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A Summary of Oromos Killed, Beaten and Detained by the TPLF Armed Forces during the 2014 Oromo Protest Against The Addis Ababa (Finfinne) Master Plan Compiled by: National Youth Movement for Freedom and Democracy (NYMFD) aka Qeerroo Bilisummaa
July 05, 2014
Background
It is a well-documented and established fact that the Oromo people in general and Oromo students and youth in particular have been in constant and continuous protest ever since the current TPLF led Ethiopian government came to power. The current protest which started late April 2014 on a large scale in all universities and colleges in Oromia and also spread to several high schools and middle schools begun as opposition to the so called “Integrated Developmental Master Plan” or simply “the Master Plan”. The “Master Plan” was a starter of the protest, not a major cause. The major cause of the youth revolt is opposition to the unjust rule of the Ethiopian regime in general. The main issue is that there is no justice, freedom and democracy in the country. The said Master Plan in particular, would expand the current limits of the capital, Addis Ababa, or “Finfinne” as the Oromos prefer to call it, by 20 folds stretching to tens of Oromian towns surrounding the capital. The Plan is set to legalize eviction of an estimated 2 million Oromo farmers from their ancestral land and sell it to national and transnational investors. For the Oromo, an already oppressed and marginalised nation in that country, the incorporation of those Oromian cities into the capital Addis Ababa means once more a complete eradication of their identity, culture, and language. The official language will eventually be changed to Amharic. Essentially, it is a new form of subjugation and colonization. It was the Oromo university students who saw this danger, realized its far-reaching consequences and lit the torch of protest which eventually engulfed the whole Oromia regional state.
For the minority TPLF led Ethiopian regime, who has been already selling large area of land surrounding Addis Ababa even without the existence of the Master Plan, meeting the demands of the protesting Oromo students means losing 1.1 million of hectares of land which the regime planned to sell for a large sum of money. Therefore, the demand of the students and the Oromo people at large is not acceptable to the regime. It has therefore decided to squash the protest with its forces armed to the teeth. The regime ordered its troops to fire live ammunition to defenceless Oromo students at several places: Ambo, Gudar, Robe (Bale), Nekemte, Jimma, Haromaya, Adama, Najjo, Gulliso, Anfillo (Kellem Wollega), Gimbi, Bule Hora (University), to mention a few. Because the government denied access to any independent journalists it is hard to know exactly how many have been killed and how many have been detained and beaten. Simply put, it is too large of a number over a large area of land to enumerate. Children as young as 11 years old have been killed. The number of Oromos killed in Oromia during the current protest is believed to be in hundreds. Tens of thousands have been jailed and an unknown number have been abducted and disappeared. The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa, who has been constantly reporting the human rights abuses of the regime through informants from several parts of Oromia for over a decade, estimates the number of Oromos detained since April 2014 as high as 50, 000
In this report we present a list of 61 Oromos that are killed and 903 others that are detained and beaten (or beaten and then detained) during and after the Oromo students protest which begun in April 2014 and which we managed to collect and compile. The information we obtain so far indicates those detained are still in jail and still under torture. Figure 1 below shows the number of Oromos killed from different zones of Oromia included in this report. Figure 2 shows the number of Oromos detained and reportedly facing torture. It has to be noted that this number is only a small fraction of the widespread killings and arrest of Oromos carried out by the regime in Oromia regional state since April 2014 to date. Our Data Collection Team is operating in the region under tight and risky security conditions not to consider lack of logistic, financial and man power to carry the data collection over the vast region of Oromia.
Oromo Singer Mustefa Abdi, best known as Mustefa Harawe, one of the victims found in recently discovered Hameressa mass grave.
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Suuraan tun tan wallisaa Oromoo Musxafaa Abdii ykn ammoo Musxafaa Harawweeti. Harawween walleelee aadaa, jaalalaatifi qabsootin hedduu beekkamaa ture. Sababuma kanaaf yeroo dheeraaf erga hiraarfamee booda Oromoota dhibbaatamaa waliin bara 1990 keessa ajjeefame, Qabrii Hammarreessaa tan dhihoo tana argamte sanitti gatame. Seenaan haa yaadattu, rabbi raahmata haa godhuuf.
Mass Grave of Oromos Executed by Govt Discovered in Eastern Oromia
Posted: Waxabajjii/June 10, 2014 · Finfinne Tribune | Gadaa.com
According to sources, a confrontation between residents and Ethiopian government officials broke out on June 9, 2014, over a mass grave discovered at the former Hameressa military garrison near Harar city, eastern Oromia. The mass grave is believed to contain remains of political prisoners executed during both the Dergue era and the early reigns of the current TPLF regime. Among those who were executed and buried in the location was Mustafa Harowe, a famous Oromo singer who was killed around early 1980′s for his revolutionary songs. Thousands more Oromo political prisoners were kept at this location in early 1990′s – with many of them never to be seen again.
The mass grave was discovered while the Ethiopian government was clearing the camp with bulldozers to make it available to Turkish investors. Upon the discovery of the remains, the government tried to quietly remove them from the site. However, workers secretly alerted residents in nearby villages; upon the spread of the news, many turned up en mass to block the removal of the remains and demanded construction a memorial statue on the site instead. The protests is still continuing with elders camping on the site while awaiting a response from government.
Haqxi dukkana halkaniitiin ajjeesanii lafa jalatti awwaalan kunoo har’a rabbi as baase. Dhugaan Oromoo tun kan amma as bahe, mootummaa kaampii waraanaa kana diiguun warra lafa isaa warra Turkiitiif kennuuf osoo qopheessuuf yaaluti. Lafee warra dhumee akkuma arganiin dhoksaan achirra gara biraatti dabarsuuf osoo yaalanii hojjattonni ummata naannotti iccitii san himan. Ummanniis dafee wal-dammaqsuun bakka sanitti argamuun ekeraan nama keenyaa akka achii hin kaafamneefi siidaan yaadannoo akka jaaramu gaafachaa jiran.
Hamma feetes turtu dhugaan Oromoo awwaalamtee hin haftu.
#OromoProtests- 8th June 2014- Confrontation between residents and government officials is reported over mass grave discovered at the former Hameressa military garrison near Harar city. The mass grave is believed to contain remains of political prisoners executed during the Dargue era and the early reigns of TPLF. Among those who were executed and buried in the location is Mustafa Harowe, a famous Oromo singer who was killed in 1982? for his revolutionary songs. Thousands of more of political prisoners were kept at this location in early 1990s, with many of them never to be seen again.The mass grave was discovered while the government was clearing the camp with bulldozers to make it available to Turkish investors. Upon discovery of the remains, the government tried to quietly remove it from the site. However, workers secretly alerted residents in nearby villages who spread the news and turned up en mass to block the removal of the remains and demanding construction of memorial statue on the site. The protests is still continuing with elders camping on site while awaiting response from government.
#OromoProtests FDG Hameressa: the video embedded below shows the TPLF Ethiopian regime’s security forces shooting at Oromo civilians at the recently discovered Hameressa hidden mass grave; Hameressa, located near the Harar city in eastern Oromia, used to be an Abyssinian military garrison/camp during the Derg and the TPLF regime – until recently when the TPLF regime sold it off to so-called “investors.”
The remains, of Oromo individuals executed by the successive Abyssinian governments of the Derg as well as TPLF, were discovered late last week at the former Hameressa garrison as the land was being cleared for the so-called ‘investment’ activity.
The TPLF government has reportedly been working hard to hide the evidences of the Hameressa mass-murder site from the public. However, the public has camped on the site – day and night – to seek justice for those slaughtered at the former Hameressa garrison.
In the video, the Oromo public is peacefully protesting the government’s attempt to conceal evidences of mass murders, but the TPLF government’s security forces are responding with live bullets. According to latest reports, three persons have been injured by the TPLF security forces at Hameressa.
In 1941 Selassie passed a decree to ban the Oromo language, [Afan Oromoo]. His bias against the Oromo became readily apparent when he went so far as to forbid them from speaking their own language. The emperor followed this in 1944 with Decree Number 3, which required all missionaries to teach in Amharic, despite the fact that the majority of the Oromo and other ethnic minorities did not speak the language. According to the decree, The general language of instruction throughout Ethiopia shall be the Amharic Language, which language all missionaries will be expected to learn. Selassieís government entrenched the Abyssinian culture further by making Amharic the national language of Ethiopia in 1955. During the early 1970 the regime recognized and used four other languages (Tigrinya, Tigre, Somali, and Afar) but not Oromoo afan, thereby demonstrating the leaderís level of disdain for the Oromo.
The concept of Oromo peace also influenced their beliefs regarding the social development of humanity (finna), which they believed passed through five stages to reach the nagaa oromoo. They called the first stage the gabbina, where humanity learned from their past mistakes to create the gada system. After this stage they progressed to the ballina, which involved greater cooperation between them and increased wealth. The badhaadha marked the third stage, where unity and tranquility persisted among the Oromo, which pleased Waqa. After humanity had made peace with itself, it next made peace with nature, represented by the hoormaata stage. Finally, the daaga was the level on which humans integrated all lessons learned from previous stages in order to live in perfect harmony.
Haile Selassie and American Missionaries: Inadvertent Agents of Oromo Identity in Ethiopia (Thesis)
By Horace Eric Gilchrist
The thesis analyzes the dynamics among the Ethiopian government under Emperor Haile Selassie, American Protestant missionaries, and the Oromo during the period of 1960-1975. The thesis argues that Selassie and the missionaries had different agendas for helping the Oromo and shows how this resulted in political and social outcomes which neither the missionaries nor emperor intended to create. One such consequence was the
evolution and entrenchment of the Oromo sense of identity. Using the unpublished records of the Christian Missionary Fellowship (CMF) the thesis examines the efforts of this particular mission and that of its counterpart, the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) of which more is known. The speeches and decrees of Haile Selassie and other government officials have also been helpful in this study, and for the Oromo particular, the thesis has had to rely
on published works by the Oromo themselves.
The government of Haile Selassie and the CMF had different views on the proper role of missionary work in Ethiopia. Selassie saw the missionariesí role as being utilitarian, aiding his overall objective of the unification of Ethiopia. However, the CMF saw their primary goal as spiritual, saving the Oromo from a life of sin through the acceptance of Christianity. Neither agenda had as its primary goal elevating the depressed sociopolitical and economic levels of the Oromo society. The question arises regarding the success of the CMF in evangelizing to the Oromo and the extent to which the Oromo benefited from CMF efforts. Related to this is the manner in which the Amhara-dominated government and Ethiopian Orthodox Church responded to the success of the CMF.
Findings of the Thesis
‘No unified Ethiopian society existed prior to the late nineteenth century and that the Oromo and Abyssinians had separate and distinct societies during this period. Abyssinians developed a unique sociopolitical culture which differed fundamentally from those of most Africans. Cushitic-speaking humans occupied the area of modern Ethiopia for thousands of years. The Abyssinians traced their heritage back before the time of ancient Egyptians, with roots outside of Africa. Around 1,000 BC Arabic-speaking people, the Sabeans, invaded Ethiopia.’
‘The governing system of the Oromo reflected the society’s openness and flexibility, which contrasted with the Abyssiniansí rigid and autocratic government system. The Oromo clearly placed a value on individual liberty and freedom, which was reflected in their political organizations and social customs. Their acceptance and incorporation of other ethnicities reflected the societyís mutability; they also saw themselves not as a unified nation but as individual federations with a common culture.’
‘The Oromo held religious beliefs as complex as the Abyssinians’ beliefs. Contrary to traditional scholarship, the Oromo practiced a monotheistic religion distinct from Christianity and Islam long before they came into contact with Abyssinians and Westerners. The Oromo believed in a sky god, Waqa, whom they believed created the universe and, like many pre-Christian societies, the Oromo held a pantheistic belief that Waqa resided in all living things yet remained a distinct entity. The Oromo also had Jesus and Abraham figures, known as Orma: a demigod and son of Waqa, whom the Oromo saw as their progenitor. Orma set down Waqaís law to the abbaa muudaa (father anointed), who acted as the chief priest of the religion. The similarities with Christianityshould be noted: first, Waqa functioning as God the father, Orma as the Son, and finally a figure similar Abraham in the form of the abbaa muudaa. The complexity of the Oromo religion went beyond monotheism. The Oromo also believed in a complex theological system, with many similarities to Christianity. According to their tradition, their god created spirits, known as ayaana, who could be evil or good. However, they did not have the concept of a devil (setana) until the advent of Christianity. Some scholars might describe the Oromo concept of ayaana as a simple pagan belief, yet they resembled Christianity’s angels and functioned in a similar intercessory role for the Oromo as did angels with the Christian god.The Oromo also believed in a divine moral code (saffu), created by Waqa, which guided all things in nature (uuma), and the saffu served to achieve and maintain earthly peace called nagaa oromoo. This moral concept of nagaa oromoo carried over into the Oromo belief in cooperation with each other so that they never formed alliances with non-Oromo against other Oromo groups.’
‘The concept of Oromo peace also influenced their beliefs regarding the social development of humanity (finna), which they believed passed through five stages to reach the nagaa oromoo. They called the first stage the gabbina, where humanity learned from their past mistakes to create the gada system. After this stage they progressed to the ballina, which involved greater cooperation between them and increased wealth. The badhaadha marked the third stage, where unity and tranquility persisted among the Oromo, which pleased Waqa. After humanity had made peace with itself, it next made peace with nature, represented by the hoormaata stage. Finally, the daaga was the level on which humans integrated all lessons learned from previous stages in order to live in perfect harmony.’
‘The Oromo developed a religious class as complex and distinct as Orthodox Christian priests. Oromo called their priests qaallu, and choose them at birth, the position passing from father to son. These priests acted as intercessors for the Oromo with the ayaana and Waqa much like Orthodox priest did for the Abyssinians. Unlike the Orthodox priests, the Oromo priests did not live apart from the people. They also had prophets, called ragas, who foretold the future. Religious historians called ayaantus committed to memory all significant religious and social events in Oromo society.53 Finally, the abbaa muuda acted as the patriarch or pontifical figure in the Oromo qaallu system. The Oromo believed that he obtained his powers directly from Orma. Certain Oromo subgroups such as the Matcha Oromo made yearly pilgrimages to the abbaa muuda to seek blessings.’
‘Several important factors characterized Oromo political, social, and religious life. First, the Oromo clearly valued societal openness and flexibility over a rigid hierarchical society like that of the Abyssinians, and their willingness to incorporate other ethnicities into their groups is one proof of this. Likewise, the Oromo felt closely connected to nature with their religious beliefs and practices. Unlike Orthodox Christianity, which had an elaborate system focused on clergy, the Oromo religion centered on the individual. These religious beliefs easily meshed with their democratic practices, similar to Protestant Christianityís closeness to liberal democracy in the United States and other Western nations. This contrasted sharply with Orthodox Christianity, which matched more with the Abyssinian feudalistic governing system.’
‘The Oromo and Abyssinians possessed distinct cultures with different religious practices prior to the late nineteenth century. No unified Ethiopian nation existed during this period, except as represented by Abyssinian culture. Hierarchical political and religious structures characterized the Abyssinian culture, while democratic political and religious structures marked the Oromo culture.’
‘Abyssinians commenced the political unification of Ethiopia in the middle of the nineteenth century by destroying the sociopolitical and religious institutions of the Oromo. In 1852 the Amhara, under Dejazmatch Kassa (who later became Emperor Tewodros), defeated the most powerful Oromo city-state controlled by Ras Ali.
Within three years Dejazmatch Kassa conquered all of his Tigrean and Amhara rival leaders and assumed the title of Emperor of Ethiopia. Once the Abyssinians had unified the country, they initiated political and religious procedures to pacify other ethnic groups, including the Oromo. Emperor Menelik II (1885-1913) destroyed the Oromo gada system, replacing it with the military feudal structure known as nafxanya. Abyssinian soldiers confiscated the Oromo land and turned the Oromo into gabbars (peasants), who began to pay a feudal homage to their new conquerors by contributing one third of their crops and paying a monetary tax.’
‘The Orthodox Church played a key role in the pacification of the Oromo in the twentieth century. Emperor Menelik II initiated this campaign through a mass Christianization process in Oromo areas. He used his soldiers to conquer the Oromo, made them all Orthodox Christians by imperial decree, and then sent Orthodox priests to pacify his newly conquered subjects with religion. He also supported the construction of Orthodox churches throughout the conquered Oromo territory; he accomplished this by granting bala gults (feudal grants) to the Orthodox priests with Oromo peasants on the land. Meanwhile, all Oromo had to attend Orthodox services conducted entirely in Geíez, the ancient Abyssinian language that most Amhara and Tigreans did not understand. Like most imperial powers, the Abyssinian rulers naturally sought to make their language and religion the dominating one. Although to date the governmentís efforts at colonization had been more haphazard than coordinated, they achieved results. By the beginning of the twentieth century the Abyssinians had made significant inroads into destroying Oromo culture and creating in them a new Ethiopian identity.’
‘Haile Selassie’s ascendancy to the throne marked the beginning of perfected efforts by the Abyssinian government to pacify the Oromo. Selassie wanted to create a unified Ethiopian state under his control and devised several means to accomplish this goal.Through a project called Teklay Gizat (pulling together) he attempted to manufacture an Ethiopian identity with a campaign of uniting all disparate peoples. Selassie’s effort to centralize his power and create a new national identity manifested in many forms. In his philosophical outlook the Abyssinian culture, particularly that of the Amhara and Orthodox Christianity, represented his concept of Ethiopia and, under him, being Ethiopian became synonymous with accepting his view of Abyssinian culture. The emperor expressed this sentiment in public speeches throughout his reign. In a 1959 college speech Selassie clearly expressed this sentiment: The Amhara race must know that it has an obligation on its part to work in the technical field no matter at what level. To preserve the heritage of one’s honor and culture. This statement indicates that, for Selassie, being Ethiopian meant being Amhara. The emperor continued to express the belief that being an Amhara Orthodox Christian represented the qualities of Ethiopians when he stated on 15 January 1965, Ethiopia, an island of Christianity, has made her own distinctive contribution to the Christian faith; forever since her conversion to Christianity she has remained faithful, her age-old ties with the apostolic church uninterrupted. This shows that Selassie believed that Orthodox Christianity represented all of Ethiopia’s peoples and their non-Christian religions. In his Ethiopia, no room existed for people who did not assimilate to the Abyssinian culture and religion.
‘Selassieís attempt to create a national Ethiopian identity appeared harmless on the surface but, in fact, he took the nafxanya system to its logical conclusion by destroying the traditional Oromo provinces and creating new ones controlled by military governors. He employed a technique that communist governments would later use to pacify ethnically diverse populations: He forcibly split up the Oromo and other ethnic groups.Selassie also continued Menelikís policies of church building and forced conversions in conquered Oromo areas.These policies helped to weaken substantially the political cohesiveness of Oromo communities.’
‘The Ethiopian government enacted legislative policies to weaken the Oromo politically as well. In 1941 Selassie passed a decree to ban the Oromo language, Oromoo afan. His bias against the Oromo became readily apparent when he went so far as to forbid them from speaking their own language. The emperor followed this in 1944 with Decree Number 3, which required all missionaries to teach in Amharic, despite the fact that the majority of the Oromo and other ethnic minorities did not speak the language. According to the decree, ìThe general language of instruction throughout Ethiopia shall be the Amharic Language, which language all missionaries will be expected to learn.î15 Selassieís government entrenched the Abyssinian culture further by making Amharic the national language of Ethiopia in 1955. During the early 1970 the regime recognized and used four other languages (Tigrinya, Tigre, Somali, and Afar) but not Oromoo afan, thereby demonstrating the leaderís level of disdain for the Oromo.’
‘In its continued effort to unify Ethiopia, Selassie’s government actively limited the political activities of the Oromo. The regime provided the Oromo only limited participation in the government. The Oromo officials selected by Selassie to work in the public service were those who had completely abandoned their culture and adopted that of the Amhara. One such person was Major General Mulugeta Bulli, an Oromo balabat, who became Minister of National Community Development. Selassie was an autocratic constitutional monarch who tolerated no political opposition, not least from the Oromo. After several coup attempts in the 1960s, primarily by Amhara officials and some Oromo, Selassie further restrained the advancement of the Oromo even the assimilated ones. In 1966 he banned the Oromo political party, Macha Tulama Association, and harassed its leaders with imprisonments and executions. In one episode the government jailed one hundred party members and executed two of them (General Taddesse Birru and Lieutenant Mamno Mazamir) on grounds of subversion in spite of the fact that, earlier that year, they had helped to put down an actual coup attempt by Amharic officials. The regime also executed leading Oromo intellectuals and human rights advocates, including Marno Mazamir, the author of an Oromo book; also executed was Haile Mariam Gamada, a famous lawyer.’
‘Imperial authorities also used social neglect to subjugate the Oromo. The government failed to provide adequate educational facilities for the Oromo, while encouraging them and other minorities to help themselves. In a speech on education in 1962 Selassie stated, ìAnd similarly if you [Ethiopia’s non-Amhara ethnic groups] continue to consult one another and strive to get rid of the other handicaps, say problems of obtaining clean water, better roads, and sanitation for your community, you will find that the accomplishment within your capacity. This indicates that Selassie did not feel personally responsible for providing even basic social services to the Oromo in the manner that most governments provide for their citizens. The regime required all teachers to instruct students only in Amharic, ensuring that Amhara teachers made no effort to be culturally sensitive or accommodating to Oromo children. Statistical data from the Selassie era show the harmful effect that the policy of social neglect had on the Oromo, educational reforms benefiting the Abyssinian elite only. For example, sometime in 1947 Selassie created an education tax via Proclamation 94, and the Abyssinian elite managed to ensure that Oromo peasants paid most of it. This policy resulted in Oromo peasants paying for Abyssinian childrenís education to the detriment of their own. Nearly 88% of Oromo school children between the ages of seven and twelve years did not attend school, as well as 97% of those in the age range of thirteen to eighteen years. In the 1960s the majority (83%) of Oromo children who attended school dropped out by sixth grade.The result of all this was that the Oromo had limited opportunities for basic employment and for secondary and college education. By 1974 0nly 10% college age Oromo students were enrolled in Ethiopia’s universities.’
‘The government of Haile Selassie also failed to provide economic opportunities to the Oromo. Subsistence feudal agriculture formed the basis of the Ethiopian economy from its earliest history through the 1960s, with Amhara aristocrats benefiting from the labor performed by peasants on their land. The Selassie administration consisted primarily of nobles who came from this feudal tradition and had no incentive to alter the system. By the late 1960s 60% of Oromo farmers remained in a feudal system of land tenure because Selassie failed to dismantle it, contributing to the economic disparity endured by the Oromo by allowing Abyssinian nobles to avoid government taxes, while the peasants paid them.Earlier, in 1942, he had issued Proclamation 8, which established land taxes that were paid primarily by the Oromo peasants.Proclamation 60 of 1944 set out details of an income tax but, when the Abyssinian nobles refused to pay, the emperor substituted it with a regressive tax on labor and rented land that, once again, placed the onus on Oromo peasants.All major industrial projects were in areas dominated primarily by the Amhara.’
‘ Haile Selassie bore a great deal of responsibility for the poor conditions of the Oromo people, even if he was not directly involved with all of the policies. Although he ascended to power as a modernizer, he readily sacrificed true reforms for political convenience. For example, in 1924 he attempted to abolish the slave trade by making it a capital crime, but he did not enforce this law, and he allowed the problem to continue well into the late 1960s. The emperor also demonstrated his exclusive commitment to himself by his failure to enforce his own tax codes on the Abyssinian nobles, and he personally oversaw most of his governmental initiatives through the 1960s. For example, he reportedly used merit to appoint all government ministers, and he personally chose 1,000 them.’
‘The successive policies of the Abyssinian governments through the 1960s require some comment. The evidence presented thus far shows that Abyssinian rulers were determined to form a unified state under their domination and used Orthodox Christianity as one means to subjugate non-Semitic speakers such as the Oromo. Haile Selassie perfected the system of colonization through the use of legal measures, political repression, and socioeconomic neglect to subdue such peoples, and he supported and established the notion of accepting Orthodox Christianity and the Abyssinian culture of the Amhara as the prerequisite for being Ethiopian. His governmentís actions allowed no room for groups such as the Oromo to retain their cultural identity and still be Ethiopian. One would expect the oppressed people to respond to this assault on their culture in a negative manner, and there is no doubt that the Oromo viewed the Orthodox Church as a tool of their subjugation. Indeed, they did respond in a negative way to this onslaught of Abyssinian culture.’
‘During the 1900s to the 1940s the Oromo reacted to Abyssinian imperialism by applying their traditional societal flexibility, which allowed them to adapt easily to new situations. Most non-Muslim Oromo accepted the mass conversion to Orthodox Christianity and wore circles around their neck to symbolize their acquiescence.
However, American Protestant missionaries witnessed many Oromo, including those of Wollega, practicing their traditional religion in secret. Christian missionaries in the 1960s testified that ìwhile most Oromo feigned adherence to the Orthodox religion, they secretly worshiped other spirits. Some Oromo attempted genuinely to accept Christianity on their own terms. Among such converts was the religious scholar Onesimos, who translated the Bible into Oromoo. The Oromo elite also responded to the political domination by taking Amharic names and cooperating with the local Abyssinian officials. However, as before, the Abyssinian rulers responded negatively by limiting the advancement of Oromo officials because of the fear that this would help to promote a sense of a national identity. Had the Amhara-dominated government approached the Oromo in a different manner, taking into account the Oromo traditional societal flexibility, the outcome might have been different. The Selassie governmentís negative response to the attempts of the Oromo to adapt their system subtly, while retaining some cultural independence, caused them to become more militant in their actions. Their dissatisfaction with Selassieís regime manifested in the form of several peasants revolts.’
‘The Raya Oromo initially revolted in 1935 in response to the brutal tactics of Selassie’s military governor, Ras Mulugeta, as he attempted to force them into the national army.With the initiation of the Italian Invasion in 1936, another group of Oromo, who described themselves as the Western Oromo Confederation, declared their independence from the Ethiopian government. Eventually, Selassie defeated the two groups, but the fact that the Oromo had rebelled at all indicated their level of frustration with the government. Many Oromo cooperated with the Italians during their occupation because the Italians reorganized Ethiopiaís provinces along linguistic lines and constructed mosques for Oromo Muslims.The negative feelings and actions of the Oromo toward the Abyssinian government intensified as the twentieth century progressed; by the 1960s, peasants became increasingly belligerent toward the Selassie regime. The Oromo peasant populace became enraged by the blatant disparity between themselves and the Amhara elites, including the heavy taxes that they paid without tangible socioeconomic benefits.Oromo simply had no land on which to live or farm because of the pro-Amhara policies of Haile Selassie. In a series of revolts starting in 1963 in the province of Bale, Oromo peasants unleashed their anger on the central government over its increased property taxes and favoritism toward Amhara Christians. The assimilated Oromo elite responded to the tactics of the imperial authorities by developing sociopolitical organizations that instilled a sense of a national Oromo identity that transcended their traditional divisions. The small number of Oromo who managed to achieve positions in government organizations, such as the civil and military services, felt disenfranchised by the Ethiopian government. Oromo civil servants and military officers could expect to achieve only nominal advancement in the imperial government, from which they obviously felt a certain amount of alienation. The disgruntled assimilated Oromo started to form self-help groups to provide political expression and to help their communities to advance. Activists formed organizations such as Arfannn Qallo, Biftu Ganamo, and the Macha Tulama Self Help Association, which sought to improve Oromo communities. The Macha Tulama became the most important and influential of the self-help organizations in expressing the political angst of the Oromo elite. On 24 January 1963 the Macha Tulama organization emerged from three older groups with the goal of creating educational, medical, and religious facilities for the Oromo.’
‘Ethiopia experienced a colonial period that mirrored the rest of Africa in terms of duration and tactics. The major difference was that the Ethiopian colonial system originated with Africans (the Abyssinians) colonizing other Africans (the Oromo). The issues of ethnic and national identity that plagued colonial Africa with the creation of artificial nations that had no historical basis also plagued Ethiopia and continue to plague it…..The study demonstrates that Ethiopian historiography should be reexamined to understand the true dynamics that led to the creation of this state. The traditional scholarly approach of regarding Ethiopia as a monolithic culture centered on Abyssinian society has proven inadequate to understand the sociopolitical conflicts that trouble modern Ethiopia. Only through examining all of Ethiopiaís ethnic groups and their interactions with one another can Ethiopian historiography be advanced.’
(OPHI) –The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), published by Oxford University reveals that Ethiopia ranks the second poorest country in the world and Africa, just ahead of Niger. The study is based on analysis of acute poverty in 108 developing countries around the world. Despite making progress at reducing the percentage of destitute people, Ethiopia is still home to more than 76 million poor people (out of total population of 87 million). 87.3% of Ethiopians are classified as MPI poor, while 58.1% are considered destitute. Oxford University says poverty is not just about a lack of money. It’s also about not having enough food, education, healthcare and shelter, and some poor are much worse off than others.
A person is identified as multidimensionally poor (or ‘MPI poor’) if they are deprived in at least one third of the weighted MPI indicators. The destitute are deprived in at least one-third of the same weighted indicators, The Global MPI uses 10 indicators to measure poverty in three dimensions: education, health and living standards.
In rural Ethiopia 96.3% are poor while in the urban area the percentage of poverty is 46.4%.
The 10 Poorest Countries in the World:
1. Niger
2. Ethiopia
3. Mali
4. Burkina Faso
5. Burundi
6. Somalia
7. Central African Republic
8. Liberia
9. Guinea
10. Sierra Leone
According to Dr. Sabina Alkire — director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, the U.N. Millennium Development Goals – which set targets regarding poverty, hunger, malnutrition, health and other issues – expire at the end of next year. Thus, MPI could help in the creation of a replacement for the MDGs that gives a complete picture of poverty. “We need a replacement that keeps our eyes really focused on human poverty and the pain and suffering that it entails, but also brings in the environment. And our suggestion is really simple. That along side the $1.25 a day measure – or some extreme income poverty measure – that we bring into view these people who are multidimensionally poor. And that we can do so with a measure of destitution and a measure of multidimensional poverty and maybe even a measure of vulnerability that would be more appropriate for middle and high income countries.”
Ethiopia:
MPI Value 0.564
Percentage of Population:
MPI Poor 87.3%
MPI Poor and Destitute 58.1%
$1.25/day Poor 30.65%
Human Development Index (HDI) 0.396
Inequality (Gini Index) 0.336
Income level Low income
Gross National Income (GNI) per capita 380
Survey: DHS Year: 2011
A person is identified as multidimensionally poor (or ‘MPI poor’) if they are deprived in at least one third of the weighted indicators shown above; in other words, the cutoff for poverty (k) is 33.33%.
The proportion of the population that is multidimensionally poor is the incidence of poverty, or headcount ratio (H). The average proportion of indicators in which poor people are deprived is described as the intensity of their poverty (A). The MPI is calculated by multiplying the incidence of poverty by the average intensity of poverty across the poor (MPI = H x A); as a result, it reflects both the share of people in poverty and the degree to which they are deprived.
64.6%
Percentage of Poor People (H)(k = 33.3%)
Average Intensity Across the Poor (A)
58.1% Inequality Among the MPI Poor
Vulnerable toPoverty(k = 20%-33.3%)
In SeverePoverty(k = 50%)
See more @ Oxford and Human Development Initiative (2014). “Ethiopia Country Briefing”, Multidimensional Poverty Index Data Bank. OPHI, University of Oxford. Available at /.
In the last two or three decades, there has been a revolution in thinking about the
explanations of famines. The entitlement’s approach by Amartya Sen brought the issue
of food accessibility to the forefront of the academic debate on famine. Sen noted that,
often enough, there is enough food available in the country during famines but all
people do not have the means to access it. More specifically, famines are explained by
entitlement failures, which in turn can be understood in terms of endowments,
production possibilities, and exchange conditions among others (Sen, 1981).
Ethiopia is a good case in point where, for instance, food was moving out of Wollo
when the people in the region were affected by the 1972-3 famine (Sen, 1981), and even
today some regions in Ethiopia produce surplus, while people in other regions face
famine threats. There are of course infrastructural problems in the country to link the
surplus producing regions to the food-deficit ones. However, the question goes beyond
this simplistic level, as some people simply do not have enough entitlements to have a
share of the food available in the country, a situation which can be described as a case
of direct entitlement failures (Tully 2003: 60)7. Or else, peasants do not find the right
price for their surplus, as in the 2002 Bumper Harvest which ended up in an 80 per cent
price drop, which illustrated a failure in peasants’ exchange entitlements. Alternatively,
the most irrigated land of the country in the Awash River basin, for instance, is used
primarily for cash crop production to be exported to the western world (even when there
is drought) leading the vulnerability of various pastoralist groups to turn into famine or
underpinned by what is known as a crisis in endowments and production possibilities.
In short, while drought and population pressure can partly explain famine threats in
Ethiopia, the entitlements approach provides an explanation from an important but less
visible angle. By shifting the attention from absence of food to lack of financial access
to food, the approach points in the direction of policy failures. That only some classes in
society are affected by famine clearly indicates that policy failures are central to the
understanding of famine. http://portal.svt.ntnu.no/sites/ices16/Proceedings/Volume%203/Alexander%20Attilio%20Vadala%20-%20Understanding%20Famine%20in%20Ethiopia.pdf
In mid-2012 theAddisAbeba City Administration (AACA) has organized a project office called “Addis Ababa City Planning Project Office” and tasked it to prepare a city development plan that it claimed would work for the coming ten years. In the middle of the process, however, the Project Office was givenanadditional mandate of preparing a plan that instead should suit a metropolitan level. It was then that the project expanded its planning boundary toincludethe whole surrounding area ofAddisAbeba – covering as far as 40 to 100 kilometers in an area as big as 1.1 million hectares of land. As these surroundings belong toandare administered by the Oromia National Regional State (ONRS) a supervisory body from theregionwas established to oversee the activities of the project office. It comprised big namesincludingAbdulaziz Mohammed, deputy president oftheONRS andAsterMamo, deputy prime minister in the governance and reform cluster.The Project Office had also brought on board people from the Oromia Urban Planning Institute.Many of the Oromia regional state senior officials were enthusiastic about the idea of organizing a joint metropolitan plan and the project office was re-named ‘Addis Abeba and the Surrounding Oromia Special Zone Integrated Development Plan Project Office’.One of the achievements of Abbaaduula Gammadaa’s tenure as president of ONRS was the amalgamation in 2008 of Addis Abeba/Finfinne surrounding districts and municipalities into a single Special Zone found within 30 kilometers radius of the city of Addis Abeba. Immediately after the establishment of the Special Zone, ONRS commissioned a Regional Plan that was finalized in 2010. The Oromia regional state officials had offered this regional plan to be incorporated with the proposed metropolitan plan commissioned by the AACA.
What went wrong, where and when?
The grand plan that was warmly welcomed by ONRS senior officials failed to attract the same reception from the lower and mid-level political leadership of the Special Zone as well as local governments within the zone. Most of them were skeptical and some viewed it as an effort to annex the Special Zone of Oromia into Addis Abeba. There were few incidents where Oromia regional state officials refused to cooperate with the Project Office in making information necessary for the planning process easily accessible.
The Project Office, too, has done little to establish trust among the Special Zone and ONRS mid and lower level officials. Trust between the two had reached rock-bottom when the Project Office developed what it said was a spatial plan without involving mayors of the municipalities as well as other officials in the metropolitan area and relevant regional and Special Zone officials. In June 2013 the Project Office unveiled a readymade draft metropolitan plan in Adama town, 100km east of Addis Abeba and the capital of the ONRS, that determined, among others, the locations of waste treatment, landfill sites, industrial zones, and transportation corridors. Once again the draft metropolitan plan was welcomed by the top Oromia regional state leadership; but it left the rank and file officials disgruntled. Most of them considered it (perhaps rightly) as a violation of their autonomy. However, since the top leadership has given the grand plan its blessings the Project Office went ahead with it. Things went vividly out of control during a meeting between officials of the Oromia regional state and the Addis Abeba city administration representatives held in Adama town on March 26 and April 12-13.The questions raised in these meetings revealed that the Project Office has failed to build trust on the motive of the Master Plan let alone actively involve the ONRS officials in the planning process.
How not to make a Master Plan
What happened with the preparation of this master plan was an approach that gave strategic planning and political inclusiveness a zero chance. Five fundamental problems highlight the plan.
First, this master planning approach viewed planning as a mere technocratic process and the planner as the chief architect of the spatial area that comes up with a readymade blueprint that everyone is expected to accept.
Strategic spatial planning is as much of a political process as it is professional; it requires the active involvement of political leadership, major urban or regional actors-including the private sector, community organizations and civil society groups. In addition, the planner’s role should mainly be as a facilitator and a negotiator among the diverse actors who have conflicting (and competing) interests.
There was groundbreaking effort to shift urban planning culture to a more strategic and inclusive approach in the 2002-12 City Development Plan of Addis Abeba. In the two year planning process, for example, over 150 workshops and consultative meetings with a wide range of stakeholders, including a city exhibition and public forum, were organized. That is something the current master plan project lacked; it has organized not more than nine consultative workshops.
A grand plan such as this need to be owned as much by politicians and their constituency as by professional urban planners. The only way to do this is if the authorities and the public were involved actively in the planning process. Nevertheless, the Project Office single-handedly decided where to locate the waste treatment, the land fill site or the industrial zone with no formal consent from the respective local government officials who are supposedly the elected representatives of the constituencies in the areas affected by the plan. It was a planning process that gave way to the infamous planning syndrome known as Not in My Backyard (NIMBY). When a planner decides to put a waste treatment in one district, the least s/he needs to do is negotiate with the respective district authorities on how to mitigate the negative externalities. With the new master plan, nothing of this happened, compromising the constitutionally guaranteed autonomy of the Oromia regional state and the Special Zone to make decisions that affect their constituency.
Second,it failed to secure the legitimacy for joint planning. The reason for the suspicion by many low and middle level officials of the ONRS is twofold. The first one is metropolitan planning in Ethiopia is unheard of and Addis Abeba’s administrative boundary has been expanding for the last century, in which the latest one has more than doubled its jurisdiction in 1994. It is, therefore, totally understandable if ONRS officials and concerned citizens fear the encroachment of the Special Zone by the capital city. The second reason is the project office kept most of the process secrete.
Third, amalgamation of municipalities into one gargantuan metropolitan government has lost credence since the late 1980s and new forms of metropolitan cooperation are promoted in lieu of annexation. However, the project office failed in clarifying its intention and mobilizing support from the Oromia region officials and other stakeholders due to its closed door planning process.
Fourth,and the major limitation of the process is the composition of the planning office. As it was mentioned above the project office was initially commissioned by AACA to prepare a city development plan for Addis Abeba. The same planning team was tasked to develop a metropolitan plan with the exception of the recruitment of a handful of former Oromia Urban Planning Institute staff. Less than 10 planners from close to 80 technical staff of the project office cannot ensure Oromia’s interest, the largest and most populous region of the country, in the metropolitan plan. The majorities of the planning team members are born in Addis Abeba or have lived in the city for long or were former staff members of the Addis Abeba city administration, which makes them perfect candidates for sentimental compromise against the interests of the Oromia region.
And finally,the top leadership of ONRS welcomed the draft metropolitan plan regardless of opposition from their subordinates as well as the wider public. The stubbornness of the ruling party, which is seen in other policy arena, was also visible in this planning process. The government, rather than accommodating the reservation of various individuals and groups on the plan or on its motive, chose to label those who complained against the plan as working for the so-called obscure “anti-peace agents”. This was the major reason that led to the widespread protest in many Universities and several towns in Oromia, which claimed the lives of eleven people by the account of the government (other sources put the death as high as 49) and resulted in countless property damages. (Please see A new master plan:Complicated-turned-deadly).
he way out
Many people may believe it may be already too late. But there are things one can do to reverse courses. The first step is to establish a taskforce, which comprises ONRS officials, Special Zone officials, Mayors of the eight municipalities of the Special zone together with the Regional Urban Planning Institute planners or commissioned consultants, to review the draft metropolitan and suggest recommendations that ensure Oromia’s interest. This taskforce in turn needs to consult with the civil society, the private sector, opposition party members, residents of the Special zone, University students and other concerned bodies in its reviewing process. The second and perhaps the most important one, is clarifying the provisions of Art. 49(5) of the country’s constitution by a federal proclamation before signing the metropolitan plan into a law; the metropolitan plan need to be used as an instrument to materialize the constitutional provision of the country. Third, and most sensitive, should be bringing before justice those who ordered the killings of the students who were protesting against the plan as well as those who executed the orders.
Banking and Insurance graduate of Finfinne (AAU) University and High School teacher
Murdered by TPLF on 6th june 2014 while in jail as political prisoner. His funeral was held on 8th June 2014 in Arjo his birth town.
In an increasingly repressive and cruel TPLF run Ethiopian state, being an Oromo national itself is in practice a crime. Nimoonaa TilahunImaanaa, Banking and Insurance graduate of Finfinne (Addis Ababa) University and former high school teacher, was initially arrested in 2004 along with members of the Macha Tulama Association during widespread protests opposing the relocation of Oromia’s seat from Finfinne to Adama. He was released after a year of incarceration and returned to complete his studies, according to reports by Canada-based Radio Afurra Biyya.
Born in 1986 in Arjo town (Jimma Arjo), Western Oromia, Nimoanaa also known as Firomsaa was re-arrested in 2011 from his teaching job in Shano, a town in north Shewa (Central Oromia) about 80kms from Finfinne (Addis Ababa). He was briefly held at Maekelawi prison, known for torturing inmates and denying legal counsel to prisoners. And later transferred between Kaliti, Kilinto and Zuway where he was continuously tortured over the last three years. Tilahun was denied medical treatment despite being terminally ill. His death on 6th June 2014 in jail is another very shocking sad news that the Oromo people are experiencing under the tyrannic Afro-fascist rule of TPLF Ethiopia.
The brutal crackdown on the Oromo people is not new. The Ethiopian state itself has been predicated upon the expropriation of Oromo lands and held together through violent assimilationist policies, the destruction of the identity of conquered and resistant people, and economic and political exploitation of groups who are not represented in government. With each changing regime state power has been retained in the hands of minority rulers and the Oromos, who are the largest group living on the richest land, have remained the main targets of Ethiopian state repression, terrorism and discrimination. Over the last two decades alone multiple human rights organizations have released reports documenting the extent of extrajudicial killings, mass imprisonment, and torture on a massive scale, mutilations and disappearances. For instance, as of May 2012, the Oromia Support Group reported 4,407 extra-judicial killings and 992 disappearances of civilians perceived to support the political and even social groups opposing the current regime. Most of these have been Oromo people.
The crisis in Ethiopia is a major international story of mass protest, wholesale dispossession of millions of peasants, and state-sponsored violence. Yet it has gone almost completely ignored in the international media.
There are a number of reasons the story hasn’t grabbed attention around the world—the situation’s complexity, the tight control of information by Ethiopian authorities, and western journalists’ unfamiliarity with Ethiopia’s tense ethnic politics, to name just a few. But the bigger issue has to do with Western media bias.
As long as this bias remains salient, the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands, will continue to go unreported and unrecognized, and the cause for which so many have sacrificed will remain hidden. -Ayantu Tibeso
Since April 25th, thousands of high school and university students across Ethiopia’s largest region, Oromia, have turned out in peaceful protest against a government land grab that stands to displace millions of indigenous peoples from their ancestral
lands. Even though the country’s constitution theoretically allows for peaceful demonstrations, the student protesters, along with local populations in many cities and towns, have faced a ruthless crackdown from Ethiopian Special Forces, known as the Agazi Commandos. These forces have used excessive violence by indiscriminately shooting into crowds in an attempt to quash the protests. Children as young as eleven years old have been killed, according to statement issued by Amnesty International on May 13, and reports of fatal injuries, torture, imprisonment, disappearances and killings have been coming out of Ethiopia since then.
The Ethiopian government has evicted millions of indigenous peoples from their homelands at gunpoint under the pretext of “development” since it took power. In and around the capital of the country, Addis Ababa, over 200,000 of these residents have been removed from their lands without proper compensation since 2005. The newly-announced Integrated Development Master Plan for Addis Ababa (known simply as the “Master Plan”) seeks to legalize past land grab activities and to consolidate larger areas of territory displacing native peoples from their land. The Master Plan will expand the territory of Addis Ababa city administration to about 25 times its current size and is expected to forcefully remove another four to five million Oromo peasants from their lands within the coming years.
The current Ethiopian government came to power in 1991. It is a government dominated mainly by elites from a single ethnic group, the Tigray, which constitute approximately six percent of the peoples within Ethiopian boundaries. The Oromo, who are targeted by this Master Plan, make up between 40-50 percent of the population. The Ethiopian Agazi special Commando force is almost entirely Tigrayan. The government relies on this ethnic army to stamp out the Oromo protests.
The current crisis cannot be understood apart from the ethnic dynamics at play in the policy of the Master Plan and in its response. In the Ethiopian political, social and economic system, ethnicity and language are the two most important factors which influence policy preferences and choices of different sectors or communities in Ethiopia. It is also along these two dimensions that the Ethiopian state has been structured since the current regime came to power. In recognition of these factors, a formal system of Ethnic Federalism has been instituted and written into law as the centerpiece of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Oromia, where most Oromos reside, is legally recognized as one of the nine members of the Ethiopian Federation.
In practice, however, all the key government positions and institutions are controlled by elites—directly and indirectly—that come from the Tigrayan ethnic group. Key positions in security sectors, including the military, are exclusively under the control of Tigrayan rulers. It is this group of elites that have aggressively pursued policies that have drawn on the military might to remove Oromo peasants involuntarily from their homeland over the last decade or more. The new Master Plan for Addis Ababa should be seen in this context, as the protestors well understand. The Master Plan is one more chapter in implementing a disastrous policy that has already displaced thousands of the native peasants, and now officially aims to displace millions more. This is the policy against which Oromo students have gone out to protest. In keeping with their former legacy of sheer brutality, the Tigrayan ethnic armed force, the Agazi, responded to peaceful gatherings with a rain of bullets.
The brutal crackdown on the Oromo people is not new. The Ethiopian state itself has been predicated upon the expropriation of Oromo lands and held together through violent assimilationist policies, the destruction of the identity of conquered and resistant people, and economic and political exploitation of groups who are not represented in government. With each changing regime state power has been retained in the hands of minority rulers and the Oromos, who are the largest group living on the richest land, have remained the main targets of Ethiopian state repression, terrorism and discrimination. Over the last two decades alone multiple human rights organizations have released reports documenting the extent of extrajudicial killings, mass imprisonment, and torture on a massive scale, mutilations and disappearances. For instance, as of May 2012, the Oromia Support Group reported 4,407 extra-judicial killings and 992 disappearances of civilians perceived to support the political and even social groups opposing the current regime. Most of these have been Oromo people.
It is within this context that the current violent response to Oromo protests should be understood and appreciated. Like it has always been, kidnappings and/or extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and disappearances continue in different parts of Oromia Regional State. Those being imprisoned face an imminent danger of death, torture or disappearance. Yet despite the fact that the situation is quickly deteriorating, it is going largely unreported in the international media. The Ethiopian government is notorious for keeping very tight control over all local and international media in the country. Information is not easily attainable. Independent journalism and human rights monitoring are securitized and criminalized. Major restrictions remain on exchange of information, as the government is known to block almost all websites it regards as forums capable of providing information about the atrocities committed by its security agents. These include all independent websites that are situated both in and outside of Ethiopian territories. Given these circumstances, it has not been possible to determine the exact number of victims of the recent retaliation against Oromo protesters. But thanks to social media and mobile technology, a view of the scale of the crisis is emerging.
Some human rights organizations have managed to get limited information and offer an insight regarding what is taking place as the protests continue. For instance, according to the above-mentioned statement released by Amnesty International, hundreds of those arrested during the protests have been held at different detention centers, including at unauthorized places such as police and military training camps. Detention in these places is almost always arbitrary, with prisoners spending months and years without being formally charged or taken to a courtroom. As the Amnesty International report notes, “military camps in Oromia have regularly been used to detain thousands of actual or perceived government opponents.” These detainees are not allowed access to lawyers or relatives, usually throughout the duration of their detention. In many instances, relatives do not know where their loved ones have been taken upon arrest. Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International have received reports of torture on a massive scale at these unofficial holding places.
In addition to Amnesty International, other human rights organizations have also released statements of concern that recent detainees face imminent risk of torture and abuse, if not death. Human Rights Watch reported that security forces beat and shot at peaceful Oromo protesters in many towns in Oromia Regional State, among others, Ambo, Nekemte, Gimbi and Jimma. The Human Rights League of Horn of Africa has also issued a report citing torture and disappearances in places where student protesters are being held in Naqamte, East Wollega zone. In one instance alone, fifty detainees were taken away by security forces in Naqamte. Their whereabouts remain unknown.
The crisis in Ethiopia is a major international story of mass protest, wholesale dispossession of millions of peasants, and state-sponsored violence. Yet it has gone almost completely ignored in the international media. To be sure, the story has attracted fleeting attention from English-language outlets like the BBC and the Guardian, while Al-Jazeera has curated what little information trickles out of the country from social media users on the ground. But sustained analysis of the causes and context of the government’s plan, the protests in response and the violent government crackdown have been hard to come by.
There are a number of reasons the story hasn’t grabbed attention around the world—the situation’s complexity, the tight control of information by Ethiopian authorities, and western journalists’ unfamiliarity with Ethiopia’s tense ethnic politics, to name just a few. But the bigger issue has to do with Western media bias. Over the years, a considerable amount of attention has rightly been given to bloggers and journalists whose individual rights have been violated by the Ethiopian government. This is not surprising. It is easy to sympathize with those trying to practice their freedom of expression or tell a difficult story in the face of authoritarianism. The repression of media in a given country is an easier account to give, and it is a simpler story to process. The miseries and violence of the other repression—that against the voiceless masses—cannot afford to be get lost in the shuffle, as the situation in Oromia makes clear. As long as this bias remains salient, the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands, will continue to go unreported and unrecognized, and the cause for which so many have sacrificed will remain hidden.
*Ayantu Tibeso is a researcher and communications consultant based in North America. She can be reached at atibeso@gmail.com or on twitter @diasporiclife.
The local coverage of the protests offer a best case study to look at Ethiopian media’s inherent, institutional bias toward Oromo stories. Given the foregoing discussion on Ethiopia’s challenging media environment, the dangers of balanced coverage are not contested. The government’s choke-hold on the media and fear of repercussions have discouraged journalists from visiting the scenes of protests and accurately reporting on the events. Ethiopia’s independent press is saturated in Finfinne, and many simply don’t have credible regional sources, especially in Oromia, who can feed them with the news of the protests. Besides, media institutions and some journalists consider approaching the protesters or contacting the victims’ families almost existential.
There is also an ideological bias toward “ethnic” based activism. In part this explains the reluctance among many journalists to visit some of the 15 towns included in the master plan and interview local residents and farmers. However, speaking to government officials and opposition politicians about the master plan, the protests and violent crackdown could have been done with minimum effort.
A closer look at reports by six web-based publications and three international correspondents reveals much not only about Ethiopia’s handcuffed press but also the deficiency of the so-called independent press itself. It took almost a month for most local outlets to offer basic, even if lopsided coverage on the cause of the protest and the causalities. Even considering the grim media environment, there were many missing links in those reports.
Others completely disregarded the matter and kept to their business as usual. For example, Addis Fortune, a weekly English newspaper with 10,000 monthly circulations, devoted only one singlesentence to the protests its May 11 report about the master plan.
Awramba Times republished a video and text from EthioFirst blog. To his credit, the EthioFirst reporter went to the scene of protests in Ambo town. The online only publication provided coverage supported with text and videos of what it said were destroyed properties. It also interviewed residents of Ambo, students of the Ambo University and chief of the university all denouncing the destruction of property. The report’s focus on the damage caused to properties as opposed to the loss of lives and arrests of hundreds gives us a reason for pause. Besides, the reporter made no attempt to speak with protesters, victims or their families.
Others recycled government statements and news releases from opposition political parties. For example, both the English and Amharic editions of The Reporter made its first coverage based on government statements. The English edition of the newspaper tried to balance the story by asserting“independent observers and those who claim to be eyewitnesses say that the death toll and injuries might be higher than what has been officially admitted.”
Sendek Amharic newspaper, which gave its reporting five days after the protests began, referred to a press release from the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) and later conducted interviews with the party’s leaders.
Addis Admas, another local Amharic daily, also did its initial coverage using government statement and anonymous sources from Ambo, Robe and Haromaya, where the protests took place. In a subsequent report on May 10, the paper reached out to a farmer residing in Sabata, one of the 15 towns included in the master plan, and offered local grievances over issues of compensation and threat to the farmer’s livelihood. Addis Standard, a local English magazine, also did its “best” by relying on sources from the universities where protests were reported, otherwise largely toeing the line from government statement.
Unfortunately, Finfinne-based foreign correspondents also kept to the official line. The Associated Press carried a police statement, and even went a step further linking the protests to secession andOromo Liberation Front. Bloomberg News also repurposed the government statement, with a passing reference to opposition leaders. Reuters simply ignored the news.
Other newspapers offered sensationalized stories that reflect their bias more than journalistic inclinations. For example, on May 2, Addis Guday wrote, ‘Oromia: Gize Tebikiwu Yeminfeneda Bomboch-Yetameku ye politika bisotoch. Ye tebab bihertenynet tosoch’ roughly translated as ‘ Oromia: a ticking time bomb waiting to explode and a concealed political dissatisfaction. The scar of narrow-minded ethnicity” In all, almost no attempt was made to contact to the protesters or the farmers and residents affected by the master plan. And none of the aforementioned outlets treated the incident as a breaking news item.
Ethiopian journalism is still at its infancy stage. Restrictions against the press and physical harassment of journalist make it impossible to cover issues of public interest. The reliance on government press statement reveals the challenges of obtaining first-hand reports from the scene of the incident. The country’s ethnicized politics confounds the lack of impartial coverage. In a country where there is no single Oromo media outlet and given the jamming of diaspora-based websites, the Oromo are left with no voice so to speak. Dozens of Oromo newspapers and magazines that existed in the 1990s were either banned or forced out of business when Oromo journalists fled the country.
With a varying degree, both private and government media outlets share a common hostility toward Oromo interests. While some of the private media practitioners are in government pockets, others cater to non-Oromo political groups. The rest are far more concerned with making money and they know what their audience wants. “There is little independent media in Oromia to monitor these events, and foreign journalists who have attempted to reach demonstrations have been turned away or detained,” the HRW said. A case in point is the four-hour detention of Bloomberg’s William Davison on May 1, after attempting to report on protests that took place at Addis Ababa University.
In a nutshell, independent, objective journalism has essentially become a crime in Ethiopia. Given the highly restrictive media environment, Ethiopia’s “independent” press continues to teeter on the edge of death and survival. Under the circumstances, a lot of journalists have begrudgingly embraced the “developmental state” storyline. For others, strict self-censorship has become more of a norm. As a result, the professionalism and quality of Ethiopian journalism has been significantly compromised. Still more concerning is the inherent ideological and institutional bias toward coverage of “ethnic” stories, particularly stories about Oromo activism. The role of a journalist is to report on events as objectively and truthfully as possible. Journalists should act as non-participating spectators of events. When reporters become part of a story or offer their opinions, they are expected be transparent and issue a disclosure. These ethical values are rare in Ethiopia. However, if there’s any hope for future of Ethiopian journalism, Addis Ababa-based media houses should start checking their ethnicized and detached coverage of events outside of the capital. -To read the full article, visit OPride, original source @http://www.opride.com/oromsis/news/3756-ethiopia-s-besieged-press-and-the-oromoprotests
The scale of foreign agribusiness on African soil could soon change how what we eat is grown, but also what we eat. The livelihoods of small-scale farmers hang in the balance. But a counter movement is forming. Meet three warrior queens battling for Africa’s food future.
Africa is at a tipping point – soon the scale of foreign agribusiness on African soil could change who owns vast tracts of land, how food is grown there and what the average person will consume. The livelihoods of small-scale farmers who work family farms, which still make up 80 per cent of Africa’s farms, hang in the balance.
The major actors in this drama are unsurprising: Monsanto, Unilever, Diageo, Cargill and their peers. All have identified sub-Saharan African, with its fertile lands and budding consumer markets, as a place of great opportunity, rich for the picking – African countries are not referred to as ‘frontier economies’ by the West for nothing. Many African governments have signed up to this agenda. Some buy into the notion that large scale agribusiness will bring food security, others that it will bring their country economic growth, others still are just content with the short-term financial gain that such investment often brings.
(On that concept of ‘food security’, it’s worth pointing out that between 1991 and 2011 sub-Saharan African food production increased 10 per cent per person, yet in the same decade there was a 40 per cent increase in the number of undernourished people…)
So if the political representatives of these countries will not man the barricades, who will? The good news is that, while many of the youth of Africa have joined in the clamour for KFC and Subway and see fast food as a way of belonging to global (or American) culture, others are forming movements to protect and promote real food.
“I ask them do they like beer? Beer is bitter too, but they drink that…”
While in Western economies, the consumption of fast food is often seen as a sign of poverty, and organic, fresh food a sign of middle-class identity, in many African economies it is the other way round. Your ability to stump up the cash for a junk food ‘brand’ is a sign of membership of what is in numerical terms still a small elite, whereas the cash-poor and rural dwellers will tend to a healthier diet of, for example, beans and maizemeal.
Beside the socio-economic picture, there is also the threat of climate change, already being felt clearly in many parts of Africa in the form of flooding, drought and desertification. Large-scale agribusiness with synthetic inputs would likely exacerbate the situation – whereas Africa still has the chance to lead by forward-thinking example. If there is anywhere in the world with the opportunity to combine natural, small-scale food production and distribution with clean technology, it’s this fertile continent.
Three female food warriors taking centre stage in this battle are Kenya’s Professor Mary Abukutsa-Onyango, Tanzania’s Janet Maro and South Africa’s Mariam Mayet. Between them they are teaching the health benefits of Africa’s own indigenous plants, promoting the advantages of organic agriculture, and fighting the incursions of the multinationals into Africa.
Professor Mary Abutukutsa-Onyango is professor of horticulture at Jomo Kenyatta University in Kenya.
Professor Abukutsa-Onyango has been advocating the consumption of indigenous African plants for two decades now. She says Africans have forgotten about some of the local plants that offer the greatest nutrition of all – such as jute mallow, spider plant and amaranthus. These plants offer a health kick that makes spinach look about as nutritious as chips, she explains.
It hasn’t always been easy persuading people to eat up their greens, and for her first decade she faced an uphill battle. But now her work is gaining recognition (she recently won the prestigious Edinburgh Medal for Science and is an Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear in Kenya). She has written recipes so that people can experiment with these plants at home, a commercial seed company is stocking the seeds for the first time, and she’s hoping that these varieties will finally catch on and become mainstream. “People sometimes complain that they are bitter,” she laughs, “but I ask them do they like beer? Beer is bitter too, but they drink that…”
“The truth is that when we were colonised the white folk came with their own foods and we abandoned our own foods, but with time we realised that there was something special about them.”
If she has her way an indigenous food revolution is on its way, and those with green fingers might like to try growing and cooking these plants themselves.
Janet Maro is the founder of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania.
At 26, Janet Maro may be relatively young but she is making a serious impact. A former agriculture student herself, she identified a need for farmers to be trained in organic agriculture in order for them to be independent and have food sovereignty – choice and control over their own food production. Telling the tale of the first group of farmers that she went to visit in a bid to prevent deforestation and slash-and-burn practices, she sadly jokes that they didn’t believe she was for real, because she hiked to see them rather than turning up in a fancy vehicle.
She runs a residential centre near Morogoro for farmers (and others interested in organic farming) where people can be taught the principles of chemical-free growing, intercropping and more. Like Professor Abukutsa-Onyango she has found several plants in her work with interesting nutritional, medicinal or farming uses.
While her work is positive and rewarding, she’s not afraid to emphasise the negative – for example, the issue of village land that has been used by families for generations being allocated for foreign investment, as formal proof of ownership does not exist in these unsurveyed areas. Kilombero and Ifakara, home of Tanzania’s most famous rice, are cases in point, she says, and she’s concerned that the future of the rice and those who farm it is in jeopardy as much of this land has now been demarcated for investment.
“In most parts of Tanzania, people depend on farming, whether it’s subsistence or they make money from it. If they don’t have land to cultivate and grow food then what else will they do to feed themselves and make some income? Maybe they will have to move to the cities, where there is unemployment because there aren’t enough industries for people to work in, and an investor for sure will come with his tractors and harvesters and planters. These all need skills, but what about a farmer who cannot read or write? Who will give him an opportunity?”
Mariam Mayet is the executive director of the African Centre for Biosafety in South Africa.
Since the late 1990s, Mayet has been campaigning against genetically modified seeds and food, and she set up the African Centre for Biosafety to fight the introduction of GMOs in South Africa as well as monitoring the development of policy elsewhere on the continent.
South Africa, unlike most other African countries, is already far down the line when it comes to the industrialisation of agriculture. “Just a few big boys get to play in the system, giving them a lot of power over what is available on the market at what prices,” says Mayet. What are the solutions? They’re complex, she says, but include access to land and water as a fundamental. There is also a need to help smallholders collectively break the stranglehold of the big supermarket chains. Often persecuted urban street vendors can actually be key to making fresh, local produce available to those who commute or work long hours.
It seems odd that food, such a central part of our lives, and farming, such a core African livelihood, have taken such a low political profile. Where they are talked about, the concept of ‘food security’ is being used as a Trojan horse to persuade many nations to swallow the pill of land takeovers by foreign firms and pressure on small-scale farmers to adopt GM seed and chemical fertilisers to fill the coffers of their makers and IP owners.
Says Mayet: “We see the New Alliance and AGRA as principal ways for large corporations to secure new profits in Africa while laying the burden for infrastructural and institutional development on African states, allowing them to come in and annihilate African-owned agricultural systems virtually risk-free. All in the name of philanthropy.”
Going back to Professor Abukutsa-Onyango, by far the most established of the three, having been honoured in Kenya and won African Union and international prizes, even she is scathing about these developments:
In Western economies, organic food is a sign of middle-class identity; in African economies it is the other way round
“This New Alliance is something we look at with great caution in Africa. These multinationals when they come in… in Africa, agriculture is a livelihood and not just a business. If you deny African farmers the ability to do what they need to do by bringing in multinationals, they will take over their livelihoods. Secondly, if you do not allow the farmers to grow what they want you going to end their food sovereignty – if you give them this crop and tell them to grow it, that’s not what we want, we want diversity… I want African governments not to give leeway to the multinationals.”
But have these corporations won the PR battle in Africa? Says Mayet: “To a large extent they have [won], their story of ‘progress’ and their ‘one-size-fits-all’ quick fix philosophy is very compelling. However they will always come undone at some point because they fail to understand just how differently agriculture works in Africa and that food is not solely a commodity but agriculture is embedded in culture and social cohesion.”
“Their neat plans and intellectual property regimes are going to be severely tested in the reality of African food production. The other issue is that industrial agriculture is capital intensive and the vast majority of farmers will simply never be involved in these projects.” Read more @http://thisisafrica.me/warrior-queens-battle-africas-food-future/
PART ONE: WHY THE OROMO WILL STOP THE AAMP BY ANY MEANS, AT ANY COST: THE STRUGGLE OVER FINFINNEE IS THE STRUGGLE FOR OROMIA
By Mekuria Bulcha, Ph.D.*
The so-called Addis Ababa Master Plan (AAMP[1]) has ignited an Oromia-wide protest involving university and high school students. The TPLF-led Ethiopian regime has responded to the peaceful protests staged by Oromo students against the plan with tanks and live ammunition, killing dozens in the crowds. The protest, which started on April 24, 2014 at Jimma University, is joined, not only by tens of thousands of the students of all the universities in Oromia, but also tens of thousands of high school students and members of the local population in many cities, towns and villages. The voice of this massive Oromo rally against the AAMP cannot be silenced by bullets and tanks as in the past. It concerns, not only the cause of the Oromo farmers in Central Oromia, whose livelihoods will be affected by the AAMP, but also that of all the Oromo farmers and pastoralists throughout Oromia whose farms and pasturelands have already been sold and are targeted to be sold to land grabbers by the present Ethiopian regime. In short, it concerns the survival of the Oromo as a nation.
It is important to note that that conflict over the AAMP is an extension of the conflict which was ignited by the 2003 decision of the TPLF regime to evict Oromo institutions from Finfinnee (Addis Ababa) city and relocate them to Adama, a town about 100km to the southeast. Then, the Oromo attempted to stop the eviction with peaceful protest, but were met with atrocities by the TPLF regime. Leaders of the Maccaa Tuulama Association (MTA) and university students, who organized that protest, were arrested and jailed. The property of the MTA, a self-help organization which was established in 1963, was confiscated outright by the government. More than 300 students were expelled from the Addis Ababa University alone. Regrettably, the struggle over Finfinnee which started 11 years ago is not over. The impunity of the TPLF regime, as reflected in the killings of many students who opposed so-called Addis Ababa Master Plan, has continued.
In this article, I will attempt to explain why the present regime is consistently refusing to pay attention to Oromo claims even when expressed through peaceful means in keeping with the current constitution, such as the present student protest. I will also point out why the opposition started by the students of Jimma University on April 24 against the AAMP has turned into an Oromia-wide movement within a very short time. I will discuss how the uprising will reinvigorate the Oromo struggle for independence. In a speech he made at a demonstration staged to oppose the removal of Oromia’s capital from Finfinnee in 2003, the late Secretary General of the Maccaa Tuulamaa Association, Obbo Bekele Nadhi said that:
“The decision that Finfinnee [the Oromo name for Addis Ababa] is no more the Oromo capital is wrong. Oromo claim over Finfinnee is historical and legal. Therefore, we demand that the decision be revoked. Until the decision is revoked we will continue with our protest. If our protests will not change the situation, we will continue with the next phase of our struggle (Gadaa.com. April, 2014)”
The TPLF regime was forced to halt the eviction of Oromo institutions from the city in 2005 under pressure from both Oromo and non-Oromo opposition. That did not mean that Finfinnee was made to serve the Oromo people. In reality, the regime did not withdraw its decision, and the struggle over Finfinnee was not concluded. For unknown reasons, the Oromia Regional State did not build Oromo institutions in the city during the last two decades. Finfinnee (Addis Ababa), which is constitutionally the capital city of Oromia, is without a single public school that uses the Oromo language as a medium of instruction or a single newspaper which is printed in Afaan Oromoo. All of the newspapers which were started in the early 1990s were banned, and their journalists were in jail or in exile by the end of the decade. To paraphrase what the young Oromo artist Jaafar Yuusuf has expressed with poetic eloquence and for which he was detained and tortured, Finfinnee is the capital city of Oromia and of over 35 million Oromos only in name. Thus, despite their historical and “special constitutional interests,” the Oromo, who number between half a million and eight hundred thousand (or 20% of 4 million inhabitants of the city, UN Habitat, 2007), are marginalized and denied the use of their language. Finfinnee remains an Oromo city under a foreign occupation.
The ‘right of conquest’ versus the Ethiopian Constitution of 1995
Many observers refer to the expansion of Finfinnee city as unconstitutional. They refer particularly to Article 49 (5) of the TPLF Constitution of 1995 which talks about “the special interest of the state of Oromia with respect to supply of services, the utilization of resources and joint administrative matters.” The late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi conceded to Oromia’s claim over Finfinnee city in 1991 to convince the OLF to stay in the Transitional Government. In retrospect, it appears that the concession was made to appease the Oromo only until the Meles regime consolidated its control over opponents rather than a genuine recognition of Oromo rights. The arrangement with OLF was included as a provision in the Ethiopian Constitution of 1995. The TPLF regime, however, did not implement the terms of the agreement it had entered with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) over the city of Finfinnee. The agreement was forgotten as soon the OLF left the Transitional Government in June 1992. In fact, the TPLF does not see what it does in Oromia in legal or constitutional terms. It considers its control over Oromo territory and its resources in terms of the traditional colonial notion of “the right of conquest.” [2]
Although the right of conquest was once recognized formally in international law it is no longer, yet the TPLF regime is still exercising it. As the TPLF representative has clearly, and indeed arrogantly, told the OPDO at a televised meeting in Adama recently (ETV April 14, 2013), the regime will implement the AAMP irrespective what the Oromo think (his exact word, in translation were “there is nothing you Oromo can do about it”). This statement was directed at the OPDO party members he was addressing. In plain language, he was saying that the Oromo should keep quiet; they do not have rights to land. What he meant was carried out in practice after a few days. Those who peacefully gathered to protest the AAMP were cut down in Ambo, Naqamtee, Jimma, and Haramaya by bullets, or were beaten and imprisoned. In short, the TPLF leaders were asserting an illegitimate “right of conquest” when they drew up the AAMP without consulting the very OPDO members who are legally entitled to make all decisions that affect Oromia. The leaders of the international community (the UN member states) appear to recognize the TPLF-led regime, not because it has achieved internally legitimacy, but because it exhibits the power to maintain “peace and order” in the country. Regrettably, the definition of “peace,” and the choice of the means used to maintain “peace and order” are left to the discretion of Ethiopian authorities. Oddly, what is being exercised as maintenance of peace and order by the Ethiopian regime is, by and large, accepted by the UN and its member states as “normal.” But, what may seem normal for them from distance is in reality state terrorism from the vantage point of Oromo and other peoples in Ethiopia.
Yet Oromo appeals to the international community or attempts to employ legal discourse, have not managed to stop the Ethiopian regime from pursuing an antiquated “rights of conquest” at all. The Greek historian John Markakis (see his Ethiopia: the Last Two Frontiers, 2011: 284) has reminded the Oromo (particularly the leaders of the OLF) to learn from the past, and give up all expectations for external intervention on behalf of our people. The question of Oromo survival cannot wait for the time when the big powers will prioritize human rights over strategic interests and take action by going beyond the barricades of sovereignty to take action against the regime for its egregious violation of human rights. Neither can the people wait until the international community is finally repulsed by the immorality involved in the persecution of the Oromo and advocate for Oromo rights, pushing for big powers to take action. The present Oromo situation requires immediate action. That means Oromo action. I do not mean that advocates should stop presenting the Oromo cause to the international community, but that it is not enough even to ensure the survival of the Oromo as a people, let alone the achievement of their national emancipation. It is well known among observers that the TPLF leaders have been using or subverting the law to advance their interests, and that they do not respect the same law when it does not serve their purpose. Therefore, it is naïve to argue about the unconstitutionality of the AAMP with them. It is futile to expect the TPLF to honor or work to implement the provisions of their own constitution.
The role of the OPDO: some signs of change in the right direction
The fact that OPDO officials and members were not informed about the Addis Ababa Master Plan until the Oromo students of Jimmaa University started to protest should not surprise us. The TPLF rules Oromia with a decision-making arrangement made of two tiers of which the upper occupied by the Tigrayans and the lower by the native conquered peoples, of which the Oromo is the largest group. The structure is hegemonic and colonial. Those who occupy the upper tier make all of the important economic and political decisions often without consulting those who are in the lower tier. The latter are made to implement the decisions irrespective of the negative impacts they may have on them and “their” Oromo constituency. That is why the few OPDO officials, such as Mr. Kuma Damaksa, the former Mayor of Finfinnee and Mrs. Aster Mammo, the Deputy Prime Minister, who might have known about the AAMP, did not inform other OPDO members until the project was ready for implementation. When the controversy broke out, both of these Oromo officials were praising the “government” as a guarantor of peace, justice and equality on the national TV, while the next day the forces of the same government were using live bullets and killing Oromo students who were peacefully exercising their democratic rights in protest. According to a political scientist from the Addis Ababa University, all the top leaders of the OPDO, including those who have ministerial positions are, in the parlance of the Oromo population, “zabanya Tigree” – “the house keepers of Tigrayans.” That is to say, they are not the protectors of Oromo rights and interests.
It seems that the OPDO’s behaviour described above is changing now. It is encouraging to hear particularly about the resolution of the local Oromo police who, in many places, such as Jimma and Naqamtee, have allowed the students to continue with the peaceful protests against the AAMP – apparently refusing to take orders from the federal authorities to stop the students. It is said that some of the local Oromo police have been disarmed and dismissed from their posts for lack loyalty to the regime. It was to be expected that part of the Oromia regional police force would eventually stop serving as zabanya Tigree while the rights of the Oromo people are blatantly violated by the TPLF regime. However, as reflected in the comment of the TPLF representative at the Adama meeting on the AAMP, the regime does not care about what the OPDO think, but will proceed to implement the project as scheduled.
Ethiopia: the predatory state
The historian Tibebu Teshale (see his The Making of Modern Ethiopia, 1995) has pointed out that the Abyssinian state was “by and large a predatory state” that lived by looting the peasants. When one speaks about a predatory state one refers to the habits and practices of its rulers and their agents. In practice, Abyssinian rulers relate to the Oromo as predators relate to prey. The Ethiopian state has survived for more than 130 years mainly on Oromo resources. To this day, its ruling elites have failed to change the predatory behavior that characterizes their relationship to the Oromo people. They have continued to be as cruel to the Oromo as predator is to prey. Predators do not produce. They hunt, kill and consume. They survive on their prey. Predation and violence are interrelated even among humans. A robber often has to frighten or kill the owner to get his or her property. Conquerors and colonizers must suppress and intimidate the conquered or colonized to exploit their resources. The degree of violence used to exploit the conquered differs from one conqueror to another conqueror, and can vary from persuasive intimidation to violent acts that can cause the feelings of terror. Violent methods have been used by the Ethiopian rulers to control resources that belonged to the Oromo and the other conquered peoples. The TPLF regime has surpassed its predecessor in using extreme forms of violence against the Oromo to expropriate their resources. It has been using summary arrests, concentration camps, torture, extra-judicial killings and “disappearances” to terrorize them. The ongoing killings and imprisonment of students, who have voiced their opposition against the AAMP peacefully, show that the regime will terrorize the people in order to implement its projects.
The leaders and members of the TPLF have benefited enormously from the use violence during the last two decades. It is common knowledge that many of the TPLF leaders and fighters, whose southward march was caused by the great Ethiopian famine of 1984-85, and who came to Oromia with empty pockets in 1991, are extremely rich today. Thousands of them have become owners of luxurious homes in Finfinnee and other cities, expensive cars, fat bank accounts and vast assets in real estate, commercial farms and businesses in record time. They could do this, because, soon after they took power by force in 1991, they expropriated banks, industrial plants, commercial farms, transport firms and travel agencies which belonged to the state (built on the resources of the southern people, primarily the Oromo) under the Dergue. Since they controlled the state, no one could question what they did with the expropriated state properties. Therefore, they had used the assets, sold the state properties to themselves, and had set up a conglomeration called the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT) in 1995 as a holding company for an expanding group of industrial, financial and service enterprises that came to dominate the entire economy of Ethiopia.
However, the TPLF leaders did not stop after the expropriation of the above mentioned assets. They continued with their predatory activities and became, albeit indirectly, owners of all urban and rural land which was nationalized by the state during the Dergue era, and as eloquently laid out in Bekele Garba’s speech from 2010, have amassed (and are amassing) enormous amounts of assets in real estate and bank deposits (the speech is accessed at Gadaa.com.com., archive, May, 21, 2014). Consequently, they have been evicting the Oromo and the other non-Abyssinian peoples from their homes, and selling their land to domestic and foreign land grabbers during the last fifteen years. By and large, the indigenous people are not consulted about or compensated for the land from which they are evicted. Instead, they are treated as squatters. A case in point is what happened in Bakko in western Oromia when the Karuturi Universal moved in with bulldozers and tractors, and destroyed the pastures of the indigenous people, blocked their access to water and to their farmlands (Vidal, the Guardian, March 21, 2011). In the language of some cynical ‘economists’ this is called ‘development.’
Only a few of the indigenous inhabitants are employed as laborers while the majority are cleared off the land altogether. What is also remarkable is that the majority of domestic commercial farm owners are Tigrayans. According to researchers from the Oakland Institute (OI) in California, USA, “almost all of the domestic agricultural investment lands are held by the Tigrayans” (OI, 2011: 23). Citing a regional government official in Gambella, they wrote that “75 percent of the domestic investors in Gambella were from Tigray” and that many of them “seem to have limited, if any, farming experience”, and were engaged primarily in charcoal production activities, cutting down the trees and leaving the land bare. Although detailed information is lacking, the overall situation in Oromia where the regime has leased land to 899 contractors (OI, 2011: 26) may not differ much from that in Gambella.
Much of the so-called double-digit growth ascribed to the Ethiopian economy in recent years is the phenomenal increase of the assets of TPLF leaders and their supporters; it has little to do with the improvement of the living conditions of the millions famine victims who survive on international food handouts from year to year. The leaders of the TPLF and their agents are clever, not only at creating fear, but also in benefiting enormously from the terror they use, particularly against the Oromo people. The AAMP is essentially an extension of the two-decades-long profitable TPLF undertaking described above. When implemented, it will become one of the biggest sources of income for its leaders and their agents. The huge chunk of territory which the AAMP is designed to cover will be divided between the TPLF leaders, TPLF members and their supporters. It will provide them with an opportunity to invest the financial assets they have been amassing so far in new real estate that will bring them more money and power. They will also sell the land, from which the Oromo farmers are evicted to others in order to make larger amounts of money.
Politically, the AAMP may also profit the TPLF regime. The income from it will, without doubt, enhance its political power. It can buy lobbyists in Washington, London, Brussels, etc. and garner diplomatic support from political leaders and opinion makers. The Amhara elites who have been critical of what they call the TPLF ‘ethnic politics’ (which recognized Oromo identity and allowed them to use the Oromo language officially) will, without doubt, support the implementation of the AAMP, albeit in silence. On the other hand, the regime has underestimated the great risk it is taking by trampling on Oromo national rights so blatantly. It has undermined the survival of the Ethiopian state it will continue to rule. To start with, through the AAMP the TPLF regime has, as its predecessors had done in the past, proved that the interest of the Abyssinian elites and the rights of the Oromo people are irreconcilable. Gains to be made by the Tigrayan leaders and their followers through the expansion of Finfinnee city are costing the Oromo their lives and livelihood. It has made the democratization of Ethiopia, which is the slogan of pro-Ethiopia Oromo parties, an illusion. The attempts by pro-Ethiopia Oromo politicians who tend to overlook the colonial history of Ethiopia and wish to build an Ethiopian state to suit Oromo interest have lost the limited relevance they may have had hitherto among some Oromos. The TPLF policy has alienated those Oromos who were sympathizers of the TPLF regime, including a section within the OPDO. This was reflected in the indignity felt and the opposition voiced by the OPDO who participated in an information meeting on the AAMP in Adama (ETV April 14, 2004).
2014 is not 1878 – the Oromo have rallied to oppose the AAMP
As I have discussed elsewhere (see Bulcha, Contours of the Emergent and Ancient Oromo Nation, 2011), the Gullellee Oromo lost the battle over Finfinnee in 1878 against Amhara forces led by Menelik’s cousin Meshesha Seifu because they lacked firearms. They were not supported by other Oromos. Few Oromos knew what was happening in Finfinnee. Those who knew about it might have not considered what happened in Finfinnee their business, and did not come to rescue them. But 2014 is not 1878. The Oromo have learnt from experience that what affects an Oromo community anywhere affects the Oromo as a whole. Collective memory helps a society to understand both its past, present, and by implication, to imagine its future. It is needless to emphasis here that it is the memory of past injustices and the sinister aim of the TPLF regime against the future of the Oromo nation which stirs the present opposition against the AAMP. The AAMP violates the territorial integrity and identity of Oromo and their aspiration to nationhood to live as a free and sovereign people in their homeland. Therefore, they are rallying in self-defense, not only across Oromia, but also across the globe. Rallies in support of those who are opposing the AAMP at home have been organized simultaneously by Oromo communities in over 40 cities across the world starting from Wellington in New Zealand in the east to Los Angeles in the west, and from Stockholm in the north to Johannesburg in the south. The rallies have brought together men and women, young and old, Christians, Muslims and Waqeefffataa who demand that the AAMP be stopped immediately. More than 90 percent of the tens of thousands of the diaspora Oromo who participated in the rallies are refugees displaced from their homeland by the TPLF regime during the last two decades. For them, as it is for the Oromo at home, the struggle over Finfinnee is a struggle for Oromia. The Gullallee Oromo were alone when they faced the Shawan forces in 1878. It is not the case with the inhabitants of the districts over which the TPLF regime will implement the AAMP. Their cause is the cause of the Oromo people at large.
The AAMP, land grabbing and Oromia’s territorial identity
It is estimated that over the last twenty years more than 150,000 Oromos have been displaced as the city expanded. The AAMP aims to expand the city over an area of more than one million hectares affecting 10 districts and many towns. The majority of the inhabitants of these places cannot avoid eviction. Those who will manage to stay will be marginalized like present Oromo inhabitants of Finfinnee city. In addition, that the so-called Addis Ababa Master Plan is a scheme that will destroy Oromia as a territorial entity seems to be clear to every Oromo. Oromo artists, poets and political commentators described as a dagger pointed at Oromia’s heart. Territorially, the project will cut out the Tuulama highlands – which constitute the heartland of the Oromo territory – and call it Greater Addis Ababa. Figuratively expressed, the AAMP is indeed a dagger pointed at the “heart” of Oromia. The uprising which is triggered by the AAMP among the Oromo at home and in the diaspora concerns, not only the survival of Oromia as a contiguous geographical entity, but also the survival of the Oromo as a nation. It is no wonder that the Oromo youth are ready to make sacrifices and oppose the implementation of the AAMP. The project is an attack on their national identity and their future. Therefore, they are acting in spite of the danger posed to their lives by the ruthless security forces of the TPLF regime. As has been expressed eloquently in poems, songs and articles produced by Oromos at home and in the diaspora during the last three weeks, the Oromo cannot afford to leave the regime alone to implement its anti-Oromo project. To put this analogically, the AAMP has put the Oromo nation in a state which looks like the situation of a person who is threatened with a knife pointed at him or her by an assailant. Such a person must not be paralyzed by fear of death. He or she must defeat fear and fight back in order to survive. That is what the Oromo youth are doing and are also expecting from the rest of the Oromo population. For an oppressed or a colonized people, defeating fear is a crucial initial step toward liberation. It is common knowledge that it is not the first time for the Oromo to make great sacrifices in defense of their human rights, but it can be concluded that the current uprising led by the Oromo youth is the beginning of a new chapter in the struggle for the liberation of the Oromo nation. The situation demands a revolution, and what they have set in motion is a revolution for survival.
The Tigrayan elites who are ruling Ethiopia today are more destructive than the Haile Selassie and the Dergue regimes had been. They are displacing the Oromo from the land of their ancestors and are selling it to outsiders. They are destroying, not only Oromo homes, Oromo communities, and Oromo lives, but also changing the demographic identity of the land the Oromo have inherited from their ancestors. The Haile Selassie regime “Amharized” Oromo place names, such as Bishoftu, Adama, etc. to Amharic names, such as Debre Zeit and Nazret. It tried, but it did not succeed in destroying the Oromo culture and language or Amharize their inhabitants. With its demise in 1974, the Oromo reclaimed their old place names, and Debre Zeit became Bishoftu and Nazret became Adama. The TPLF regime is changing the demographic (hence linguistic and cultural) identity of rural and urban Oromo territories by displacing their indigenous inhabitants. The method used by the TPLF regime is direct and brutal — it uproots and displaces the people; it kills those who oppose its plans. If the AAMP is implemented and the majority of their Oromo inhabitants are displaced, Sululta, Sabbataa, Akaki, etc. may remain as place names without the sociological, cultural and historical content they possess at present. They will lose their Oromo culture, their Oromo language and identity. They will cease to be part of the Oromo territory. By and large, that is what the TPLF regime is doing, and will continue to do by implementing the AAMP and similar projects in other parts of Oromia if the current Oromo uprising fails to stop it once for all.
[1] “Addis Ababa Master Plan” (AAMP) sometimes also known as the “Master Plan” has become the shorthand reference for government-announced Integrated Development Master Plan for Addis Ababa.
[2] The “right of conquest” has a long tradition and was accepted among states in the past. This is because it was believed that the forces of the conquering state, being by definition stronger than those who are lawfully entitled to rule the conquered territory in question, are more likely to secure peace and maintain order. That was particularly the case with European colonies in Africa, Latin America and Asia in the past.
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* Mekuria Bulcha, PhD and Professor of Sociology, is an author of widely read books and articles. His most recent book, Contours of the Emergent and Ancient Oromo Nation, is published by CASAS (Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society), Cape Town, South Africa, in 2011. He was also the founder and publisher of The Oromo Commentary (1990-1999). He is an active member of the OLF and has served in the different branches of the national movement since the 1970s.
PART TWO: PROTEST AGAINST LETHAL CRIMES COMMITTED IN THE NAME OF DEVELOPMENT – THE STRUGGLE OVER FINFINNEE IS THE STRUGGLE FOR OROMIA
By Mekuria Bulcha, Ph.D.*
As I have indicated in Part One of this article, the message in the slogans of the Oromo rallies at home and abroad, among other things, is against evictions caused by land grabbing. The Oromo are evicted from their land which is being leased or sold by the TPLF-led Ethiopian regime to foreign and domestic land grabbers. The so-called “Integrated Development Master Plan for Addis Ababa,” which is generally known as the Addis Ababa Master Plan (AAMP), is part of the same scheme. Whether it is for urban expansion or commercial farming, the eviction of the indigenous landowners is conducted in the name of development. The TPLF regime is accusing the opponents of the AAMP as instruments used by “terrorist” organizations to disturb peace and oppose democracy (BBC, May 2, 2014). Although it is instigated by the AAMP, the present students uprising in Oromia is against the crimes which are being perpetrated by the TPLF regime in the name of development. In addition to the defense of Oromia’s territorial integrity and identity mentioned in the previous part of this article, the protest is against eviction and displacement inflicted upon the Oromo as well as about the environmental destruction caused by urban and rural “development” schemes of the present Ethiopian regime.
As correctly indicated by the Oakland Institute (OI, 2011), land lease or land grab is a “legal” transfer of ownership rights forever. What is being transferred is the right belonging to the indigenous peoples, such as the Oromo and the Anuak. Of the 3.6 million hectares (36,000 sq.km. or one and half times the size of the state of Djibouti) of land which the TPLF regime has transferred to domestic and foreign land grabbers (up to 2011), over 1.3 million hectares (13,000 sq.km.) are located in Oromia (OI, 2011). This does not include the thousands of hectares of land leased to mining companies, such as the British company Nyota Minerals in western, and MIDROC in southern Oromia. It should be noted here that MIDROC’s Laga Dambi gold and tantalum mines and Nyota’s new concessions at Tullu Kapi (read Kaphii) cover thousands of hectares of forest and farm lands. The Addis Ababa Master Plan, which covers 1.1 million hectares of land, constitutes an additional transfer of Oromo ownership rights to others forever. It will, as the farming and mining companies have done, displace tens of thousands of Oromo households from their homes without proper compensation, which often means no compensation.
The commercial farmers and the miners are not only displacing the Oromo from their lands, but are destroying the eco-system that nurtures human life. They destroy the future of the indigenous populations by cutting down forests and polluting rivers, lakes, and underground water. As expressed gleefully by Mr. Karmjeet Sekhon, the manager of the Indian company, Karuturi Global, the land lease program of the TPLF regime has opened an opportunity to foreign and domestic investors to make enormous profits. But, as revealed by reporters (see, for example, John Vidal, “Ethiopia’s land rush: Feeding the world”, March 21, 2011, Video) it has brought disasters upon communities, such as the Oromo and Anuak, who were evicted from their homes as their farm and pasturelands are leased to foreign speculators. The environmental destruction being caused as the consequence of the policy is beyond estimation. Mr. Sekhon told John Vidal, the environment editor of the Guardian, that the destruction of the forests and trees that cover much of the 300,000 hectares of land (about 3,000 sq.km.), which his company is leasing for 50 years in Gambella, is inevitable. The owners of Karuturi Global will stay in Gambella as long as the farms bring profits. They will depart as soon as the profits start to decline leaving behind a desert-like landscape, contaminated soil, polluted sources of water and a local population who are suffering from diseases as the consequence of toxic chemicals they had dumped into the soil and sources of water to make quick profits from the farms.
The disastrous consequences of land grabbing for the Oromo are reflected clearly in the rivers and lakes of the Rift Valley which are polluted by chemicals used in the flower farms and processing plants in central Oromia. Ethiopia is the second largest cut-flower exporter in Africa after Kenya. The availability of fertile land, cheap labor, free ground water and generous tax free holidays has brought hordes of land grabbers to Ethiopia starting the year 2000. In 2008, there were 814 flower plantations covering about 1,400 hectares of land, nearly all of which is located in Oromia in four clusters in the districts of Bishoftu, Sabbata, Managesha and Ziway. The first three clusters of farms are located within a distance of 30 to 50 km from Finfinnee while the Ziway cluster is about 100 km away from it. The implementation of the AAMP will evict the rest. Four in five (83%) of farmers leased land from the government and the rest rented it from private owners (Abiy Tamrat, Flower Industry Threatens Right to Water in Ethiopia, 2011). It is important to note, in connection, how land grabbing (eviction of the indigenous Oromo population) for commercial farming is overlapping with the AAMP here. A large section of the Oromo peasant households in Sabbata, Managasha and Bishoftu districts are already displaced by the flower farms. Moreover, if the AAMP is implemented, it wouldn’t be long before the districts lose their Oromo culture and language.
The flower farmers are accused of intensive chemical and fertilizer application, criticized for lack of skills for waste management, and improper use of water. There is no proper inspection or monitoring by concerned authorities. Pollution is most evident in Lake Koka; and flower plantations are pointed out as its main cause. In February 2009 the Al Jazeera TV produced a documentary titled the Green Lake. The lake was once beautiful, and a source of clear and fresh water. Today, much of it is covered by green algae. A deadly variety of algae known as microcystis produce the green color. The algae release toxins that cause severe health impacts to human beings. Professor Brian Whitton of the Environmental Research Centre of the University of Durham who studied the case concluded that the high level of phosphates found in agricultural runoffs and factory effluents are the causes of the excessive growth of the deadly algae in Lake Koka. His study linked the phosphates to flower farms and factories which are located on the banks of the Awash, and its tributaries the Akaki (read Aqaaqii) and Mojo Rivers, which flow into Lake Koka. More than 17,000 people who live in the villages around the lake use it as source of water for drinking, cleaning, animal watering, recreation, irrigation and fishing. The consequences of the pollution to the human and livestock population of the area have been terrible. The human tragedy is reflected in Amina’s story (Al Jazeera, February 21, 2009) who said,
“I gave birth to nine children. Six of them died: Makida, Hadiri, Tahir, Sultan, Kasim, Kalil. Three survived. My husband also died. I have lost seven members of my family. They were all vomiting and having diarrhea with blood in it. We visited a health center, but we were told the problem was associated with water. I feel sad about my dead children and husband. I wake at night thinking of them, and I now worry if my remaining children will survive. I don’t even know if I will survive. Except for God, we have no hope.”
There are tens thousands of mothers who share Amina’s tragedy throughout Oromia. Her grief and fear are shared by all mothers in Oromia and elsewhere who are victims of similar developments in their rural communities. For the Oromo communities which depend on Lake Koka, the economic consequences of pollution are equally disastrous. According to the Al Jazeera report, most of the fish in the lake are dead. The livestock are also dead. The toxic water not only kills humans, but also livestock. The government does not want to let environmental concerns to slow down its economic exploitation of Oromia. Flower farmers and factory owners are not held accountable for the pollution which their economic activities are causing.
The Al Jazeera report reveals the hopelessness felt by the affected inhabitants. A local farmer whose family drinks the contaminated water tells the reporter that his wife has died, and adds:
“We are all internally ill”. Another local resident says “It is better to die thirsty than to drink this water. We are drinking a disease. We told the local authorities that our cattle and goats died due to this polluted water, but nobody helped. We are just waiting to perish.”A social worker who shares the agony of the local residents told the Al Jazeera reporter that:
“The people here have great potential, but we are losing them, specially the children. I am very upset. If I have the ability to do something, I will do it. But I can’t do anything.”
The medical workers who serve the community say the same thing. They reported thousands of people are sick and that the cause is the polluted water they drink. But the concerned authorities have been criminally negligent. Consequently, the Oromo are left hopeless and helpless against the environmental destruction and water pollution caused by the commercial farms and industries owned mainly by outsiders.
It is important to note here that it is not only those who use the contaminated waters of the Awash, Mojo, Akaki rivers and Lake Koka for drinking and washing that are affected by the flower farms in question. Since proper safeguards are not provided by owners of these businesses, workers who are employed on the farms and in the packing workshops are also victims of various diseases related to the chemicals used in the plantations. In addition, since the wage they earn is far below subsistence level, workers cannot afford the medical expenses for the job-related health problems they often experience. A worker is paid about one US dollar a day which is less than the cost of a single rose in Amsterdam or Stockholm. Yet flower farming is said to be the most profitable industry in Ethiopia. According to the Ethiopian Horticulture Development Agency (EHDA, 2010), Ethiopia exported cut-flowers for US$250 million in 2010.
It is no exaggeration to state that, while the Tigrayan ruling elites and businessmen, and foreign land grabbers are getting rich, the majority of the Oromo people are becoming poorer and hungrier than ever before.Gold, Ethiopia’s second largest export commodity after coffee fetched US$ 578.8 million in 2012-13 (William Davison, Bloomberg News: July 6, 2013). Following the recent discovery of large deposits of gold, particularly in western and southern Oromia, revenues from its export are expected to triple soon. However, the realization of profits and revenues from the extraction of minerals and precious metals by investors and the Ethiopian government does not benefit the Oromo people. For them, the consequence of gold mining has been eviction from their land, irreversible environmental damage and severe health problems so far. Consequently, the country’s largest gold mine at Laga Dambi in southern Oromia has been a source of conflict between the local Oromo population, on the one hand, and MIDROC Company and the Ethiopian state, on the other since 2009. Many students and members of the local population who demanded environmental protection and compensation for the damages caused by the mining companies have been imprisoned and persecuted on several occasions during the last five years (see for example Environmental Allegations generate Protest, Mass Arrest” report by the US Embassy, Addis Ababa, February 22, 2010, released by Weakileaks, August 30, 2011; Gadaa-com, Sept 15, 2011).
In general, it is no exaggeration to state that the Tigrayan ruling elites and businessmen and foreign land grabbers are getting rich while the majority of the Oromo people are becoming poorer and hungrier than ever before. As noted above, public health is deteriorating and Oromia is undergoing an irreversible ecological devastation. One often hears people quoting the late Meles Zenawi who said allegedly that “a majority can be reduced to a minority and that a minority can be made to become a majority.” Whether what he meant was political influence or demographic size was not clear, but it is speculated by observers that his comment was about Oromo demography. In fact, given the intensity and multi-dimensionality of the ongoing persecutions, and the rate of displacement that is making Oromo livelihood difficult and almost impossible, the reduction of the Oromo to a minority is not surprising.A noted scholar has argued that masses of people may not be killed overnight, in a week, or in a month for genocide to occur. Small scale killings, repression, and violence that target a category of people, can develop into large scale killings and then into genocide (see Ervin Staub, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence, 1992). Human history is filled with cases where settler minorities have successfully reduced politically oppressed majorities to minorities. The white settlers in the Americas and Australia were for example settler minorities who overtime reduced indigenous majorities to insignificant minorities. In Ethiopia, the killings I have described in previous articles (see Mekuria Bulcha in Gadaa.com; or Ayyaantuu.com, May and July 2013) are signposts on the road to large scale killings unless we stop the present development in time. Genocide is committed, not only through physical destruction of a community, but also committed by imposing conditions that make the survival of its members impossible.The large scale sale of farm- and pasturelands to domestic and international farming and mining companies which are poisoning the rivers, lakes and ground waters in Oromia, and the disintegration of communities by displacing them from their ancestral homes are part of the ongoing process of destruction which the policy of the TPLF regime is inflicting on the Oromo people. The AAMP is part of the disastrous process of destruction and genocide.
In 1993, John Markakis asked the late Meles Zenawi why the TPLF had abandoned the idea of an independent state of Tigray (which was its objectives in the beginning) and decided to capture political power in Addis Ababa. The TPLF leader’s answer was, “When we reached the borders of Tigray, we looked back and saw nothing there” (Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Frontier, 2011: 192). Meles was talking about the grinding poverty that had affected Tigrayans and the dearth of natural resources of his native province. The situation is quite different today. Tigray is in no desperate need. As indicated above, the Tigrayan middle which came into being during the last two decades is the most powerful and probably the most prosperous class in Ethiopia today. The experience of the Oromo people is the opposite. They are poorer than ever before and are grossly persecuted. They are pushed to the edges and are dehumanized. As I have indicated above, they are being killed in the manner mad dogs are killed in societies that do not have respect for animal life. The ongoing student protest is an uprising in defense of Oromo humanity. It is a struggle for life worthy of human beings.
A crime with multiple dimensions – a crime of the century
Surprised by what he was told by Mr. Karmjeet Sekhon about the conditions under which his company Karuturi Global Ltd. could lease such a vast area of virgin fertile land in Gambella from the Ethiopian regime, John Vidal (The Guardian, March 21, 2011) exclaimed this is “the deal of the century!” In deed it is. Vidal was talking about not only the give-away price of £150 a week at which the Karuturi Universal Ltd. leased the 3000 sq.km of land for 50 years, but also the freedom the company was given to do what it wants with the land and water. The TPLF land deal is the cheapest in the world. Mr. Sekhon told Vidal that his company was given the land almost for free, and that they grabbed it. As described by Mr. Sai R. Karuturi, CEO of Karuturi Global Ltd., his company’s contract with the Ethiopian government is “mouthwatering” in that it includes tax holidays, hassle-free entry into the industry at very low lease rates, tax holidays, and duty free. Mr. Karuturi, who is not only a shareholder in the vast Gambella farm mentioned above but also owner of 11,700 hectare farm in Bakko and 100 hectare flower plantation in Oromia, said that his firm has no commitment to build infrastructure or services that may benefit the local population. He maintains that “There is nothing in the contract that stipulates anything, but payment in cash. The Ethiopian government expects us to pay in cash and we are doing that.”
In other words, his entry into business is “hassle free” because: it includes no commitment to workers’ safety or worry about environmental protection. In general, water for irrigation, whether it is drawn from underground sources, or the rivers, is free of charge. The terms of the contract signed by Karuturi Global Ltd. with the Ethiopian regime do not limit the amount of water the commercial farms can draw from the rivers and the underground water sources. Aditya Agarwal, director of the Emami Biotech company which has leased 30,000 hectares of land for oil seeds cultivation in Oromia says: “We have chosen Ethiopia for investment because of availability of cheap labour, contiguous land and congenial business environment” (OI, 2010:14).
Regrettably, the policy that makes business engagement “hassle free” or “congenial” for investors in Oromia and other places in Ethiopia has filled the life of the affected people such as the Oromo with untold tragedies. As we have seen above, it has brought death to thousands of families who fetch drinking water from Lake Koka. The same can also be said about the tens of thousands of families who depend on water from the Awash, Akaki and Mojo rivers for human and livestock consumption. Karuturi’s flower farm, which is the biggest flower farm in Ethiopia, is one of the contributors to the pollution of Lake Koka. While the hassle-free and congenial policy of the TPLF regime enables domestic and foreign land grabbers to make huge profits, it denies thousands of families the basic human rights of access to food and clean water. The best fertile land on which Oromo farming communities of Ada’aa Bargaa, Akaki Basaqaa, Galaan, Shanoo, Bachoo, etc. produced food for themselves and for city dwellers in the past is leased by the TPLF regime to commercial farmers who produce cash crops, particularly flowers for export. Farmers who were food producers twenty years ago are starving beggars in town- and city streets today. I am not blaming the lucky businessmen such as Mr. Karuturi, but a regime that has betrayed the people it claims to represent.
There are observers who argue that a rapid “economic growth” is taking place in Ethiopia under the current regime. They admit that it may have some negative effects on some people. But they blame its critics for not seeing what they call the positive side of the ongoing economic development. They tell us not to focus on what might have gone wrong in the process. The philosophy of the Ethiopian regime was summarized by Dr. Towldebirhan Gebregziabher, former head of the Ethiopian Environmental Protection, in an interview he gave to a BBC journalist in March 2009. He said “There is no human impact that is not felt by other species or other people. Even when you walk, you kill insects”. He was commenting the criticism directed against the construction of the Gibe III Dam by the Ethiopian regime. However, according to Terry Hathaway, director of the International Rivers’ Africa Program, “Gibe III is the most destructive dam under construction in Africa. The project will condemn half a million of the region’s most vulnerable people to hunger and conflict” (BBC March 26, 2009). My point is that the Ethiopian regime and its supporters will, as implied in Dr. Towldebirhan’s comment, trivialize the consequences of the Gibe III, as well as of commercial farming described above, for the indigenous populations as “normal”. They have little concern, if at all, about the agony felt by mothers such as Amina (mentioned above) over the loss of their children and worries about the future of their families. They tend to see the predicament of Oromo or Anuak households who are evicted from their land as given and an unavoidable aspect of what they call “development”. They do not recognize the helplessness of Oromo communities who are forced to drink water that is contaminated by toxic pollutants from the commercial farms run by land grabbers. Generally economists use Gross National Product (GNP) or the value of the final goods and services produced by a country per annum as a rough measure of economic growth, and not economic development in terms of the improvement of well-being enjoyed by ordinary men, women and children. Commercial crops that are produced for export and concrete high-rise buildings which stand amid shanty towns in a few of the cities constitute a significant part of the GDP growth reported by the media and are owned largely by the TPLF members and their supporters. It is true that Ethiopia is a veritable Eldorado for the leaders and agents of the TPLF regime and a goldmine for domestic and foreign investors such as the Karuturi Global Ltd. As aptly remarked by Mr. Karuturi, the fertile green stretches of land in Gambella and Oromia which are leased to investors is “green gold” (see, Planet for Sale – The New World Agricultural Order, Documentary produced by KAPA Presse TV, 2011). The consequence of land grabbing is the opposite for the Oromo, the Anuak and other peoples. They are denied their property rights by the Tigrayan ruling elites who have illegally made themselves the owners of all land in the non-Abyssinian regions of the Ethiopian state. It means deprivation, displacement, starvation and death. That is what the protest of the Oromo student movement is about.
In general, the land policy of the Ethiopian regime constitutes a crime of a special character. That is why the Oromo students took to the streets in mass everywhere in Oromia peacefully defying live bullets fired at them by the security forces of the regime. In the context of northeast Africa, and particularly Oromia, what John Vidal has called “the deal of the century” can been seen as “the crime of the century”. What makes it such a crime is the multi-dimensional harm it is causing and will continue to cause. It is harmful to human beings and nature. It is a crime against the environment and wildlife. As mentioned above most of the fish in Lake Koka are dead and the lake itself is dying. That will be the fate of the fish and marine life in Lake Ziway and of the lake itself soon. Lake Ziway, which is 420sq.m in area and is the only large body of freshwater in the Central Rift Valley, is already affected by fertilizers used on a cluster of flower farms in the area owned by domestic and foreign contractors. A high fish mortality which is associated with effluent discharge from a flower farm is reported. Growth of algae blooms similar to that in Lake Koka is observed in the lake (Tamrat, 2011). The sparkling life-giving waters of the Akaki and Mojo rivers of yesteryears are murky poisonous morass today. Let alone drinking from them, it is repulsive and at the same time painful to look at pictures that depict them. The waters of the Awash River which sustain life in the Afar desert will soon have the same qualities unless necessary measures are taken now.
As I have described elsewhere,[1] one of the consequences of the TPLF regime’s policy is the disintegration of the affected Oromo, Anuak and other communities. The process of social disintegration is eloquently articulated by Bekele Garba (Gadaa.com – June 9, 2012, who said that in many places, land which was productive in the past is now fenced and looked after by watchmen until buildings will be erected on it. The guard often is a lonely individual, perhaps an evicted former owner of the land employed by the new owner – a land grabber. The land could be where the homestead of the watchman stood in the past. He is there alone because his family could have been disintegrated, as is often the case, by eviction. The community to which his family belonged does not exist anymore. There are tens of thousands of individuals who share the bitter experience of the dispossessed farmer depicted by Bekele Garba. The former English lecturer at the Addis Ababa University and former Deputy Chairperson of Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM), Bekele Garba, was arrested in August 2011 and was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment for speaking the truth. He was charged of “provocation of crimes against the state and collaboration with the OLF.” Today, the regime is killing Oromo students with unimaginable impunity for speaking the same truth.
It should be noted here that the Ethiopian region and the regional state of Oromia in particular, is the “water tower” of the Horn of Africa. The Awash which sustains human and animal life in the Afar region, the Wabe Shabelle, the Ganale on which the Ogaden Somali and the inhabitants of Somalia depend for water, the Baro River which flows through Gambella and drains into the White Nile, and the Mugar, Gudar, Angar, Dhidheessa and Dabus rivers which flow into the Blue Nile contribute more than 70 percent of the water it carries down to Khartoum where it mingles with the White Nile are all from Oromia. In fact, more than 50 percent of Nile water that reaches Egypt comes from Oromia. This should compel us to conclude that the threat posed by the ongoing environmental destruction in Oromia is greater than the threat posed by the controversial Grand Dam.
In general, the extensive land grabbing in Oromia is a threat to the survival of the African peoples who depend on the rivers mentioned above. Therefore, it not an exaggeration to construe that the cause for which Oromo students are conducting peaceful protests all over Oromia, and for which many of them are suffering in Ethiopian prisons or are being killed by the Ethiopian security forces now, is also the cause of most of the peoples of northeast Africa. Regrettably, however, the crime being committed against them by the Ethiopian regime has been treated with indifference by the governments of the countries of northeast Africa. Needless to say that their silence, while the Oromo are being mercilessly murdered en masse, is tantamount to betraying the future of their own citizens.
A regime that commits crimes and tells lies without any sense of guilt
The TPLF regime has many infamous methods to suppress the voice of the people against whom it commits crimes. Deception is its modus operandi. It uses lies as an instrument to create conflict between the Oromo and other peoples in Ethiopia and to advance its divide and strategy. It tells the international community blatant lies to frame the opposition as “terrorists” bent on disrupting peace and democratic development in Ethiopia. Its leaders lack a sense of guilt. They seem to have no feeling of shame in the ordinary sense of the word. They commit crimes and accuse others as the culprits. They displace people forcefully from their land and call it “voluntary eviction” (Vidal, the Guardian March 21, 2011 on Video). In addition, the regime forces the people to participate in public demonstrations that actually contradict their interests and moral values, For example, demonstrations are organized to condemn the victims of the regime’s crimes. Lack of participation in such a “required” demonstration has risks. Those who do not cooperate face strong negative consequences. For public servants it means dismissal from their jobs. For businessmen, it means loss of work permits. For farmers it means denial of seeds and fertilizers, the distributions of which is in the monopoly control of companies owned by the regime. For those who depend on international food aid, absence from such demonstrations means withdrawal of the handouts they need for survival. Having forced the people to participate in fake demonstrations the regime tells the world that the people are supporting its policies and actions against “terrorists,” “criminals” and “secessionists.”
The regime’s notorious but futile strategy is already at work to discredit the Oromo students. It is reported that the very people who are to lose their land to the AAMP were forced to participate in a demonstration on May 17th in support of the AAMP condemning the Oromo students as “anti-peace elements.” According to the report, a similar demonstration was organized in Robe in Bale on the 16th of May. The people are forced to“support” their own destruction. Regrettably, the role of the OPDO should be mentioned here. It is pathetic to hear the same OPDO leaders who did not have courage to press their TPLF bosses to implement what Article 49 of the Ethiopian Constitution promises the Oromo during the last two decades are now coercing the Oromo to support their enemy, the TPLF regime, to implement its AAMP and to condemn their own children who oppose it.
I should add here that there are elements in the Ethiopian diaspora who, in support of the TPLF regime, will label the current protests of Oromo students as hostile against the other ethnic groups who live among them. However, the student uprising is for justice and, as such, benefits not only the Oromo but all the other peoples in Ethiopia. It exposes the lies on which the Ethiopian state is built and survives.
Courage for survival and human dignity — learning from others
In Hindu philosophy the greatest gift for an individual or a nation is courage or the ability to defeat fear. Courage was what Mahatma Gandhi instilled in the psyche of the Indian population to resist the British. Martin Luther King did the same with the African Americans. He persuaded them to defy the pain caused by police batons and the fangs of police dogs and continue their march to freedom. He taught them to face the white police without showing signs of fear. Indeed, the determination of the marching masses he had mobilized did not waver. His inspiring words instilled courage in their hearts and pulled thousands of them to join the historical march on Washington where they listened to the famous speech, “I have a dream” on 28 August 1963. Nelson Mandela’s role in the liberation of South Africa from the evils of apartheid is similar. For 27 years he armed the South Africans with inexhaustible courage to continue with the liberation struggle even from his prison cell on Robben Island.
While Oromo political leaders have much to learn from the great leaders mentioned above, Oromo religious leaders must follow the examples which were set by religious leaders such as Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu and preach courage from the podia in the churches and mosques. Popular resistance cannot be conducted without courage and sacrifice irrespective of the form—armed or peaceful—in which it is to be conducted. Courage is also what our community leaders must instill in the Oromo everywhere. We need to muster moral and intellectual courage to defend our rights and humanity against the TPLF regime as the Indians, the African Americans and the South Africans were armed with courage to fight colonialism and racism. Gandhi’s peaceful method may not work for us, because the British and the Tigrayans are not the same. Although the British were not happy to give up their jewel colony, India, they did not revert to systematic terror to defend their hold on it. The TPLF are unlikely to change their present position on the Oromo peacefully. The adoptability of Mandela’s approach to our situation is also doubtful for two main reasons. To start with, there were whites who fought against apartheid as members or supporters of the ANC. As bridge-builders, their contribution in making reconciliation between the white and black South Africans possible was not negligible. In the absence of their role Mandela could have not convinced his constituency to settle for a multi-racial democratic South Africa peacefully. He may have not even tried. Those type of bridge builders are not yet born in the Tigrayan-Amhara societies. Secondly, apartheid South Africa used terror to maintain white supremacy over the black population. But it was sensitive to the reaction of the world community. The TPLF leaders do not bother much about international opinion or about the human dignity of the people they oppress. Unfortunately, so far the UN and their foreign supporters do not seem bothered by their horrific human rights records. But that will not make us lose hope. In our present situation what we should adopt from both Gandhi and Mandela is their principled and consistent courage to continue with the ongoing revolution to achieve national freedom from the grip of oppression. We should stand for the truth and for what we believe in. In other words, whatever approach we will use to achieve freedom, we must be equipped with courage that targets the oppressor, and cares about the innocent bystander.
The Oromo struggle concerns freedom from fear
The Oromo will lead a life worthy of human beings. As the Burmese winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and ex-political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has stated, among the basic freedoms to which humans aspire to lead a full and unhampered life, freedom from fear stands out. The deadliest weapon which tyrannical regimes use against their subjects is fear; they create fear in the minds of those they oppress. Writing about apartheid and its laws Steve Bantu Biko, the murdered anti-apartheid activist and leader of Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) argued, “No average black man can ever at any moment be absolutely sure that he is not breaking a law. There are so many laws governing the lives and behaviour of black people that sometimes one feels that the police only need to page at random their statute book to be able to get a law under which to charge a victim.” In other words, the laws of apartheid spread among the black population a feeling of uncertainty, fear and powerlessness.The TPLF regime has been doing in Oromia during the last two decades what the apartheid regime did before its demise. The regime made the life of millions of Oromo worse than the life of the black South Africans had been during the darkest days of apartheid. Every aspect of Oromo life is impacted by feelings of fear and uncertainty. The Oromo fear the agents of the Tigrayan rulers who can put them in prison without due process of law or make them “disappear” without trace. It is common knowledge that thousands of Oromos have “disappeared” since the TPLF took power in Finfinnee in 1991. They fear the Oromo underdogs who serve the Tigrayan rulers. Through the system called “one to five” (one person spying on five others), the TPLF has planted its “antennae” in every community, every village and homestead throughout Oromia. For an Oromo, it is difficult to tell which head, among his neighbors, is the “antenna” tuned on him or which pair of eyes that are watching him. Hence no Oromo is sure when the ever-present terror of the TPLF regime will strike him or her.Ethiopia is a country of fitesha (endless search) that turns a person, particularly an Oromo, into a perpetual suspect, a criminal by birth. An Oromo is made to fear his/her neighbours, friends, and even relatives because, forced by poverty, many honest people have joined the TPLF’s pack of informers in order to survive. The sniffing dogs of the regime are everywhere, in street corners, in work places, in schools and university lecture halls, and above all in the kebeles— neighborhoods.
For an Oromo in the diaspora, Ethiopia is a country which he/she visits at the risk of causing danger to his/her relatives. It is a country where an innocent telephone call from a son or a daughter from abroad can send a father or mother to prison. It is a country which makes mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters dread to communicate with a family member who lives abroad. The Oromo struggle is about freedom from the climate of fear created by the Tigrayan regime. Oromo artist need freedom to exercise their profession. He/she needs an audience to develop his/her profession as the audience needs art that makes life enjoyable. Oromo art and scholarship must serve the progress and happiness of the Oromo people and humanity at large. Therefore, for those concerned with the development of Oromo art and culture their right place is within the battle being fought for freedom. Indeed, Oromo artists have taken the front line and are making their contributions with courage. That is also what is expected from Oromo scholars: their studies should contribute to the development of the Oromo society.
The Oromo people need political independence to read what they want to read, and enjoy the music they relish without fear for being accused of narrow nationalism, terrorism or of being arrested put in jail, tortured, raped and killed. Ethiopia is a state in which the Oromo are made to fear to speak their mother tongue. They need political freedom to speak their language without fear or looking back on their shoulders fearing that someone is listening to their conversation and reporting them to the security organs of the regime just because they were “committing the crime” of talking in Afaan Oromoo. The right of speaking one’s mother tongue without worry and harassment is a human right. Needless to say here that it is not the case in Oromia even today. It may not happen at all before Oromia is free land. This may seem banal to pro-Ethiopia Oromos who will argue that this dilemma will be solved through the democratization of the Ethiopian state. In my view, those who would hope to inoculate the Ethiopian state against the hegemonic passions of the Abyssinian ruling elites with a “democratic” constitution and empty talk about justice are fooling themselves.
A revolution in need of coordination
The fact that the Oromo people have lived in fear for a long time is not a result of cowardice, but of a deep sense of powerlessness. Today, one can see that this feeling of powerlessness is rapidly changing into a simmering anger of the Oromo population and the readiness of tens of thousands of Oromo youth to sacrifice their lives for freedom. During the last twenty years, the Oromo have expressed their grievances in poetry and music. Above all Oromo music has been an expression of the popular grievance against injustice. The price paid by Oromo youth for waging the struggle has been mass expulsion from educational institutions, exile, torture and death. Many of them were beaten to death by the security agents of the TPLF as if the victims were not human beings. The list of Oromo artists who were jailed, tortured and murdered by the Tigrayan regime for their songs against injustice is very long.
In short, the Oromo have learnt from experience the need for solidarity to defy terror and powerlessness. They are learning that fear and the sense of powerlessness are defeated when they act together. They have witnessed what common action can do in the so-called Arab Spring. Indeed, signs of common action among the Oromo have been increasing both at home and in the diaspora in recent years. The uprising which the AAMP has ignited is a revolutionary signpost of the trend described above. It is a revolution that needs coordination. The way it is coordinated and the goal it aims to achieve matter. The ability of the Oromo political organizations to use the currents which the uprising has set in motion, mobilize our people for a sustained struggle, and lead our nation to freedom is crucial.The uprising should be given the right direction to be effective and fruitful. It should give dividends which will benefit the Oromo as a nation. It is an opportunity that should not be wasted or misused. It should not be hijacked or exploited by political parties who are biding their time to ride back to Menelik’s palace in Finfinnee. They have nothing against the “Addis Ababa Plan” of the TPLF regime. As we all know, they will implement it with great pleasure if they get the chance.Let no Oromo organization become their Trojan horse or another OPDO. If they are wise enough, there is also an opportunity for the current members of the OPDO to abandon their subservient status under the TPLF, and join the national struggle for freedom not only to defend the right of the nation to which they belong, but even to regain the of respect of their countrymen and women. This is the time for every Oromo to get up and be counted on the side of justice and freedom.
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[1] See for example Mekuria Bulcha, “Landownership, Land Grabbing and Human Rights in Ethiopia: The Indigenous Peoples’ Perspective and Experience”, paper presented at the OSA Mid-Year Conference, 7-8 April 2012 Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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* Mekuria Bulcha, PhD and Professor of Sociology, is an author of widely read books and articles. His most recent book, Contours of the Emergent and Ancient Oromo Nation, was published by CASAS (Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society), Cape Town, South Africa, in 2011. He was also the founder and publisher of The Oromo Commentary (1990-1999). He is an active member of the OLF and has served in the different branches of the national movement since the 1970s.
The Africa Rising illusion: continent needs more than just growth – By K.Y. Amoako @ The African Arguments
We hear a lot these days about “Africa Rising” – and with good reason. … Enabled by reforms in macroeconomic management, by high commodity prices, and by increasing exports of extractives, this growth has created a spirit of optimism, encouraged foreign investment, and provided an incentive for young Africans to return home after being educated abroad. Increasing earnings among some sectors of society have supported the emergence of an African middle class, with promising purchasing power. But beneath the surface it’s not that simple. The rate of African growth may have increased, but the structure of most Sub-Saharan economies has not changed much over the past 40 years. African economies are still narrowly based on the production and export of unprocessed agricultural products, minerals, and crude oil. There is little manufacturing— indeed, in many countries the share of manufacturing in GDP is lower now than in the 1970s. Competitiveness on global markets – apart from crude extractive products – is low due to poor productivity and underdeveloped technology. And in most countries, more than 80% of the labor force is employed in low-yield agriculture or informal activities in towns and cities. Thus the headline statistics disguise both residual problems and inherent vulnerabilities. Recent economic growth has not eliminated inequalities between or within countries, and has done little to reduce hunger. While the proportion of Africa’s population living in extreme poverty is falling, the total number of extremely poor people rose by more than 20 million between 2002 and 2012. Youth unemployment threatens instability, and while access to education has improved significantly, standards are still low. This is not the first time that the continent has experienced growth of an unequal or unstable nature. Indeed, in the years after independence, the region’s economy was booming. But growth faltered in the mid-1970s following the first oil price shock, and the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s saw incomes fall and poverty increase. How can we prevent this pattern repeating itself? – Read more @http://africanarguments.org/2014/05/29/the-africa-rising-illusion-continent-needs-more-than-just-growth-by-k-y-amoako/
The silent recolonisation of Africa is happening on a mass scale.
Tragically, a silent recolonisation on a mass scale is happening through further dispossession in areas where the original colonisation had not been complete. The new colonisation is dressed in the language of economic development and fighting poverty but its interest is the satisfaction of the needs of multinational companies for markets and land to grow food for export – to satisfy the food needs of their primary market while depriving Africans the satisfaction of their needs.- Read more @
Dr. Maya Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, Dr. Angelou is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.
Born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture. Read more @Welcome to Maya Angelou’s Official Site- http://mayaangelou.com/
Maya Angelou in 1969, the year of her landmark memoir
‘We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans — because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone — because we have the impulse to explain who we are. Not just how tall we are, or thin… but who we are internally… perhaps even spiritually. There’s something, which impels us to show our inner-souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.’
Any system which crushes its brightest should not be considered a success….The Ethiopian government likes to trumpet its higher education system to its western aid backers as a crowning success of its development policy. As billions in foreign aid are spent annually on Ethiopia, the west must be more cognisant of the fact that this money helps reinforce a government which cuts down those who dare to speak out against it.
Ethiopia crackdown on student protests taints higher education success
Western backers of the Ethiopian education system should not ignore reports of violent clashes on university campuses
Oromia, Ethiopia, where at least three dozen people were reportedly shot dead by security forces during student protests
Over the past 15 years, Ethiopia has become home to one of the world’s fastest-growing higher education systems. Increasing the number of graduates in the country is a key component of the government’s industrialisation strategy and part of its ambitious plan to become a middle-income country by 2025. Since the 1990s, when there were just two public universities, almost 30 new institutions have sprung up.
On the face of it, this is good news for ordinary Ethiopians. But dig a little deeper and tales abound of students required to join one of the three government parties, with reports of restricted curricula, classroom spies and crackdowns on student protests commonplace at universities.The Ethiopian government likes to trumpet its higher education system to its western aid backers as a crowning success of its development policy. As billions in foreign aid are spent annually on Ethiopia, the west must be more cognisant of the fact that this money helps reinforce a government which cuts down those who dare to speak out against it.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in Ambo in Oromia state. On 25 April, protests against government plans to bring parts the town under the administrative jurisdiction of the capital, Addis Ababa, began at Ambo University. By the following Tuesday, as protests spread to the town and other areas of Oromia, dozens of demonstrators had been killed in clashes with government forces, according to witnesses.
As Ethiopia experiences rapid economic expansion, its government plans to grow the capital out rather than up, and this involves annexing parts of the surrounding Oromia state. An official communique from the government absolved it of all responsibility for the clashes, claiming that just eight people had been killed and alleging that the violence had been coordinated by a few rogue anti-peace forces. The government maintains that it is attempting to extend Addis Ababa’s services to Oromia through its expansion of the city limits.
However, Oromia opposition figures tell a different story. On 2 May, the nationalist organisation the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) issued a press release that condemned the “barbaric and egregious killing of innocent Oromo university students who have peacefully demanded the regime to halt the displacement of Oromo farmers from their ancestral land, and the inclusion of Oromo cities and surrounding localities under Finfinnee [Addis Ababa] administration under the pretext of development”. The Addis Ababa regime dismisses the OLA as a terrorist organisation.
While news of the killing of unarmed protesters has caused great concern among many Ethiopians, there has been little coverage overseas. The government maintains strict control over the domestic media; indeed, it frequently ranks as one of the world’s chief jailers of journalists, and it is not easy to come by independent reporting of events in the country.
Nevertheless, the government’s communique does run contrary to reports by the few international media that did cover the attacks in Ambo, which placed the blame firmly on government forces.
The BBC reported that a witness in Ambo saw more than 20 bodies on the street, while Voice of America (VOA) reported that at least 17 protesters were killed by “elite security forces” on three campuses in Oromia. Local residents maintain that the figure [of those killed] was much higher.
These reports, while difficult to corroborate, have been backed up by Human Rights Watch, whichissued a statement saying that “security forces have responded [to the protests] by shooting at and beating peaceful protesters in Ambo, Nekemte, Jimma, and other towns with unconfirmed reports from witnesses of dozens of casualties”. One university lecturer said he had been “rescued from the live ammunition”, and that it was the “vampires – the so-called federal police” who fired on the crowds.
The Ethiopian government likes to trumpet its higher education system to its western aid backers as a crowning success of its development policy. As billions in foreign aid are spent annually on Ethiopia, the west must be more cognisant of the fact that this money helps reinforce a government which cuts down those who dare to speak out against it.
Inevitably, continued support for such an oppressive regime justifies its brutal silencing of dissent. Yes, the higher education system has grown exponentially over the past 15 years but the oppression and killing of innocent students cannot be considered an achievement. Any system which crushes its brightest should not be considered a success.
Paul O’Keeffe is a doctoral fellow at La Sapienza University of Rome, where he focuses on the higher education
When students in Ethiopia started protesting last month against the Ethiopian Government’s proposal to annex territory from the state of Oromia to facilitate the expansion of the capital city Addis Ababa, diasporans mobilized to show their solidarity. As federal “Agazi” security forces cracked down, opening fire on peaceful protesters, placing students on lock-down in their dormitories, and conducting mass arrests, Oromos around the world staged rallies and hunger strikes to raise international awareness and to call on the governments of the countries where they live to withhold aid and put pressure on the Ethiopian Government to respect human rights.
In the first three posts in this series, I discussed the Oromo diaspora’s mobilization to shed light on the human rights violations on the ground, the sharp criticism the government of Ethiopia faced during the Universal Periodic Review on May 6, and the steps the Oromo diaspora in Minnesota is taking to show solidarity and press for accountability in Ethiopia. This final post tells some of the stories of Oromos in the diaspora who have spoken with friends and family on the ground in Oromia about events over the past three weeks, and also covers the Ethiopian government’s formal response to the UN review and offers some suggestions for next steps.
Not “voiceless,” but deliberately silenced by Ethiopian government
“We need to be a voice for the voiceless” has been a common refrain from the diaspora. But in my view, the students and others who are protesting in Ethiopia are far from voiceless. They have been bravely marching, placing their lives and academic careers on the line, to express their opposition to the government’s “Integrated Development Master Plan for Addis Ababa.” In the words of 2004 Sydney Peace Prize winnerArundhati Roy, “there’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
The government controls the media and telecommunications in Ethiopia, effectively placing a stranglehold on open debate and criticism of the government. Historically, efforts by western media, including CNN, to cover events on the ground in Ethiopia have been stymied. The government’s repression and intimidation also create obstacles for independent journalists trying to cover the story from outside the country. I spoke with one U.S.-based reporter who covers the Horn of Africa, and he explained that when he tried to confirm casualty reports, hospital personnel in Ethiopia refused to speak to him, fearing for their jobs.
We are reaching out to you as the Board of officers of the International Oromo Youth Association (IOYA) whose nation is in turmoil back in Oromia, Ethiopia. Recently, Oromo students have been protesting against the new Addis Ababa “Integrated Master Plan” which aims at incorporating smaller towns surrounding Addis Ababa for the convenience of vacating land for investors by displacing millions of Oromo farmers. As a political move, this will essentially result in the displacement of the indigenous peoples and their families. Oromo farmers will be dispossessed of their land and their survival both economic and cultural terms will be threatened. The Oromos strongly believe that this plan will expose their natural environment to risk, threaten their economic means of livelihood (subsistence farming), and violate their constitutional rights.
The Ethiopian government is executing its political agenda of progressive marginalization of the Oromo people from matters that concern them both in the Addis Ababa city and the wider Oromia region. The master plan is an unconstitutional change of the territorial expansion over which the city administration has a jurisdiction. The government justifies the move in the name of enhancing the development of the city and facilitating economic growth. The justification is merely a tactical move masked for the governments continued abuse of human rights of the Oromo people. While the Oromos understand that Addis Ababa itself is an Oromo city that serves as the capital of the federal government, they also consider this move as an encroachment on the jurisdiction and borders of the state of Oromia.
The protesters peacefully demonstrated against this move. University students and residents have been in opposition to the plan, but their struggle has been met by a brutal repression in the hands of the military police (famously known as the Agazi). It has been reported that shootings, arrests, and imprisonments are becoming rampant. It is also reported that the death toll is increasing by the hour. Recently, sources indicate that over 80 people have been shot dead, others severally injured and thousands arrested. In addition, Oromo students have been protesting peacefully for over three weeks now, despite mass killings and arrests by Ethiopian security forces. University and high school students from more than ten universities have been engaging in the Oromo protests. The peaceful rally has now spread across the whole country and is expected to continue until the Ethiopian government refrains from incorporating over 36 surrounding smaller towns into Addis Ababa. It is stated to be displacing an estimate of 6.6 million people and violating constitutional rights of regional states.
As an organization subscribing to broader democratic engagement of the Oromo youth, we oppose the brutal violence that the Ethiopian government is meting out on innocent, unarmed young students who are peacefully protesting. As leaders of the Oromo community, we support and stand in solidarity with Oromo protests in Ethiopia. The human rights violations being carried out by the Ethiopian government against innocent students are unacceptable. Continuous assaults, tortures, and killings of innocent civilians must be stopped. We urge you to join us in denouncing these inhumane and cruel activities carried out by the Ethiopian government. We believe it is imperative that the international community raise its voice and take action to stop the ongoing atrocities that are wreaking havoc to families and communities in the Oromia region.
We urgently request that such actions be taken in an attempt to pressure the Ethiopian government to stop terrorizing and killing peaceful protesters:
The US government and other International organizations should condemn the Ethiopian government’s brutal action taken on unarmed innocent civilians. Furthermore, we demand over 30,000 innocent protesters to be released from prisons, as they will be subjected to torture and ill treatment.
The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) is currently terrorizing its own electorates/nation. Under the law of R2P in the UN constitution, the international community is obliged to protect a nation that is being terrorized by its own government and EPRDF should be taken accountable.
We demand Ethiopia to be expelled from any regional and international cooperation including and not limited to AU and UN for its previous and current human rights violations. The International community should stop providing support in the name of AID and development to Ethiopia as it is violating the fundamental and basic needs of its nation.
The Ethiopian government should be stopped on immediate effect; its forceful displacement of the indigenous peoples across Ethiopia is unjust and unconstitutional. We ask the United States, European Union, and the United Nations to stand in solidarity with peaceful student protesters who are condemning such injustice.
The onus is on the international community to act in favor of the innocent and civilian populace that is seeking its fundamental right. Punitive actions towards this government should be taken for cracking down on freedom of expression and other democratic rights being expressed by its citizens.
We believe it is in the interest of our common humanity to take responsibility, to pay attention to this problem, to witness the plight of the voiceless victims, and to raise concerns to the Ethiopian government so it can desist from its brutal acts of repression.
We count on your solidarity to help the Oromo youth be spared from arbitrary arrest, incarceration, and shootings.
‘Debt and Corruption are an awful mix: The appetite for debt by African governments is particularly concerning given that there does not appear to be any serious action to end the gross mismanagement of public funds. Getting into debt only makes sense if you plan to use the money properly. But if substantial sums of money end up in the pockets of faceless politicians, then Africa is ransoming future earnings with no future benefits. This is self-sabotage at its best. There is no need to belabour the point. Don’t take on billions of dollars of debt if corruption is still an untamed beast…the consequences for Africa’s economy and people will be dire….. ‘Many of the Chinese contracts in Africa lay down that repayments be made in natural resources, with complex institutional contracts that make repayments unpredictable in financial terms’. [2] How can we be comfortable with our governments getting into deals into the billions of dollars and yet these are shrouded in mystery? With no information at hand, we do not really know how deep of a hole we’re digging for ourselves.’
Step away from the debt plate Africa, you need to watch what you’re eating
Africa is bingeing on debt and risks overeating at the buffet of financial offers from China, India, Brazil and many others. Kenya just recently signed a series of financial agreements worth billions with China during Prime Minister Lee Keqiang’s visit to the country this last weekend making it clear that we live in a multipolar world. In this new world order Africa is spoilt for choice with regard to who to partner with to fund development. But we (Africa) seem to have an insatiable appetite for this new money and do not seem to be fully aware of the implications of accepting all these tasty offers of cash. We also don’t seem to be thinking about whether we can, or how we can absorb these volumes of cash. Don’t get me wrong, Africa’s excitement at promises of billions apparently with ‘no conditions’ is understandable. Having spent the past decades grovelling at the doors of donors and investors from Europe and North America, many Africans felt we were giving away our pride for monies tied to what many felt were onerous conditions. So now, we are whistling our way to the bank with our new financials ‘partners’.
But is this truly smart? The reality is that all borrowing has conditions. So allow me to digress briefly and go slightly further with this point. China enjoys talking about about how it provides money with ‘no conditions’, but closer analysis reveals that this is not strictly true. The Chinese government, like any other government, will protect its investments; investments made almost exclusively with African governments…which seems to suggest that if China has to back up (even unpopular or despotic) African governments to protect its investments, it will. Look at the incriminating allegations that China funded Mugabe’s election ‘victory’ last year. Documents from Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization suggest that the success of Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party, ‘reflected direct intervention by the Chinese Communist Party’. (See more here and here). Perhaps for Zimbabwe the conditions that make China feel most secure in its investments is if Mugabe is in power. So maybe there are some conditions tied to money from China. The point I’m making is that it is important Africans analyse reality and not get spellbound by the rhetoric. But that is an aside; let’s get to the real problems behind Africa’s debt binge
1. We don’t really know the scale of the debt we’re getting into
By ‘we’ I mean Africans not on the inside corridors of power, but on whose behalf these deals are being made. It is absolute madness that in the case of countries such as China, we actually don’t know how much debt we’re getting into. Over the weekend Kenya and China signed several agreements but, ‘The two leaders did not disclose the actual financial value of most of the agreements and protocols signed but their aides said the deals run into billions of Kenya shillings.’[1] Why the secrecy? How much of this money from China is grants vs debt? What are the interest rates (there are references to ‘concessional loans’ but that’s about it), what are the terms of repayment, what are the penalties for defaulting? Also bear in mind that in the past, ‘Many of the Chinese contracts in Africa lay down that repayments be made in natural resources, with complex institutional contracts that make repayments unpredictable in financial terms’. [2] How can we be comfortable with our governments getting into deals into the billions of dollars and yet these are shrouded in mystery? With no information at hand, we do not really know how deep of a hole we’re digging for ourselves.
2. Do we have the absorptive capacity to handle all this money?
We are getting into debt to fund numerous development projects that range from infrastructure to agriculture, to security and wildlife but, pray tell, do we have the absorptive capacity to soak up these billions? Because whether we can absorb the money or not, we will be paying it back. Absorptive capacity here relates to the macro and micro constraints that recipient countries face in using resources, in this case money, effectively.[3] Does Africa have the physical, intellectual and systems-related infrastructure, expertise and culture to competently implement all these projects? For example, do county governments have the technical savoir faire to implement agriculture projects worth millions? One of the issues of serious concern is that investment in educational infrastructure rarely features prominently in these deals. There are very limited (if any) provisions for building the educational capacity of African countries especially at tertiary and vocational levels. So great, we’re getting money to build railways, but how many Africans can be effectively put to task on this, especially at managerial positions? Bear in mind that already, with regards to China, Africa has fallen into a trap where, 1) China is allowed to bring in Chinese nationals to provide labour and, 2) When African labour is used, it is cheap, unskilled labour.[4] This situation is untenable. Africa should be using every single government- funded project to hire Africans and build the capacity of Africans to do the job competently in the future. Africa cannot continue to so fundamentally rely on outsiders to do the basics for us such as building roads. But sadly, African countries seem to be happy with outsourcing all the large-scale projects, sometimes back to companies from the country that gave us the loans in the first place. This leads to the next point.
3. With limited absorptive capacity, Africa will continue to outsource big contracts
Africa is not being very bright. We get loans then outsource the implementation of the projects back to companies from the donor country. In short, we’re paying China to pay itself. Why? Generally however, using outsourcing as the default strategy for large-scale project implementation is problematic in at least two ways: 1) It hides and exacerbates Africa’s skills deficit and, 2) It pumps money out of the country. The first point is obvious, if we continue to rely on others to build our roads, we will continue to lack the skillsets and capacity to competently build and maintain our roads ourselves. But since the roads are being built, we never feel the weight of our incompetence in this area and therefore have no sense urgency to rectify this problem. Secondly, companies implementing projects in Africa make a profit then expatriate the profit. So we’re getting into debt and then haemorrhaging some of that expensive money out of the continent through outsourcing. This makes no long-term sense. Ideally we should use local contractors to implement projects however, as elucidated in point 2, we do not seem to have sufficient volumes of companies capable of absorbing this workload. But rather than fix that, African governments go to the default setting labelled ‘outsource’. We’re getting into a vicious cycle as follows: We don’t have the capacity to implement large-scale projects → we outsource but fail to ensure skills transfer → exacerbates the skills deficit → we don’t have the capacity to implement large-scale projects. African governments should essentially use the development projects led by non-Africans as structured training opportunities for newly qualified professionals as well as building more seasoned professionals into the management structure of projects.
4. Debt and Corruption are an awful mix
The appetite for debt by African governments is particularly concerning given that there does not appear to be any serious action to end the gross mismanagement of public funds. Getting into debt only makes sense if you plan to use the money properly. But if substantial sums of money end up in the pockets of faceless politicians, then Africa is ransoming future earnings with no future benefits. This is self-sabotage at its best. There is no need to belabour the point. Don’t take on billions of dollars of debt if corruption is still an untamed beast…the consequences for Africa’s economy and people will be dire.
5. Overleveraged?
This issue relates to point number 1. There is limited information on the scale of the debt Africa is getting into with certain parties so at what point will we in Africa know when we’re overleveraged? It seems like the answer to that is ‘not any time soon’. The scary part is that some African governments seem to think debt will fix all our problems with Heads of States expecting hearty praise when they secure even more debt for the continent. It is true that structures such as the Debt Sustainability Framework (DSF) exist which seek to stop lenders from lending more money to countries that have exceeded their debt ceilings. But, ‘to work well, the DSF needs close co-ordination between all creditors. This is hard enough to do between public and private lenders from the traditional partners, but is even more difficult with the new lenders [such as China].[5],[6]Sadly, African countries do not seem to be keen on tabulating public debt figures at either national or pan African levels, and sharing them.
Two things happened simultaneously on May 1st, both involving the U.S. State Department and its relation to Ethiopia. Thing one was the State Department’s news program, Voice of America, broadcasting its brief account of Ethiopian security forces firing upon student demonstrations the previous day (April 30) at three universities resulting in 17 dead and many wounded. Thing two was the Secretary of State John Kerry in Ethiopia giving a speech full of praise for Ethiopia’s rapid economic development as well as the U.S.-Ethiopia partnership in addressing the violence against civilians in neighboring Sudan and Somalia. Apparently, Kerry was unaware that the day before, just a two-hour’s drive down the road from where he was speaking, America’s supposed partner, the Ethiopian government, had committed acts of violence against its citizens. In fact, thousands of individuals at universities and in cities across the Oromia region of Ethiopia had been protesting for days, and as the journalist Mohammed Ademo’s article for Think Africa pointed out on Tuesday (August 29), what they were protesting was precisely the consequences of the rapid economic development and foreign direct investment that Kerry praised in his speech – the eviction and displacement of tenant farmers and poor people due to the expansion of the capital city Addis Ababa into the Oromia region.
We might observe a contradiction here within the same State Department. While the State Department’s news program laments an event and clearly points to the root cause, the State Department’s secretary appears ignorant of the event and also strangely unable to discern the causes of ethnic unrest across Africa. An Al Jazeera op-ed responding to Kerry’s speech suggests that the United States fails to see the contradiction in its policy that talks about democracy and human rights but in practice emphasizes security for foreign direct investment (as per the State Department’s own report on such investment in Ethiopia published shortly before Kerry’s visit.) Noticeably, two contradictory ideas are coming out of the State Department simultaneously. What do we make of that contradiction?
Before I answer that question, I might add on to this strange state of affairs by pointing out that Kerry did criticize the Ethiopian government for using repressive tactics against its journalists — the famous Zone 9 bloggers — but what strikes me is that at the very moment that Kerry criticizes the state of journalism in Ethiopia, the mainstream American news outlets such as CNN, National Public Radio, and the NY Times have for a long time neglected to give any serious coverage of the issues within Ethiopia and in fact did not report on the student demonstrations. The only American media mention of the recent student demonstrations and deaths is a very brief Associated Press article that appeared the day after Kerry’s speech (May 2) and that article embarrassingly gets its facts wrong about what happened and why. Such poor journalism is increasingly perceived to be the norm of America’s once celebrated media whose many factual inaccuracies and lack of any genuine will to truth arguably contributed to the Iraq War back in 2003. Curiously, the only news organization in America that did its job (the VOA) is the news organization intended to serve communities outside of America. Moreover, the VOA is part of the very same “department” that Kerry heads. The quality of mainstream American media coverage might seem excusable if it weren’t for the fact that BBC covered these tragic events in Ethiopia reasonably well, first on its radio program immediately after the massacre (May 1st) and then more comprehensively on its website the following day.
Two things happened simultaneously on May 1st, both involving the U.S. State Department and its relation to Ethiopia. Thing one was the State Department’s news program, Voice of America, broadcasting its brief account of Ethiopian security forces firing upon student demonstrations the previous day (April 30) at three universities resulting in 17 dead and many wounded. Thing two was the Secretary of State John Kerry in Ethiopia giving a speech full of praise for Ethiopia’s rapid economic development as well as the U.S.-Ethiopia partnership in addressing the violence against civilians in neighboring Sudan and Somalia. Apparently, Kerry was unaware that the day before, just a two-hour’s drive down the road from where he was speaking, America’s supposed partner, the Ethiopian government, had committed acts of violence against its citizens. In fact, thousands of individuals at universities and in cities across the Oromia region of Ethiopia had been protesting for days, and as the journalist…
Ibsa Ijjannoo Waldaa Qorannoo Oromoo fi Waldaalee Hawaasa Oromoo Ameerikaa Kaabaa: Ijjechaa Barattootaa Oromootiif Ummata Oromoo Ilaalchisee | Statement of Oromo Community Organizations in the U.S. and Oromo Studies Association (OSA)
Posted: Caamsaa/May 3, 2014 · Finfinne Tribune | Gadaa.com
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We, Oromo Community Organizations in USA, and OSA jointly prepared this press statement in Afaan Oromoo to condemn the heinous crimes committed against defenseless and innocent Oromo University students and those who joined their just movements in solidarity. We also expressed our readiness to stand in solidarity with the Oromo University Students and the #OromoProtests. We ask the Ethiopian regime to unconditionally release the hundreds of University Students detained by the Federal Security Forces and bring to justice those who ordered the use of live bullets to put down the protest. We ask the Oromo in Diaspora to protest in all major cities where the Oromo live in large numbers and fund raise money to support the victims of the massacre and affected families by covering some of their medical and miscellaneous expenses. We have formed a National committee to coordinate the fund raising activities during rallies and at prayer places (Mosques, Churches). This is a work in progress and seek your support as we go forward. We strongly believed that the regime can only be defeated through concerted and sustained resistance movements which requires our collective material and intellectual resources. The Oromo must be ready to pay the utmost sacrifices the struggle demands to free our nation and heal the broken hearts of its oppressed masses.
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The orderly village of Agulodiek in Ethiopia‘s western Gambella region stands in stark contrast to Elay, a settlement 5km west of Gambella town, where collapsed straw huts strewn with cracked clay pots lie among a tangle of bushes.
Agulodiek is a patch of land where families gradually gathered of their own accord, while Elay is part of the Ethiopian government’s contentious “villagisation” scheme that ended last year. The plan in Gambella was to relocate almost the entire rural population of the state over three years. Evidence from districts surrounding Gambella town suggest the policy is failing.
Two years ago people from Agulodiek moved to Elay after officials enticed them with promises of land, livestock, clean water, a corn grinder, education and a health clinic. Instead they found dense vegetation they were unable to cultivate. After one year of selling firewood to survive, they walked back home.
“All the promises were empty,” says Apwodho Omot, an ethnic Anuak, sitting in shade at Agulodiek. There is a donor-funded school at the village whose dirt paths are swept clear of debris, and the government built a hand pump in 2004 that still draws water from a borehole. Apwodho’s community says they harvest corn twice a year from fertile land they have cleared. “We don’t know why the government picked Elay,” she says.
Gambella region’s former president Omod Obang Olum reported last year that 35,000 households had voluntarily moved from a target of 45,000. The official objective had been to cluster scattered households to make public service delivery more efficient. Critics such as Human Rights Watch said the underlying reason was to clear the way for agricultural investors, and that forced evictions overseen by soldiers involved rape and murder. The Ethiopian government refute the allegations.
A DfID spokesman said: “We will not comment on ongoing legal action, however, the UK has never funded Ethiopia’s resettlement programmes. Our support to the Protection of Basic Services Programme is only used to provide essential services like healthcare, schooling and clean water.”
Karmi, 10km from Gambella town, is a newly expanded community for those resettled along one of the few tarmac roads. Two teachers scrub clothes in plastic tubs on a sticky afternoon. A herd of goats nibble shrubs as purple and orange lizards edge up tree trunks. There is little activity in the village, which has bare pylons towering over it waiting for high-voltage cables to improve Gambella’s patchy electricity supply.
The teachers work in an impressive school built in 2011 with funds from the UN refugee agency. It has a capacity of 245 students for grades one to five – yet the teachers have only a handful of pupils per class. “This is a new village but the people have left,” says Tigist Megersa.
Kolo Cham grows sorghum and corn near the Baro river, a 30-minute walk from his family home at Karmi. The area saw an influx of about 600 people at the height of villagisation, says Kolo, crouching on a tree stump, surrounded only by a group of children with a puppy. Families left when they got hungry and public services weren’t delivered. “They moved one by one so the government didn’t know the number was decreasing,” he says.
The Anuak at Karmi have reason to fear the authorities, particularly Ethiopia’s military. Several give accounts of beatings and arrests by soldiers as they searched for the perpetrators of a nearby March 2012attack on a bus that killed 19. The insecurity was a key factor in the exodus, according to residents.
As well as the Anuak, who have tended crops near riverbanks in Gambella for more than 200 years, the region is home to cattle-herding Nuer residents, who began migrating from Sudan in the late 19th century. Thousands of settlers from northern Ethiopia also arrived in the 1980s when the highlands suffered a famine. The government blamed the bus attack on Anuak rebels who consider their homeland colonised.
David Pred is the managing director of Inclusive Development International. The charity is representing Gambella residents, who haveaccused the World Bank of violating its own policies by funding the resettlement programme. An involuntary, abusive, poorly planned and inadequately funded scheme was bound to fail, he says. “It requires immense resources, detailed planning and a process that is truly participatory in order for resettlement to lead to positive development outcomes,” he adds.
Most of flood-prone Gambella, one of Ethiopia’s least developed states, is covered with scrub and grasslands. Inhospitable terrain makes it difficult for villagisation to take root in far-flung places such as Akobo, which borders South Sudan. Akobo is one of the three districts selected for resettlement, according to Kok Choul, who represents the district in the regional council.
In 2009, planners earmarked Akobo for four new schools, clinics, vets, flourmills and water schemes, as well as 76km of road. But the community of about 30,000 has seen no change, says 67-year-old Kok, who has 19 children from four wives. “There is no road to Gambella so there is no development,” he says. One well-placed civil servant explains that funds for services across the region were swallowed by items such as daily allowances for government workers.
A senior regional official says the state ran low on funds for resettlement, leading to delivery failures and cost-cutting. For example, substandard corn grinders soon broke and have not been repaired, he says. The government will continue to try to provide planned services in three districts including Akobo this year and next, according to the official.
However, the programme has transformed lives, with some farmers harvesting three times a year, says Ethiopia’s ambassador to the UK, Berhanu Kebede. The government is addressing the “few cases that are not fully successful”, he says. Service provision is ongoing and being monitored and improved upon if required, according to Kebede.
At Elay, Oman Nygwo, a wiry 40-year-old in cut-off jeans, gives a tour of deserted huts and points to a line of mango trees that mark his old home on the banks of the Baro. He is scathing about the implementation of the scheme but remains in Elay as there is less risk of flooding. There was no violence accompanying these resettlements, Oman says, but “there would be problems if the government tried to move us again”.
The U.S House of Representatives and the government of United Kingdom plus EU Parliament and United Nations have recently stepped up a campaign to help Somalis from Ogaden region to realize that their voice has been heard by the International Community after decades of virtually silent.
As UK’s government recently released a report indicating allegations of abuses by the Liyu Police or “Special Police”,which London expressed its concerns,United States House of Representatives and EU Parliament have both sent strong messages to Addis Ababa,which was meant to open the Somali religion of Ogaden to the humanitarian agencies and International media to have free access to avoid further humanitarian crisis.
The U.S Congress issued a message which eventually published on Somalilandsun that reads:
The US House of Representatives has asked Ethiopia to Permit Human Rights and Humanitarian Organizations Access to its Somali region of Ogaden. The House informed (d) ETHIOPIA. “That Funds appropriated by this Act that are available for assistance for Ethiopian military and police forces shall not be made available unless the Secretary of State–
(A) certifies to the Committees on Appropriations that the Government of Ethiopia is implementing policies to–
(i) protect judicial independence; freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion; the right of political opposition parties, civil society organizations, and journalists to operate without harassment or interference; and due process of law; and (ii) permit access to human rights and humanitarian organizations to the Somali region of Ethiopia; and (B) submits a report to the Committees on Appropriations on the types and amounts of United States training and equipment proposed to be provided to the Ethiopian military and police including steps to ensure that such assistance is not provided to military or police personnel or units that have violated human rights, and steps taken by the Government of Ethiopia to investigate and prosecute members of the Ethiopian military and police who have been credibly alleged to have violated such rights.”http://somalilandsun.com/index.php/world/4945-make-ogaden-accessible-us-house-urges-ethiopia–
The EU’s head of International Unit Party Socialist democrat,Anna Gomes,MEP said “Ethiopia is one of the largest humanitarian and development aid receiver yet these donations are used incorrectly and corruptly. Western governmental Organizations and Western Embassies to Addis Ababa ignored the stolen donations and humanitarian aid that are being used as a political tool by the Ethiopian regime, which is contrary to EU rules on the funding”.http://www.tesfanews.net/eu-holds-discussion-on-ethiopian-human-rights-crisis-in-ogaden-and-kality-prison/
Ulvskog, MEP,in her part when she was speaking about the steps needed to be taken in order to stop the human rights abuses that is being committed against Ethiopian and Ogaden civilians, she said that the EU could use sanctions or words against Ethiopia or follow up documents and information like the one provided by Ogadeni whistle-blower, Abdullahi Hussein,who smuggled out one-hundred-hours filmed footage, to show the reality in the ground.
The UK government’s website said last week that there have been many reports of mistreatment associated with the Special police,including torture and executions of villagers accused of supporting the Ogade n National Liberation Front.
The Rights Groups such as Human Rights Watch,Amnesty International and Genocide Watch have accused of Ethiopia that it has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ogaden region.The ONLF accuses Addis Ababa similar charges of egregious human rights abuses against Somali civilians in the region.
John Holmes, The highest UN Official to visit Somali Region of Ogaden in part of its fact finding mission,since the Ethiopian crackdown (2007) called on a further investigation,a plan to wait its implementation until now.
Somali people of Ogaden Region,who has been deplored the international Community’s inaction and silence,when it comes to human rights violations committed at Ogaden region could now feel that they have been heard as the International Community including U.S,UK,EU and United Nations are ready to take action against those committed war crimes and crimes against humanity yet believe that they can get away with it.
The TPLF Ethiopian government is a government controlled by one person, or a small group of people. In this form of government the power rests entirely in the hands of one person or cliques, and can be obtained by force or inheritance.
The dictator(s) may also take away much of its peoples’ freedom. In contemporary usage, dictatorship refers to an autocratic form of absolute rule by leadership unrestricted by law, constitution, or other social and political factors within the state.
In the 20th century and in this early 21st century hereditary dictatorship remained a relatively common phenomenon.
For some scholars, a dictatorship is a form of government that has the power to govern without consent for those who are being governed (similar to authoritarianism, while totalitarianism describes a state that regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavour of the people. In other words, dictatorship concerns the source of the governing power (where the power comes from) and totalitarianism concerns the scope of the governing power (what is the government).
In this sense, dictatorship (government without people’s consent) is a contrast to democracy (government whose power comes from people) and totalitarianism (government controls every aspect of people’s life) opposes pluralism.
There for, in the case of Ethiopian’s dictatorial system , not only disappearance of exercising democracy, free speech, free election, free mass media and freedom of demonstrations but also the existence of droughts, poverty and hunger through out the ages of Ethiopian empire.
In fact, Ethiopia today is 123 out of 125 worst fed countries in the world. According to a new Oxfam food database “while the Netherlands ranks number one in the world for having the most plentiful, nutritious, healthy and affordable diet, Chad is last on 125th behind Ethiopia and Angola.”
In the presence of democratic right, according to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights:
Here, we’ve got all we need: Article 1, paragraphs 1 and 2 (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which includes the exact same text as the first article) :
All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
All people may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic cooperation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.
On the contrary Ethiopia is facing an ecological catastrophe: deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, overgrazing and population explosion .Tens of thousands of Oromo’s who are sick and dying from drinking the polluted waters of Lake Koka, once a pristine lake, located some 50km south of FINFINNE. Like the people who are dying around Lake Koka, the people who live in the Omo River Basin in South-western Ethiopia are facing an environmental disaster that could push them not only to hunger, starvation, dislocation and conflict, but potentially to extinction through habitat destruction. According to International Rivers, a highly respected environmental and human rights organization committed to protecting rivers and defending the rights of communities that depend on them. Furthermore, in 2004 when the then President of Oromia ( now Refugee) agreed to move Caffe Oromia from Finfinne To Adama, Oromo students peacefully demonstrated to oppose the systematic disposition of Finfinne from Oromia. Hundreds of students dismissed from universities, dozens of Metcha Tulema leaders thrown to prison, the Organization which was functional for over 40 years get closed.
In the last 100 years under various regimes of Abyssinians, Oromo farmers and peasants were systematically displaced from the land they lived on for generations. Under TPLF Wayanes regime, oromos in areas around Finfinne have been snatched off their land and left for destitution and forced to work as a daily laborer on their own land or their whereabout is unknown.
Obviously the present project of displacing Oromo’s by Tigrians and amharas is complete, and the next step is the official take over, that is including these areas under Finfinne. When will these expansions stop? Holota? Ambo? Bushoftu? Who is next? We have stopped fighting for ownership of Finfinne since 2004, and they want to take more!
The rights based response to the problem of land and grabbing article 11:
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.
The States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take, individually and through international co-operation, the measures also including specific programmers, which are needed:
To improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources;
Taking into account the problems of both food-importing and food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need.
In additional, the government has a responsibility to respect his people’s rights!!
The right to life and freedom from torture and degrading treatment. Freedom from slavery and forced labor.
The right to liberty.
The right to a fair trial.
The right not to be punished for something that wasn’t a crime when you did it.
The right to respect for private and family life freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom to express your beliefs freedom of expression freedom of assembly and association.
The right to marry and to start a family.
The right not to be discriminated against the respect of these rights and freedoms.
The right to peaceful enjoyment of your property.
The right to have an education.
The right to participate in free elections.
The right not to be subjected to the death penalty.
“Compare free development in Botswana with authoritarian development in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia in 2010, Human Rights Watch documented how the autocrat Meles Zenawi selectively withheld aid-financed famine relief from everyone except ruling-party members. Meanwhile democratic Botswana, although drought-prone like Ethiopia, has enjoyed decades of success in preventing famine. Government relief directed by local activists goes wherever drought strikes.”- http://time.com/23075/william-easterly-stop-sending-aid-to-dictators/
Traditional foreign aid often props up tyrants more than it helps the poor. It’s time for a new model.
Too much of America’s foreign aid funds what I call authoritarian development. That’s when the international community–experts from the U.N. and other bodies–swoop into third-world countries and offer purely technical assistance to dictatorships like Uganda or Ethiopia on how to solve poverty.
Unfortunately, dictators’ sole motivation is to stay in power. So the development experts may get some roads built, but they are not maintained. Experts may sink boreholes for clean water, but the wells break down. Individuals do not have the political rights to protest disastrous public services, so they never improve. Meanwhile, dictators are left with cash and services to prop themselves up–while punishing their enemies.
But there is another model: free development, in which poor individuals, asserting their political and economic rights, motivate government and private actors to solve their problems or to give them the means to solve their own problems.
Compare free development in Botswana with authoritarian development in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia in 2010, Human Rights Watch documented how the autocrat Meles Zenawi selectively withheld aid-financed famine relief from everyone except ruling-party members. Meanwhile democratic Botswana, although drought-prone like Ethiopia, has enjoyed decades of success in preventing famine. Government relief directed by local activists goes wherever drought strikes. In the postwar period, countries such as Chile, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have successfully followed the path of free development–often in spite of international aid, not because of it. While foreign policy concerns have often led America to prop up dictatorial regimes, we need a new rule: no democracy, no aid. If we truly want to help the poor, we can’t accept the dictators’ false bargain: ignore our rights abuses, and meet the material needs of those we oppress. Instead, we must advocate that the poor have the same rights as the rich everywhere, so they can aid themselves.
Easterly is the co-director of New York University’s Development Research Institute and author of The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor.
As protestors from Kiev to Khartoum to Caracas take to the streets against autocracy, a new book from economist William Easterly reminds us that Western aid is too often on the wrong side of the battle for freedom and democracy. In The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor, Easterly slams thedevelopment community for supporting autocrats, not democrats, in the name of helping the world’s poorest. Ignoring human rights abuses and giving aid to oppressive regimes, he maintains, harms those in need and in many ways “un-develops” countries.
The Tyranny of Experts takes on the notion that autocracies deliver stronger economic growth than freer societies. Easterly argues that when economic growth occurs under autocratic regimes, it is more often achieved at the local level in spite of the regime’s efforts. In some instances, growth under autocracies can be attributed to relative increases in freedoms. He points to China as an example of this, attributing the country’s phenomenal growth to its adoption of greater personal and economic freedoms, especially compared to the crippling Maoist policies of the past.
Easterly also rejects the myth that dictators are dependable and that a certain level of oppression should be overlooked for the sake of economic growth and overall prosperity. Most recently, the violence and chaos following the 2011 Arab uprisings has made some nostalgic for the stable, if undemocratic, governments that kept civil unrest in check, allowing for a measure of economic development to take hold. Easterly stresses that instability and tumult in the wake of ousting a dictator is not the fault of an emerging democracy, but instead an understandable result of years of autocratic rule. The answer is not to continue to support autocrats in the name of stability, but rather to start the inevitably messy process of democratization sooner.
Still, the hard questions remain: how to help those without economic and political freedoms? And when should donors walk away from desperately poor people because their government is undemocratic? Easterly argues that the donor community should draw the line with far more scrutiny than it does today – not just at the obvious cases, such as North Korea, but with other undemocratic countries, such as Ethiopia, where human rights abuses are rampant. He debunks the notion that aid can be “apolitical,” arguing that it is inherently political: giving resources to a government allows it to control and allocate (or withhold) resources as it sees fit. The aid community should focus on ways to help oppressed populations without helping their oppressors. For example, scholarship programs, trade, and other people-to-people exchanges can give opportunities to people in need. At the very least, Easterly argues, development actors should not praise oppressive regimes or congratulate them on economic growth they did not create.
Rather than being seduced by “benevolent dictators,” Easterly urges donors to focus their energy on “freedom loving” governments that need help. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is a step in the right direction but, as Easterly pointed out during the CFR meeting, MCC’s approach is undermined by other U.S. aid agencies, such as USAID, that continue to assist countries even when they don’t meet certain good governance and human rights standards.
March 26, 2014 (The Seattle Times) — SOMEHOW — probably my own fault — I have wound up on Bill Gates’ list of the world’s most misguided economists. Gates singled me out by name in his annual 2014 letter to his foundation as an “aid critic” spreading harmful myths about ineffective aid programs.
I actually admire Gates for his generosity and advocacy for the fight againstglobal poverty through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. We just disagree about how to end poverty throughout the world.
Gates believes poverty will end by identifying technical solutions. My research shows that the first step is not identifying technical solutions, but ensuring poor people’s rights.
Gates concentrates his foundation’s efforts on finding the right fixes to the problems of the world’s poor, such as bed nets to prevent malarial mosquito bites or drought-tolerant varieties of corn to prevent famine. Along with official aid donors, such as USAID and the World Bank, the foundation works together with local, generally autocratic, governments on these technical solutions.
Last year, Gates cited Ethiopia in a Wall Street Journal guest column as an example, a country where he described the donors and government as setting “clear goals, choosing an approach, measuring results, and then using those measurements to continually refine our approach.”
This approach, Gates said, “helps us to deliver tools and services to everybody who will benefit.” Gates then gives credit for progress to the rulers. When the tragically high death rates of Ethiopian children fell from 2005 to 2010, Gates said this was “in large part thanks to” such a measurement-driven program by Ethiopia’s autocrat Meles Zenawi, who had ruled since 1991. Gates later said Meles’ death in August 2012 was “a great loss for Ethiopia.”
Do autocratic rulers like Meles really deserve the credit?
Gates’ technocratic approach to poverty, combining expert advice and cooperative local rulers, is a view that has appealed for decades to foundations and aid agencies. But if technical solutions to poverty are so straightforward, why had these rulers not already used them?
The technical solutions have been missing for so long in Ethiopia and other poor countries because autocrats are more motivated to stay in power than to fix the problems of poverty. Autocracy itself perpetuates poverty.
Meles violently suppressed demonstrations after rigged elections in 2005. He even manipulated donor-financed famine relief in 2010 to go only to his own ruling party’s supporters. The donors failed to investigate this abuse after its exposure by Human Rights Watch, continuing a long technocratic tradition of silence on poor people’s rights.
Rulers only reliably become benevolent when citizens can force them to be so — when citizens exert their democratic rights.
Our own history in the U.S. shows how we can protest bad government actions and reward good actions with our rights to protest and to vote. We won’t even let New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie get away with a traffic jam on a bridge.
Such democratic rights make technical fixes happen, and produce a far better long-run record onreducing poverty, disease and hunger than autocracies. We saw this first in the now-rich countries, which are often unfairly excluded from the evidence base.
Some developing countries such as Botswana had high economic growth through big increases in democratic rights after independence. Botswana’s democrats prevented famines during droughts, unlike the regular famines during droughts under Ethiopia’s autocrats.
Worldwide, the impressive number of developing countries that have shifted to democracy includes successes such as Brazil, Chile, Ghana, South Korea and Taiwan, as well as former Soviet Bloc countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia.
If the democratic view of development is correct, the lessons for Gates are clear: Don’t give undeserved credit and praise to autocrats. Don’t campaign for more official aid to autocrats. Redirect aid to democrats. If the democratic view is wrong, I do deserve to be on Gates’ list of the world’s most misguided economists.
The UK government is providing financial aid to human rights abusers in Ethiopia through funding training paramilitaries, who perpetrate summary killings, rape and torture in the impoverished African country, local media reported.
Through its foreign aid budget, the UK government provides financial support to an Ethiopian government security force known as the “special police” as part of its “peace and development programme”, which would cost up to £15 million in five years, The Guardian reported.
The Department for International Development warned in a leaked document of the “reputational risks” of working with organizations that are “frequently cited in human rights violationallegations”, according to the report.
The Ethiopian government’s counter-insurgency campaign in Ogaden, a troubled region largely populated by ethnic Somalis is being enforced by the 14,000-strong special police.
This is while police forces are repeatedly accused by Human Rights Watch of serious human rights abuses.
Claire Beston, the Amnesty International’s Ethiopia researcher, said it was highly concerning that Britain was planning to work with the paramilitary force.
The Abyssinian war lord Menelik, also known as African Hitler, cut the right hands and breasts of men and women, respectively, during his conquest of Oromia and the rest of today’s people and lands of Southern Ethiopia in 1880s. During Emperor Hailesellasie and Mengistu Hailemariam’s Dergue time the erection of Aannole memorial monument was not thinkable. The present state of Oromia has spent over a million dollar to build the Aanolee Oromo Martyrs’ memorial monument. Many admirers of the genocidal Menelik have opposed to the erection of memorial center but there is nothing they could do to prevent this inauguration. Aannole observed the largest human gathering on the 6th April 2014 on the event of inauguration of the monument and the historical museum.
The Aannolee Oromo Martyrs’ Memorial Monument was unveiled in Hetosa, Arsi, Oromiyaa, on April 6, 2014 – also inaugurated was the Aannolee Cultural/Historical Museum. The Monument commemorates the Oromo martyrs whose limbs and breasts were cut off atrociously by the invading Abyssinian/Shoan Amhara army of Menelik II in 1886. Known as the harmaf harka muraa Aannolee, the Menelik’s Abyssinian/Shoan Amhara army mutilated an unknown number of Oromo men’s right hands and Oromo women’s breasts for resisting Abyssinia’s conquest of the Oromo land.
According to the recently published book by Prof. Abbas H. Gnamo, “Conquest and Resistance in the Ethiopian Empire, 1880-1974 – The Case of the Arsi Oromo,” the Aannolee Oromo Martyrdom has “become the symbol of Oromo resistance.”
Prof. Gnamo continues:
“Of all the brutalities committed by the Shoan army and its leaders against the Oromo, the worst was the Anole mutilation known as harmaf harka muraa Anole (the mutilation of hands and breasts at Anole) – a tragedy on which Ethiopian sources are silent … … Anole is located about 25km north of Asella, an area where most battles took place and where the Arsi inflicted heavy losses on the Shoan army. Anole seemed to have been chosen to avenge Shoan losses and to teach a lesson to the Arsi who still resisted after their shattering defeat at Azule on September 6, 1886. Arsi strong men and women were assembled under the pretext of concluding peace. All the men and women present, whose exact number was unknown perhaps more than thousand people, were mutilated; their right hands and right breasts were cut off. As a further form of humiliation, fear and terror, the mutilated breasts and hands were tied around the necks of the victims who were then sent back home.” http://gadaa.com/oduu/25205/2014/04/06/in-pictures-the-unveiling-of-the-aannolee-oromo-martyrs-memorial-monument-in-hetosa-oromiyaa/
The deliberate expansion of the amorphous city they call “Addis Ababa” is politically created to divide Oromiyaa into east and west sector. It is not a master plan. It is an evil plan mastered to consummate an evil goal.
When we see the history of Abyssinian political philosophy, from which we have a written record, it is entirely based on the philosophy of depriving the Oromos from having any right to homeland. To convert Oromummaa to Amaarummaa and ultimately to Itiyophiyawwinnet has been the policy in action up to this very day.
What happened to those Oromos who were living in Finfinnee for centuries? Particular mention has to be made about those Tulama Oromo groups of Gullallee, Eekkaa, Galaan, Aabbuu, Jillee. The answer is very simple: They were mercilessly decimated; their villages burnt down, their pasture and arable lands confiscated and shared among the invading Manzian Nagasii families of whom the Dejazmach Mangasha Seifu and the Ras Birru families were the most notorious ones. Thereafter, the Oromo territory occupied by Matcha-Tulama was officially changed to the expanding Kingdom of Showa, a detached enclave from Gonder, Abyssinia. Finfinnee was given a new colonial name “Addis Ababa”, just like Zimbabwe was changed to Rhodesia, Harare to Salisbury. Under this excruciating condition, the conquered Matcha-Tulama region had to lose its historic significance and had to be involuntarily submitted to the colonial name Showa.
Among the major Oromo descent groups, the Matcha-Tulama group has got one of the largest populations, stretching on vast area of land in central and western Oromia. As we are able to learn from our fathers, Matcha and Tulama are Borana brothers, being Tulama angafa (first born) and Matcha qixisuu (second born son). As common to all Oromo ethno-history, the tradition that governs the social role of “angafa and qixisuu”, which begins right from the immediate family unit, has a deep genealogical meaning and social role in re-invigorating the solidarity of the nation. From the earliest time of which we have a tradition hanging down to us,
Matcha-Tulama Oromo has had a supreme legislative organ known as Chaffe. The Chaffe legislates laws which will eventually be adopted as Seera Gadaa
They have a senatorial council known as “Yaa’ii Saglan Booranaa”, in which elected individuals from major clans are represented. The function of Yaa’ii Saglan Booranaa is to deliberate on issues pertaining to regional issues, resolve inter-clan disputes and oversees how interests of each clan in the confederacies are represented; how local resources are fairly shared and wisely utilised according to the law.
These two northern Boorana brothers are historically referred to as Boorana Booroo or Boorana Kaabaa
Among the known five Oromo Odaas, Odaa Nabee and Odaa Bisil are found in Boorana Booroo
However, beginning from the 13th century onward, the Match-Tulama country (Boorana Booroo), adjacent to Abyssinian border, has begun to be ravaged by a group of individuals whose legendary genealogy connects them to a certain King Solomon of non-African origin. They came and settled at a place they call “Manz”.They organised themselves at this place, and started to attack neighbouring villages of Cushitic Oromo family stock of Laaloo, Geeraa and Mammaa. The attacked villages were gradually incorporated into the expanding Manz, which eventually developed to a military outpost known as Showa in the late 18th century. Hereafter, they declared themselves “Ye Negasi Zer, the root of Showa Amhara Dynasty.
After vanquishing Agaw people’s identity and sovereignty on the northern frontier, the Solomonic Negasi Dynasties of Showa intensified their attacks against the Match-Tulama of Borana and the Karrayyu of Barantu Oromos. In such turbulent situation, the rule of yeNegasi Zer entered nineteenth century era, which ushered the era of the Scramble for Africa by European imperialist powers. From Africa, it was only King Minilik of Showa (1866-1889) who was recognised as a partner and invited to attend the Berlin Imperialist Conference of 1884. In this conference, Minilik was represented by his cousin, Ras Mekonnen Tenagneworq Sahile-Sellasie (1852-1906). After completing their mission, King Minilik and the European imperialist powers made concession on border demarcation. After the border demarcation had been completed, a systematic elimination of his prominent general, Ras Goobanaa Daacci (1819-1889), was meticulously carried out. Minilik was so confident to declare himself Emperor of Ethiopia (1889- 1913).This was the Ethiopia, the first time in the history of the region, that brutally annexed and included Oromo, Sidama, Walaita, Kaficho, Beneshangul, Gambella, and others to the expanding of Abyssinia.
The years 1887-89 were the boiling point for Minilik’s declaration of being “Emperor of Ethiopia, yeItiyophiya Nuguse, nägest. Why?
Because, it was the time when he exterminated the Gullallee Oromo from the marshy-hot spring and pasture land of Finfinnee and collectivised the place under a new colonial name Addis Ababa.
Because, it was the time when he built full confidence in himself and built his permanent palace at Dhaqaa Araaraa, a sacred hill, where the evicted Oromos peacefully used to sit together and conduct peaceful deliberation for reconciliation.
It was the time when he annexed three-fourth of southern peoples’ territories, including the Oromo territory, to the expanding Showan Dynasty and put under the iron-fist of his inderases(viceroys).
It was the time when he assured un-shivering confidence of being continued to be assisted and advised by his European colonial partners: militarily, diplomatically and technically.
Here is the question: What happened to those Oromos who were living in Finfinnee for centuries? Particular mention has to be made about those Tulama Oromo groups of Gullallee, Eekkaa, Galaan, Aabbuu, Jillee. The answer is very simple: They were mercilessly decimated; their villages burnt down, their pasture and arable lands confiscated and shared among the invading Manzian Nagasii families of whom the Dejazmach Mangasha Seifu and the Ras Birru families were the most notorious ones. Thereafter, the Oromo territory occupied by Matcha-Tulama was officially changed to the expanding Kingdom of Showa, a detached enclave from Gonder, Abyssinia. Finfinnee was given a new colonial name “Addis Ababa”, just like Zimbabwe was changed to Rhodesia, Harare to Salisbury. Under this excruciating condition, the conquered Matcha-Tulama region had to lose its historic significance and had to be involuntarily submitted to the colonial name Showa.
In addition to the former derogatory term “Galla”, imposed on the conquered Oromos as a whole, the new regional name of Showa is prefixed to the derogatory term Galla.Hence, “ye Showa Galla” came into force as a collective insulting name in addressing the whole Oromo of Matcha-Tulama. This clearly justifies the vertical segregation policy of the conquerors for easy identification of who is who in the newly colonised territory.
Using various forms of oppressive models, Abyssinian colonial tactics and strategies have been going on violently and, now entered into the first half of the 21st century. Since the second half of the 19thcentury in particular, the oppressive models have been amassing massive firearms from European colonialist partners, enjoying diplomatic immunities and profitable political advises.
In the late 19th century, one European writer commented that, if the Abyssinians had not been armed and advised by global colonial powers of the day, notably France and Britain, late alone to defeat the ferocious Oromo forces, they could not have even dared to encroach upon the limits of Oromo borders. He wrote what he witnessed the real situation of the time as follows:
“Against the Galla [Oromo] Menelik has operated with French technicians, French map-makers, French advice on the management of standing army and more French advice as to building captured provinces with permanent garrison of conscripted colonial troops. The French also armed his troops with firearms, and did much else to organize his campaigns. Menelik was at a work on these adventures as King of Shewa during John’s lifetime; adding to his revenues and conscripting the Oromo were thus conquered by the Amhara for the first time in recorded history during the last thirteen years of the nineteenth Century. Without massive European help the Galla [Oromo] would not have been conquered at all.”
The writer further explained what he personally encountered during the campaign in the following unambiguous language:
“A large expedition was sent as far South in Arsi as frontier of Kambata to return with100, 000 head of Cattle. The king’s army fought against tribes who have no other weapons but a lance, a knife and shield, while the Amahras always have in their army several thousand rifles, pistols and often a couple cannon.—-Captive able-bodied males and the elderly were killed. The Severity of the Zamacha [campaign] was aimed at the eradication of all resistance. Whenever the army surged forward, there was the utmost devastation. Houses were burned, crops destroyed, and people executed:”
When we see the history of Abyssinian political philosophy, from which we have a written record, it is entirely based on the philosophy of depriving the Oromos from having any right to homeland. To convert Oromummaa to Amaarummaa and ultimately to Itiyophiyawwinnet has been the policy in action up to this very day. Even though the policy works on all Oromos indiscriminately, the one which has been exercising on the Oromos of Tulama in Finfinnee and surrounding areas has its own unique feature. Some of the unique features are embedded in the formation of “Addis Ababa” itself; as a seat of colonial headquarters with all its oppressive machineries. To have ample space for the settlers, to build army headquarters, to build churches in the name of numerous Saints of Greek and Hebrew origins, to build residences and offices for foreign embassies and missionaries, to build factories and storage houses the crucial demand is land. To fulfil these crucial demands of the customers, helpless Oromo peasants of the area have to be evicted. They have been under routine eviction and land deprivation since the seizure of Burqaa Finfinnee and the establishment of Ethiopian Imperial capital at this place.
It could be incorrect to think of the current TPLF-Arinnet Tigray regime as a detached entity from the whole system of Abyssinian colonial regimes, when we equate what they need against the survival needs of the peoples they generically conquered as “Galla and Shanqilla”. Though since 1991, the Ethiopian imperial system has been overtaken from the Showan Nagasi Dynasty by their junior Tigrean brethren, the life of the colonised Oromo people has been going down from worse to the worst.
What makes TPLF-Arinnet Tigray different from its predecessors is its total monopolisation of resources of the empire, right from the imperial palace to the bottom village levels, from the centre to the periphery. Arable and pasture lands, plain and forest lands, rivers and mining areas are totally under its predatory control. It is routinely evicting peasants from their plots, their only means of existence. They are selling to Chinese, Indians, European, Turkish, Pakistani, Arabians and other companies at the lowest price. In making this huge business, the most preferable area in the empire is Oromoland; of which the land around Finfinee holds rank first.
This politically architected scheme, in the name of investment and development, is daily evicting Oromo peasants around Finfinnee often with meagre or no compensation at all. As a consequence,
some of the evicted families are migrating to cities like Finfinnee and are becoming beggars
Some of them are leaving the country for unknown destination and found being refugees in neighbouring countries like Kenya and Yemen.
Since most of them who have no any alternative, they remain on the sold land and become daily labourers, earning less than half dollar a day.
Farm lands that had been producing sufficient grains of various types are now turned to produce non-edible flowers and toxic chemicals that contaminate rivers and lakes.
The incumbent Ethiopian regime of TPLF-Arinnet Tigray, more than any other imperial regimes of the past, is committed to make the Oromo people an “African Gypsy”. At one time the deceased prime minister of the Empire and EPDRF leader, Meles Zenawi, refers to the Oromos, who are numerically majority ethnic group in the Empire, said, “It is easy to make them a minority”. They are practically showing us the evil mission they vowed to accomplish. When they become rich of the richest in the Empire, the Oromo peasants they are daily uprooting are becoming poor of the poorest, being reduced to beggary and often deprived of burial sites after death. This evil work, as indicated above, has given priorities to sweep off “garbage” around Finfinnee and ultimately to encompass three-fourth of the region of “Showa” as a domain of “non-garbage” dwellers.
As vividly explained above, the Oromo of Tulama, since the onset of colonisation, have begun to be collectively addressed as “ye Showa Galla”. Those who resisted the derogatory name, the eviction, and the slavery system have been inhumanly executed or hanged. Their land and livestock have been confiscated and shared among the well-armed conquering power.
When Minilik invaded the Gullalle Oromo in Finfinnee, for instance, they remarkably resisted to the last minute but finally defeated. Those who remained behind the massacre had no other option except to leave for other regions against their choice. In their new homes, they have been even treated as collaborators of the invading “Showans” by their own kinsmen, calling them “Goobanaa”.Those able-bodied Gullallee, Eekkaa, Galaan, Abbichuu youths were involuntarily conscripted to the colonial army which is typical to all colonial policies. They were forced to go for further campaign to the south, east and west commanded by Showan fitawuraris and dejazmaches
From time to time, all Abyssinian forces, changing forms of their names, swearing in the name of Ethiopian unity and inviolable sovereignty, have never turned down the initial policy of evicting and persecuting the Oromo from their ancestral araddaa. Araddaa Oromoo is the embryonic stage whereOromummaa has begun to radiate from. Hence, by virtue of its original formation, now and then, it could not be integrated into the enforced Abyssinian policy of Itiyophiyawwinnet .
Since the enforced policy has shown no visible success for the past 130 years, this time, it has taken on to shoulder the last option of “sweeping them off” from around what they call “Addis Ababa” as a priority number one. As a consequence, came into being the destruction of Oromo survival relationship with their ancestors’ plot of land. The desecration of their shrines, sacred rivers, sacred mountains and sacred trees of which the case of Odaa and Burqaa Finfinnee, Dhakaa Araaraa and Caffee Tumaa in the vicinity of Finfinnee are quite enough to mention. TPLF’s long range missile policy of destroying Oromos’ relation to their historic araddaa is not the end. It is just the beginning extrapolated to destroy Biyyoo Oromoo.
At this critical time, any concerned Oromo should not be oblivious of the dreadful situation going on in Oromiyaa right now; in Finfinnee and surrounding areas in particular. The deliberate expansion of the amorphous city they call “Addis Ababa” is politically architected to divide Oromiyaa into east and west sector. It is not a master plan. It is an evil plan mastered to consummate an evil goal.
At this critical time, may we believe in the “No life after death”? Rather, may we are for the life right now? Those who are for the life right now are genuinely expected to show discernible power through tangible solidarity to our victimised families at home. Pursuant to our tradition, we have been nurtured learning the wisdom of “Dubbiin haa bultu”. Now, we should redirect this wisdom to “Dubbiin kun hin bultu”,that we ought to swear by great confidence to move in unison against the inhuman act, endless atrocities and perpetual eviction of our families from their ancestral araddaa. Thereof, could we recall the intrinsic wisdom of our fathers’ saying “Tokko dhuufuun namummaadha, lama dhuufuun harrummaadha?”
The classical definition of knowledge was given by Plato as “justified true belief.” There are many philosophical theories to explain knowledge. The online Oxford dictionaries define knowledge as a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject [online]. The same source explain knowledge that can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); it can be more or less formal or systematic. According to Stanley Cavell, “Knowing and Acknowledging” the “knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, communication, association and reasoning; while knowledge is also said to be related to the capacity of acknowledgment in human beings.” I am not here to write the theory of knowledge, but trying to bring the human society acknowledgement and recognition for the Oromoo nation’s indigenous knowledge.
The Oromoo Gadaa System (OGS) is an indigenous knowledge reserve institution of the Oromoo nation. It is an organic system, which is self-refining every eight years (in two four-year terms) to meet the needs of the society. The OGS is a well-structured and organized indigenous knowledge reserve that encompasses social, political, economic and military institutions that operate mainly based on self-reliance principles while Oromummaa is an act of embracing these institutions and applying the indigenous knowledge to manifest an authentic Oromoo’s cultural and national identity.
The essence of scientific education is to understand Mother Nature, daachee haadha marggoo, and human experience in relation to Mother Nature. Through scientific education we can ask questions and try to investigate or do research to find out the facts and report the new knowledge about the subject. For example, who is responsible for the creation of human being, other living and non-living things as a part of the whole nature? What if I told you that the answer to the question is Mother Nature? I guess, you would not be satisfied with the answer because it leads to another subsequent philosophical questions such as who is responsible for the creation of the Mother Nature. Again, what if I told you the answer is a God? This time, probably you would be settled and agree with me. But how do you know for sure that it is a God who is responsible for the creation of nature?
I have thought deeply about these questions and tried to find the best possible answers. I would like to share the final answer with you later on if you continue the journey with me through reading and thinking about the perplexities of human life experience.
The purpose of this paper is to share my points of view with you and highlight that the Oromoo Gadaa System is the prima source of Oromo indigenous knowledge reserve that every Oromoo person should safeguard it and reclaim it as a shared-value that can be manifested through applied Oromoo knowledge and life experience, which is often called Oromummaa. Hence, the Oromoo Qubee generation are highly encouraged to embark their scientific studies and discoveries on our forefathers’ indigenous knowledge and bring it to light to show the world that our forefathers had made significant contribution to human society and civilization by creating and developing a comprehensive and complex democratic system: the Oromoo Gadaa System and its Institutions. For the qubee Oromoo generation, I would say they have a gold mining opportunity on their own backyards and they have to go for it.
Oromoo’s Indigenous Knowledge
Indigenous knowledge is local by nature. It is primarily based on social skills and production techniques. Both social skills and production techniques employ indigenous knowledge that in turn involves the process of life-long learning and teaching. The Oromoo Gadaa System provides such indigenous knowledge reserve so as to enable the new generation to learn from and teach the generations to come. For example, Oromummaa is a social skill. The Oromoo children learn social skills: respect, love, sympathy, empathy, ethics (Safuu), sharing, helping others, communications, etc from their parents and through well-organized Gadaa institutions such as the Age group (Hiriyyaa) and Qalluu.
Like every society, the Oromoo Gadaa Society had engaged in production of goods and services for long time or millenniums. They have millennium years of farming and animal husbandry experience and knowledge. The Oromoo farmers were the first people who domesticated barley as cereal crop in the region and a coffee plant and used the coffee beans in the world. This means the Oromoo farmers had possessed a primary indigenous knowledge about these crops. This indigenous knowledge reserve, however, needs a substantial effort in the field of scientific research and documentation for learning and teaching purposes by present and future Oromoo generations.
The lack of self-ruling political right in Ethiopian Empire and the decline of the Oromoo Gadaa System of Self-governance lead to the deterioration of the Indigenous knowledge and Institutions. In addition, the absence of curiosities from the Oromoo educated class for long time and self-inflicted prejudices against Oromoo indigenous knowledge had played a significant role on its underdevelopment. The educated class is the first social group who run away from their villages and turn their back to their culture and traditional ways of life. Consequently they find themselves in the garrison cities where almost everything is imitation of modernity that has no root in the local culture or traditions. Moreover, the educated elites had been played an agent role to introduce exogenous values including foreign religion, culture of conspicuous consumption and other copy-cut life styles from the West, and Middle-East world.
As I mentioned above, because of the lack of basic human right the Oromoo as a nation has no formal indigenous institutions yet. Instead, the institutions are maintained by the Oromoo Gadaa fathers and mothers who have been serving as Oromo indigenous knowledge reserve as institution. . This means the Qubee generation scientific research and discoveries are highly dependent on the existence of Gadaa Oromoo fathers and mothers (abbootii Gadaa Oromoo) and time because if they die the institutions and knowledge will die with them. For many of them, a biological time is about running out now. One day they will leave us for good. So it is responsibilities and sacred duties of this generation to secure and backup these precious indigenous “documents” that had been inherited form the previous generations.
As JF Kennedy said, the purpose of education is to advance human knowledge and dissemination of truth. However, contrary he said, the education system in Ethiopia has been harboring ignorance, distortion and denial of the truth that effectively disabled the process of learning, thinking and bringing positive changes to our society. So I suggest to the new generation regardless of their ethnic and cultural background to use the best three doses of pills/prescription for ignorance, distortion and denial of history. They are: genuine education, genuine education, and genuine education (3-GE). Through genuine education one can learn the true essence of love (jaalala), which is unselfishness, the creator, and creatures, uumaa fi uumammaa.
Generally, indigenous knowledge (IK) are the outcome of true and genuine collective human experience. It could be knowledge about culture, tradition, history, philosophy, belief system, art, farming, biodiversity, medicine, family, economic distribution, etc. The Oromoo Gadaa System is one of such collective human experience that need to be learned as universal value to human society and pass down to the next generations.
The Predicaments of Indigenous Knowledge in Ethiopia Politically speaking, Ethiopia as a nation had never been colonized and maintained its independence while all African countries had been colonized by European states. To some extent, this is true. Practically, however, the Ethiopian Empire State had been constructed and maintained by European states and continued to operate under indirect-colonialism of Anglo-American and European States. Like all African Republics or States, the Ethiopia’s government structure, military structure, religious institutions, political and social, educational, and legal systems are highly influenced mainly by Anglo-American and European institutions including British, France, Italian, Germany, American, Japan, China, etc. Consequently, indigenous knowledge had been systematically marginalized and ignored, unfairly criticized as primitive, static and simple idea by semi-literate domestic elites or agents of exogenous institutions.
These exogenous institutions such as the Orthodox Coptic Church officials (clergy/priests) and collusion of feudal neftenyaa and self-serving local balabats in Ethiopia, for instance, had played a key role in dismantling indigenous institutions, discrediting and condemning indigenous knowledge and even blessing Menelik’s genocidal and unjust war against our people and indigenous people of the south. Here one must note that the local Oromoo balabats had played a primary role in sponsoring, defending and assigning a commanding site Oromoland to the Orthodox Churches in Oromiyaa today. In addition to the neftenyaa system, these social class is accountable historically for the decline of the Oromoo Gadaa System and underdevelopment of its Institutions. Beside this, at present the decedent of these social class still maintained their loyalty to the Orthodox Church and Ethiopia’s empire state. Some individuals even have been involving in the Oromoo liberation struggle by dressing a sheep skin to saboteur the genuine aspiration of Oromians for freedom and independence. This author suspect that this very social class had contributed to the weakness of Oromia liberation camp.
The Impacts of Church Education on Indigenous knowledge
The Orthodox Coptic church jealously dominated the education system in Ethiopia. The Orthodox Coptic Church in Ethiopia had provided training in reading and writing in Ge’ez and Amarigna (Amharic) at primary school level to limited areas and people of the country. To summarize the church education in Ethiopia: elementary pupils had to learn to read, write, and recite the Dawit Medgem (Psalms of David). There are 15 sections, called negus (kings), which normally took two years to master. Next they learned to sing kum zema (church hymns), which took four years, and msaewait zema (advanced singing), which took an additional year to learn. Liturgical dancing and systrum holding required three years. Qine (poetry) and law required five years to learn. The interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, as well as the Apostles’ Creed, took four years on average, while the interpretation of the works of learned monks and priests took three years. When a student knew the psalms by heart, he had mastered the “house of reading” and was now considered an elementary school graduate. As one can see there is no a single grain of indigenous knowledge or belief system had been taught by the Orthodox Church.
The Orthodox Coptic Tewahido Church is considered by government as indigenous institution, when it is imported and imposed on native culture. Both religions Christian and Islam were imported and imposed on native population, such as the early Christianized ethnic Tigray and Amhara and then ethnic Oromoo, Sidama, and other people of the south, by few clergies and foreign religious crusaders. These institutions had replaced the indigenous belief system, institutions and knowledge over time. As a result, the majority, if not the entire population, ethnic Tigray and Amhara believe that Bible is the source of their history and culture. As one can easily understand, the people of Tigray and Amhara have lived far more years than the bible does, which is two thousand years. As people who residing in East Africa, the Tigray and Amhara people must have had indigenous culture and knowledge. What are they?
Despite the claim of three thousand years history of civilization, Ethiopians exposed to non-church education or modern education in 1920s. The ministry of education established in 1930s. Secondary schools established in 1940s, and higher education, Addis Ababa University, established in 1960s. In similar way, the modern education system had also failed in teaching and conducting research on indigenous knowledge so as to integrate it into the modern education. As a result, creativity, inventions and innovations have seen as odd culture to our society. On the contrary, receiving aid, economic migration, conspicuous consumption of imported goods including education and dependency on Western advanced societies or institutions have become a culture.
Therefore, it is up to the Habesha (Tigre and Amhara), the Oromoo and other ethnic groups of the new generation to dig deep down to find out their respective indigenous knowledge that deep rooted in their culture and traditions and pass down from one generation to other generations by their native ancestors if any and re-evaluate the existing very controversial written history, which is biased and by large based on fiction history. The cycle of self-discrimination must end by the new generation. By doing this they can find shared human values that would allow them to live in peace without disrespecting one another as good neighbors and citizens of their respective nation. So one must understand that no one would agree on imported history that was written by the followers and supporters of Christianity crusaders, war lords, kings, dictators and agents of the Western discriminatory and racist institutions of the time as shared human value and history of our respective people in our time. The time and world have changed forever.
The present suspicion, political conflicts and all forms of problems in our region will not be solved without recognizing and applying indigenous knowledge. The lasting resolutions for the problems can be achieved if every member of our society or nation adults learn and teach their younger generation good social skills, which are critical to successfully functioning society. Basic social skills enable adults and children to know what to say, how to make good choices, and how to behave in adverse situations. The extent to which young people possess good social skills can influence their adult behavior in decision making, conflict management and problem solving. Social skills are also linked to the quality of the school environment. The Church and modern education in Ethiopia, unfortunately, had been denying members of our society these good basic skills such as respect, appreciation, empathy, apology, truthfulness, positive attitude about others, etc. Instead, the system allowed social ignorance such disrespect, occupational despise, ethnic chauvinism, fear, the divine right of the kings and honor for ruling class. As a result, the Ethiopian empire has produced highly educated class like Dr. Getachew Haile without basic and good social skills; it seems that he passed through poor socialization as one can understand the meaning of his name, ‘lord of …power’, which is false-self has given to him by his parents
and trying his best to make them proud by being discourteous and rude to the Oromoo people. Dr. Getachew Haile, be nice!
The black people or African descents are subject to institutional discrimination and racism more than any other races in the world including the holy land- Israel and Saud Arabia. Do you know why? The reasons can be many, but one of the reasons is imitation of ideas. The black people are the most imitating of other societies’ idea. They did not protect and develop their own indigenous institutions (political, religious, cultural and socio-economic institutions) to shape their lifestyle and influence others. No other nations are imitating Africans’ culture, religion, lifestyles but the Africans tend to imitate others about everything that life needs. Some African or extremists trying to be more imitator and more knowledgeable about the culture, religion and ideology than the original inventor or creator of the idea. It is understandable that human being has ability to imitate and all cultures imitate ideas from original culture. The question I would like ask the readers is why the changes are in one direction only. Why African descents imitate ideas of the other culture when the other culture do not imitate the African idea or world view?
For example, black Africans including Ethiopians has been pretending as if they have better known about the Jesus of Nazareth more than the Israelis and Prophet Muhammad more than the Arabs; Marxism and Leninism or communism more than Russians; democracy more than Americans and Western societies. These blind optimists about other’s idea are cynical at the same time about their own indigenous knowledge; they are willing to abuse, jail, torture and murder their own innocent people for the authenticity of imported ideas, religious and political ideology. In the case of Ethiopia, the king Menelik II and Yohanness II – holy war and wildish conquests were a case in point. They had imitated from the history of European middle-age idea of religious crusaders and empire builders. The Abyssinian kings had been acted as proxy war lords of European colonial powers and committed incalculable atrocity against the Oromo people and other black people in East Africa. In addition, these Abyssinian kingdom were one of the worst Africa’s kingdoms who sold Africans, their own race, to British, Arabs and other European white race for the exchange of European firearms to conquer the land of other nations and subjugate the people and build the empirical institutions based on European ideas and political model. What most disgracing is when people like Dr. Getachew Haile and his like trying to keep the truth elusive and misrepresent the history of the black people and glorifying the history of the White colonial proxy war lords like Menelik II as great black king, who was cowardly cut women’s breast, mutilate men’s hand and embarrassingly sold his own black race to the European white race.
In conclusion, the quest for truth shall continue by present and future Oromo generations. The root cause for conflicts in Africa is an imported knowledge and imitation of ideas. In many cases, imitation represent a false-self or an act to hiding a true-self. Discriminatory and racist attitude against black people had been partly brought up by European’s colonial power proxy war lords in Africa such as Menelik II of Abyssinia/Ethiopia kingdom. Although most black people tend to cherish and assimilate their cultural identity into the Middle-Eastern and Western cultural identity and ways of life, the very culture of the societies they imitating have been reciprocating or holding discrimination against them based on race, stereotypes and historical disadvantages. Institutional racism still exist and there are also significant number of individuals who think that Africans have not yet acquired culture and civilization. The imitation of others’ ideas, belief system and political institutions by Africans including my fellow Oromoo has kept the racist believes alive. It is suffice to mention the 2013 incidents against African immigrants in Saud Arabia and recently in Israel. The majority of Africans believed that embracing Christianity and Islam would lead to heaven via holy land. Unfortunately, it turned out differently; they end up in hell in the holy land. So, the lasting solution would be revitalizing indigenous knowledge and institutions that demands for real efforts, courage and sacrifices. As to the Oromo’s quest for indigenous knowledge and institutions, revitalization of the Gadaa Republic of Oromia and its institutions would be the lasting solution for century old colonial extraction, subjugation and embarrassment.
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* About the author: Iddoosaa Ejjetaa, Ph.D., native to Oromiyaa, Ethiopia. Independent and Naturalist Thinker; An activist and advocator for the revitalization of Authentic Oromummaa, Oromoo Indigenous knowledge and institutions, and for the formation of Biyyaa Abbaa Gadaa,Oromiyaa-The Gadaa Republic of Oromia.
Since urban areas and cities are primarily populated by Ethiopian colonial settlers and their collaborators, they are the ones who have access to the limited public facilities such as schools and hospitals. Oromo urbanites like the rural counter parts have been exposed to massive and absolute poverty and have been denied fundamental human rights and needs that Ron Shiffman (1995, 6-8) calls subsistence, protection, affection, and understanding. Most Oromos in urban and rural areas have low levels of subsistence because they lack adequate income, enough food, and livable homes. they do not have protection from disease because they are denied adequate access to health and medical services.They do not have protection from political violence because the Ethiopian state engages in massive human rights violations and state terrorism ( Jalata 2000). Oromos have been ruled by successive authoritarian-terrorist regimes which have exploited and impoverished them by expropriating their resources. ….The Oromos have been prevented from developing autonomous institutions, organizations, culture, and language, and have been subordinated to the
institutions and organizations of the Habasha colonial settlers in their own cities, towns, and homeland.
There are over 870 million people in the world who are hungry right now. I’m not talking about could use a snack before lunch hungry, not even didn’t have time for breakfast hungry, but truly, continually, hungry. Of these 870 million people, it’s been estimated by the World Food Programme that 98% live in developing countries, countries that perversely produce most of the world’s food stocks. So why is this the case?
In Ethiopia an alarming 40.2% of population are undernourished.The 2011 Horn of Africa drought left 4.5 million people in Ethiopia in need of emergency food assistance. Pastoralist areas in southern and south-eastern Ethiopia were most severely affected by the drought. At the same time, cereal markets experienced a supply shock, and food prices rose substantially, resulting in high food insecurity among poor people. By the beginning of 2012, the overall food security situation had stabilized thanks to the start of the Meher harvest after the June-to-September rains resulting in improved market supply — and to sustained humanitarian assistance. While the number of new arrivals in refugee camps has decreased significantly since the height of the Horn of Africa crisis, Ethiopia still continues to receive refugees from Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. The Humanitarian Requirements Document issued by the government and humanitarian partners in September 2012 estimates that 3.76 million people require relief food assistance from August to December 2012. The total net emergency food and non-food requirement amounts to US$189,433,303. Ethiopia remains one of the world’s least developed countries, ranked 174 out of 187 in the 2011 UNDP Human Development Index.
An Ethiopian farmer has been given legal aid in the UK to sue Britain – because he claims millions of pounds sent by the UK to his country is supporting a brutal regime that has ruined his life.
He says UK taxpayers’ money – £1.3 billion over the five years of the coalition Government – is funding a despotic one-party state in his country that is forcing thousands of villagers such as him from their land using murder, torture and rape.
The landmark case is highly embarrassing for the Government, which has poured vast amounts of extra cash into foreign aid despite belt-tightening austerity measures at home.
Prime Minister David Cameron claims the donations are a mark of Britain’s compassion.
But the farmer – whose case is set to cost tens of thousands of pounds – argues that huge sums handed to Ethiopia are breaching the Department for International Development’s (DFID) own human rights rules.
He accuses the Government of devastating the lives of some of the world’s poorest people rather than fulfilling promises to help them. The case comes amid growing global concern over Western aid propping up corrupt and repressive regimes.
If the farmer is successful, Ministers might have to review major donations to other nations accused of atrocities, such as Pakistan and Rwanda – and it could open up Britain to compensation claims from around the world.
Ethiopia, a key ally in the West’s war on terror, is the biggest recipient of British aid, despite repeated claims from human rights groups that the cash is used to crush opposition.
DFID was served papers last month by lawyers acting on behalf of ‘Mr O’, a 33-year-old forced to abandon his family and flee to a refugee camp in Kenya after being beaten and tortured for trying to protect his farm.
He is not seeking compensation but to challenge the Government’s approach to aid. His name is being withheld to protect his wife and six children who remain in Ethiopia.
‘My client’s life has been shattered by what has happened,’ said Rosa Curling, the lawyer handling the case. ‘It goes entirely against what our aid purports to stand for.’
This study critically discuses the “Africa rising” story and the sub-narratives it carries, including the rise of the African woman, the rise of the African middle class and the power of innovation. The articles included inform that, in too many cases, it is not the wider population but small segments and interested parties, such as the local political elite and foreign investors, who are benefiting from economic growth and resource wealth. Social cohesion, political freedom and environmental protection carry little importance in the comforting world of impressive growth statistics. The glamorous images of Africa’s prominent women and rising middle class produced and re-produced in the media prevent the less attractive and more complex stories about ordinary people’s daily struggles from being heard.
GDP tells us nothing about health of an economy, let alone its sustainability and the overall impact on GDP is simply a measure of market consumption, which has been improperly adopted to assess economic performance. Rebuilding Libya after the civil war has been a blessing for its GDP. But does that mean that Libya is on an enviable growth path? When there is only one brick left in a country devastated by war or other disasters, then just making another brick means doubling the economy (100 percent growth). Another problem is the reliability of GDP statistics in Africa. Economic growth figures for most African countries are incomplete, thus undermining any generalisation about overall economic performance in the continent. Besides statistical problems, there are important structural reasons why one should be suspicious of the ‘Africa rising’ mantra. Most fast- growing Africa economies are heavily dependent on exports of commodities.
“The Oromia Media Network (OMN) is an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit news enterprise whose mission is to produce original and citizen-driven reporting on Oromia, the largest and most populous state in Ethiopia. OMN seeks to offer thought-provoking, contextual, and nuanced coverage of critical public interest issues thereby bringing much needed attention to under-reported stories in the region. Our goal is to create a strong and sustainable multilingual newsroom that will serve as a reliable source of information about the Oromo people, the Ethiopian state, and the greater Horn of Africa region. ” – http://www.oromiamedia.org/
Human Rights Watch (HRW) in it recent research report exposes that Ethiopia has built up a large monitoring system for controlling citizens’ network and phone usage. According to this report the government has a sole monopoly of telecommunications and network. And there is no right constraints that prevent the government from gaining an overview of who have contact with anyone on the phone, sms and internet. The government also saves phone calls on a large scale. The authoritarian regime is using imported technology to spy on the phones and computers of its perceived opponents. HRW accuses the government of trying to silence dissent, using software and kit sold by European and Chinese firms. The report says the firms may be guilty of colluding in oppression.
“While monitoring of communications can legitimately be used to combat criminal activity, corruption, and terrorism, in Ethiopia there is little in the way of guidelines or directives on surveillance of communications or use of collected information to ensure such practices are not illegal. In different parts of the world, the rapid growth of information and communications technology has provided new opportunities for individuals to communicate in a manner and at a pace like never before, increasing the space for political discourse and facilitating access to information. However, many Ethiopians have not been able to enjoy these opportunities. Instead, information and
communications technology is being used as yet another method through which the government seeks to exercise complete control over the population, stifling the rights to freedom of expression and association, eroding privacy, and limiting access to information—all of which limit opportunities for expressing contrary opinions and engaging in meaningful debate.”
“Human Rights Watch interviews suggest that a significant number of Oromo individuals have been targeted for unlawful surveillance. Those arrested are invariably accused of being members or supporters of the OLF. In some cases, security officials may have a reasonable suspicion of these individuals being involved with OLF. But in the majority of cases, Oromos were under surveillance because they were organizing cultural associations or trade unions, were involved in celebrating Oromo culture (through music, art, etc.) or were involved in registered political parties.
“Like the OLF, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) was initially a political party, but began a low-level armed insurgency in Ethiopia’s Somali region in response to what it perceived to be the EPRDF’s failure to respect regional autonomy, and to consider demands for self-determination. In 2007, the ONLF scaled up armed attacks against government targets and oil exploration sites, triggering a harsh crackdown by the government. As with the government’s counterinsurgency response to the OLF, the Ethiopian security forces have routinely committed abuses against individuals of Somali ethnicity, including arbitrary detentions, torture, and extrajudicial killings, based on their ethnicity or perceived support for the ONLF.”
“Internet usage in Ethiopia is still in its infancy with less than 1.5 percent of Ethiopians connected to the Internet and fewer than 27,000 broadband subscribers countrywide. By contrast, neighboring Kenya has close to 40 percent access.The majority of Internet users are located in Addis Ababa. According to the ITU, Ethiopia has some of the most expensive broadband in the world. Given these costs, Ethiopians usually access the Internet through the growing number of cybercafés or from their mobile phones.Internet has been available to mobile phone subscribers since 2009.Increasingly available in many of the more expensive hotels and cafes. Connectivity speeds countrywide are quite low, and are prone to frequent outages.”
“State-owned Ethio Telecom is the only telecommunications service provider in Ethiopia. It controls access to the phone network and to the Internet and all phone and Internet traffic must use Ethio Telecom infrastructure. There is no other service provider available in Ethiopia. Ethio Telecom therefore controls access to the Internet backbone that connects Ethiopia to the international Internet. In addition, Internet cafés must apply for a license and purchase service from Ethio Telecom to operate.”
“As Internet access increases, some governments are adopting or compelling use of technologies like “deep packet inspection” (DPI). Deep packet inspection enables the examination of the content of communications (an email or a website) as it is transmitted over an Internet network. Once examined, the communications can be then copied, analyzed, blocked, or even altered. DPI equipment allows Internet service providers—and by extension, governments—to monitor and analyze Internet communications of potentially millions of users in real time. While DPI does have some commercial applications, DPI is also a powerful tool for Internet filtering and blocking and can enable highly intrusive surveillance. Finally, some governments have begun using intrusion software to infiltrate an individual’s computer or mobile phone. Also known as spyware or malware, such software can allow a government to capture passwords (and other text typed into the device), copy or delete files, and even turn on the microphone or camera of the device to eavesdrop. Such software is often unwittingly downloaded when an individual opens a malicious link or file disguised as a legitimate item of interest to the target.”
“The vast majority of the cases documented by Human Rights Watch involving access to phone recordings involved Oromo defendants organizing Oromos in cultural associations, student associations, and trade unions. No credible evidence was presented that would appear to justify their arrest and detention or the accessing of their private phone records. These interrogations took place not only in Addis Ababa, but in numerous police stations and detention centers throughout Oromia and elsewhere in Ethiopia. As described in other publications, the government has gone to great lengths to prevent Oromos and other ethnicities from organizing groups and associations. While the increasing usefulness of the mobile phone to mobilize large groups of people quickly provides opportunities for young people, in particular, to form their own networks, Ethiopia’s monopoly and control over this technology provides Ethiopia with another tool to suppress the formation of these organizations and restrict freedoms of association and peaceful assembly.”
“Ethiopia was the first sub-Saharan African country to begin blocking Internet sites. The first reports of blocked websites appeared in May 2006 when opposition blogs were unavailable, and blocking has become more regular and pervasive ever since. Human Rights Watch and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab conducted testing in-country in July and August of 2013 to assess the availability of 171 different URLs that had a higher likelihood of being blocked, based on past testing, on the Ethio Telecom network. A total of 19 tests were run over seven days to ensure reliability of results.”
Artist Almaz Tafarra: the founding member of Afran Qalloo Band: Miseensa Baandi Afran Qalloo jalqabaa
Arstist Almaz Tafarra, the founding member of the Afran Qalloo died on 22nd March 2014 at Police Referral Hospital in Finfinnee. Tafara began singing in Afaan Oromo in early 1970s. Artist Almaz Tafarra was born in 1957 in Oromia,Western Hararghe, Doba district.
In outstanding and successful career that extended across nearly four decades, artist Almaz Tafara recorded and released a total of ten albums. Her lyrical message usually concentrates on her own and collective socio-political issues in Oromia. Tafara released her first solo album in 1983. During her career, Tafara has collaborated and worked with pioneering Oromo artists including Ali Shabo, Kadir Said, Adam Harun, Musa Turki, Worku Bikila and the late poet and singer Abdi Mohamed Qophe. Tafara deeply loved her culture and sang in Afaan Oromo. She released her tenth and final album in 2005.
(Oromedia, 23 Bitootessa 2014) Dhukkuba kaansarii dhiigaan dhukkubsattee yaalamaa kan turte, Artisti Almaaz Tafarraa Bitootess 22, 2014 addunyaa kana irraa du’aan boqochuun ishee beekame.
Bara jireenya ishii aartii fi Afaan Oromoo guddisuu irratti gahee guddaa kan gumaachaa turte artisti Alamaaz Tafarraa, addunyaa kana irraa kan dabarte hospitaala Poolisii Finfinnee keessatti otuu wal’aanamaa jirtu ta’uu oduun nu gahe addeesse jira.
Akka odeeffannoo argannetti, sirni awwaalchi ishe Duilbata- Bitootessa 23, 2014 waaree booda saatii 4:00 irrati magaalaa Harar keessatti akka ta’u beekameera.
Bara 1957 Oromiyaa Bahaa, Harargee Lixaa, Aanaa Doobbaatti kan dhalatte Artisti Almaaz Tafarraa, sirba ishii duraa bara 1983 kaasettaan baafte. Yeroo sanaa eegalees haga dhukkubsattee waltajjii irraa haftetti kaassettoota sirbaa sagal baaftee ummataaf gumaachitee jirti.
Akka seenaa artistoota Oromoo keessaa hubatamutti, artisti Almaaz Tafarraa miseensa baandii Afran Qalloo turte. Sirboota sirbaa turteenis ummta Oromoo biraa jaalalaa fi kabajaa guddaa yeroo argattu, humnoota guddinaa fi dagaagina aadaa fi eenyummaa Oromoo jibbaniin immoo hedduu dararamaa fi miidhamaa akka turte seenaan ishii kan ragaa bahuudha.
Bara 2014 keessa hedduu waan dhukkubsatteef mana yaalaatti deddeebi’aa kan turte, Artisti Alamaaz, deeggarsa ummataan wal’aansa adda addaa Harar irraa gara Finfinneetti deddeebitee fudhachaa akka turte beekameera.
Sirbooti Artisti Almaaz Tafarraa kan yeroo fi barri ittii hin darbinee fi kan dhalootaa dhalootatti barayyuu yaadatamuu dha.
Akka qormaata Oromediaatti, Artisti Almaaz Tafarraa hojii boonsaa aartii Oromoo keessatti gara waggoota 40f dalagneen dhaloota dhalootatti kan yaadatamuudha.
Kan malees, hojii boonsaa yeroo hamtuu fi sodaachisaa keessa ifatti baatee dalagdeen galmee sabboontotaa fi gootota Oromoo Oromummaa jiraachisan keessatti kan ramadamtuudha.
Kanaan dura oduu karaa Oromedia darbee tureen, sabboontoti Oromoo biyya Jarmanii, biyya Ameerikaa fi Sa’udi Arabiyaa qunnamtii karaa Oromedia argataniin gargaarsa maallaqaatiin birmatanii akka wal’aansa gahaa argattu godhan iyyuu, Artisti Almaaz Tafarraa dhukkubicha irra hafuu hin dandenye.
Akka Artisti Alamaaz Tafarraa akka fayyituu fi dhintu kanneen dhuunfaanis ta’ee gamtaan gumaachitan maraaf seenaan isin yaadata jechaa, Rabbi Isin haa jajjabeeysu jenna.
Gareen Oromedia du’aan adunyaa kana irraa boqochuu artistii fi qabsooftu Almaaz Tafarraatin gadda nuuti dhagahamee ibsaa, lubbuun isaanii Waaqin akka qananiisuuf yeroo kadhannu, firootaa fi hiriyyoota ishii akkasums mararfatootta ishiif jajjabin isinif haa kennu jenna.
Seenaa Artist Almaaz Tafarraa
Bara 1957 Aanaa Doobbaatti keessatti dhalatte.
Bara 1973 Hawwisoo poolisii Harar seente.
Bra 1983 kaassetta duraa baafte.
Bitootessa 22, 2014 addunyaa kana irraa boqotte.
‘This is a regime whose character has the potential to confuse even Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, former Reagan foreign policy advisor, who made a distinction between “authoritarian” and “totalitarian” regimes. In her essay “Dictatorship and Double Standards,” she describes authoritarian dictators as “pragmatic rulers who care about their power and wealth and are indifferent toward ideological issues, even if they pay lip service to some big cause”; while, in contrast, totalitarian leaders are “selfless fanatics who believe in their ideology and are ready to put everything at stake for their ideals”.’
This assessment of the reaction to the article I published on this blog: “Silence and Pain,” is interesting for its exploration of the relationship between the Ethiopian government and the media, even though it overestimates any influence I may have.
The Ethiopian Government, through its foreign ministry, responded to Martin Plaut’s article “Silence and Pain: Ethiopia’s human rights record in the Ogaden” with the usual feigned shock and template denial that has long characterized the regime’s political personality. It is the established behavior of aggressive and autocratic regimes to discount well-founded reports of human right violations as propaganda constructs of the ‘enemy’. The response from the Foreign Ministry was thus nothing more than a well memorized and rehearsed Ethiopian way of disregarding documented depravities committed by the regime. As usual…
In one area the Cold War comparison may be apt: a mutual lack of comprehension and trust. The Ukraine crisis has revealed that Russia and the West remain far apart — not just politically and diplomatically, but culturally and temperamentally. Putin has stoked a brand of macho nationalism increasingly at odds with liberal Europeans….”Attempts to isolate Russia further may boost support for Putin — whose poll ratings have soared due to his tough stance on Ukraine — and make rapprochement harder. But historians see fundamental differences. “Two things characterized the Cold War. First of all there was an ideological divide which was kind of black and white — ‘You’re either with us or against us,'” said Margot Light, professor emeritus of international relations at the London School of Economics. “That really doesn’t exist anymore. “And the Cold War started off as European, but it became global. And again, this isn’t it. I think neither Russia nor the United States have that kind of global reach any longer.” http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/international/europe/2014/03/east_vs_west_ukraine_conflict_not_a_new_cold_war
NATO planes monitor Ukraine’s border. East and West fight for influence and trade angry warnings. Russian troops conduct massive war games as tensions rise.
With its brinksmanship, bellicose rhetoric, threats and counter-threats, the crisis over Moscow’s takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula seems to have whisked the world back to the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union squared off in a high-stakes standoff that divided the world into two opposing camps.
But this is not Cold War 2.0.
Communism has long ceased to be the feared enemy. The ideological certainties of that era are gone. And Russia and the West are locked in economic interdependency.
Here is a look at how the Ukraine crisis may have turned into an East-West standoff — but not a Cold War.
ENTWINED ECONOMIES
The West’s economic and diplomatic pressure may harken back to an age of isolated blocs. And measures such as visa bans, financial sanctions and threats to boycott the G-8 summit that Russia is slated to host all certainly seem intended to isolate Moscow.
But the economies of Russia and the West have become entwined since the Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago — meaning it would be hard to go back to the hermetic “us-versus-them” world of the Cold War.
U.S. brands including McDonald’s and Pepsi have a big presence in Russia, and the European Union does far more trade with the country than the U.S. The Europeans are less eager than Washington to take punitive economic measures, in part because European companies from German engineering firm Siemens to British oil giant BP have major Russian investments. And Russia supplies almost a third of Europe’s natural gas.
But economic rupture could hurt Russia even more. Russia relies heavily on income from oil and gas, which make up more than two-thirds of the country’s exports. Around half of Russia’s exports, mainly natural gas, oil and other raw materials, heads to the EU.
And rich Russians rely on places like London for a place to stash their cash in homes, businesses and discreet, stable banks — so much so that some British people refer to their capital as “Londongrad.”
“London is more important to Russians than Russians are to London,” said Yolande Barnes, head of global research at real estate agent Savills. She says Russians buy about 2.5 percent of prime London properties. “If Russians disappeared, I think London would barely blink.”
MILITARY LIMITS
Rhetoric such as “dangerous escalation” and “brink of disaster” — as well as talk of boosting military defenses in Europe — echo Cold War tensions.
But Western leaders show little appetite for a military response.
NATO did deploy two surveillance planes to fly over Poland and Romania on Wednesday to monitor Ukraine, and the U.S. sent additional fighter jets to Lithuania and Poland to boost air patrols. Russia is in military control of Crimea but has not moved into other areas of Ukraine, aside from seizing a gas distribution facility just outside of Crimea’s border.
The crisis could still escalate. Adrian Basora, a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, said that if Russia sent troops into eastern Ukraine, it could trigger an escalation that might pull NATO troops into eastern Europe. He acknowledged that would be “an extremely dangerous situation.”
But even that is unlikely to turn into a global confrontation.
Crucially, China — the rising global power of the 21st century — has shown no desire to take sides. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has discussed the crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama, has merely urged calm and restraint.
It is true that Putin has launched a huge military modernization program. And Russia’s defense minister said last month that it was seeking to expand its worldwide presence by seeking permission for navy ships to use ports in Algeria, Cyprus, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Seychelles, Vietnam and Singapore.
Still, Matthew Clements, editor of Jane’s Intelligence Review, said Russia’s “ability to undertake operations across the globe is fairly limited.”
“This is not a reformation of the Soviet Red Army,” he said.
CLASH OF CULTURES
In one area the Cold War comparison may be apt: a mutual lack of comprehension and trust.
The Ukraine crisis has revealed that Russia and the West remain far apart — not just politically and diplomatically, but culturally and temperamentally. Read more @http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/international/europe/2014/03/east_vs_west_ukraine_conflict_not_a_new_cold_war
The Oromo Studies Association’s Tribute to the Late Dr. Paul Baxter (1925-2014)
It is with great sadness that the Oromo Studies Association (OSA) informs the Oromo and friends of Oromo about the passing away of Dr. Paul Baxter on March 2, 2014. He was 89. Dr. Paul Baxter was a distinguished British anthropologist who devoted his life to Oromo studies. He is one of the finest human being, who contributed immensely to the development of Oromo studies at the time when the scholarship on the Oromo people was extremely discouraged in Ethiopia. His death is a significant loss for his family, all those who knew and were touched by his humanity and kindness, and for the students of Oromo studies. Dr. Paul Baxter is survived by his wife, Pat Baxter, his son, Adam Baxter, and his three grandsons and their children.
Born on January 30, 1925 in England, Paul Trevor William Baxter, popularly known as Paul Baxter or P.T.W. Baxter, earned his BA degree from Cambridge University. Influenced by famous scholars such as Bronisław Kasper Malinowski, Charles Gabriel Seligman, and Evans Pritchard, Paul Baxter had a solid affection for social anthropology. He went to the famous Oxford University to study social anthropology.
It was at the zenith of the Amharization project of Emperor Haile Selassie that he developed a strong interest to study the social organization of the Oromo people. In fact, in 1952, he wanted to go to Ethiopia to study the Oromo Gada system. Let alone tolerating this type of research, Ethiopia was in the middle of the massive project to eradicate the memory of the Oromo from their historic and indigenous territories. The Assimilation policy was in the full swing. Little spared from an attempt was made to change everything Oromo into Amharic. Even the Oromo names of urban centers were rechristened into Amharic names. It is no wonder that Ethiopia was reluctant to welcome a researcher like Baxter who was looking for the soul of the Oromo culture in the homogenizing Ethiopian Empire. Nonetheless, the challenge did not bother the young and exuberant Baxter to pursue his studies. He was determined more than ever to study the social fabric of the Oromo nation. Failed to get permission to do research among the Oromo in Ethiopia, he went to the British Colony Kenya to study the Borana Oromo social organization in northern Kenya. He spent two years (1952 and 1953) among them, which resulted in his PhD dissertation: ‘The Social Organization of the Oromo of Northern Kenya’, in 1954. This research became a foundation for more of his researches to come and a reference for the students of Oromo studies. Besides, the research disqualified many of the myths and pseudo facts that assume the Oromos were a people without civilization, culture, and history. Dr. Paul Baxter did not stop here. He continued with his studies and spent several decades studying different aspects of the Oromo society. It was through his extended research among the Oromos that he deconstructed some of the myths that portrayed the Oromo people as a “warlike” or “barbarian” nation. The title of essays in his honor, in 1994, “A River of Blessings” speaks to his perception and reality of the Oromo as a peace-loving nation. In his article, “Ethiopia’s Unacknowledged Problem: The Oromo,” he highlighted some of the Oromophobic and barbaric manners of the Ethiopian Empire, and he suggested that peace with the Oromo nation was the only lasting panacea to the Ethiopian political sickening.
In his long academic and research career, he studied the Oromo from northern Kenya to Wallo and Arsi to Guji and so on. He edited a number of books on Oromo studies and published many other articles and book chapters in the field of social anthropology. He participated several times on OSA annual conferences. During the 1960s and 1970s, Dr. Paul Baxter was known as the finest living social anthropologist in the United Kingdom. Besides his impressive scholarship on the Oromo society, Dr. Paul Baxter’s lasting legacy is that he educated so many scholars who have studied Oromo culture both in Kenya and Ethiopia. Dr. Paul Baxter’s passion and determination will inspire the generation of students of the Oromo studies. Our prayers and thoughts are with his family, friends, and Oromos and friends of Oromo studies during this difficult time.
Ibrahim Elemo, M.D., M.P.H
President, the Oromo Studies Association
Mohammed Hassen, Ph.D.
Board Chairman, the Oromo Studies Association
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A partial list of his scholarly works on the Oromo includes the followings:
1. “The Social Organization of the [Oromo] of Northern Kenya,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Oxford University, 1954.
2. “Repetition in Certain Boran Ceremonies” In African Systems of Thought, ed. M. Fortes and G. Dieterlin, (London: Oxford University Press for International African Institute, 1960), 64-78.
3. “Acceptance and Rejection of Islam among the Boran of the Northern Frontier District of Kenya” In Islam in Tropical Africa, edited by I.O. Lewis (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 233-250.
4. “Stock Management and the Diffusion of Property Rights among the Boran” In Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, (Addis Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Haile Selassie I University, 1966), 116-127.
5. “Some Preliminary Observations on a type of Arssi Song” In Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Ethiopian Studies, ed. E. Cerulli (Rome: 1972).
6. “Boran Age-Sets and Generation-set: Gada, a Puzzle or a maze?” In Age Generation and time: Some Features of East African Age Oroganisations, ed. P.T.W. Baxter and U. Almagor, ( London: C. Hurst, 1978), 151-182.
7. “Ethiopia’s Unacknowledged Problem: The Oromo”, African Affairs, Volume 77, Number 208 (1978): 283-296.
8. “Atete: A Congregation of Arssi Women” North East African Studies, Volume I (1979), 1-22.
9. Boran Age-Sets and Warfare”, in Warfare among East African Herders, ed. D. Turton and K. Fukui, Senri Ethnological Studies, Number 3, Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology( 1979), 69-95.
10. “Always on the outside looking in: A view of the 1969 Ethiopian elections from a rural constituency” Ethnos, Number 45(1980): 39-59.
11. “The Problem of the Oromo or the Problem for the Oromo” in Nationalism and Self-Determination in the Horn of Africa, ed. I.M. Lewis, (London: Ithaca Press, 1983), 129-150.
12. “Butter for Barley and Barley for Cash: Petty Transactions and small Transformations in an Arssi Market” In Proceedings of Seventh Congress of Ethiopian Studies (Lund: 1984), 459-472.
13. “The Present State of Oromo Studies: a Resume,” Bulletin des Etudes africaine de l’ Inalco, Vol. VI, Number 11(1986): 53-82.
14. “Giraffes and Poetry: Some Observations on Giraffe Hunting among the Boran” Paiduma: Mitteilungen fur Kulturkunde Volume 32 (1986), 103-115.
15. “Some Observations on the short Hymns sung in Praise of Shaikh Nur Hussein of Bale” In The Diversity of the Muslim Community, ed. Ahmed el –Shahi, (London: Ithaca Press, 1987), 139-152.
16. “L’impact de la revolution chez les Oromo: Commentl’ont-ils percu, comment ont-ils reagi?” In La Revolution ethiopienne comme phenomene de societe, edited by Joseph Tubiana, (Paris: l’Harmattan, Bibliotheque Peiresc, 1990), 75-92.
17. “Big men and cattle licks in Oromoland” Social change and Applied Anthropology; Essays in Honor of David David W. Brokensha, edited by Miriam Chaiken & Anne K. Fleuret,( Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), 246-261.
18. “Oromo Blessings and Greetings” In The Creative Communion, edited by Anita Jacoson-Widding & W. Van Beek (Uppsala, Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology , 1990), 235-250.
19. “Introduction “In Guji Oromo Culture in Southern Ethiopia by J. Van de Loo, ( Berli: ReinMer, 1991).
20. “Ethnic Boundaries and Development: Speculations on the Oromo Case” In Inventions and Boundaries: Historical and Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Ethnicity & Nationalism, edited by Kaarsholm Preben & Jan Hultin, (Denmark: Roskilde University, 1994): 247-260.
21. “The Creation & Constitution of Oromo Nationality” In Ethnicity & Conflict in the Horn of Africa, edited by Fukui Katsuyoshi & John Markarkis, (London: James Currey, 1994): 166-86.
22. “Towards a Comparative Ethnography of the Oromo” In Being and Becoming Oromo: Historical & Anthropological Enquiries, edited by Paul Baxter et al, (Uppsala: Nordiska Afikanistitutet, 1996): 178-189.
“…The efflorescence of feelings of common nationhood and of aspirations of self-determination among the the cluster of peoples who speak Oromo has not been much commented upon. Yet the problem of the Oromo people has been a major and central one in the Ethiopian Empire ever since it was created by Menelik in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. If the Oromo people only obtain a portion of the freedoms which they seek the balance of political power will be completely altered. If the Oromo act with unity they must necessarily constitute a powerful force. … If the Ogaden and Eritrea were detached Ethiopia would merely be diminished, but if the Oromo were to detach themselves, then it is not just that the centre could not hold, the centre would be part of the detached Oromo land. The Empire, which Menelik stuck together and Haile Selassie held together, would just fall apart. The Amhara would then forced back to their barren and remote hills. … The slogan of the Oromo Liberation Front is ‘Let Oromo freedom flower today! (addi bilisumma Oromo Ha’dararuu!).This may be a very over-optimistic hope but, if not today, the time of flowering and fruiting cannot be delayed forever.”
Professor Paul Baxter, Manchester University, in his article
Ethiopia’s Unacknowledged Problem: The Oromo
African Affairs 1978 Volume LXXVII (pp. 283-296) Published for Royal African Society by Oxford University Press.
My friend, the social anthropologist PTW (Paul) Baxter, who has died aged 89, made a significant contribution to western understanding of the Oromo peoples of northern Kenya and Ethiopia and championed their culture, which was frequently denigrated by colonial and local elites.
His work on the plight of the Ethiopian Oromo became a standard text in Oromo studies and a rallying point for the Oromo cause. Paul was not always comfortable with the praise he received as a result, and was often self-deprecating, describing himself as the world’s most unpublished anthropologist. That was a harsh judgment, since a complete list of his output is respectably long. He also made a wider contribution by editing the journal Africa and sitting on the Royal African Society board.
Born in Leamington Spa – his father was a primary school headteacher in the town – Paul attended Warwick school. Academic ambitions were put aside when he joined the commandos in 1943, serving in the Netherlands and occupied Germany. He married Pat, whom he had met at school, in 1944, and after the war went to Downing College, Cambridge, studying English under FR Leavis before switching to anthropology.
On graduation he moved to Oxford, where anthropology under EE Evans-Pritchard was flourishing. Field research on the pastoral Borana people in northern Kenya followed for two years, accompanied by Pat and their son, Timothy. He gained his DPhil in 1954 and more fieldwork followed among the Kiga of Uganda.
With UK jobs scarce, he took a position at the University College of Ghana. This was a happy time for the family, who found Ghana delightful. Returning to the UK in 1960, he was offered a one-year lectureship at the University of Manchester by the sociology and social anthropology head, Max Gluckman, after a recommendation by Evans-Pritchard. He then spent two years at the University College of Swansea (now Swansea University) before returning permanently to the University of Manchester. Over the next 26 years Paul contributed significantly to anthropological studies and to Oromo research, spending 12 months among the Arssi Oromo of Ethiopia before retiring in 1989.
Paul was never interested in winning academic prizes; instead his focus was on helping people. Generations of students, both at home and overseas, benefited from friendship and, often, a warm welcome in his home.
Paul’s life was touched by sadness, particularly Timothy’s death from multiple sclerosis in 2005, but he took great pleasure in his family. He is survived by Pat, their son Adam, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Oromo nationals in UK paid their last respect to Dr. Paul Baxter at the final emotional farewell service held on the 18th March 2014, Stockport, Bramhall Baptist church.
Owwaalchi Prof. Paul Baxter sirna ho’aan Bitootessa 18, 2014 raawwate. Sirni owwaalchaa kun kan raawwate bakka dhaloota Prof. Baxter magaalaa Stockport jedhamu keessatti yommuu ta’u maatii fi firoota isaanii dabalatee namoonni hedduun irratti argamaniiru. Sirna kana irratti ‘London’ fi ‘Manchester’ keessa kan jiraatan Oromoonni hedduunis argamuun gadda isaanii ibsan.
Magaalaa ‘Stockport’ keessa waldaa ‘Bramhall Baptist church’ jedhamu keessatti tajaajila yaadannoo isaaniitiif gaggeeffame irratti namoota haasaa godhan keessaa tokko Obbo Xahaa Abdii turan. Obbo Xahaan uummata Oromoo bakka bu’uun yeroo kanatti yommuu dubbatan Prof. Paul Baxter fira jabaa uummata Oromoo akka turan ibsan. Obbo Xahaan itti fufuun yommuu dubbatan kanneen biroo seenaa, aadaa fi eenyummaan Oromoo akka owwaalamuuf tattaaffi cimaa yommuu godhaa turan keessa bara 1954 Prof Baxter waan gaarii Oromoon qabu ifa baasuun barreessuu isaanii himan. Paul Baxter waa’ee Oromoo irratti akka qorannoo hin gaggeessineef yeroo sirni mootummaa biyya Itoophiyaa hayyama isaan dhorku karaa biyya ‘Kenya’ seenuun Boorana keessatti hojjechuu isaanii dubbatan. Ethiopia: the Unacknowledged problem: The Oromo:’ ka jedhu caaffata maxxansuu isaaniis Obbo Xahaan ifa godhan. Prof Baxter dhimma Oromoo ilaalchisuun waraqaa adda addaa barreessuun, akkasumas Oromoota barnoota isaanii xumuruuf qorannoo gaggeessanii fi warra hojii barbaadaniifis gorsa barbaachisuun cina dhaabbachaa akka turan dabalanii ibsan. Obbo Xahaan dhuma irrattis haadhawarraa Prof. Baxter ka turan Aadde Pat, ijoolee isaanii fi ijoolleen ijoollee isaanii gadda irraa akka if jabeessan dubbachuun Prof Baxteriif ammoo boqonnaa gaarii akka ta’uuf hawwii isaanii ibsan.
Akkasumas dhalootaan Boorana ‘Kenya’ ka ta’e dargaggoon Oromoo Kevin Waldie jedhamu hojii Paul Baxter Oromoof hojjetan ilaalchisee Obbo Xahaatti aanuun dubbate. Prof Baxter hujii gaarii Oromoof hojjetan yoom iyyuu taanaan irraanfatamuu akka hindandeenye Kevin ibse.
bakka sana turan akka na qajeelchan abdachaa haati warraa Prof Baxter ” There is the Oromoo promise. Please get in touch with me” sagalee jedhu waan dhageessisaa turan natti fakkaata. Waan kana itti
Africa’s youth will protest to remove self-seeking and repressive elites
“Some examples: authoritarian regimes, as in Ethiopia and Rwanda, are consolidating their positions. In Zambia, Angola and Mozambique, the press, civil society organisations and the opposition are under threat for demanding that the proceeds from raw material exports and billion dollar multinational corporate investments should benefit everyone. ….Short-term greed is, once again, depriving the African populations of the right to share in the continent’s immense riches. No-one can predict the future, but what can be said with certainty is that the possibility of a sustainable long-term and fair development that is currently at hand in Africa is being put at risk. The frustration that is fuelled among populations that are hungry and feel ignored by their rulers will bring about increasingly strident and potentially violent protest. In the near future, this will change the political climate, not least in urban areas. Utilising the internet and their mobile phones, Africa’s youth and forgotten people will mobilise and act together to remove self-seeking and repressive elites. But the situation is not hopeless, on the contrary. Civil society is growing stronger in many places in Africa. The internet makes it possible for people to access and disseminate information in an unprecedented way. However, I get really disappointed when I hear all the ingenuous talk about the possibilities to invest and make quick profits in the ‘New Africa’. What is in reality new in the ‘New Africa’? Today, a worker in a Chinese-owned factory in Ethiopia earns one-tenth of the wage of an employee in China. Unless African governments and investors act more responsibly and ensure long-term sustainable construction for people and the environment ‒ which is currently not the case ‒ we must all ask ourselves if we should not use the consumer power we all possess to exert pressure. There are no excuses for letting African populations and their environment once again pay for the global demand for its raw materials and cheap consumer goods.” – Marika Griehsel, journalist, film-maker and lecturer
“Thousands of people are demonstrating on the streets to protest against low salaries, the highcost of living and an insufficient state safety net. A reaction to austerity measures in Greece? Or a follow-up to the Arab Spring? No, these are protests for greater equality in Sub-Saharan Africa, most recently in Burkina Faso. The widening gap between rich and poor is as troubling in Africa as in the rest of the world. In fact, many Africans believe that inequalities are becoming more marked: A tiny minority is getting richer while the lines of poor people grow out the door. The contrast is all the more striking in Africa since the poverty level has been at a consistently high level for decades, despite the continent’s significant average GDP growth. Some take a plane to get treated for hay fever, while others are pushing up daisies because they can’t afford basic malaria treatment.”
It is now evident that the African ‘lion economies’ have hardly even begun the economic and democratic transformation that is absolutely necessary for the future of the continent.
The largest movement ever in Africa of people from rural to urban areas is now taking place. Lagos, Nigeria, and Nairobi, Kenya, are among the world’s fastest growing cities.
The frustration that is fuelled among populations that are hungry and feel ignored by their rulers will bring about increasingly strident and potentially violent protest.
Soon, this will change the political climate, not least in urban areas. Utilising the internet and their phones, Africa’s youth and forgotten people will mobilise to remove self-seeking and repressive elites.
This piece was written in Namibia, where I was leading a tour around one of Africa’s more stable nations. There are several signs confirming the World Bank’s reclassification of Namibia as a middle-income country, which in turn means that many aid donors, including Sweden, have ended their bilateral cooperation.
I see newly constructed, subsidised single-family homes accessible for low-income families. I drive on good roads and meet many tourists, although this is off-season. I hear about a growing mining sector, new discoveries of natural gas and oil deposits. I read about irregularities committed by people in power, in a reasonably free press whose editors are not thrown into jail. There is free primary level schooling and almost free health care.
Most people I talk to are optimistic. A better future for a majority of Namibians is being envisaged. This is in all probability the result of the country having a small population ‒ just above 2 million ‒ and a functioning infrastructure despite its large area.
In Namibia, economic growth can hopefully be matched by implementing policies for long-term, sustainable social and economic development that will benefit more than the élite.
But Namibia is an exception. Because it is now evident that the African ‘lion economies’ have hardly even begun the economic and democratic transformation that is absolutely necessary for the future of the continent.
Some examples: authoritarian regimes, as in Ethiopia and Rwanda, are consolidating their positions. In Zambia, Angola and Mozambique, the press, civil society organisations and the opposition are under threat for demanding that the proceeds from raw material exports and billion dollar multinational corporate investments should benefit everyone.
The International Monetary Fund, IMF, predicts continued high growth rates across Africa with an average of over 6 per cent in 2014. That is of course good news for the continent. Perhaps the best, from a macroeconomic viewpoint, since the 1960s, when many of the former colonies became independent. This growth is mainly driven by the raw material needs of China, India and Brazil.
Meanwhile, the largest movement ever in Africa of people from rural to urban areas is now taking place. Lagos, Nigeria, and Nairobi, Kenya, are among the world’s fastest growing cities. But, in contrast with China, where the migrants from the rural areas get employment in the manufacturing industry, the urban migrants in Africa end up in the growing slums of the big cities.
In a few places, notably in Ethiopia, manufacturing is beginning to take off. But the wages in the Chinese-owned factories are even lower than in China, while the corporations pay minimal taxes to the Ethiopian state.
Short-term greed is, once again, depriving the African populations of the right to share in the continent’s immense riches. No-one can predict the future, but what can be said with certainty is that the possibility of a sustainable long-term and fair development that is currently at hand in Africa is being put at risk.
The frustration that is fuelled among populations that are hungry and feel ignored by their rulers will bring about increasingly strident and potentially violent protest. In the near future, this will change the political climate, not least in urban areas. Utilising the internet and their mobile phones, Africa’s youth and forgotten people will mobilise and act together to remove self-seeking and repressive elites.
But the situation is not hopeless, on the contrary. Civil society is growing stronger in many places in Africa. The internet makes it possible for people to access and disseminate information in an unprecedented way. However, I get really disappointed when I hear all the ingenuous talk about the possibilities to invest and make quick profits in the ‘New Africa’.
What is in reality new in the ‘New Africa’?
Today, a worker in a Chinese-owned factory in Ethiopia earns one-tenth of the wage of an employee in China. Unless African governments and investors act more responsibly and ensure long-term sustainable construction for people and the environment ‒ which is currently not the case ‒ we must all ask ourselves if we should not use the consumer power we all possess to exert pressure.
There are no excuses for letting African populations and their environment once again pay for the global demand for its raw materials and cheap consumer goods.
Some examples: authoritarian regimes, as in Ethiopia and Rwanda, are consolidating their positions. In Zambia, Angola and Mozambique, the press, civil society organisations and the opposition are under threat for demanding that the proceeds from raw material exports and billion dollar multinational corporate investments should benefit everyone.
Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains strong with growth forecasted to be 4.9% in 2013. Almost a third of countries in the region are growing at 6% and more, and African countries are now routinely among the fastest-growing countries in the world […] [however the report] notes that poverty and inequality remain “unacceptably high and the pace of reduction unacceptably slow.” Almost one out of every two Africans lives in extreme poverty today.
‘Our knowledge of the nature of identity relations in pre-colonial Africa is less than complete. However, there is little doubt that many parts of the continent were torn apart by various wars, during that era. Many of the pre-colonial wars revolved around state formation, empire building, slave raids, and control over resources and trade routs. The slave raiding and looting empires and kingdoms, including those of the 19th century, left behind complex scars in inter-identity relations. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss in detail the nature of pre-colonial empires in Africa. The examples of the Abyssinian Empire and the Mahdiyya state in Sudan provide a glimpse of the impacts of pre-colonial empires on the prevailing problems in inter-identity relations. The Abyssinian Empire, for example, is credited for creating the modern Ethiopian state during the second half of the 19th century and defending it from European colonialism. However, it also left behind a deeply divided country where the populations in the newly incorporated southern parts of the country were ravaged by slave raids and lootings and, in many cases, reduced into landless tenants, who tilled the land for northern landlords (Pankhurst, 1968). The Empire also established a hierarchy of cultures where the non-Abyssinian cultures in the newly incorporated territories were placed in a subordinate position. There are claims, for instance, that it was not permissible to publish, preach, teach or broadcast in Oromiya [Afaan Oromo] (language of the Oromo people) in Ethiopia until the end of the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie (Baxter, 1978, 228). It requires a great deal of sensitivity to teach Ethiopian history in the country’s schools, since the empire-builders of the 19th century are heroes to some identities while they are viewed as villains who brought destruction and oppression by others. Similarly, Sudan’s Mahdiyya state, which professed Arab identity and was supported by slave raiding communities, left behind complex scars in inter-identity relations, which still plague the country (Francis Deng, 2010).’ pp 10-12
Diversity Management in Africa: Findings from the African Peer Review Mechanism
and a Framework for Analysis and Policy-Making , 2011.
No Oromo has constitutional or legal protection from the cruelty of the TPLF/EPRDF regime.
A country is not about its leaders but of its people. It goes without saying that the people are the symbolic mirror of their nation. That is exactly why foreigners particularly the development partners assess and evaluate a nation through its people. In other words, a happy people are citizen of not only a peaceful and happy nation but one which accepts the principles of democracy, rule of law and human and people’s right. On the contrast, heartbroken, timid and unhappy people are subjects of dictatorial, callous and brutal regimes. Such people are robbed of their humanity and identity through systematic harassment, intimidation, unlawful detention, extra judicial killing and disappearances by the leaders who transformed themselves into creators of human life or lords. The largest oromo nation in Ethiopia through the 22years of TPLF/EPRDF repressive leadership has turned into a nation sobbing in the dark. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. All it takes is a closer look at any Oromos in the face. The story is the same on all the faces: fear, uncertainty, and an unquenchable thirst for freedom. The disturbing melody of the sobs in the dark echo the rhythmic desire to break free from TPLF dictatorial shackles.
The Horn African region of the Ethiopia is home to just 90 million people, it is also home to one of the world’s most ruthless, and eccentric, tyrannical regime .TPLF/EPRDF is ruling the nation particularly the Oromos with an iron fist for the past two decades and yet moving on. Today dissents in Oromia are frequently harassed, arrested, tortured, murdered and put through sham trials, while the people are kept in a constant state of terror through tight media control, as repeatedly reported by several human rights groups. It has been long time since the Woyane government bans most foreign journalists and human rights organizations and NGOs from operating in the country for the aim of hiding its brutal governance from the world. While the people in Ethiopia are being in terrorized by TPLF gangs, the western powers are yet looking at the country as a very strategic place to fight the so called terrorism in horn African region. But In today’s Ethiopia; as an Oromo, No one can speak out against the dictatorship in that country. You can be killed. You can be arrested. You can be kept in prison for a long time. Or you can disappear in thin air. Nobody will help. Intimidations, looting Oromo resources and evicting Oromos from their farm lands have become the order of the day everywhere across Oromia.
No Oromo has constitutional or legal protection from the killing machinery of the TPLF securities. The recent murdering of Tesfahun Chemeda in kallitti prison is a case book of the current Circumstance.
The So called EPRDF constitution, as all Ethiopian constitutions had always been under the previous Ethiopian regimes, is prepared not to give legal protections to the Oromo people, but to be used against the Oromo people. Prisons in the Ethiopia have become the last home to Oromo nationalists, human right activists or political opponent of the regime. Yet the international community is either not interested or have ignored the numerous Human Right abuses in Ethiopia simply because, they think there is stability in the country. Is there no stability in North Korea? I don’t understand why the international community playing double standard with dining and wining with Ethiopian brutal dictators while trying to internationally isolate other dictators. For crying out loud, all dictators are dangerous to humanity and shaking their hands is even taboo much more doing business with them.
Without the support of the USA and EU, major pillars of the regime would have collapsed. Because one reason why TPLF is sustaining in power is through the budgetary support and development funding of the EU, the United States and offered diplomatic validation by the corrupted African Union. Foremost, the US and EU as the largest partners are responsible for funding the regime’s sustainability and its senseless brutality against ordinary citizens. They would have the capacity to disrupt the economic might of this regime without negatively impacting ordinary citizens, and their failure to do so is directly responsible for the loss of many innocent lives, the torture of many and other grievous human rights abuses. Helping dictators while they butcher our people is what I cannot understand. What I want to notify here is, on the way of struggling for freedom it is very essential to call on the western powers to stop the support they are rendering to dictators in the name of fighting the so called terrorism in Horn Africa, otherwise it will remain an obstacle for the struggle.
Holding elections alone does not make a country democratic. Where there is no an independent media, an independent judiciary (for the rule of law), an independent central bank, an independent electoral commission (for a free and fair vote); neutral and professional security forces; and an autonomous (not a rubber stamp) parliament, no one should expect that the pseudo election will remove TPLF from power. The so-called “Ethiopian constitution” is a façade that is not worth the paper which it is written on. It does not impose the rule of law; and does not effectively limit governmental power. No form of dissent is tolerated in the country.
As my understanding and as we have observed for more than two decades, it is unthinkable to remove TPLF regime without a military struggle or without popular Uprisings. They are staying, staying, and staying in power – 10, 20, 22 and may be 30 or 40 years. They have developed the mentality of staying on power as their own family and ethnic property. So that they are grooming their clans, their wives, sons, cats, dogs and even goats to succeed them. They are simply the worst mafia regime and the most politically intolerant in the Africa. It is impossible to remove them electorally because we have been witnessing that the electoral system is fundamentally flawed and indomitably skewed in favor them. Every gesture and every words coming from TPLF gangs in the last several years have confirmed that to remove them by election is nothing but like to dream in daylight.
The late dictator “Meles Zenawi” had once said that TPLF “shall rule for a thousand years”, asserting that elections SHALL NOT remove his government. He also said: “the group who want the power must go the forest and fight to achieve power”. Therefore, taking part in Pseudo election will have no impact on reducing the pain of the oppressed people. Evidently, the opposition and civil societies have been rendered severely impotent, as any form of dissent attracts the ultimate penalty in Ethiopia. Furthermore, we are watching that this regime is intensifying its repression of democracy each day, and ruling strictly through the instrument of paralyzing fear and the practice of brutality against ordinary citizens.
As we are learning from history, Dictators are not in a business of allowing election that could remove them from their thrones. The only way to remove this TPLF dictatorship is through a military force, popular uprising, or a rebel insurgency: Egypt (2011), Ivory Coast (2011), Tunisia (2011), Libya (2011), Rwanda (1994), Somalia (1991), Liberia (1999), etc. A high time to fire up resistance to the TPLF killings and resource plundering in Oromia, is now. To overthrow this brutal TPLF dictatorship and to end the 22 years of our pain, it is a must to begin the resistance with a nationwide show of defiance including distributing postures of resistance against their brutality across Oromia and the country. Once a national campaign of defiance begins, it will be easy to see how the TPLF regime will crumble like a sand castle. Besides, we the Oromo Diaspora need to work on strengthening the struggle by any means we can. It is the responsibility of the Diaspora to advance the Oromo cause, and at the same time to determine how our efforts can be aided by the international community. As well, it is a time for every freedom thirsty Oromo to take part in supporting our organization Oromo liberation Front by any means we can.
These days, TPLF regime is standing on one foot and removing it is easier than it appears. Let all oppressed nations organize for the final push to liberty. The biggest fear of Woyane regime is people being organized and armed with weapons of unity, knowledge, courage, vigilance, and justice. What is needed is a unified, dedicated struggle for justice and sincerity. Oromo’s are tired of the dying, the arrests, the detentions, the torture, the brutality and the forced disappearances. This should come to an end! DEATH FOR TPLF LEADERES ,.long live FOR OROMIYA
_____________________________________
The author, ROBA PAWELOS, can be reached by bora1273@yahoo.com
‘Briefcase bandits’
Africa’s spin doctors (mostly American and European) deliberately choose to represent what the Free Africa Foundation’s George Ayittey so refreshingly describes as “Swiss-bank socialists”, “crocodile liberators”, “quack revolutionaries”, and “briefcase bandits”. Mr Ayittey – a former political prisoner from Ghana – pulls us a lot closer to the truth.
If the mainstream media adopts Mr Ayittey’s language, the free governments of the world would be forced to face the truth and take necessary steps to tie their aid and trade deals to democratic reform for the benefit of Africa’s population. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we must combat the work of firms that provide “reputation management” to oppressive states by exposing their role in abetting injustice.
Those firms may want to consider atoning by volunteering for the civil society groups, human rights’ defenders and economic opportunity organisations working to make Africa free and prosperous.’…………………………………………………
A number of African governments accused of human rights abuses have turned to public relations companies to salvage the image of their countries.
The BBC’s Focus on Africa magazine asked two experts whether “reputation management” is mostly a cover-up for bad governance.
NO: Thor Halvorssen is president of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation and founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum.
Thor Halvorssen has published extensively on the subject of lobbying
For Public Relations (PR) companies and their government clients, “reputation management” can be a euphemism of the worst sort. In many cases across Africa, it often means whitewashing the human rights violations of despotic regimes with fluff journalism and, just as easily, serving as personal PR agents for rulers and their corrupt family members.
But they also help governments drown out criticism, often branding dissidents, democratic opponents and critics as criminals, terrorists or extremists.
Today, with the preponderance of social media, anyone with an opinion, a smart phone and a Facebook account can present their views to an audience potentially as large as any major political campaign can attract.
This has raised citizen journalism to a level of influence unknown previously. Yet, this communication revolution has also resulted in despotic governments smearing not just human rights advocates, but individuals with blogs as well as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook accounts. This undermines the power and integrity of social media.
And as PR firms help regimes “astroturf” with fake social media accounts, they do more damage than just muddling legitimate criticism with false comments and tweets linking back to positive content – they also make the general public sceptical about social media.
It is no surprise that ruthless governments that deny their citizens basic freedoms would wish to whitewash their reputations. But PR professionals who spin for them should be exposed as amoral.
It is no surprise that ruthless governments that deny their citizens basic freedoms would wish to whitewash their reputations”
For instance, Qorvis Communications, a PR and lobbying firm in the United States, represents Equatorial Guinea – among other allegedly repressive governments – for a reported $55,000 a month. The firm is said to have amassed more than $100 million by helping their clients with “reputation management”.
By burying opposing public opinions or spinning false, positive stories of stability and economic growth on behalf of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s brutal regime, the firm is seriously hampering the progress of human rights in the country.
In response, Qorvis says that customers with troublesome human rights records are a very small part of its client base, and that these governments are using Qorvis as a means to be heard in the “court of public opinion”.
Washington Media Group, another American PR firm, was hired in 2010 by the Tunisian government. The autocracy was subsequently described in various media outlets as a “stable democracy” and a “peaceful, Islamic country with a terrific story to share with the world”. Only after the regime’s snipers began picking off protesters did Washington Media Group end its $420,000 contract.
‘Limited engagement’
When a PR firm spins a dictator’s story, it does not just present a different viewpoint, as the firm might want you to believe; rather, it undermines the resources from which people can draw opinions. If a website or magazine commends the government, how is an average citizen to know for certain if the information is accurate or true?
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema
Teodoro Obiang Nguema is accused of leading a brutal regime in Equatorial Guinea
Many firms that operate, or have done, on behalf of kleptocracies in Africa are based not only in the US but also in the United Kingdom. They include Bell Pottinger (Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt), Brown Lloyd James (Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya) and Hill & Knowlton (Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda).
There are likely many more that continue to do this work under the cover of corporate secrecy. When firms get caught or criticised for their activities many say it is “limited engagement” for only a few months or that the task only involved “tourism” or “economic progress”.
If, for instance, a firm served the questionable government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo they would probably insist they are “consultants” helping to create “economic opportunity” and, no doubt, providing a “guiding hand” to the current president as he improves the lot of the Congolese poor.
Yet the spin doctors most probably ignore the fact that President Joseph Kabila’s security forces killed Floribert Chebeya, arguably the DR Congo’s leading human rights defender, and likely “disappeared” his driver (he is still missing). Only after an international uproar were the policemen directly responsible for the killing brought to justice.
Meanwhile, political opponents routinely disappear, journalists are arrested for criticising the government and any comprehensive human rights report contains appalling anecdotes and painful analysis about a country with little judicial independence and respect for the rule of law.
PR agents do not create “economic opportunities” – they alter reality so that certain deals and foreign aid can flow faster and in larger quantities – all the while being rewarded handsomely.
‘Briefcase bandits’
Africa’s spin doctors (mostly American and European) deliberately choose to represent what the Free Africa Foundation’s George Ayittey so refreshingly describes as “Swiss-bank socialists”, “crocodile liberators”, “quack revolutionaries”, and “briefcase bandits”.
Mr Ayittey – a former political prisoner from Ghana – pulls us a lot closer to the truth.
If the mainstream media adopts Mr Ayittey’s language, the free governments of the world would be forced to face the truth and take necessary steps to tie their aid and trade deals to democratic reform for the benefit of Africa’s population.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we must combat the work of firms that provide “reputation management” to oppressive states by exposing their role in abetting injustice.
Those firms may want to consider atoning by volunteering for the civil society groups, human rights’ defenders and economic opportunity organisations working to make Africa free and prosperous.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: What is it? Who uses it? Why was it created?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war, and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict happen again. World leaders decided to complement the UN Charter with a road map to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere.(http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/history.shtml)
Africa’s largest and second-largest economies, South Africa and Egypt, are Africa’s two most active Twitter countries. Accra, Cairo, Johannesburg and Nairobi are the tweets capitals of Africa. With 344,215geo-located tweets, Johannesburg is the most active city in Africa.
According to the United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) latest report on information and communications technology in Ethiopia, the country is among the least developed and most expensive in the world. The report placed Ethiopia 151st in ICT development, out of 157 countries, and 152nd out 169 countries in the price of fixed broadband connection. After a decade, in 2012, the internet penetration rate in Ethiopia was a mere 1.1 percent, or 960,331 users and out of this 902,440 are Facebook users. Neighboring Kenya, however, reached a 41 percent penetration rate, with 16.2 million users. As part of its active engagement in curtailing free media, the Ethiopian state is known in making citizen’s use of micro social networkings illegal and blocks internet connections and sites to public.
In a follow up to its 2012 study, the London- and Nairobi-based public relations and strategic communications agency Portland analysed geo-located tweets originating from Africa during the final three months of 2013. The second How Africa Tweets study dives deeper into Twitter use on the continent, looking at which cities are the most active, what languages are being used the most and what issues are driving the conversation online.
How Africa Tweets found that, during the final three months of 2013:
Johannesburg is the most active city in Africa, with 344,215 geo-located tweets, followed by Ekurhuleni (264,172) and Cairo (227,509). Durban (163,019) and Alexandria (159,534) make up the remainder of the top five most active cities
Nairobi is the most active city in East Africa and the sixth most active on the continent, with 123,078 geo-located tweets
Accra is the most active city in West Africa and the eight most active on the continent, with 78,575 geo-located tweets
English, French and Arabic are the most common languages on Twitter in Africa, accounting for 75.5% of the total tweets analysed. Zulu, Swahili, Afrikaans, Xhosa and Portuguese are the next most commonly tweeted languages in Africa
Tuesdays and Fridays are the most active tweeting days. Twitter activity rises steadily through the afternoon and evening, with peak volumes around 9pm
The day of Nelson Mandela’s death – 5 December – saw the highest volume of geo-located tweets in Africa
Brands in Africa are becoming increasingly prevalent on Twitter.
Portland tracked major hashtag activity from top brands such as Samsung (#SamsungLove), Adidas (#Adidas) and Magnum ice cream (#MagnumAuction)
Football is the most-discussed topic on Twitter in Africa. Football was discussed more than any other topic, including the death of Nelson Mandela. The most mentioned football team was Johannesburg’s Orlando Pirates (#BlackisBack, #PrayForOrlandoPirates, #OperationFillOrlandoStadium)
Politically-related hashtags were less common than those around other issues, with only four particularly active political hashtags tracked during the time period. This included #KenyaAt50 – celebration of Kenya’s independence – and the competing #SickAt50
Allan Kamau, Head of Portland Nairobi, says: “The African Twittersphere is changing rapidly and transforming the way that Africa communicates with itself and the rest of the world. Our latest research reveals a significantly more sophisticated landscape than we saw just two years ago. This is opening up new opportunities and challenges for companies, campaigning organisations and governments across Africa.”
Mark Flanagan, Head of Digital for Portland, says: “As well as adding diversity of perspective on political and social issues, Africa’s Twitter users are also contributing linguistic diversity. Twitter is now established on the continent as a source of information and a platform for conversation.”http://allafrica.com/stories/201403120080.html
“Barely anyone — one to two percent of the population — could read in ancient Rome and nobody thought more people should. Now we recognize that literacy is a human right; that being able to read and write is personally empowering and, in a world that relies more and more on technology, simply necessary.”Kristina Chew
The study by The African Economist demonstrates that the top 5 literate countries in Africa are: Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Kenya and Namibia.
Ethiopian is among the lowest literate 11. It is 42nd (with 42.7% literacy rate) of the 52. Burkina Faso is the 52nd. An other robust research shows that Ethiopia is one of the 1o countries in the world with worst literacy rates (with literacy rate of 39%). This study informs that 54 of the 76 million illiterate young women come from nine countries, most in south and west Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and not necessarily those with high rates of adult illiteracy: India (where almost 30 million young women are illiterate), Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Republic of Tanzania, Egypt and Burkina Faso. http://www.care2.com/causes/10-countries-with-the-worst-literacy-rates-in-the-world.html#ixzz2vhIgCozN
The African Economist’s analysis:
‘Information on literacy, while not a perfect measure of educational results, is probably the most easily available and valid for international comparisons. It is impossible to overstate the importance of education especially in Africa. Low levels of literacy, and education in general, can impede the economic development of a country in the current rapidly changing, technology-driven world. … This entry includes a definition of literacy and Census Bureau percentages for the total population, males, and females. There are no universal definitions and standards of literacy. Unless otherwise specified, all rates are based on the most common definition – the ability to read and write at a specified age (15 and above). Detailing the standards that individual countries use to assess the ability to read and write is beyond the scope of this article.’
Below is the ranking of African countries by the literacy rate:
Country Literacy Rate
1. Zimbabwe 90.70
2. Equatorial Guinea 87.00
3.South Africa 86.40
4.Kenya 85.10
5.Namibia 85.00
6.Sao Tome and Principe 84.90
7. Lesotho 84.80
8.Mauritius 84.40
9.Congo, Republic of the 83.80
10. Libya 82.60
11.Swaziland 81.60
12. Botswana 81.20
13.Zambia 80.60
14.Cape Verde 76.60
15. Tunisia 74.30
16. Egypt 71.40
17. Rwanda 70.40
18. Algeria 69.90
19. Tanzania 69.40
20. Madagascar 68.90
21. Nigeria 68.00
22. Cameroon 67.90
23. Djibouti 67.90
24. Angola 67.40
25.Congo, Democratic Republic of the 67.20
26. Uganda 66.80
27. Gabon 63.20
28. Malawi 62.70
29.Sudan 61.10
30. Togo 60.90
31. Burundi 59.30
32.Eritrea 58.60
33.Ghana 57.90
34.Liberia 57.50
35. Comoros 56.50
36. Morocco 52.30
37. Mauritania 51.20
38. Cote d’Ivoire 48.70
39. Central African Republic 48.60
40. Mozambique 47.80
41.Mali 46.40
42. Ethiopia 42.70
43. Guinea-Bissau 42.40
44. Gambia, The 40.10
45. Senegal 39.30
46. Somalia 37.80
47. Sierra Leone 35.10
48. Benin 34.70
49. Guinea 29.50
50. Niger 28.70
51. Chad 25.70
52. Burkina Faso 21.80
10 Countries With the Worst Literacy Rates in the World
Barely anyone – one to two percent of the population — could read in ancient Rome and nobody thought more people should. Now we recognize that literacy is a human right; that being able to read and write is personally empowering and, in a world that relies more and more on technology, simply necessary.
Nonetheless, millions of children, the majority of whom are girls, still never learn to read and write today (pdf). This Sunday, September 8, is International Literacy Day, an event that Unesco has been observing for more than 40 years to highlight how essential literacy is to learning and also “for eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy.”
774 million people aged 15 and older are illiterate, an infographic (pdf) from Unesco details. 52 percent (pdf) live in south and west Asia and 22 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. The latter region is where most of the countries with the lowest literacy rates in the world are located, according to data from the C.I.A.:
1. Burkina Faso: 21.8 percent of the adults in this West African country are literate.
2. South Sudan: This country in east Africa, which became an independent state in 2011, has a literary rate of 27 percent.
3 Afghanistan: 28.1 percent of this country’s population are literate with a far higher percentage of men (43.1 percent) than women (12.6 percent) able to read.
4. Niger: The ratio of men to women in this landlocked western African country is also lopsided: the literacy rate is 42.9 percent for men, 15.1 percent for women and 28.7 percent overall.
5. Mali: Niger’s neighbor on the west, the literacy rate in Mali is 33.4 percent. 43.1 percent of the adult male population can read and 24.6 percent of the country’s women.
6. Chad: This west African country is Niger’s neighbor on its eastern border; 34.5 percent of its population is literate.
7. Somalia: Long beset by civil war and famine, 37.8 of Somalia’s population is literate. 49.7 percent of the adult male population is literate but only 25.8 percent of adult females.
8. Ethiopia: Somalia’s neighbor to the north, the literacy rate in Ethiopia is 39 percent.
9. Guinea: 41 percent of this west African country’s population is literate. More than half (52 percent) of adult males are literature and only 30 percent of women.
10. Benin: 42.4 percent of Benin in West Africa are literate.
Around the world, two-thirds of adults who are illiterate are female, meaning that there are 493 women unable to read and write.
54 of the 76 million illiterate young women come from nine countries, most in south and west Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and not necessarily those with high rates of adult illiteracy: India (where almost 30 million young women are illiterate), Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Republic of Tanzania, Egypt and Burkina Faso.
Why Literacy Is a Human Right
Those who cannot read and write are “destined to be on the social and economic margins of our world,” Unesco reminds us. Being able to read and write has profound benefits not only on a person’s educational opportunities but also for their health, economic prospects and their children.
My late grandmother, who emigrated from southern China to Oakland in the early 20th century, never learned to read or write anything beyond her first and last name. She relied completely on her children or grandchildren to read the instructions on a bottle of medicine, to open her mail and pay her bills. Once when she was in her 90s and still living alone in Oakland Chinatown, a strange man knocked on her door, showed her some official-looking documents and insisted that he had to enter her house. She shut the door in his face and immediately called my dad.
Had my grandmother been able to read the papers the man had in his hand, she could have known what he was up to. As a girl in rural China at the start of the previous century, no one gave a thought to teaching her to read or write. She worked for most of her life (she was still sewing piecework for clothing manufacturers into her 90s). Like many older adults, she simply never had time to devote her energies to learn to read and write.
In 2010, the literacy rate was higher for young people (89.6 percent) than for adults (84.1 percent), according to a report from Unesco (pdf). It’s essential that as many children as possible go to school, learn to read and write and acquire the numeracy skills necessary to thrive in our technology-drive world. This year’s International Literacy Day is specifically dedicated to “literacies for the 21st century,” in recognition that we not only need to need to provide “basic literacy skills for all” but also “equip everyone with more advanced literacy skills as part of lifelong learning.”
“Barely 
Oromian Economist 