrorist methods to stay in power”, who told us he is different and committed to democratic transition, the rule of law and justice, and so much more … is now using the anti-terrorism legislation and the political narrative that go with it, against his political opponents. This PM betrayed the Oromo cause (by embracing the Ethiopia First neo-Neftegna cause), betrayed his colleagues, and abandoned the transition, and turned into a typical dictator. I will write about the charge over the next days but a couple of quick thoughts:

(1) It is highly likely that the narrative structure for the case was set by the PM himself. At the core of the allegation is his government’s discomfort with the use of the term Neftegna to refer to his regime … something similar to a desperate letter released by his office to discredit claims that he is Neftegna and that his regime is a Neftegna regime.

(2) The prosecutors under the AG’s office furnished the legal framework for the repressive political agenda the PM wanted to advance by legal means – they assembled a concatenation of some of the most outrageous charades that would make even Stalin, the progenitor of contemporary show trials, proud.

(3) The Attorney General, the country’s top law enforcement officer and a pretty competent and decent human being (or used to be), will oversee this and other political prosecutions. How are folks like the AG come to defend the practices they denounced in the past and flies in the face of the liberal worldview they say they are committed to? Do people who advice the government on specific policy issues (eg. justice or monetary police) have any agency at all even within the narrow confines that fall within their authority? What does this say about our society writ large?

Message from Dr. Tsegaye Ararssa to Ato Abiy Ahmed September 20, 2020

Message from Dr. Tsegaye Ararssa to Ato Abiy Ahmed

This is a message directed personally to #Abiy_Ahmed.

Never mind your bogus charges. After all, it has been long coming. Your henchmen have long been calling for it, and in fact, they have been calling for our assassination and for attacking our families, somehow hoping that they will silence us. In your shamelessness, you went as far as directly speaking to the management of Facebook to disable my accounts–as if that will save you from your inevitable demise. You have done worse. (We will leave those to history–which is already knocking on your door.) All that, my friend, is nothing in the light of what our people endured under your madness. በየቀኑ ስንገደል ለኖርን ለኛ፣ ይሄ ሁሉ ምንም ትርጉም የለውም።But now that it came, it will last only for days. Trust me: we will outlast you. In fact, we will outlive you. We will render justice–even to you.And then, we will have the last laugh!Fare thee well, mad man. Fare thee well.With you gone, surely, the worst of our times shall have been gone! #You_squandered_your_chances! #You_lost_it_big_time.#You_now_belong_to_the_past_officially! #People_power!

Ethiopia: Following the Prime Minister’s statement, looting by his security forces intensified in Oromia September 18, 2020

“Police are allowed to seize money from a person who has deposited more than one million birr in his house,” the prime minister said in a statement three days ago. Following this statement, looting intensified throughout Oromia. The regular police and special police forces are stopping public transport vehicles on the road, searching the passengers and looting their money. There is no difference in the amount of money the police is looting. A person with three thousand birr is robbed. Five thousand birr will be looted. Ten thousand birr will be looted. Twenty thousand birr will be looted. Fifty thousand birr will be looted. We are even hearing that someone has been robbed of a thousand birr. 1000 Birr = 27 US Dollar

The robbery does not take place in one place. Security forces in all Oromia zones and districts are looting the public in broad daylight. The government security forces are robbing people who drive public transport with a small amount of money for personal use.

Following the Prime Minister’s statement, looting intensified throughout Oromia. አስደንጋጭ ዝርፊያ በኦሮሚያ

አስደንጋጭ ዝርፊያ በኦሮሚያ

—አፈንዲ ሙተቂ– Afendi Muteki

የሚካሄደው ነገር ሁሉ “የህግ ያለህ! የሀገር ያለህ! የመንግሥት ያለህ!” የሚያሰኝ ነው። “2013 እንደ 2012 እንደማይሆን ተስፋ እናደርጋለን” ብንልም ገና ከጅምሮ ተስፋ የሚያጨልም ዘረፋ ተፈጥሮብናል። ድሮ ዘረፋ የሚያካሄደው ሆን ብሎ በዚህ ተግባር ላይ የሚሰማራ የጥፋት ሃይል ነበር። አሁን ግን መንግሥት ራሱ ጸጥታን እንዲያስከብር ያሰማራው ሃይል የዘረፋ ፊት አውራሪ ሆኖ ተከስቷል። ጠቅላይ ሚኒስትሩ ከሶስት ቀን በፊት የብር ኖቶች እንደሚለወጡ ባስታወቁበት መግለጫቸው “ፖሊሶች ከአንድ ሚሊዮን ብር በላይ በቤቱ አስቀምጦ የተገኘን ሰው ገንዘብ እንዲወርሱት ተፈቅዶላቸዋል” ብለው ነበር። ታዲያ ይህንን ቃል ተከትሎ በመላው ኦሮሚያ ዝርፊያ ተጧጡፏል። መደበኛው ፖሊስ እና ልዩ ፖሊስ የሚባለው ሃይል በመንገድ ላይ የሚጓዙ የህዝብ ማመላለሻ መኪናዎችን እያስቆሙ ተሳፋሪውን ፈትሸው ያገኙትን ገንዘብ እየዘረፉ ይገኛሉ።ፖሊሶቹ የዘረፋ ዒላማ በሚያደርጉት ገንዘብ ላይ የመጠን ልዩነት የለም። ሶስት ሺህ ብር የያዘ ሰው ይዘረፋል። አምስት ሺህ ብር የያዘም ይዘረፋል። አስር ሺህ ብር የያዘም ይዘረፋል። ሃያ ሺህ ብር የያዘም ይዘረፋል። ሃምሳ ሺህ ብር የያዘም ይዘረፋል። ሌላው ቀርቶ አንድ ሺህ ብር የተዘረፈ ሰው መኖሩንም እየሰማን ነው። የሚካሄደውን ዝርፊያ ያየ ሰው “ገንዘብ በእጅ መያዝ ተከልክሏል” የሚል አዋጅ የወጣ ነው የሚመስለው።ዝርፊያው በአንድ ቦታ ብቻ የሚካሄድ አይደለም። በመላው የኦሮሚያ ዞኖችና ወረዳዎች የጸጥታ ሃይሎች በጠራራ ጸሐይ የማኅበረሰቡን ገንዘብ እየቀሙት ነው። እርግጥ በህገ ወጥ መንገድ የሚንቀሳቀስ ገንዘብ መቆጣጠር በየትኛውም ሀገር የሚታወቅ አሰራር ነው። በተለይም ብዙ መጠን ያለው ገንዘብ ከቦታ ቦታ ሲዘዋወር ከሚያደርሰው የዋጋ ግሽበትና የኢኮኖሚ መደንበሽ አንጻር ቁጥጥር ሊደረግበት ይገባል። የውጪ ምንዛሬ ላይም ተመሳሳይ ቁጥጥር ይደረጋል።አሁን በኦሮሚያ የሚካሄደው ግን ከዚህ ፈጽሞ የተለየ ነው። ለግል መገልገያ የሚጠቅማቸውን መጠነኛ ገንዘብ ይዘው በህዝብ በመኪና የሚጓዙ ሰዎች ናቸው የዘረፋው ዒላማ እየሆኑ ያሉት። ሰሞኑን የወጣውን የብር ቅያሬ አዋጅ ተከትሎ ውስጥ ውስጡን “የወያኔዎችን የገንዘብ አቅም ለማዳከም የወጣ ውሳኔ ነው” የሚል ወሬ ሲሰማ ነበር። በእነዚህ ሁለት ቀናት ውስጥ የሚካሄደው ዝርፊያ ሲታይ ግን ብር የመቀየር ውሳኔውም ሆነ አፈጻጸሙ የኦሮሞን ሀብት ዘርፎ ህዝቡን ወደ ድህነት ለማስገባት ሲባል የወጡ ነው የሚመስሉት።—ገዥዎቻችን ህዝቡን ለመቆጣጠር ያስችለናል ያሉትን እርምጃ ሁሉ እንደሚወስዱ እናውቃለን። ሆኖም አንዳንዱ እርምጃ backfire አድርጎ ሀገሪቱን ወደ anarchy ሊያስገባ እንደሚችል የሚገነዘቡ አልሆኑም። አሁን በኦሮሚያ የምናየው የገንዘብ ዝርፊያ anarchy እንዲፈጠር አይነተኛ መንስኤ ሊሆን ይችላል። anarchy ከመጣ ደግሞ ከማንም ቀድመው የሚጠፉት ገዥዎቹ ራሳቸው ናቸው። ሀገሪቱም ትፈራርሳለች። ስለዚህ መንግሥት ነኝ የሚለው ሃይል ለራሱ ህልውና ሲል ይህንን ዝርፊያ በአስቸኳይ ሊያስቆመው ይገባል።

—-ግልባጭ — ለሀገር ውስጥና ለውጪ ሚዲያዎች

— ለኢትዮጵያ ሰብዓዊ መብት ኮሚሽን– ለኢትዮጵያ እምባ ጠባቂ ተቋም.

ማለዳ Media ከጋዜጠኛ ቤተልሔም ታፈሰ ጋር ያደረግነው ቆይታ September 8, 2020

OGF letter to Project Syndicate objecting the inclusion of an undeserving speaker, Abiy Ahmed, as a speaker at The Green Recovery virtual event, 16-17 September 2020 September 6, 2020

OGF letter to Project Syndicate objecting the inclusion of an undeserving speaker, Abiy Ahmed, as a speaker at The Green Recovery virtual event, 16-17 September 2020

Project Syndicate

P.O. Box 670

Kings ParkNY 117 54,

USA

Telephone: +420 607 887 761;+420 602 633 1050

Dear Sir or Madam,

RE: Undeserving speaker at The Green Recovery virtual event, 16-17 September 2020

We, the undersigned member organizations of the Global Oromia Forum, consisting of 41 Oromo Civic, Human Rights, and Religious organizations, wish to congratulate and support the Project Syndicate for organizing this timely event focusing on the most important theme impacting the continued survival of our planet. Climate change is no longer science fiction but the most consequential human activity-caused episode challenging our very existence. If we fail to take drastic actions today to decelerate or reverse the deteriorating trend, it is no longer if, but when the continued survival of life on earth as we know it will cease to exist. We believe the Green Recovery initiative is a step in the right direction to this end, the reason why we believe the planned virtual event is both critical and timely.

We also note the list of distinguished luminaries and global leaders lined up to share their wisdom and experience as keynote speakers, but with one particular caveat. The caveat, in our humble opinion supported by hard facts and figures detailed below, is the inclusion of an undeserving speaker, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Dr. Abiy Ahmed. We strongly believe that his participation will bring unwanted scrutiny to the conference because of his records on gross human rights violations. Yes, the prime minister is a Nobel laureate, one of the criteria we understand the Project Syndicate considered to invite him as a keynote speaker at this event. However, there are so much compelling evidence that, in hindsight, suggests the most undeserving person got the most coveted prize in the first place. Don’t take our words on this, just ask the Nobel Peace Prize Committee if they would have bestowed the prestigious prize on Dr. Abiy had they known what they know today. They still are answering for the decision they made and have to defend it. He should not be honored once again by featuring him at this global event along with so many deserving and distinguished speakers.

In our view, here is why Dr. Abiy should not be rewarded with the honor of sharing the stage with these renowned world leaders and professionals with impeccable characters for, as we shall show below, he has reneged on his promise of transitioning Ethiopia to democracy, he is a shameless plagiarizer, and he is known to have changed his biography so often to fit what he believes his audiences would like to hear.

Dr. Abiy served as a senior member of the Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) dominated regime that terrorized Ethiopians for 27+years, with a record of hundreds of thousands of people killed, maimed, and disappeared during his tenure as Head of the Security Intelligence arm of the regime. In 2018, when the TPLF members of the regime were forced to retreat to Tigray, following sustained Oromo youth-led popular uprising for over 4+years, Mr. Abiy and his team came to power promising to transition the country into a genuine functional democracy, has officially apologized for the destruction of so many lives and squandering the wealth of the country. During the first year, he was indeed a trailblazer; signed a peace agreement with Eritrea, lifted so many draconian laws that stifled human rights and free speech, invited exiled opposition parties and leaders to return home and participate in a peaceful democratic process, promised to hold free and fair elections, open up the economy to allow increased private sector participation and the list goes on; actions that earned him unequivocal domestic and international support and a Nobel Prize for Peace and accolade of praises. Many believed that the Nobel Prize was a down payment for peace.

No sooner than he received the prize, however, Prime Minster realized that Ethiopians, especially Oromos he claimed to have represented as a blood relative resulting in his appointment as Prime Minister, unequivocally prefer opposition parties as their true leaders. With that realization, the Prime Minister and his team instantly halted in its tracks the so-called change they introduced and reneged on his promise to transition Ethiopia to democracy. They immediately launched a vicious war on unarmed individuals, organizations, and the grassroots that deposed the previous regime and paved the way for the Prime Minister and his team to come to power. His supporters assassinated a prominent Oromo artist, Hachaaluu Hundessa, who inspired and mobilized millions of Oromo youth against the previous tyrannical regime. During Oromia wide demonstrations that followed Hachaaluu’s assassination, the state security forces killed hundreds of demonstrators, jailed most opposition party leaders and activists, closed or destroyed opposition parties’ offices and properties, carried out extrajudicial killings of the Oromo public suspected of being supporters of the opposition, closed Oromo media houses, jailed their staff and management, and looted their properties.

As documented in multiple Amnesty International reports on Human rights status in Ethiopia (Amnesty International Report on Human Rights Violations, May 29, 2020; https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/africa/ethiopia/report-ethiopia/), the Prime Minister and the state he is presiding over are waging state-sanctioned terror on Oromos and oppressed nations and nationalities in Ethiopia; the reason why he doesn’t deserve nor should he be rewarded with the honor of sharing a stage with globally recognized world leaders and professionals. Moreover, Dr. Abiy is also intellectually dishonest, widely known as a prolific plagiarizer of other people’s works and speeches verbatim (https://somalilandchronicle.com/2018/08/26/dr-plagiarizer-ethiopian-prime-minister-plagiarizes-henry-kissinger/). He is an infamous impersonator, having repeatedly claimed varying versions of his parents’ ethnic background that seem to change depending on his audience’s prevalent ethnicity and his perception of what that audience wants to hear about his origin of ethnicity. According to BBC report published on October 11. 2019 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43567007), he claimed his father is a Muslim Oromo and his mother is a Christian Amhara (also quoted in the Nobel Prize Institute’s biography of the Prime Minister). He has repeatedly confirmed this claim in multiple interviews he gave to various media platforms available on YouTube. He is also on record, claiming both his father and mother are Oromos in an interview he granted to the Oromo Broadcasting Network TV as recent as July 15, 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZATZ5Q-EyE&ab_channel=OBNOromiyaa%5BOromiaBroadcastingNetwork%5D). In our opinion, allowing Dr. Abiy to speak at this event risks tarnishing the good name and image of Project Syndicate, diminishes that stature of the event, and possibly disseminate plagiarized messages on this very important topic. We thus kindly request Project Syndicate urgently to rescind the invitation to Dr. Abiy Ahmed to prevent any detraction from the real issue of the conference and also because this could be construed as unwittingly enabling a murderous tyrant who did not and is not valuing human life.

Allowing Dr. Abiy to appear on this world stage, to speak to the environment, is tantamount to ignoring the death of those children, the old and young people, and hundreds of thousands incarcerated in COVID-19 infested jails, and those young girls being raped daily by his soldiers as a deterrent. All this ongoing death and destruction is due to Abiy’s official shoot-to-kill policy to deter any kind of protest from his tyranny. One must also examine the inconsistencies of this man’s educational records to know what a master manipulator he has been throughout his life. The fundamental question is this, what kind of wisdom about climate change can this despicable, intellectually bankrupt, and a profoundly flawed human being can offer at such a global forum? If this invitation stands, he will use it to polish his image that has been tarnished beyond any repair, regardless. We sincerely hope and passionately urge that in virtue of the above, Project Syndicate will reconsider its invitation and dissociate itself from a leader of one of the most murderous regimes the world has seen in recent years. If not for anything else, just to preserve the image and credibility of the organization. Attached is a graphic snapshot of the atrocities committed by Abiy’s security forces against innocent Oromo citizens.

Oromia Global Forum

Signatories:

1. Advocacy4Oromia

2. Bilal Oromo Dawa Center

3. Canaan Oromo Evangelical Church

4. Charismatic International Fellowship Church

5. DMV Oromo Islamic Center6. Gaadisa Sabboontottaa KP

7. Global Gumii Oromia

8. Global Oromo Advocacy Group

9. Global Waaqeffannaa Council

10. Horn of Africa Genocide Watch

11. Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa

12. International Oromo Lawyers Association

13. International Oromo Women’s Organization

14. International Qeerroo Support Group

15. Network of Oromo Studies

16. Mana Kiristaanaa Fayyisaa Addunyaa

17. Oromo Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church

18. Oromo Communities’ Association of North America

19. Oromo Community of Bergen

20. Oromo Community of Oslo

21. Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Church of Los Angeles

22. Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Church of Washington DC Metropolitan Area

23. Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society

24. Oromo Human Rights and Relief Organization

25. Oromo Legacy, Leadership and Advocacy Association

26. Oromo Lutheran Church of Baltimore

27. Oromo Relief Association in USA

28. Oromo Parliamentarians Council

29. Oromo Political Prisoners Association

30. Oromo Resurrection Evangelical Church

31. Oromo Scholars and Professinals

32. Oromia Support Group

33. Oromo Studies Association

34. Tawfiq Islamic Center

35. Tawhid Oromo Islamic Center in Minnesota

36. Union of Oromo Communities in Canada

37. United Oromo Chirstian Church in Australia

38. United Oromo Evangelical Church39. Wabii Maccaa Association

40. Washington DC Metropolitan Oromo SDA Church

Potential Macroeconomic Implication of World Bank Decline of USD 2 billion Loan to Ethiopia September 6, 2020

Dábessá Gemelal

During such time as this, when the global economy is at the cross road and that of the LDCs’ economy including of Ethiopia is terribly impacted by multitudes of challenges such as conflicts, displacement, flooding, locust infestation, COVID-19 pandemic and others, the decline by WB to give a lone amounting to USD 2 billion will have multiple economic impacts. Here are some of the potential impacts:- Deteriorates Debt Repayment Capacity: Such soft loan from the WB/IMF/AfDB or similar financial institution usually improves nation’s capacity to pay their commercial debts to such country as China.

The inability to pay own debt will have global level credit worthiness impact;- Slowdown import dependent industrial operation: Ethiopia’s industries are largely import dependent, whereby the largest share of the row materials are imported. Hence, during this time when the country is suffering from foreign currency shortage, the lack of such loan will impact the industries significantly;- Decline in Importation of Essential Item: the country is already overheated by the shortage of foreign exchange to import essential times for domestic consumption.

As a result the price rice during the month of July 2020 has gotten closer to 23%. Hence, absence of loan will aggravate the situation and rate of inflation could further increase;- Challenge in the Completion of Mega projects: The country is said of implementing mega projects such as sugar factories, irrigation schemes, hydro power, infrastructural development and many other. Such projects heavily rely on loan from the big global financial institutions. The WB’s decline of this loan would then mean a big challenge for the country to progress in the implementation of this mega projects- Challenge to Maintain Sufficient National Reserve: in the absence of sufficient and affordable loans, the country might resort to the depletion of its national reserve to meet critical demands.

Whereas, the country’s national reserve is already at lower level, which barely covers 2.5 months need of the country;- Challenge to Attract FDI: in country where there is liquidity crunch in terms of foreign currency, the probability for FDI to comer to the country is very low. That is because the investors need sufficient foreign current for importation as well as maintaining portion of their earning oversea.

These are few of the macroeconomic impacts of the current WB’s decline of the $2 billion. As such, the impact will be on all sectors and also on individual to the national economy.

Related article:

Awol Kassim Allo

The political and economic costs of pursuing political opponents through the courts are far greater than the benefits**************************************************************

It has been more than two months since Jawar Mohammed and several other leading members of the Oromo opposition were detained based on bogus accusations. More than two months after the high profile arrests, the govt is yet to bring formal charges against them bc it as no case that serves the gov’t political agenda while also meeting the requirements of criminal law. The three people formally charged thus far – Dajanee Xaafaa, Mastawardii Tamam, and Mishaa Cirrii – were charged for a crime unrelated to the events used as a justification for the arrests.Weaponising the justice system to pursue political adversaries is is politically counter-productive and economically ruinous. Over the last two months, there have been anti-Abiy rallies in major cities across Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia. In Oromia, we have witnessed a groundswell of protests, particularly by Oromo women. These are extremely damaging to the image of the country and a PM that won the Nobel Peace Prize only a year ago. These protests are also economically ruinous both in the short and the long term. Detaining political opponents in a country that is tearing itself apart can only complicate its structural uncertainties and deepens its explosive national and subnational faultlines. Put simply, it would make eventual political settlement impossible.I believe the PM understands that the political and economic risks (costs) of pursuing political opponents through the courts are far greater than its benefits. No reasonable person can believe that the government can lock these individuals behind bars and ensure peace and stability while millions of Oromos are saying: “No Peace without Justice”. The anger that we see on the streets both in Ethiopia and abroad would only grow in scale and magnitude if the government persists with these trials and its anti-democratic move to impose a unilateral political settlement for the country. Abiy Ahmed can and must release all political prisoners and return to dialogue. It is the only way to save Ethiopia from the abyss.

መፍረስ? ያንተዋ ኢትዮጵያ የፈረሰችውስ፣ እኛ መብትና ፍትህ ስለጠየቅን ሳይሆን፣ የእኛን መብት በመግፋት፣ የእኛን የሕዝቦቿን ሰብዓዊ ክብር በመርገጥ፣ እኛን ለማፍረስ ተማምላ ከቤት የወጣች ዕለት ነው። September 6, 2020

መፍረስ?

By Dr #Tsegaye_Ararssa

ለመሆኑ 150 ዓመት ሙሉ አገር እየፈረሰብን፣ ሕግና ሥርዓት እየፈረሰብን፣ ዕምነትና ልማድ እየተናደብን፣ ታሪክና ማንነት እየተሻረብን፣ ቤትና ቤተሰብ እየፈረሰብን፣ ሕዝብና ማህበረሰብ እየተደረመሰብን፣ ሕይወትና አካል እየጎደለብን፣ ዕለት ዕለት እየተገደልን ለኖርን ለእኛ፣ መብት ሲጠየቅ “ትፈርሳለች” የምትባለዋ አገር እንደምን ያለች ናት?

ወንድሜ፣ ያንተዋ ኢትዮጵያ የፈረሰችውስ፣ እኛ መብትና ፍትህ ስለጠየቅን ሳይሆን፣ የእኛን መብት በመግፋት፣ የእኛን የሕዝቦቿን ሰብዓዊ ክብር በመርገጥ፣ እኛን ለማፍረስ ተማምላ ከቤት የወጣች ዕለት ነው።

አብይና የወንጀለኛ ስብስብ የሆነው የብልጥግና ‘መንግሥቱም’ የፈረሱት፣ እኛን በማፍረስ “ኢትዮጵያን [ከእኛ ከሕዝቦቿ፣ በተለይ ከኦሮሞ] ለመታደግ” በሚል የእብድ መፈክር ዙሪያ መማማል የጀመረ ዕለት ነው።

እና መብት ስለተጠየቀ የሚፈርስ አገር የለም።የመብትና የፍትህ ጥያቄ የሚያፈርሰው ‘አገር’ ከሆነም፣ ድሮም አገር አልነበረም ማለት ነው። የመብትና የፍትህ ጥያቄን የማይቋቋምና የማይመልስ፣ አልፎም የሚፈራ አገር፣ አገር ሊባል የተገባ አይደለምና መኖርም የለበትም።አገር ምድር አይደለም። አገር ፖለቲካዊ ማህበረሰብ ነው። መብቶችንና ጥቅሞችን አሰባስቦ፣ አስማምቶ፣ አቻችሎ በጋራ የሚተዳደር፣ ሥርዓትና ተቋማት ያለው ነገር (entity) ነው። ለዚህ ነው “አገር ማለት ሕዝብ ነው፣ አገር ማለት ሰዉ ነው” የሚባለው።ሰው እያፈረስክ የምትገነባውም ሆነ የምታድነው አገር የለም።አንድ ሰው ስትገድል፣ የአንድ ዜጋን መብት አላግባብ ስትጥስ፣ አገራዊ መርሆዎችንና እሴቶችን ስታንኳስስ፣ ያኔ ነው አገር ማፍረስ የጀመርከው።ሕዝብን ስታፈርስ፣ ወይም ለማፍረስ አቅደህ ላይ ታች እያልክ ስትንከላወስ፣ ያኔ ነው እንደ አገር የፈረስከው።የሕዝብን ሰብዓዊ ክብር ስታዋርድ፣ ሕዝብን እንደ ሕዝብ ለመስደብ ተደራጅተህ በሚዲያ ደቦ ተቧድነህ ለፕሮፓጋንዳ የሚሆን የሥራ ክፍፍል አድርገህ ስትዘምት፣ ያኔ ነው እንደ አንድ ፖለቲካዊ ማሕበረሰብ አገራዊ ቁመናህን ያጣኸው።

That’s why we say #Abiy_is_the_past, and Ethiopia is the home that never was for us. And that’s why we say…#Abiy_must_be_removed!#ለእነ_መፍረስ_ብርቁ#ለእነ_አፍራሽ!