Friday, August 30, 2013
Letter to US State Department Ethiopia Desk-Foreign Policy: Death of Engineer Tesfahun Chemeda
August 30, 2013
Dear US State Department
Ethiopia Desk
Ethiopia Desk
During a 2009 speech given by President Obama, preservation of human dignity was stated as core US policy objective. A portion of the speech was documented by the Congressional Research Service in a July 22nd, 2011 article titled Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa.
“When there is genocide in Darfur or terrorists in Somalia, these are not simply African problems, they are global security challenges, and they demand a global response…. And let me be clear: our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold on the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa, and the world.”
Although the African Command goals include “confronting common challenges” of Genocide and terrorism, the question remains why US Government provides military aide to States (including African) that practice “State Terror.” Support of “State Terror” often results in oppression, human rights violation and Genocide, as history has proven repeatedly. Such was the case in Iraq where US Foreign policy, initially supported Saddam Hussein’s regime during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The Foreign policy was instituted despite the fact that the Saddam Hussein persecuted occupied people such as Kurds and other segments of the Iraqi population. Support of Saddam Hussein at that time emboldened the regime to use brutality to suppress Kurds and Iraqi people in general, as well as neighboring Kuwait. Operating with impunity caused the death of untold numbers of Iraqi civilians. Similarly, support of the Ethiopian Government has resulted in extrajudicial imprisonment and deaths of many civilians, including Oromo, Ogaden, Anuak, Sidama and Southern Nations.
Further analysis of Ethiopia reveals the African colonial nature and desire for perpetrators (Abyssinian elites) to retain the colonial empire as the root of conflict in the Horn of Africa. The Northern ethnic groups (Amhara and Tigray) have occupied Oromo, Ogaden and Southern Nations for over 120 years. Throughout the occupation, brutality, Ethnocide and Genocide have been part of the Abyssinian policy for controlling the occupied territory through leveraging International conflicts and ideologies. The policy of ethnocide extended to cultural and linguistic domination by a population (Amhara), who constitute less than twenty percent of Ethiopia.
- While Amhara ruled Ethiopia, the Oromo language was banned in public places. The founders of Macha Tulama Self Help Association in Ethiopia, a civic organization made of Oromo professionals and leaders1, attempted to counter the repressive regime, resulting in many of the leaders imprisoned and or killed. Attached is a 1977 Amnesty International Press Release that reported on the execution of Mecha Tulama leaders, General Tadessa Birru and Colonel Haile Regassa. Colonel Alemu Qixxessa was arrested and served 10 years in prison for being one of the founding members of Mecha Tulama. http://www.amnesty.org/es/library/asset/AFR25/007/1977/en/60527fe6-4fba-45eb-a44a-922648490a70/afr250071977en.pdf
“In some such trials in early 1976 defendants were allowed their own lawyers or state legal aid, and relatives could attend the trial. however, in general, trials were in camera, defendants were denied legal representation, and judgements and sentences appeared to be arbitrary. In one well-known case in 1975,two Oromo officers, General Tadesse Birhu (whose case had been taken up by AI in the 1967′Calla 2rial’) and Colonel Haile Hagassa were sentenced to prison terms by a military tribunal, on charges of joining a counter-revolutionary organization but the terms were changed to death penalties by the chairman of the Derg, and both were executed. ” – Amnesty International 1977
- Under the current Tigrayan regime, Oromo was included as a state, but our language and culture was suppressed including Waaqeffannaa, an indigenous Oromo religions. As was the case during Amhara regime, our founding organization in Ethiopia offices were looted and closed by Government of Ethiopia. http://www.amnesty.org/fr/library/asset/AFR25/008/2004/fr/91c51157-d5ae-11dd-bb24-1fb85fe8fa05/afr250082004en.html
- Arbitrary arrests of Oromo were documented in 2007 by Amnesty International http://www.amnestyinternational.be/doc/spip.php?page=imprimir_articulo&id_article=11649
- Oromo Support Group Australia letter on Oromo Prisoners of Conscience including Mecha Tulama members and leaders http://www.gadaa.com/OSGAStatementSept2011.pdf
Although the War on Terror is critical, sacrificing of occupied people such as Oromo in Ethiopia sends mixed messages to the World. An underlying message is that our Government allows aligned states to commit human rights violations and Genocide, under the guise of State security. The inference is that our Government stays “neutral” as long as the aligned nation supports the current Global initiatives such as the War on Drugs and War on Terror. It sets a standard for other Nations that the World accepts policies that vilify civilian populations in order to carry out a mission to suppress dissent, occupy neighbor states, Genocide and or Ethnocide, further weakening the core objectives of the United Nations.
One recent consequence of “Neutral policy” towards human rights violations and genocide by the Ethiopian empire is the death of Mr Tesfahun Chemada; an Oromo professional who was killed in Ethiopian Kaliti prison this past week.
Mr Tesfahun Chemeda fled Ethiopia to Kenya because of persecution of Oromo professionals. In Kenya, Mr Tesfahun approached UNHCR and filed for protection. UNHCR gave him a mandate based on confirmation that Mr Tesfahun was persecuted in Ethiopia. Tragically, the Kenyan Government arrested Mr Tesfahun along with another Oromo, Mr Mesfin Abeba, for interrogation before refoulment to Ethiopia. According to sources:
“The two innocent victims Tesfahun and Mesfin were handed over to the Ethiopian authorities who took them hand cuffed and blind folded at 2:00 AM local time on May 12, 2007, purportedly to have them investigated for terrorism at the JATT Main Investigation Branch in Finfinne (Addis Abeba)…… From Apr. 27 to May 12, 2007, before handing them over, they [Tesfahun Chemeda Gurmessa and Mesfin Abeba] were interrogated at the Kenyan National Bureau of Investigation near Tirm Valley by American Agents and Kenyan Anti Terror Police Unit. The Kenyan officer Mr Francis, who led the investigation, concluded the innocence of these two victims and requested the Kenyan authority to immediately let them free. However, another Kenyan CID agent Ms Lelian, who is suspected of having close connection with the Ethiopian agents, opposed the decision and facilitated the handing over of these two innocent victims. “
Kenyan Government actions were in violation of international obligations and norms. The standards that Kenyan blatantly violated include:
- 1465 U.N.T.S 185, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment2
- and Article 3 of the Convention against Torture. 3
As a result of these violations, Mr Tesfahun Chemeda was martyred as an Oromo; having been tortured and killed in Kaliti prison in Ethiopia. The tragedy is that the case of Mr Tesfahun Chemeda is much too common for Oromo.
Attached are letters by Oromo Support Group to Minister in the UK and Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa, which provide a great deal of detail on Mr Tesfahun Chemeda.
http://gadaa.com/oduu/21413/2013/08/27/open-letter-of-osga-to-hon-kevin-rudd-australian-pm-on-the-death-in-ethiopian-custody-of-engineer-tesfahun-chemeda-after-refoulement-from-kenya/
http://humanrightsleague.com/2013/08/ethiopia-the-government-is-accountable-for-the-death-of-a-political-prisoner-at-an-ethiopian-jail/
We urge the US Government to reform US Foreign policies to protect all human rights. The consequences of “neutral policies” have created vast suffering of civilian populations around the World, including Oromo.
Sincerely,
Mardaasa Addisu
Secretary of Macha Tulama Cooperative and Development Association
Secretary of Macha Tulama Cooperative and Development Association
http://www.machatulama-usa.org/
1. Journal of Oromo Studies Association on Mecha Tulama Self Help Association http://www.oromostudies.org/josfiles/JOS%20Volume%204%20Numbers%201&2%20%281997%29.pdf
2. Under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1465 U.N.T.S. 185), the obligation not to return a person to a place where they will face torture or ill-treatment.
3. Article 3 of the Convention against Torture provides: No state party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds to believe that they would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
Analysts question morality of double edged partnerships with Ethiopia
http://www.cfr.org/ethiopia/us-ethiopia-double-edged-partnership/p13922
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
OLF Statement: Eng. Tesfahun Chemeda, the Latest Victim of TPLF Pogrom Extermination Campaign Against the Oromo People
![TesfahunChemeda2010[1]](http://ayyaantuu.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/TesfahunChemeda20101.jpg)
OLF Statement on the death of Engineer Tesfahun Chemeda who died in the notorious TPLF/EPRDF prison of Qaallittii yesterday (August 24, 2013).
Short Biography
Short Biography
Engineer Tesfahun was born in 1976 from his father Mr. Chemeda Gurmessa and his mother Mrs. Giddinesh Benya at Harbu village, Guduru district, eastern Wallaga, western Oromia. He was lucky enough to get the slim chance of going to school for his likes under the occupation. He completed his school starting at Looyaa, then Fincha’aa and at Shambo in 1996. His remarkably high score enabled him to join the university in Finfinne (Addis Abeba) where he graduated with BSc in Civil Engineering in 2001. Subsequently:
- Sept. 2004–Jan 2005 – he worked as unit manager for the maintenance of Arsi-Bale road project run by Oromia Rural Road Maintenance Authority and Ethio-Italian Company.
- Worked at Degele-Birbirsa RR50 project in Salle-Nonno District in extreme South-west of Ilu-Abba-Bore Zone
- Worked on four simultaneous road projects for settlements; Kone-Chawwaqaa, Baddallee-Kolosirri, Gachi-Chate and Yanfa-Ballattii
- Worked as a project manager for Chawwaqa district head office construction in Ilu-Harari.
- Oct. 2001–July 2003 site engineer for Siree-Nunu-Arjo Rural Road of Wallaga district.
Because of the policy of persecution and surveillance imposed on him, like any educated and entrepreneurial Oromo class as per TPLF’s standing policy, he decided to flee to Kenya for his safety. He sought protection from the UNHCR office in Nairobi explaining his position, and got accepted and recognized as a refugee. However, for unknown reasons, he and his colleague in skill and refugee life, Mesfin Abebe Abdisa, were arrested and eventually handed over to the Ethiopian authorities by the Kenyan counterpart on April 27, 2007, due to the agreement between the two countries.
Ethiopia, being a member of the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JATT), formed under the auspices U.S. that includes Uganda and Kenya as well, continues to abduct Oromo refugees from the neighbouring countries where they sought UN protection, under the pretext of anti-terrorism. The two innocent victims Tesfahun and Mesfin were handed over to the Ethiopian authorities who took them handcuffed and blindfolded at 2:00AM local time on May 12, 2007, purportedly to have them investigated for terrorism at the JATT Main Investigation Branch in Finfinne (Addis Abeba).
From Apr. 27 to May 12, 2007, before handing them over, they were interrogated at the Kenyan National Bureau of Investigation near Tirm Valley by American agents and Kenyan Anti-Terror Police Unit. The Kenyan officer Mr Francis, who led the investigation, concluded the innocence of these two victims and requested the Kenyan authority to immediately let them free. However, another Kenyan CID agent Ms. Lelian, who is suspected of having close connection with the Ethiopian agents, opposed the decision and facilitated the handing over of these two innocent victims.
Once in the hands of the Ethiopian agents, they were taken to the notorious dark Central Investigation compound, known as Ma’ikelawii, where they were interrogated under severe torture for a year and a quarter.
Engineer Tesfahun was then presented before a court of magistrates of all Tigrian nationals in Jul. 2008, who passed the life sentence on him on March 31, 2010. The two were subsequently moved from the maximum security prison to an unknown destination for the pretext of planning to escape. They were taken for further torture in another underground location by a squad directly commanded by the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. It was only since last three months that they were returned to Qallitti main prison. The beating was so severe that the engineer repeatedly requested and needed medical treatment which he was of course denied and eventually succumbed to the torture impact yesterday Aug. 24, 2013. He became the latest victim of the vicious systematic genocide against the Oromo.
Regarding the fate of these two engineers, the OLF strongly believes that the way Kenyan authorities have been handing over innocent Oromo refugees to the anti-Oromo Ethiopian criminal regime is against the relevant international conventions. We strongly request the Kenyan government to desist from this practice of the last 22 years of handing over innocent Oromo victims who seek refuge in their country. The Kenyan government cannot avoid sharing the responsibility of such murders of innocent people who they hand over to the notorious regime that is well known for its anti Oromo campaign.
The OLF extends its heartfelt condolence to the family relatives and friends of Engineer Tefahun and calls on the Oromo people to double the struggle for freedom as the only way to be free of such persecutions.
Victory to the Oromo People!
Oromo Liberation Front
August 25, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
The Oromo and the War on Terror in the Horn of Africa
http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache
Last updated: 16 July 2013
The Oromo and other long-suffering communities do not want independence but to be treated as citizens of the state.
In August 2011, Bekele Gerba, an English teacher at Addis Ababa University and prominent politician, met with a delegation from Amnesty International to discuss the human rights situation in Ethiopia. Gerba, a vocal activist on behalf of his largely Muslim Oromo people, was deputy chairman of the opposition party Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) and a member of the executive committee of Medrek, the country’s main opposition coalition.
To the Ethiopian government, however, Gerba was a terrorist. Four days after the meeting, he was arrested. In November 2012 Gerba was convicted and imprisoned under Ethiopia’s 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation for association with the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which the government has asserted is linked with al-Qaeda affiliated entities.
According to organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, however, Gerba was guilty of being Oromo and talking of the plight of his people. Shortly before his arrest, Gerba had described the challenges facing his community, telling Voice of America "Anyone who speaks the [Oromo] language and does not belong to the ruling party is a suspect and can be taken to prison any time." Gerba and other incarcerated Oromo (Oromo rights groups estimate there are around 20,000 Oromo political prisoners in Ethiopia) continue to spark protests in Ethiopia and across the global Oromo diaspora.
Who are the Oromo?
Readers might be forgiven for asking who the Oromo are and why they are important. It is, however, impossible to understand Ethiopia - which is Africa’s second most populous country, a key US ally in the war on terror, the recipient of billions of dollars in western aid, and one of the world’s fastest growing economies - without knowing something of the Oromo.
With a population of around 30 million in Ethiopia and also extending into Kenya, the Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and their language is the fourth most spoken in Africa. Yet the Oromo are an invisible ethnicity in the eyes of the world. To comprehend the Oromo, their relationship with the Ethiopian central government, and how they have become involved in the war on terror, we must look at Oromo history.
In order to improve the situation...each side must view the other through its own culture with respect, and involve tribal elders who can help make peace...the military is not a solution, there has to be political accommodation.
Ermias Sahle Selassie, the grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie
Prior to incorporation into the modern state of Ethiopia, the Oromo, split into various clans tracing descent to a common ancestor named Orma, had lived for centuries as independent people under their indigenous system of law, known as Gadaa, which was administered by councils of elders. In various places the Oromo also had their own kingdoms. Oromo areas contained prominent Islamic centers, such as the shrine of the Sufi Sheikh Hussein in the Bale region, one of the most important in the Horn of Africa.
In the nineteenth century, the Amhara people, who considered themselves the successor to the ancient Christian kingdom of Aksum with roots going back 2,000 years, attempted to consolidate their rule over other ethnic groups including the Oromo, who were concentrated in the country’s south. The Amhara believed they were restoring a mythological "greater Ethiopia" that existed prior to Oromo invasion.
The Amhara under emperors like Menelik II utilised modern weapons and European advisors against their opponents, who fought with spears. The result was devastation and death on an enormous scale. Between 1868 and 1900, half of all Oromo were killed, around 5 million people. The tactics employed were brutal. Following the defeat of the Oromo Arsi tribe of the Bale region, for example, Menelik’s general had the right hands of all strong men cut off and tied to their necks, and the breasts of the women sliced off and similarly worn.
Hundreds of thousands of settlers, known as naftanya, meaning gun carrier, were dispatched by the Amhara government into fortified settlements in the Oromo areas. The settlers seized vast tracts of Oromo lands, on which the Oromo were forced to labour. Oromo place names were changed to Amharic and local language and culture were banned. Under the famous emperor Haile Selassie, who took power in 1930, Oromo lands were given to multinational corporations, expelling and decimating local populations. The Oromo were known by the derogatory name Galla, or lowly "outsiders."
The Oromo rose in frequent rebellions, the largest of which broke out in Bale in the 1960s and resulted in the deaths of close to half a million people. Bale rebels would play an important role in forming the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which began a campaign that has continued to the present time.
The overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie and the establishment of the Marxist government known as the Derg in 1974 brought further suffering for the Oromo. In the late 1970s the government began resettling mass numbers of people from the north in the Oromo region. By the mid-1980s this programme had led to a famine that resulted in the deaths of over one million people, shocking the world. During a "villagisation" programme in the same period, around eight million Oromo were moved into what were effectively concentration camps run by the military.
The fall of the Marxists following a guerilla campaign by the Oromo and other ethnic groups in 1991 brought relief, and there was hope that Ethiopia was entering an era of democracy and pluralism.
Yet the nation’s new rulers, based in the Christian Tigray people, who also considered themselves ethnic successors to Aksum, continued the center’s policy toward the Oromo. From 1992 to 1994, for example, as many as 50,000 Oromo suspected of ties with the OLF were imprisoned in four concentration camps and 3,000 died. Additionally, it is estimated that between 1992 and 2001 50,000 Oromo were killed and 16,000 "disappeared," a euphemism for secret killing. During the 1998-2000 war with Eritrea, Oromo were drafted to fight and died in large numbers, making up the majority of the more than 100,000 Ethiopian soldiers killed.
American involvement
The September 11 attacks brought increased American involvement in the Horn of Africa and an alliance with Ethiopia against "terrorism". In late 2006 the US, which had begun training the Ethiopian army three years earlier, backed Ethiopia’s invasion of neighbouring Somalia. Ethiopia sought to firmly align its domestic opponents with the US war against al-Qaeda, with Ethiopia’s intelligence chief, in documents released by Wikileaks, telling the US ambassador in 2009 that the OLF is an accomplice of "international terrorist groups" and receives "support and assistance" from terrorist enemies of the US. Ethiopia joined a regional "rendition" network, with US agents interrogating terror suspects in Ethiopian prisons.
Ethiopia’s lack of democratic transparency was not a barrier to US aid, with the country receiving over $2bn in the two years following national elections in 2010 that saw the ruling party win 99.6 per cent of parliamentary seats. In August 2011 the BBC reported that the government was using billions of dollars of such foreign aid to systematically starve populations in the country’s south and employing tactics of "mass detentions…torture and extra-judicial killings." Two months after the report aired, it was revealed that the US was flying drone missions from its base in Arba Minch in southern Ethiopia, just adjacent to the Oromia region.
The Anti-Terrorism Proclamation was commonly invoked in 2011 as the government launched a crackdown on scores of politicians, journalists, bloggers, and others among the Oromo and other groups. It was also invoked in the arrests of prominent Muslim leaders the following year, who began to clash with the central government over government attempts to control the practice of Islam and appoint its own approved Muslim leaders.
In April 2012 Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told parliament that al-Qaeda was operating in the Oromo Arsi and Bale provinces. Ten days later security forces in Arsi arrested an imam the government claimed was attempting to "instigate jihad," resulting in the deaths of four people.
The August 2012 appointment of Hailemariam Desalegn, a Christian of the southern Wolayta people, as Prime Minister following the death of Zenawi led to hopes of greater democracy and inclusion. Yet the government structure and mentality seems to have remained in place. In February 2013, for example, state television aired a documentary co-produced by the National Security Agency and Federal Police entitled Jihadawi Harekat or "jihadi movement" which accused the protesting Ethiopian Muslims of links with foreign terrorists.
Ermias Sahle Selassie weighs in
Given the seriousness of the problem, what is to be done? To help us understand the situation in Ethiopia, we met with His Imperial Highness Ermias Sahle Selassie, the grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie, in Washington, D.C. last year. A sophisticated and thoughtful man, he told us that the Ethiopian government officially sanctions his title and allows him to return when he chooses. Prince Ermias, who is of Amhara and Oromo descent, lamented that the once "harmonious relations" between Christian Ethiopians and Muslim tribes are "breaking down".
In order to improve the situation, he explained, each side must view the other through its own culture with respect, and involve tribal elders who can help make peace. On the subject of the war on terror in the region, Prince Ermias said that "the military is not a solution, there has to be political accommodation".
His Imperial Highness’ sensible and practical steps give us an idea how to move forward. In order to bring stability and harmony to the nation, the central government must extend full civil and human rights, economic development, democratic representation, and freedom of language and expression to the Oromo as well as all Ethiopians.
A true modern, democratic, federal system would allow Ethiopia’s various ethnicities and regions to shape their own destiny while remaining part of the Ethiopian family, helping to alleviate the conditions that have caused some to turn to violence. The Oromo and other long-suffering communities largely do not want independence but to be treated as citizens of the state with equal rights.
Yet this future can only be achieved if the Ethiopian centre ceases portraying the Oromo and others who are demanding rights and freedoms as terrorists. Supporters of Ethiopia like the US need to understand what is happening and take proactive steps to alter the way the war on terrorism is being conceived and waged. Unless the situation changes, the Oromo, like so many other Muslim tribal societies across the world, are in danger of becoming a casualty of this global campaign.
This article is based on research for Akbar Ahmed's book The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a War on Tribal Islam, published by Brookings Institution Press.
Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, DC and the former Pakistani High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
Frankie Martin, an Ibn Khaldun Chair Research Fellow at American University's School of International Service, conducted research for The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a Global War On Tribal Islam by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed and is currently pursuing postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge.
Last updated: 16 July 2013
The Oromo and other long-suffering communities do not want independence but to be treated as citizens of the state.
In August 2011, Bekele Gerba, an English teacher at Addis Ababa University and prominent politician, met with a delegation from Amnesty International to discuss the human rights situation in Ethiopia. Gerba, a vocal activist on behalf of his largely Muslim Oromo people, was deputy chairman of the opposition party Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) and a member of the executive committee of Medrek, the country’s main opposition coalition.
To the Ethiopian government, however, Gerba was a terrorist. Four days after the meeting, he was arrested. In November 2012 Gerba was convicted and imprisoned under Ethiopia’s 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation for association with the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which the government has asserted is linked with al-Qaeda affiliated entities.
According to organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, however, Gerba was guilty of being Oromo and talking of the plight of his people. Shortly before his arrest, Gerba had described the challenges facing his community, telling Voice of America "Anyone who speaks the [Oromo] language and does not belong to the ruling party is a suspect and can be taken to prison any time." Gerba and other incarcerated Oromo (Oromo rights groups estimate there are around 20,000 Oromo political prisoners in Ethiopia) continue to spark protests in Ethiopia and across the global Oromo diaspora.
Who are the Oromo?
Readers might be forgiven for asking who the Oromo are and why they are important. It is, however, impossible to understand Ethiopia - which is Africa’s second most populous country, a key US ally in the war on terror, the recipient of billions of dollars in western aid, and one of the world’s fastest growing economies - without knowing something of the Oromo.
With a population of around 30 million in Ethiopia and also extending into Kenya, the Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and their language is the fourth most spoken in Africa. Yet the Oromo are an invisible ethnicity in the eyes of the world. To comprehend the Oromo, their relationship with the Ethiopian central government, and how they have become involved in the war on terror, we must look at Oromo history.
In order to improve the situation...each side must view the other through its own culture with respect, and involve tribal elders who can help make peace...the military is not a solution, there has to be political accommodation.
Ermias Sahle Selassie, the grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie
Prior to incorporation into the modern state of Ethiopia, the Oromo, split into various clans tracing descent to a common ancestor named Orma, had lived for centuries as independent people under their indigenous system of law, known as Gadaa, which was administered by councils of elders. In various places the Oromo also had their own kingdoms. Oromo areas contained prominent Islamic centers, such as the shrine of the Sufi Sheikh Hussein in the Bale region, one of the most important in the Horn of Africa.
In the nineteenth century, the Amhara people, who considered themselves the successor to the ancient Christian kingdom of Aksum with roots going back 2,000 years, attempted to consolidate their rule over other ethnic groups including the Oromo, who were concentrated in the country’s south. The Amhara believed they were restoring a mythological "greater Ethiopia" that existed prior to Oromo invasion.
The Amhara under emperors like Menelik II utilised modern weapons and European advisors against their opponents, who fought with spears. The result was devastation and death on an enormous scale. Between 1868 and 1900, half of all Oromo were killed, around 5 million people. The tactics employed were brutal. Following the defeat of the Oromo Arsi tribe of the Bale region, for example, Menelik’s general had the right hands of all strong men cut off and tied to their necks, and the breasts of the women sliced off and similarly worn.
Hundreds of thousands of settlers, known as naftanya, meaning gun carrier, were dispatched by the Amhara government into fortified settlements in the Oromo areas. The settlers seized vast tracts of Oromo lands, on which the Oromo were forced to labour. Oromo place names were changed to Amharic and local language and culture were banned. Under the famous emperor Haile Selassie, who took power in 1930, Oromo lands were given to multinational corporations, expelling and decimating local populations. The Oromo were known by the derogatory name Galla, or lowly "outsiders."
The Oromo rose in frequent rebellions, the largest of which broke out in Bale in the 1960s and resulted in the deaths of close to half a million people. Bale rebels would play an important role in forming the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which began a campaign that has continued to the present time.
The overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie and the establishment of the Marxist government known as the Derg in 1974 brought further suffering for the Oromo. In the late 1970s the government began resettling mass numbers of people from the north in the Oromo region. By the mid-1980s this programme had led to a famine that resulted in the deaths of over one million people, shocking the world. During a "villagisation" programme in the same period, around eight million Oromo were moved into what were effectively concentration camps run by the military.
The fall of the Marxists following a guerilla campaign by the Oromo and other ethnic groups in 1991 brought relief, and there was hope that Ethiopia was entering an era of democracy and pluralism.
Yet the nation’s new rulers, based in the Christian Tigray people, who also considered themselves ethnic successors to Aksum, continued the center’s policy toward the Oromo. From 1992 to 1994, for example, as many as 50,000 Oromo suspected of ties with the OLF were imprisoned in four concentration camps and 3,000 died. Additionally, it is estimated that between 1992 and 2001 50,000 Oromo were killed and 16,000 "disappeared," a euphemism for secret killing. During the 1998-2000 war with Eritrea, Oromo were drafted to fight and died in large numbers, making up the majority of the more than 100,000 Ethiopian soldiers killed.
American involvement
The September 11 attacks brought increased American involvement in the Horn of Africa and an alliance with Ethiopia against "terrorism". In late 2006 the US, which had begun training the Ethiopian army three years earlier, backed Ethiopia’s invasion of neighbouring Somalia. Ethiopia sought to firmly align its domestic opponents with the US war against al-Qaeda, with Ethiopia’s intelligence chief, in documents released by Wikileaks, telling the US ambassador in 2009 that the OLF is an accomplice of "international terrorist groups" and receives "support and assistance" from terrorist enemies of the US. Ethiopia joined a regional "rendition" network, with US agents interrogating terror suspects in Ethiopian prisons.
Ethiopia’s lack of democratic transparency was not a barrier to US aid, with the country receiving over $2bn in the two years following national elections in 2010 that saw the ruling party win 99.6 per cent of parliamentary seats. In August 2011 the BBC reported that the government was using billions of dollars of such foreign aid to systematically starve populations in the country’s south and employing tactics of "mass detentions…torture and extra-judicial killings." Two months after the report aired, it was revealed that the US was flying drone missions from its base in Arba Minch in southern Ethiopia, just adjacent to the Oromia region.
The Anti-Terrorism Proclamation was commonly invoked in 2011 as the government launched a crackdown on scores of politicians, journalists, bloggers, and others among the Oromo and other groups. It was also invoked in the arrests of prominent Muslim leaders the following year, who began to clash with the central government over government attempts to control the practice of Islam and appoint its own approved Muslim leaders.
In April 2012 Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told parliament that al-Qaeda was operating in the Oromo Arsi and Bale provinces. Ten days later security forces in Arsi arrested an imam the government claimed was attempting to "instigate jihad," resulting in the deaths of four people.
The August 2012 appointment of Hailemariam Desalegn, a Christian of the southern Wolayta people, as Prime Minister following the death of Zenawi led to hopes of greater democracy and inclusion. Yet the government structure and mentality seems to have remained in place. In February 2013, for example, state television aired a documentary co-produced by the National Security Agency and Federal Police entitled Jihadawi Harekat or "jihadi movement" which accused the protesting Ethiopian Muslims of links with foreign terrorists.
Ermias Sahle Selassie weighs in
Given the seriousness of the problem, what is to be done? To help us understand the situation in Ethiopia, we met with His Imperial Highness Ermias Sahle Selassie, the grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie, in Washington, D.C. last year. A sophisticated and thoughtful man, he told us that the Ethiopian government officially sanctions his title and allows him to return when he chooses. Prince Ermias, who is of Amhara and Oromo descent, lamented that the once "harmonious relations" between Christian Ethiopians and Muslim tribes are "breaking down".
In order to improve the situation, he explained, each side must view the other through its own culture with respect, and involve tribal elders who can help make peace. On the subject of the war on terror in the region, Prince Ermias said that "the military is not a solution, there has to be political accommodation".
His Imperial Highness’ sensible and practical steps give us an idea how to move forward. In order to bring stability and harmony to the nation, the central government must extend full civil and human rights, economic development, democratic representation, and freedom of language and expression to the Oromo as well as all Ethiopians.
A true modern, democratic, federal system would allow Ethiopia’s various ethnicities and regions to shape their own destiny while remaining part of the Ethiopian family, helping to alleviate the conditions that have caused some to turn to violence. The Oromo and other long-suffering communities largely do not want independence but to be treated as citizens of the state with equal rights.
Yet this future can only be achieved if the Ethiopian centre ceases portraying the Oromo and others who are demanding rights and freedoms as terrorists. Supporters of Ethiopia like the US need to understand what is happening and take proactive steps to alter the way the war on terrorism is being conceived and waged. Unless the situation changes, the Oromo, like so many other Muslim tribal societies across the world, are in danger of becoming a casualty of this global campaign.
This article is based on research for Akbar Ahmed's book The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a War on Tribal Islam, published by Brookings Institution Press.
Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, DC and the former Pakistani High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
Frankie Martin, an Ibn Khaldun Chair Research Fellow at American University's School of International Service, conducted research for The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a Global War On Tribal Islam by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed and is currently pursuing postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)