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Slow Food: Ethiopia: Repression, land grabbing and hunger. #OromoRevolution #OromoProtests October 27, 2016

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Ethiopia: Repression, land grabbing and hunger

Slow Food, 5 OCTOBER 2016

A story told all too often, especially in Africa. Tear gas, rubber bullets, police charges: the State’s answer to public protest. Nor has the latest wave of murders come suddenly or unexpectedly; it is simply the latest in a catalogue of incidents stretching back to last November, when the Ethiopian government first made public its plans to expand the capital, Addis Ababa, into the surrounding countryside, displacing a significant number of farmers. While those plans appear to have been shelved temporarily, the danger is far from over.

On Sunday in Bishoftu, in the Oromia region, just 40km south-east of the capital, the protests grew out of the traditional Irrecha religious festival, where an estimated two million people were gathered. Community elders seen as being allied to the government were prevented from speaking, and the police responded violently, causing a stampede which saw dozens of protestors fall to their deaths from cliffs.

stop killing Oromo People

While in many media outlets, the focus is on ethnic tensions between the Oromo people (the single largest ethnicity in the country) and the Tigrayan minority, this doesn’t give us the full picture. The reality in Ethiopia is one of extreme food insecurity, which has been made worse this year by failed rains, with between 50 and 90 per cent of crops lost in some regions. The government itself estimated that 4.5 million people were in need of emergency food assistance in August, while UNICEF puts the total figure of people in need of humanitarian assistance in the country at over 10 million.

The importance of agriculture to the Ethiopian economy cannot be underestimated: over 80% of the workforce are directly employed in it, and it account for a similar amount of the country’s exports. The desire to increase the latter at the expense of the former threatens to make matters much worse. The government would particularly like to increase sugar production, and has announced its desire to be one of the top-ten sugar producers in the world by 2023. Such plans could mean more mass displacement of indigenous peoples, further exacerbate interethnic tensions and cause further migration out of the country.

One of the drivers in this new direction for the Ethiopian government is Chinese investment, which totals more than $20 billion since 2005. The Chinese-built railway linking the capital to the port of Dijibouti has been built for freight, not passengers: it’s for taking Ethiopian exports out of the country. Making a profit from industrial agriculture will require a large-scale shift in the economy (read: land grabbing), as 95% of agriculture in the country is still run by small-scale family farms, though this figure is being slowly eroded over time as the government seeks to sell off land to foreign investors. As part of its so-called development program, the government has earmarked more than 11 million hectares of land for foreign investment, talking of it as “potential land” as if it were not being currently used by pastoralists.

The government’s official line is that foreign investment will lift the population out of poverty, but the truth is that many will be denied access to their ancestral lands, and forced to work for the new owners in order to stay there. The Ethiopian government has the backing of the UK, the European Union and the World Bank in this endeavor, which the BBC reports will create “100,000 jobs” on two new industrial parks. But at what cost?

oromo-family-farm-coffee-production

At the men’s marathon in the Olympic games in Brazil, the silver medallist Feyisa Lilesa crossed his arms above his head both as he crossed the finish line and again at the medal ceremony, in protest at the government’s actions. “The Ethiopian government are killing the Oromo people and taking their land and resources so the Oromo people are protesting and I support the protest as I am Oromo. My relatives are in prison and if they talk about democratic rights they are killed. I raised my hands to support with the Oromo protest.” After the games, Lilesa did not return to Ethiopia, and is seeking political asylum in the United States.

Slow Food believes that the land belongs to the people who work it with love and care. We will continue our work to support small-scale farmers in Ethiopia through our Presidia in the country and 129 gardens helping people to grow their own food, and speak out in support of people who are fighting for their right to live and work the land in peace.

Read more:

The Oakland Institute: Miracle or Mirage? Manufacturing Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia

Other sources:

Ethiopian Investment Commission

Washington Post: Ethiopia has a lot riding on its new Chinese built railroad to the sea

BBC New story: Refugee criss: Plan to create 100,000 jobs in Ethiopia

UNICEF Document on Humanitarian Requirements in Ethiopia, 2016

Human Rights Watch: Ethiopia: Forced Relocations Bring Hunger, Hardship

FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN ETHIOPIA: A BLESSING OR A CURSE? March 7, 2016

Posted by OromianEconomist in Colonizing Structure, Development Studies, Ethiopia's Colonizing Structure and the Development Problems of People of Oromia, Afar, Ogaden, Sidama, Southern Ethiopia and the Omo Valley, Ethnic Cleansing, Free development vs authoritarian model, Genocidal Master plan of Ethiopia, Uncategorized.
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Odaa OromooAddis Standard

 

The TPLF Corruption network

OPINION: FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN ETHIOPIA: A BLESSING OR A CURSE?

By J. Bonsa, PhD,   ADDISSTANDARD,   MARCH 03, 2016 

 

In conflict prone contexts, foreign investors, especially whose actions while entering a given country were not subject to checks and balances, may undermine political stability and fuel social unrest.Depending on the level of accountability in the recipient country, foreign direct investment (FDI) could be a blessing or a curse.

In this piece, I will attempt to highlight Ethiopia’s political economy and the setting for the operations of foreign investors.

 

Peculiar political context

Notwithstanding the announcement of a 100% electoral victory by the ruling EPRDF, the fact remains that Ethiopia has never had a fully representative government. This rather unique situation means it is naïve to discuss Ethiopia’s current affairs by applying standard rhetoric.Doing so fails to capture the peculiarity of the situation on the ground. For instance, familiar phrases such as“dictatorial regime” or “totalitarian government” do not fully capture the essence of the current political system in Ethiopia.

 

The key to understand the strange nature of the ERPDF government, a coalition of four parties, is to recognize it as a system of “internal colonial rule” led by one powerful party, the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).It is a conspicuous knowledge held by many that EPRDF essentially means TPLF.

 

The loyalty towards TPLF of Ethiopia’s military and security apparatus has remained the only source of EPRDF’s strength and tight grip on power. Without further ado it is suffice to mention that the country’s army generals and high ranking officers hail from Tigray, the geographic location home to TPLF. In turn the army’s brutal efficiency in military and security command system has earned the TPLF an extraordinary reputation and near complete political upper hand in the eyes of the other three parties within the coalition.

 

Technically that leaves Ethiopia with a reverse political system: the world is familiar with majority-rule and minority-rights, Ethiopia’s, on the other hand,is a political system without even some majority-rights. Today’s TPLF dominated EPRDF needed to be certain that the majority would not have the bare minimum of rights, because, if allowed, this might eventually lead to the emergence of democracy.

 

Business as unusual

The political and military power disparity favoring a single party has also caused divergences in economic and domestic private investment opportunities. This resulted in the emergence of domestic crony capitalism of the ugliest type. Endowment Fund for Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT), the acronym that has more than 50 companies under its control, owns its presence and dominance to the growing trend of domestic crony capitalism.

 

In the last 25 years EFFORT has emerged as the most powerful domestic business conglomerate controlling the commanding heights of the Ethiopian economy. Its monopoly on the Ethiopian economy ranges from heavy engineering, construction, import and exports (of key capital and raw materials including fertilizers on which all Ethiopian farmers rely) to freight and passenger transport, wholesale and retail distributions. And yet, there is little information about EFFORT that is available for the general public.

 

It is a misnomer to describe EFFORT as a business group “affiliated to the government”. But Ethiopians know that the same groups of people who occupy government positions are also owners of the companies under EFFORT.

 

And as of late another unlikely business monopoly has emerged in the form of the military establishment, the same military whose top leadership is either loyal to or under the indirect control of TPLF. METeC, a company run by the national army, is having an elaborate business interest from production of computers and flat screen TVs to heavy metals, car assembly and hotels. Once again, there is no or little information available to the public on the exact nature of METeC’s business empire.

 

The dark horse

It is within this political reality that one needs to look into the economic aspects, including the manner by which the EPRDF led government is regulating the flow of FDI. It is a public knowledge that cronyism has, by and large, emerged as the trade mark of EPRDF’s economic governance over the past two decades, including its deals with foreign companies operating in the country.

 

As of this writing, news is coming that protesters in Guji zone of southern Ethiopia and Dembi Delo of western Ethiopia are targeting the two gold mines in the area owned by the MIDROC Ethiopia Investment Group. To understand this boiling public frustration, it is important to acknowledge that the people of Ethiopia have no knowledge about how these two gold mines were sold to MEDROC in the first place, and to evaluate whether the people in the areas where the natural resources are being ferociously extracted have stood to benefit from it in any way. It is also important to know that the name MIDROC stands for Mohammed International Development Research and Organization Companies, a name that implies nothing about the nature of the vast business functioning under its umbrella. For Many Ethiopians, therefore,MIDROC is the dark horse that appeared on the scene from nowhere but spread itself in all sectors of the Ethiopian economy at alarming pace.

 

For much of the first decade under EPRDF’s rule, Ethiopia suffered a serious setback in attracting foreign investment. Foreign investors were cautious (rightly), observing the unhealthy governance system as a risk not worth taking. However, during those days, MIDROC Ethiopia was often presented as a cover up to entice other foreign investors, giving the impression that the EPRDF regime was trustworthy and foreign investment was safe to flow in. That, and its sworn allegiance to the ruling party in power, gave MIDROC the opportunity to enjoy unparalleled access to Ethiopia’s natural resources. This was done primarily because the EPRDF could count on MIDROC as a foreign investor. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development once reported that about 60 per cent of the overall foreign direct investment approved in Ethiopia was related to MIDROC.

 

MEDROC’s expansions began with acquisitions of many previous public enterprises – manufacturing branches, state farms, gold mines, and other mineral resources mostly outside of public scrutiny. MIDROC is most commonly associated with land grabs in many parts of Oromiya, at the heart of Addis Abeba and Gambella, causing havocs through evictions of millions of households from their ancestral lands.

 

The other murky deals

The contradictions in Ethiopia’s business environment are rather perplexing. On the one hand the TPLF dominated regime in Addis Abeba has a very hostile attitude to private domestic investors. Ethiopia has remained at the bottom of World Bank’s country ranks in ease of doing business, ranking 146th out of 189 countries in 2015. But EFFORT, METeC and MDROC business empires and their affiliates are exempt from such restrictions and the little private businesses in the country have to survive the three to make a meaningful economic gain.

 

On the other hand Ethiopia is known for making extraordinary concessions to attract foreign investors, particularly during the last decade. Here is the question – why such officious treatmentfor foreign investors when private business are forced to eat dirt? The answer lies in the assumption that the government often acts in the interest of domestic cronies – foreign investors are needed to camouflage EFFORT’s aggressive expansions. The deals to couple EFFORT with foreign businesses are surrounded by dark secrets; details are unavailable to the general public. Foreign investors have often been lured into joint ventures with party owned or affiliated local companies. The recent US$30 million worth deal between a local pharmaceutical company owned by EFFORT and a foreign company symbolizes that assertion. The overlap between the operations of domestic oligopolistic companies and their foreign counterparts is so much that it is difficult to know where one ends and the other begins.

 

The recent fall out between the government in Ethiopia and the Karuturi Global Ltd has revealed the murky nature of foreign investment deals in Ethiopia that prompted many to summarize “in Ethiopia, foreign investment is a fancy word for stealing land”. In 2010, Karuturi Global Ltd was given a concession to develop 300, 000 hectares of agricultural land in Gambella. However, in Dec. 2015, the deal collapsed when the Agricultural Ministry’s land investment agency “cancelled the concession on the grounds that by 2012 Karuturi had developed only 1,200 hectares of land within the initial two year period of the contract.” There is a lot more into this fall out than meet the eye, least the fate of the hundreds of thousands of indigenous people who were forced to give up their lands to give way to a deal they know nothing about.

 

But one of the most unsettling details to emerge out of this fiasco was the claim by Karuturi Global Ltd management that the land was forced upon them by the local authorities despite their insistence otherwise. At first glance this may sound awkward, as if the foreign investor and the Ethiopian authorities switched sides in the process of bargaining. However, for someone who is familiar with the shrewd operations of doing business in Ethiopia it is easy to know why Ethiopian officials were forcing the foreign investor to take 30 times more than it said it could handle. One plausible explanation held by many is that since enough land grabbing had already been done by the cronies during the previous decades, authorities found it prudent to frame a foreign investor as a vehicle to continue land expropriation.

 

In the wake of a possible persistence of protests by Ethiopians, protesters’ targeted attacks against foreign companies operating in Ethiopia may come as sheer anarchic for outsiders. But as long as the people of Ethiopia are kept in the dark as to the nature of the real deals between foreign companies and a government flawed by asymmetrical party coalition (deals that symbolize a life deprived of its means and style),incidents of targeted public outrage against selected foreign companies should not come as a shock.

 

The same explanation holds true for the land expropriations for flower farms and industrial parks in Oromiya, particularly in the vicinity of Addis Abeba. It is for such reasons that the infamous Addis Abeba Master Plan was formulated, eyeing 20 times more land that would be transformed into wasteful industrial parks all in the name of attracting foreign investment the nature of it is kept secret from the very people it greatly affects.

 

ED’s Note: J. Bonsa is an economist by training. He can be reached atdinade0612@gmail.com. The opinions expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial principles of Addis Standard.

Opinion: Foreign investment in Ethiopia: a blessing or a curse?

 

Oromia Insight: Prof Hamdesa Tuso on the Oromo land February 2, 2016

Posted by OromianEconomist in #OromoProtests, Africa, Indigenous People, Land Grabs in Africa, Land Grabs in Oromia, Oromia.
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Part One

Oromia & Ethiopia: Land – the Perpetual Flashpoint of Ethiopia’s Political Crisis: #OromoProtests Special coverage January 28, 2016

Posted by OromianEconomist in #OromoProtests, Africa, Ethiopia's Colonizing Structure and the Development Problems of People of Oromia, Afar, Ogaden, Sidama, Southern Ethiopia and the Omo Valley, Ethnic Cleansing, Oromia, Oromo.
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Ethiopian-land-giveaway#OromoProtests against the Ethiopian regime fascist tyranny. Join the peaceful movement for justice, democracy, development and freedom of Oromo and other oppressed people in EthiopiaOromoProtests @Finfinnee University Dec. 7, 2015

Ethiopia: Land – the Perpetual Flashpoint of Ethiopia’s Political Crisis

OPINION  By Endalk Chala, Addis Standard and All Africa, 28 January 2016

#OromoProtests Special coverage

It is important to situate the recent Oromo students’ protest within the historical context of students’ dissent in Ethiopia. The wave of protest that swept through Oromiya, Ethiopia’s biggest and populous regional state, bears a striking resemblance to the 1960s Ethiopian students’ protest, which culminated into the 1974 revolution that brought down Africa’s last standing Emperor, Haile Sellasie I. It was a revolution that changed Ethiopia’s land tenure system for good.

Like the 1960s, the issue of land ownership has fueled the current students’ protest across the entire Oromiya region; as in 1960s, political repression, drought and cover up of the ongoing severe food shortage that is affecting more than 20 million Ethiopians have created fissures in the political system and anger among the general public.

The current Ethiopian Constitution is by and large one of the legacies of the 1960s students’ movement. Adopted in 1995, the constitution pledges that ‘Land is a common property of the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia and shall not be subject to sale or to other means of exchange.’However, the regime in Ethiopia owns every inch of land and has been relentlessly taking away huge swathes of it from farmers under the guise of public purpose, only to sell it to investors.

Series of legislations have also made tenure security of farmers vulnerable to the state’s needs over their land. Moreover, the adequacy and fairness of the amount of compensation paid for displaced farmers when the state expropriates their land remains questionable.

Several reports and researches indicate that since 2005 alone hundreds of thousands of mostly Oromo farmers are displaced from their lands to make way for sprawling Addis Abeba. They have subsequently become either daily laborers or beggars in the streets of Addis Abeba. The Oromo protest in this context is not just an opposition to urbanization or infrastructure construction as the regime’s propaganda machine, led by state owned and affiliated media, kept on reciting it; but it is based on a lived experience of anger, desperation and anxiety with the growing trend of repression and displacement.

Breeding the politics of protection

The two previous regimes in Ethiopia were excessively repressive and dictatorial in their nature. During their sixty years of combined rule the politics was selectively distributive in which only a few elites had access to state resources. When the current government came to power in 1991 it reconfigured a century old unitary political system into a new federal political system, taking ethnicity as a primary informer of the federal system. But slowly the politics of a federated Ethiopia once again transformed itself into the politics of protecting a select, centralized few elites.

Far from being federal, as the name says it is, the system started gravitating around a few political elites who have access to make or influence polices; they resorted to establishing a profoundly clientelistic centralism, bent almost entirely upon elites of one ethnic group. Consequently, all the major and key parts of state institutions – army, air force, police, and intelligence, among others, have come under private hands of members of the Tigrayan People Liberation Front (TPLF), one of the four coalition parties that make up the ruling EPRDF. As a result political and bureaucratic institutions have become formal instruments for accumulation of wealth and power that benefits a select few elites who are either members of this party or have access to its network.

However for much of the last 25 years, the central government’s led rhetoric has been about perceived notion of doing away with ethnic suppression and ‘peripherality’ among the Oromos and previously marginalized groups of the wider south. While the start of such rhetoric might have served to empower some of the previously marginalized groups, regional states such as Oromiya and Gambella have never been able to achieve their full independence as stipulated in the constitution; they are neither free to use their resources such as lands as they wish, nor take autonomous positions that represent their interests, especially if the power play at the central government considers those interests threatening to its excess.

Not so much about repression

The growing indignation of many Ethiopians is not so much about the repression under this regime as it is about government’s relentless investment in political propaganda to appear democratic. Unlike the previous two regimes the current government preserves some of the formal aspects of democracy – elections, the concept of multi-party system, a national assembly, or a constitution – just to undo all by deploying systematic technicalities of statecraft. To make matters worse it also boasts extraordinary economic growth and managed to portray itself as the champion of the fastest growing economy.

The truth is, however, like in the 1960s millions of Ethiopians are unable to feed themselves once a day and are hungry again; like in the 1960s millions of Ethiopians are unable to tolerate the economic marginalization in favor of a select few who have managed to build tight political and economic patronage network; and like in the 1960 millions of Ethiopians (this time led by Oromo students) are on the streets saying no to the cumulative results of the ongoing state led political mortification.

And like in the 1960s no amount of state propaganda will cover it up.

Eds’ Note: Endalk Chala is a doctoral student in Media Studies at University of Oregon

http://allafrica.com/stories/201601281484.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Related article:-

OROMO PROTESTS SIGN OF ETHIOPIA’S FAILURE TO ATTAIN SOCIAL PROGRESS

http://www.opride.com/oromsis/articles/opride-contributors/3820-oromo-protests-sign-of-ethiopia-s-failure-to-attain-social-progress

Business Insider:One of Africa’s most promising economies is facing a fundamental problem January 17, 2016

Posted by OromianEconomist in Uncategorized.
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Odaa OromooHanna doja. Oromo child, 1st grade student in Kombolcha, Horroo Guduruu, Oromia. Attacked by Ethiopian regime fascist forces on 31st December 2015#OromoProtests, Qabosoon itti fufa jedhu aayyoleen

 

 

The Addis plan is one instance in which these two objectives came into direct conflict. Protests over the plan, which Oromo viewed as a land grab undertaken by an oppressive and unrepresentative central government, broke out in late 2015. The government responded witha crackdown that killed 140 people, marking perhaps the deadliest outburst of political violence in the country since its civil war ended in 1991.

 

The Oromo protests are “engendering an intensified ethnic awareness that has also revitalized calls for genuine self-rule in the region,” Smith writes.

 

Karuturi had taken over land that the Ethiopian state had sold off as part of a controversial program in which the government leased 3.3 million acres of farmland to foreign investors after allegedly displacing some of that land’s original tenants.

It’s the kind of undertaking that would be substantially harder if Ethiopia were a multiparty democracy, rather than one of Africa’s most thoroughgoing dictatorships.

While Karuturi arguably stood to benefit from Ethiopia’s centralized single-party regime, it’s now learned the risk involved in pouring $100 million into an opaque authoritarian state.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/one-of-africas-most-promising-economies-is-facing-a-fundamental-problem-2016-1?r=US&IR=T

 

 

 

One of Africa’s most promising economies is facing a fundamental problem
Armin Rosen,  http://uk.businessinsider.com/  17 January 2017

 

Ethiopia, which has averaged double-digit GDP growth over the past decade and enjoys a close strategic relationship with the US, is one of Africa’s emerging economic and political powers and an example of a country that’s improved its economic fortunes without opening its political space.

A  January 11th Bloomberg News story hints at a huge problem the country might be facing moving forward.

According to Bloomberg, the Ethiopian government canceled a 2010 lease that Karuturi, an India-based agricultural company, had taken out on 100,000 acres of farmland.

Despite making an over $100 million investment in the country’s farming sector, Karuturi was accused of breaking its lease agreement in developing only 1,200 acres thus far. But the company claimed that it had received waivers from the Ethiopian government in the past, and said that it did not recognize the project’s cancellation.

According to Bloomberg, Karuturi had taken over land that the Ethiopian state had sold off as part of a controversial program in which the government leased 3.3 million acres of farmland to foreign investors after allegedly displacing some of that land’s original tenants.

It’s the kind of undertaking that would be substantially harder if Ethiopia were a multiparty democracy, rather than one of Africa’s most thoroughgoing dictatorships.

While Karuturi arguably stood to benefit from Ethiopia’s centralized single-party regime, it’s now learned the risk involved in pouring $100 million into an opaque authoritarian state.

And Ethiopia’s leaders, who want both economic prosperity and total political control, might soon find that these objectives aren’t nearly as mutually reinforcing as they’d hoped.

Oromo

Tiksa Negeri/ReutersWomen mourn during the funeral ceremony of Dinka Chala, a primary school teacher who family members said was shot dead by military forces during a recent demonstration, in Holonkomi town, in Oromiya region of Ethiopia on December 17, 2015.

Like Karuturi’s disappeared $100 million investment, the Addis Ababa expansion plan embodies the perils and contradictions of the Ethiopian regime’s long-term strategy of securing internal calm through economic growth and strong ties with foreign powers like the US and China.

As in past eras, the Ethiopian capital is being built up as a showpiece of the country’s modernity and development, and as a reflection of Ethiopia’s sense of its unique place in the world. Addis has one of Africa’s first light rails, a Chinese-built, 19.6-mile system that opened last year.

The city and the surrounding area are home to both of the country’s Chinese special economic zones, industrial parks where Chinese companies get tax breaks in exchange for operating in Ethiopia and hiring local employees. The Addis expansion plan would have incorporated neighboring areas into the capital district, enabling more holistic and centralized urban planning for a rapidly growing and economically vital capital city.

But the expansion plan also came at the expense of land in the Oromia Region — and it ended up exposing some of the deepest fractures in Ethiopian society.

The Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group but have been historically excluded from centers of power. Because Ethiopia lacks an ethnic majority (and perhaps because it has a 1,500-year history rife with conflict between the country’s centers of power and it geographic and social periphery), the country’s regions are supposed to receive a certain degree of autonomy under Ethiopia’s 1995 Constitution, which actually gives the regions a right to secede under certain circumstances.

In practice, the center still holds all of the power.

Screen Shot 2016 01 15 at 6.19.23 PM

Google MapsLocation of Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia.

The current Ethiopian government, which is entirely run by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which is descended from the militia that overthrew the ruling communist state in 1991 after a protracted civil war, is among the most oppressive in Africa.

The EPRDF regime is dominated largely by elites from the Tigrayan and Amharic ethnic groups. But its rule depends on a baseline of inter-communal harmony — just as it depends on the appearance of progress and economic growth.

The Addis plan is one instance in which these two objectives came into direct conflict. Protests over the plan, which Oromo viewed as a land grab undertaken by an oppressive and unrepresentative central government, broke out in late 2015. The government responded witha crackdown that killed 140 people, marking perhaps the deadliest outburst of political violence in the country since its civil war ended in 1991.

Even if the plan has been suspended, the Addis Ababa expansion push is an extension of aggressive growth policies that are fundamental to the regime’s self-image and possibly its survival, policies enabled by strong arm tactics that a country might not accept accept.

But the protests showed that economic growth and authoritarianism can’t paper over a general sense of frustration.

As Jeffrey Smith, head of the RFK Center’s sub-Saharan Africa-related advocacy programs explained to Business Insider, the suspension of the plan will do little to reduce popular discontent towards the regime.

“If the government is trying to head off larger protests and discontent in the country, then it’s much too little and much too late,” Smith wrote in an email. “During the protests, an estimated 140 people were killed and thousands were injured, opposition leaders and journalists were jailed, and the constitution was shredded … there has been no accountability for the deaths of protesters and dissent continues to be criminalized and violently suppressed.”

ethiopia rail system

Tiksa Negeri/ReutersA worker works on the electrified light rail transit construction site in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, on December 16, 2014.As with Karuturi’s apparent ejection from the country, the contradictions of trying to build a robust economy without genuine political freedom or basic transparency are manifesting themselves. But with the Addis plan, the stakes are much higher for the regime.

The Oromo protests are “engendering an intensified ethnic awareness that has also revitalized calls for genuine self-rule in the region,” Smith writes.

That’s a huge threat to a government that’s itself came to power following an ethnically fractious civil war. “I think leaders in Addis Ababa has gotten much more than they bargained for,” says Smith.

 

http://uk.businessinsider.com/one-of-africas-most-promising-economies-is-facing-a-fundamental-problem-2016-1?r=US&IR=T

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/one-africas-most-promising-economies-205434371.html?soc_src=mediacontentsharebuttons&soc_trk=tw

Appeal Letter To US State Department by Five Civic Associations In Washington DC and North America. #OromoProtets December 22, 2015

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???????????#OromoPRotests tweet and shareOromoProtests against genocidal TPLF Ethiopia4. 19 June 2015

Appeal Letter To US State Department by Five Civic Associations In Washington DC and North America.

 

 

December 10, 2015
Secretary of State John Kerry
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

RE: Continued Massacre in Oromia Regional State by the Tyrannical TPLF Government in Ethiopia

Dear Mr. Secretary,

It has been over a year since the Tyrannical TPLF minority regime unveiled a scheme to expand the city of Addis Ababa into the Oromia Regional State under the guise of development. Their underlying objective is to evict Oromos and settle their Tigrian people. If the scheme is implemented, the current size of the capital increases by 20 folds, from 54, 000 to 1.1 million hectares. It is designed to incorporate 36 Oromian towns into Addis Ababa, such as Dukem, Bishoftu, Adama, Gelan, Legetafo, Sendafa, Sululta, Burayu, Holeta, Sebeta, and Addis Alem among others. More than two million Oromo farmers will be forcefully evicted from their ancestral land by the plan. It is also designed to bring the expanded city under the federal government administration by abolishing the Oromia Regional State jurisdictional right and thereby destroy Oromo identity, Oromia integrity and constitutional right of self-administration

As a matter of fact, Addis Ababa itself is the heartland of Oromia and integral part; and should serve the federal government as headquarters while remaining under the full administration and ownership of Oromia State. Carving out Addis Ababa from Oromia and putting it under the jurisdiction of the federal government is weird and has no contemporary parallelism in the world. Washington, DC or Moscow is not under the jurisdiction of the federal government. The motive of the TPLF government is sinister to deny Oromo ownership and expropriate the city for the benefit of their Tigrian cronies. This scheme leads to permanent conflict and destabilization.

Completely surrounded by Oromia regional state, Addis Ababa city is entirely dependent on Oromia for all services. Today almost all electric power, water supply and other infrastructural raw materials come from Oromia region. In recognition of these, the Ethiopian constitution Article 49 (5) stipulates “the special interest of the state of Oromia will be respected regarding provision of services, the utilization of resources and joint administrative matters.”

Despite these historical, natural, constitutional and economic rights, Oromia regional government is devoid of any decision making process over Addis Ababa administration. Generally, the current so called Integrated Development Master plan violates the Oromia constitutional rights. The ultimate decision is in the hands of the TPLF (Tigre People Liberation Front) leaders whose interest is to exploit the land and resources, loot Oromia and destroy Oromo identity.

The scheme has been rejected by the Oromo nation as a whole. It is an existential question for Oromia and the Oromo people. The unveiling of the scheme ignited public protests in 2014 all over Oromia spearheaded by University, high school, and elementary students. The response by the tyrannical regime is to shoot and kill. More than 70 students were massacred, thousands gravely wounded and tens of thousands were hauled into concentration camps and torture prisons in April and May 2014. Because of the uprising the scheme was paused until it has been reactivated recently again leading to bloody protests in all Oromia Regional State

As different mass media outlets are streaming, the Oromo people in general and students at all levels are currently protesting against the implementation of the plan to expand the city of Addis Ababa into the neighboring Oromo farmers land, which not only displaces millions of Oromo farmers from their ancestral land, but also causes loss of Oromo culture, history and identity. The response by the dictatorial bloodthirsty minority government of the TPLF is shooting to kill, beating, imprisoning and torturing of the peaceful protestors as usual. 8 students were shot dead, thousands wounded, beaten, jailed, disappeared. The tyrannical regime is trying to silence the demand of the people by killing, harassment, imprisonment and torture.

The continued massacre of students and civilians is part of the grand scheme to annihilate the Oromo people and expropriate their land and resources. The late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said a couple of years ago, while he was alive,” the majority will be diminished into a minority.” That remark reflects deep rooted objective of annihilating Oromo, which the current TPLF leaders are bent to implement. Currently, about 90% of political prisoners in Ethiopia are Oromos. The former Defense minister stated that all prisoners speak Afaan Oromo (Oromo language) after released from prison indicating the huge number of Oromo prisoners. It is puzzling to fathom the strategy of reducing 40% of the Ethiopian population to minority unless one thinks of genocide. Generally, a war of attrition is being waged by the TPLF government against the Oromo people. The trend is dangerous. The Oromo demand deserves timely and appropriate response. Oppression leads to violent response.

Dear Mr. Secretary,

What is being perpetrated against peaceful demand and protest is the concern of the 40 million Oromos not students only. Accordingly, the Oromo Community Organization (OCO) of the Washington Metropolitan Area, the Oromo Youth Self-help Association (OYSA), the International Oromo Women’s Organization (IOWO), the Macha Tulama Association (MTA), the International Qeerroo Support Group(IQSG), and the Oromo Community Association in North America (OCO_NA)are writing this joint appeal letter to you to express our deep concern and outrage about the current massacre of Oromo students all over Oromia by the federal police and army of the TPLF/EPRDF Ethiopian government. While more numbers of fatalities are still coming in and the exact number is hard to be known due to the denial of access by the government for local and international journalists. We have known through our contacts that more and more reports of death are coming every day. Moreover, hundreds are severely wounded by live bullet and other thousands are rounded up and thrown into jail. Given the history of brutality of the current regime in Ethiopia, also those in jail are feared to be tortured or even secretly murdered in their prison cells.

It is so sad that such heinous crimes are repeatedly happening to the Oromo students and civilians. The massacre of more than 70 students on April 30 and May 1, 2014, took place when you were making official visit to Ethiopia. While you were in Addis Ababa, dozens of students were being massacred in Ambo, just 80 miles from your site and yet the Ethiopian government media behaved as if nothing had happened. It was only the BBC that exposed the genocidal killings, and other West media kept silent. This is the government that the U.S. Government is giving financial and economic aid and maintains intelligence and military “cooperation” with. The U.S. military support is used to kill Oromos and others who demand respect for their democratic and human rights.

Last year, we protested against the brutality of the government and submitted letter of appeal to address the problem and we also briefed the State Department staffers by appointment. We showed to the staffers videos of graphic atrocities. But nothing has been done. No member of the criminal regime has been brought to court of justice. We are observing criminal governments brought to ICC from former Yugoslavia, Kenya, Congo Democratic Republic, Rwanda, Liberia and others. We don’t understand why the criminal TPLF government is allowed to move with impunity. Because of unrestrained criminal activity, the government has continued to massacre the Oromo people, grab their lands, plunder resources, harass and imprison. The consequence of the unabated killing of citizens with impunity by tyrannical governments will be regrettable as we can see in many countries facing similar situations today. Stitch in time avoids big crack. Oromo life matters!!

The TPLF minority regime is hoodwinking the West by wearing the veil of progress and development. But the reality is the dirt under the veil. While the TPLF regime is boasting of 12% annual economic growth, 10 million Ethiopians are exposed to hunger and famine according to their appeal to the 2015 World Climate Conference in Paris for food aid. This shows the growth propaganda is commercial. But they blame climate change. Climate change is not earthquake that happens abruptly and cause hunger and famine. The main cause of the famine is land policy and mal administration. Land is expropriated by the TPLF government which they distribute to the Chinese, Indians, Saudis, Turks, and others freely for hidden quad pro quo. TPLF is sole land lord in the country. We recall the infamous hanger of 1973 which dethroned Emperor Haile Selassie and abolished feudalism. The 2015 hunger also should have consequences.

The regime speaks of democratic process while rigging election and declaring 100% victory. In the absence of freedom of expression, press, gathering, protesting they speak of democratic prevalence. They accuse dissenters of corruption and rent seeking, while they stash billions of dollars in foreign banks by snatching from the hunger stricken Ethiopians. They snatch people’s houses and farmers land in the name of development by paying minimum or no compensation and stash away the market value. There is no guarantee of property ownership. Generally, government accountability is nil. Anger against this government is simmering. The tyrannical activity of the government is leading to volatile vent. They should be denied support unless they respect human rights, democratic principles and show transparency.

The current student protest against the master plan is partly the extension of government involvement in extensive land grab which we, the Diaspora Oromo, have been protesting in front
of the US State Department and the White House. The plan is a land grab disguised in development. It is designed to kill the Oromo generation. There is no legal or social justification to include this small cities and provinces under Addis Ababa city administration for development.

To worsen the situation, the government has declared establishment of Urban Development Corporation, which controls all cities and municipalities denying the administrative rights of the Regional States. It is an initiative to abolish the federal system and centralize the country under the Tigrian minority regime. It will be adding fuel to the already burning fire in many parts of the country

The principle of integrated regional development does not infringe on the geopolitical entity of the regions. As we can see here in the United States, integrated development among the District of Colombia-Maryland-Virginia does not in any way, encroach on the entities of the states. We do not see any reason why the model cannot be applied in Ethiopia, unless it is for sinister motive. It is illegal to curve out urban centers and bring under the federal government. It is a big scheme to destroy the remaining faint light of federalism and put the county in chaos. There is no track record where the federal government controls the urban centers exclusively. This dictatorial regime is leading the country to disaster. It should be stopped before long.

We earnestly request the US government to use its influence to urge the Ethiopian government to respect the right of the Oromo people, rule of law and stop killing and arresting Oromo students, otherwise we request the US government to stop its support. We specifically request that the US government:

• Demand an immediate stop to the unlawful so called “Integrated development master plan” implementation and the unlawful eviction of Oromo farmers and the illegal selling of Oromo land under the disguise of such “development”.

• Demand the cancellation of the establishment of centralized Urban Development Commission to be implemented by the federal government.

• Demand that an independent commission be appointed to investigate the mass killing in Oromia regional state and look at the prison demography.

• Demand the unconditional and immediate release of Oromo students who are jailed for exercising their constitutional right and all political prisoners languishing in jail for several years.

• Demand that the regime to commit itself to the respect of human rights and allow freedom of expression and assembly and making a peaceful protest.

• Demand Ethiopian perpetrators of mass killing be brought to ICC similar to criminals in other countries.

• Demand the Oromo plight be given equal weight to that of other nations under the yoke of dictatorial regimes

Sincerely,

Desta Yebassa, Ph.D.
Board President, Oromo Community Organization of Washington D.C. area (OCO)
6212 3rd ST NW Washington, DC 20011 and Protest Organizing Committee Chair
ydesta9@aol.com, info@oneoromo.org
www.oneoromo.org

Abebe Etana
Chairman, Oromo Youth Self-help Association (OYSA)
6212 3rd ST NW Washington, DC 20011
abebe_etana@yahoo.com

Dinknesh D. Kitila
Board Director, International Oromo Women’s Organization (IOWO)
6212 3rd St NW, Washington, DC 20011
iowo@iowo.org.
http://www.iowo.org

Teshome Dime
Board Chairman, International Qeerroo Support Group (IQSG)
Box 55244 Washington DC 20040
tashomatakala@yahoo.com

Dr. Guluma Gemeda, PhD
Chair, Board of Directors of Oromo Communities’ Association in North America (OCA-NA)
465 Mackubin St N, St. Paul, MN, 55103, USA
ggemeda@umflint.edu

Asafa Jalata, PhD
Board Chairman, Macha-Tulama Cooperative and Development Association, USA, Inc.
Oromo Center 811 Upshur St. NW Washington, DC 20011
ajalata@utk.edu, contact@machatulama.org
http://www.machatulama.org

CC
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
http://www.whitehouse.gov
Tel: (202) 395-2020

Mr. Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary-General
First Avenue at 46th Street
New York, NY 10017
USA

Oromia: 600 Oromo Farming Families Evicted in Sululta for the Master Plan Just Last Month December 13, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Uncategorized.
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???????????Ethiopian-land-giveaway

Say no to the master killer. Addis Ababa master plan is genocidal plan against Oromo people. Say no.Say no to the master killer. Addis Ababa master plan is genocidal plan against Oromo people

600 Oromo Farming Families Evicted in Sululta for the Master Plan Just Last Month

Muddee/December 12, 2015 · Finfinne Tribune | Gadaa.com |

According to a media report, just last month alone, 600 Oromo farming families were evicted from Sululta, one of the towns in Oromia affected by the Addis Ababa Master Plan of the Ethiopian Federal government. The Master Plan evictions in Sululta came in November 2015, just before the latest escalations of Oromo protests as Oromo students in particular, and the Oromo public in general, engage the Federal government to stop the Addis Ababa Master Plan as well as the overall land-grabbing campaigns being undertaken by the Federal government in the name of “development” across Oromia. The report about the Master Plan evictions of 600 Oromo households in Sululta contradicts the Ethiopian Federal government’s stated position that the Addis Ababa Master Plan is still in its drafting phase awaiting public deliberations. Last year, during the April-May 2014’s #OromoProtests, the government promised to open the Master Plan for public deliberations only to forego that phase of the policy-making altogether. Protesters say the government’s promise of public deliberations are only tricks to buy time to fully implement the Master Plan and other land-grabbing campaigns across Oromia.

Here’s an excerpt from the DW report:

One Oromo farmer from Sululta, a town part of the ‘integrated master plan’ located 26 kilometers (16 miles) to the north of Addis Ababa, spoke to DW on condition of anonymity. He claimed that in late November alone, the government evicted 600 farming families on the grounds that their land was needed for the construction of a factory. When asked if they had received fair compensation and a new home, the farmer told DW that the money given to them was ‘very meager,’ and that the families had so far not been given a place to relocate to.

– Read More (DW.com)

http://www.dw.com/en/outcry-as-oromo-protests-in-ethiopia-turn-violent/a-18912721?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

http://finfinnetribune.com/Gadaa/2015/12/600-oromo-farming-families-evicted-in-sululta-just-last-month-for-the-master-plan/

A THIRSTY THIRD WORLD: HOW LAND GRABS ARE LEAVING ETHIOPIA IN THE DUST, By Emily Ingebretsen September 19, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Land and resource Rights, Land Grabs in Africa, Land Grabs in Oromia.
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???????????Tigrean Neftengna's land grabbing and the Addis Ababa Master plan for Oormo genocide

Land grab inOromiaEthiopian-land-giveaway

Attracting investment to Ethiopia by offering large plots of land to agricultural investors is a development strategy being aggressively pursued by the Ethiopian government. The government announced this strategy in 2009, stating it planned to lease 3 million hectares1 of land to foreign and domestic investors for agriculture use over a period of three years in order to increase productivity and earn foreign exchange (McClure 2009, 1). The simplest motivation for these actions is macroeconomic. In 2009, the IMF issued a staff report stating that the balance of payments in Ethiopia for the 2009-2010 year was “troubling” due to the global recession taking a toll on remittances, exports, and direct foreign investment. The impact of rising oil prices and decreasing foreign assistance was also expected to have an impact (IMF 2009, 5). In response to these prospects, the Ethiopian government created the Federal Land Bank to facilitate the acquisition of land by investors looking to acquire large tracts for cultivation. The foreign investors are mainly coming from India and Saudi Arabia, but also from Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Italy, China, and recently, even the National Bank of Egypt (Makki and Geisler 2011, 13). In addition, about half of the investors are domestic, representing Ethiopian diaspora or wealthy Ethiopian highland residents (Vidal 2011). The investors are mainly interested in growing crops to export to their home markets or in cultivating agrofuels, crops which are used to create biofuels. While some 1 Approximately 7.4 million acres A THIRSTY THIRD WORLD Page 7 of 74 companies promise to sell some produce on the domestic market, there are no contractual obligations to do such. The issue of transferring land and its productive uses from domestic cultivators to foreign interests is particularly concerning in Ethiopia as it is a country that has often made headlines for famines, and the underlying issue, droughts. Despite having a great deal of water in certain areas, sporadic rainfall and poor collection techniques make water security a central issue of concern for the country. Many of the countries that are choosing to grow crops in Ethiopia are countries that face water insecurities of their own. They are seeking to stabilize their food security, but the impact that this will have on water access and quality for Ethiopians who depend on subsistence agriculture for survival is not being addressed in the deals that have been made. Anders Jågerskog, a leading scholar on the issue of water and land deals from the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) has noted that, “The risk from poorly supervised land acquisitions is that a wealthy economy simply exports its water “footprint” elsewhere” (SAPA 2012). It is especially concerning that the design and implementation of this policy is having a stratified, possibly intentional, impact on the different ethnically divided regions of the country. The region experiencing the heaviest concentration of land deals is Gambella, a comparatively tiny region in the southwestern part of the country, bordered by newly formed South Sudan to its west. This area has had 42 percent of its land leased out to investors. Gambella also has had a difficult and increasingly violent relationship with the federal government. There have been numerous instances of the government targeting this region with oppressive tactics, violence, and biased policies. It is also one of the areas that has been identified for the latest wave of villagization, a process of relocation that is being undertaken to “increase service delivery.” However, Gambella’s villagization program appears to be being pursued with greater intensity than other regions’ programs as the government has stated it intends to relocate every indigenous, rural household in Gambella (HRW 2012, 22). The scale and intensity of these land grabs in this region coupled with the fervor of villagization is very concerning and merits much closer attention. –  Emily-Ingebretsen.-A-Thirsty-Third-World

Click to access Emily-Ingebretsen.-A-Thirsty-Third-World.pdf

Also read at:-

A THIRSTY THIRD WORLD: HOW LAND GRABS ARE LEAVING ETHIOPIA IN THE DUST,  WH2O Issue 4,   pp 94-103

http://issuu.com/daniellegambogi/docs/wh2o_issue_4_pq

Death Squad: The Dynamics of Ethiopian State Terror in Oromia December 2, 2013

Posted by OromianEconomist in Colonizing Structure, Economics: Development Theory and Policy applications, Human Rights, Human Traffickings, Uncategorized.
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JEL: D2, D6

Death Squad: The Dynamics of  State Terror in Oromia

State terror is described as a politically motivated violence,  transgression, repression, torture and   murder aimed at citizens by authoritarian governments.  Jeffrey A. Sluka (2000, p.3) has eloquently defined as:

“State terror refers to the use or the threat of violence  by the state  or its agents  or supporters , particularly  against civilian individuals  and populations, as a means  of political intimidation and control (i.e., a means of repression).”Overwhelming empirical evidence demonstrates state violence has been  standard  in Abyssinian empire and occupied Oromia in particular.

Researchers have documented that in the end of 19th century alone 5 million Oromos were victims of Abyssinian mass killings. Prominent political leaders, cultural figures, artists, writers and enterpreueners have been murdered. The Oromo sport heroes like Ababba Biqila (during Haile Selassie regime) and Mammo Walde (by Melese regime)  were murdered. Who can forget the cold blood murder  of singer Ebbisa Adunya by Meles regime killing squad? Who can forget the murder of engineer Tasfahun Camadaa by the same tyrannic state?

Abyssinian rulers has been engaged in state terrorism to maintain the status quo and eliminate the courage and  voice for change. Hence, the voice against  subjugation  has been labelled as terrorism. At present terrorism is a new ideology.

The Oromo society  under  the Abyssinian system has been  regimented by force, fear and intimidiation.  There is no recourse to justice. There is no  rule of law. The media is  wholly controlled  by the government, it  served to  regulate all intellectual, cultural and political activity, and at the same time, to defame the critics and opponents of the ruling regime. There is little room for creative work; the function of art has to be entirely political, the function of a writer  no other than that of a partisan. Freedom of Speech, of press, and of  association has been  systematically curbed. Terror has been  employed to enforce obedience. The secret police subjected the dissidents to unscrupulous intimidation and tortures in order to elicit confessions from them. The government is not only annihilated dissidents but also suppressed the opposition within its ruling party. The ruling clique systematically purged the so called anti-peace and narrow nationalists from its rank and file. The Agazi and Liyu Police are conducting systematic mass genocidal killings. Recent research conducted indicates that 0ver 87% of the political prisoners by Ethiopia are Oromo nationals.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-aJwZDI00JQb2RvZmV4Mm5Iamc/edit?pli=1

Reality and Vision: The Way Out

Leo Tolstoy in his masterpiece and one of the greatest novels in any language on the earth, War and Peace put forward the following compelling historical assertions:

‘All historians agree that the external activity of states and nations in their conflicts with one another is expressed in wars and that as a direct result of greater or less success in war the political strength of states and nations increases or decreases. Strange as may be the historical account of how some king or emperor, having quarrelled with another, collects an army, fights his enemy’s army, gains a victory by killing three, five , or ten thousand men, and subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several millions, all the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm  the truth of  the statement  that the greater or lesser success of one army against  another is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or decrease in the strength of  a nation – should obliged that whole nation to submit. An army gains a victory, and at once the rights of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment of the defeated. An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses its rights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its army suffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated.’

Tolstoy’s logical insight and historical depiction of conquer and conquest well describes the grim realities and experiences of Abyssinian and Oromian saga of 19th and 20th century and also of the present day. As a result of  the defeat of the Oromian defence, Oromia has lost its rights and the power of Abyssinia stretched over Oromia to the extent of the destruction of  the independent existence of Oromia and its capital Finfinnee.

As a result, the people of Oromia become dehumanised, the conquered and  the colonised  subject of  Abyssinian oppressors. The consequences of this tragedy in development studies are what Wilber (1988) calls ‘convoluted history and convoluted development.’ This can succinctly and elegantly depicted through the  Paulo Freire’s (1988) terminology of  educational process also known in his world view of the development process of the oppressed as the pedagogy of the oppressed. Development in this framework taken as  the recitation, in human history, of the progressive  freeing of peoples and nations  from the domination of nature, peoples and other nations.  Accordingly, in terms of Wilber (1988): ‘Development becomes the means, not the end, for the end is to enhance what people value. Development or growth is desirable  only if it is  consistence with people’s  deepest values.’  Development cum liberation is a means to overcome oppressive and exploitative forces of all kinds. In order to achieve those ‘deepest values’, people who are the subject of the development process have to able to hold these essential key and locus of power of this very process and their density. In the context of Oromia, the lack of  holding this essential key kept the country and the people in the present grim nature development process,  the underdevelopment or low level development trap.

In Tolstoy’s 19th century trajectory,   Russia had to liberate itself from Napoleon (France). In the Trajectory of  pedagogy of the oppressed, Freire (1988) : ‘The oppressed, having internalised the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom. Freedom would require them to eject this image  and replace it with autonomy and responsibility. Freedom is to be  acquired by struggle, not by gift.  It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an ideal which becomes myth.  It is rather indispensable condition for the quest for human completion.’ From both writers, in their evocative  delineations of human experiences,  we come to understand that the compelling realities of nations like Oromia and its people that they have to empower themselves and do their best to  earn their intimate values.

　 The Critical Minimum Effort: What Role for Oromummaa?

Oromian Freedom Function

Bilisummaa  (Freedom) is  a positive function of  Qabsoo (Struggle)  and Tokummaa Oromo (Oromo Unity) (T) and the Spirit of Oromummaa ( here in after the O factor). These three variables together form the minimum critical efforts (MCE) for Bilisummaa. They are not just mere positive factors. Rather they are real causations.

B=  f(Q,T,O)

Garbummaa (Subjugation cum slavery), the inverse function of bilisummaa  is the positive function of  Abyssinian occupation (A), Neo Gobanaa’s factor (N factor) and Lack of Oromo unity(L) and  Unoromummaa (U) (lack of the Spirit of Oromummaa). These three variables (ANL) together form the primary factors or causations  of Garbummaa.

G= f(A, N, L, U)

Garubummaa (G)  is the negation of  Bilisummaa (B) and vice versa.  The N factor is the negative of the O factor and vice versa.

http://www.unpo.org/article/13167#.TmlG41taQqc.facebook

http://www.gadaa.com/culture.html

http://ayyaantuu.com/world/testimonies-of-genocide-between-1868-and-1900-five-million-oromo-were-killed-in-ethiopia/

http://ayyaantuu.com/horn-of-africa-news/oromia/wayyaaneen-oromotaa-lafa-irraa-duguguun-itti-fufee-jira/

Interview with Oromo farmer who was uprooted by TPLF instigated conflict beween Oromos and Ogadenians

‘Waraannii naannoo Soomalii, Oromoo daangaa Soomaletti dhihaattu ammaas weeyrare, namni kumaan lakkaawamu
balaa haarayaaf Saaxilaman. Gabaasaan Mayyu (ona Anniyyaa) irraa nu dhaqqabe akka mirkaneeysutti. Waraannii dhaabbataan
naannoo Soomalii kan Ogaaden fii loltoonni Liyyuu Polis kan Ogaaden keeysatti ummata shoorarkeeysuun beekkame, daangaa naannoo Oromiyaa cabseee, lafa Oromoo Anniyyaa, Mayyuu Muluqee humnaan dhuunfate. Akka gabaasaa tanaatti, torbaan dabre guyyaa
Salaasaa, tuutni loltoota Somalee lamaanuu harka tokko tahanii Oromoorratti waliin bobbahanii jiraattoota Oromoo kanneen naannoo Mayyuuqubatan balaa guddaa irraan gahanii jiran. Gaafa dura humna waraanaatiin dhufanii Oromiyaa dhunfatan, Wayyaaneen Ummata
Oromoo kan amma wayyaba tahe saba xiqqatti deebisuun nidandayama yaada ja’u Mallas dubbatee ture. Sagantaa dabaa, tan ummata Oromoo xiqqeeysuufii lafa isaa dhiphisuu kana hojiirra oolchuuf Wayyaneen, ollaalee Oromiyaa gara hundaan hidhachiiftee Oromoorratti bobbaasaa jirti. Humni Liyyuu Poolis, humna wayyaaneen jaartee hidhachiifte tahuun hubatamaadha. Tarkaanfiin Liyyuu Poolis fii humna waraana Ogaaden kan amma Mayyutti bobbahee kuni Oromoo lafa isarraa buqqisani saba biraa qubsiisuuf sagantaa lafa kaayyame dalagatti
hiikuuf duula walirraa hin cinne tahee jira. Akka kanaan baatii ( ji’a ) jahan dabre baha Oromiyaa kutaa Harar, Oromoota Anniyya, Oromoo Jaarsoo tiifii Oromoo naannoo Mi’eeysoo qubatan lafa isaaniirraa buqqiftee Ogaadenootaafii Issaaf kennanii ummatoota Oromoo fii Soomalee jiddutti xifaa uumani jiran. Baatii April tana keysa, lafa Anniyyaa ona Mayyuu irratti duulli gara Ogaadeniin baname Oromoo kumaatamaan lafa isaa, Mayyurraa buqqisee jira. Oromoon meeshaa,humna waranaatiifii lojistikii (logistics) akka isaanii waan hin qabneef lola itti baname dura dhaabbatuu hin dadeenye. Warri Oromoo Anniyyaa, Jaarsoofii Mieeysoon lolaa jiru kun eenyu faa? 1, Waraana
mootummaa naannoo Soomalii fii,2, waraana addaa ka liyuu police ja’amu, ka wayyaaneen akeeka ykn dalagaa tanaaf qopheeyfatte. Mayyu lafa jidduu Cululiifii laggeen Ereriifii Gobeelle jiddutti argamti. Lafti Mayyu ja’amtu tun hedduu guddoodha. Dheerinni isii kaabaa kibbatti km 350 ni caalti, baharraa dhihatti KM 180 ni caalti. Lola haaraya kanaan Qabeenyi Anniyyarraa a’ame (saamame); Loon 475, Gaala 25 fii Harree 15. Ummanni Oromoo Anniyyaa kan ona isaarraa buqqa’ee Huusetti walitti qabamee jiru 500,000 ni gayan ja’ama. Namoonni taniis ni jira. Lafa qonnaa kani duraan qabaniifii oomisha isaanii akkasumatti dhiisanii biraa baqatan. Ummanni Oromoo qawwee gayaa
hin qaban. Bakka heddutti mootummaanirraa hiiktee jirt. Hanga xiqqaa harkatti hafeef ammoo rasaasa hin qaban. gara geejjibaatiin
akkasumatti ir’ina guddaa qaban. Yeroo kuni tahu Soomalootaafii Wayyaanota hidhannoo fii rasaasni konkolataa, xayyaaraa fii gaalatti
fe’mee jala deema. Karaa biraatiin yoo Oromoon Anniyya humna waraana Soomalee kan ofirraa dhawan OPDOn hidhannoo ni hiikkachiifti.Torbaan dabre yeroo ummanni Oromoo Anniyyaa humna Soomalee ifirraa ittisuuf tattaafate, OPDOn ajaja Wayyaneetiin amoota Oromoo kudhanirraa qawwee hiikanii turan. Balaan ammaa tuni tan Anniyya, Jaarsoo fii Mi’eeyso qofa xiyyeeffattee miti.
Balaan tuni tan Wayyaneedhaan karoorfamte; balaa duguugiinsa shanyiiti. Kanaafuu Oromoon gara hundaan harka walqabatee, duguuginsa
shannyi kan akka ummataatti isaan aaggate kanarraa if eewaluu qaba.’ Source: Oromo social networks, 7th May 2013

‘According to reports obtained by HRLHA from different sources, this government-backed violence that has been going on in the name of border dispute around the Anniya, Jarso and Miyesso districts between the Oromia and Ogaden regional states has already resulted in the death and/or disappearance of 37 Oromo nationals and the displacement of about 20,000 others. Around 700 different types of cattle and other valuable possessions are also reported to have been looted. The reports indicate that the violence has been backed by two types of armed forces (the Federal Liyou/Special Police and the Ogaden Militia) from the Ogadenis side, while on the side of the Oromos, even those who demonstrated the intentions of defending themselves in the same manner were disarmed, dispossessed and detained. Despite these facts, the reports also dissociate the Ogadeni nationals from the violence mentioning that they have never made claims of ownership of the piece of land in the name of which the government-backed violence has been taking place. HRLHA has also learnt that the said piece of land was demarcated and declared to be part of Oromia Regional State during the 1996 referendum.Among the 37 dead and/or disappeared Oromos Mohamed Kasim and Kadir Ali were local Oromo elders who were killed by the armed government forces in an effort to resolve the violence in a peaceful manner. According to HRLHA informants from Anniya, the hundreds of thousands of displaced Oromos from Rasa Harre, Marfata, Qillee, Mulqee, Dirraa, Waldayyaa, Biqqoo and Libee community fled to the highland areas in Eastern Hararge Zone in search of temporary shelters and other basic needs. The reports add that the displaced Oromos did not get any kind of help from any local, regional, or federal sources. More worrisome is that there are no hints as to when and where the violence against innocent civilians is going to end. Besides, the fact that the governments at various levels turned blind eyes and deaf ears toward such deadly and destructive violence for this all time strengthens the allegations that the federal government and the ruling party are behind the conspiracy of clearing the area suspected of harbouring armed opposition groups of anything on it.The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa urges the Ethiopian Federal Government and the Regional Government of Oromia to discharge their responsibilities of ensuring the safety and stability of citizens by taking immediate actions of interference to bring the violence to end facilitate the return of the displaced Oromos back to their homes. It also calls upon all local, regional and international diplomatic and human rights organizations to impose necessary pressures on both the federal and regional governments so that they refrain from committing irresponsible actions against their own citizens for the purpose of political gains.’ http://humanrightsleague.com/2013/05/ethiopia-loss-of-lives-and-displacement-due-to-border-dispute-in-eastern-ethiopia/

‘Over 20,000 people are displaced and some 37 are dead, as the notorious Liyu police ( TPLF proxy mafia in Somali region) expands its invasion deep into Eastern Hararghe zone. Previously the Liyu Police paramilitary force invaded and ransacked the Moyale town in Borona zone. About 13 Borana zone officials, including the chief administrator Kano Jilo, who complained about 4th Army division watching idly while the town was invaded, were thrown to Kality jail where they still remain. Although technically a branch of the Somali regional government, in reality Liyu police is directly controlled by General Abraha Woldemariam of TPLF’s Eastern Command. The TPLF strategic objective simple, they want to provoke conflict between Somali and Oromo communities in order to make it difficult for OLF and ONLF to function in the region. You might recall The Daily Mail’s report that revealed British government’s planning to give £15 million to fund this mercenary paramilitary group.’ Jawar Mohammed, 8th May 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=SSFJHxCTbVs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSFJHxCTbVs&feature=share
https://soundcloud.com/voa-afaan-oromoo/afaan-oromoo-news-1730-20#play
http://www.gulelepost.com/2013/01/17/the-notorious-somali-region-liyu-police-invades-villages-in-eastern-oromia/
“Tigire ruling elites often misleadingly frame genocidal massacres against Oromo in various parts of Oromia as “inter-communal violence, ethnic conflict, border conflict or water conflict” in order to absolve themselves from responsibility and possible future indictment in local and international courts. For at least two decades, genocidal massacres against Oromo have been framed that way in order to cover-up the deliberate effort by TPLF elites to either reduce Oromo by attrition to a minority population or to destroy them fully so that Tigireans can take over Oromia and its resources. That is their long-term plan. Aslii Oromo, an exiled Oromo political prisoner and torture survivor, cited the late Ethiopian Prime Minster Meles Zanawi ( from Tigray) who said, “We [TPLF or Tigrean elites] will reduce the number of Oromos from 40 million to 4000 without the knowledge of the world.” Yet, many, including some well-meaning Oromos, have hesitated  calling widespread massacres against Oromo a “genocide”, and  comfortably stayed on the human rights violations side of a much protracted problem. Ethnic Tigire elites declared their intent of destroying the Oromo partially or fully and have acted on their declarations. Where they did not declare these intents, they can be inferred from the actions of singling out and massacring and displacing Oromo en masse or selling their lands to land grabbers by the millions of hectares. Even an airhead would understand that no one group will massacre other groups just out of love or to do them some favor by killing them off of their land.  Calling massacres against Oromo “genocide” has been avoided mainly because some people make false strategic calculations and believe that it is enough for the Oromo to claim human rights abuses instead of claiming genocide too. Human rights violations are indicators. There are some who see the talk of genocide as an inflation or overstatement. But, connecting evidence on the ground can show us that massacres in Oromia are  indeed conspicuous acts of  genocide.Let’s just go beyond routine condemnation press releases, which echo the official framing of such massacres as “border conflicts or ethnic clashes etc”, and come to grips with the reality–genocide. The methods are multi-pronged: direct massacre, displacement, landgrab, spread of lethal infectious diseases, starving, withholding services, destroying crops to just list a few.  In the process, it becomes important to see these massacres as part of an ongoing genocide, “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic,racial, religious, or national group”“http://ayyaantuu.com/horn-of-africa-news/oromia/patterns-of-genocidal-massacres-against-oromo-in-oromia-ethiopia/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7DWBrtXzOHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YpW49tnIi3k
http://ayyaantuu.com/horn-of-africa-news/oromia/oromo-freedom-from-what-and-for-what/
http://ayyaantuu.com/horn-of-africa-news/oromia/a-nonstop-genocidal-war-waged-against-the-oromo-people-for-more-than-a-century/

“The research and information unit of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) has conducted a study on the allegiance that accounted for some political prisoners to be sentenced or otherwise been unjustly detained. The herewith attached partial list of political prisoners has been collected from prisons of Kaliti, Torhailoch (Military Police Prison), Maikelawi and Kilinto. Almost all prisoners are charged for act of terror, violation of territorial integrity, attempts to overthrow the constitutional order by violent means and being suspected member of OLF or any other organizations. These political prisoners are ranging in age from young high school and University students to elderly civic society leaders. Professionally, they are also diverse – from farmers, businessmen, government employees, political leaders, journalists and etc. The overwhelming portions are Oromos and some are also from different nations and nationalities of Ethiopia. Most of these political prisoners already gave prison service for several years; many of them are tortured and subjected to irreversible mental damages, and some of them were shot to death in the course of time. Since the fall of Transitional Government in 1992, Ethiopian authorities continued to severely restrict basic rights of freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Violation of human rights is a daily record of the regime. Instead of solving the root cause of political conflict, it rather declared war on the Oromo people and its vanguard Organisation, the OLF. Consequently, many thousands of Oromos and other nationals were arbitrarily arrested and detained and remain at risk of torture, ill-treatment and extrajudicial killings. Many of them were executed during peaceful demonstrations due to excessive use of force by police or security agents. The TPLF regime promulgated and adopted the restrictive Anti-Terrorism Proclamation in 2009. This regime, which from its very initial, was known for its massive human rights violations is currently using this law to justify all atrocities it conducted. In this attempt to hood wink opinions of the international community, the EPRDF regime is still trying to make others believe that the current problem of the empire is act of terror but not deep rooted political conflict of domination. The OLF vehemently opposes any forms of terrorism and reject the use of terrorism neither as a form of struggle nor also for suppression of dissidents by states. Thus, we denounce the Ethiopian state terrorism that is used to crush any form of struggle and decent. OLF is cognizant of, and appreciate the concern of various human rights advocating organizations and some democratic governments that expressed their concerns about Anti-Terrorism, Press and Civic society laws of Ethiopia on various international forums. In a country like Ethiopia where the government structure is monopolized by a single ethnic group, legalizing the abuse of the universal human rights is a way that leads for the establishment of a totalitarian system which is more sustaining than a simple personal dictatorship. Therefore, OLF alarms that the dangerous political development sustaining over Ethiopia demands more than just a concern but towards a proactive action of the international communities and UN member states. We denounce legalized form of state terrorism and call up on the international community to exert diplomatic pressure on Ethiopian government to release all political prisoners unconditionally and repeal these brutal and repressive laws.”

http://qeerroo.org/2013/12/01/the-legacy-of-violence-state-terrorism-of-tplf-led-ethiopian-government-using-anti-terror-law-on-political-dissident-must-end/

‘The study confirms that there is clear nexus between authoritarian rule,
man-made famines, and genocide in Ethiopia.’

http://www.codesria.org/IMG/pdf/Mekuria_Bulcha.pdf

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