By Meron Admasu | August 27, 2013
Meron Admasu
Oromo is the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia also one of the most persecuted, the Oromo people make up about 40 per cent of Ethiopia’s population, yet face widespread discrimination and have long been targeted by the government. So what should be done to stop the marginalization of the Oromo’s and end Ethiopia’s internal ethnic divide.
Oromo has bitter and long experience under Abyssinian colonization; the Oromo’s and the Southern peoples of the Ethiopian empire have gone through a lot. The wayane lead Ethiopian regime and over one hundred thousand lives were lost. Among those, the majorities of those wars were Oromo men, who were used as canon fodders in clearing land mines. This is one method of TPLF using to break the will of the Oromo and spray the seeds of division and conflicts between the People we lived in peace for centuries.
Another tactic TPLF is using in Oromia to break the will of our people is to harass and then kill educated and businessmen Oromos. For example, 24 August 2013 Engineer Tesfahun Chemeda, a fierce Oromo rights advocate and a former UNHCR recognized refugee, died at Kaliti prison, Chemeda was accused of being an activist with the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), an organization formed in 1973 to fight for self-determination of Oromo people in Ethiopia. A three-judge panel at Ethiopia’s federal court later sentenced Chemeda to life in prison without parole in April 2011, where he was serving a life sentence under concocted charges of plotting to overthrow government.
Second tactic, harass these educated Oromo’s and force them to flee abroad. This tactic is in use to deny Oromos any future leaders. I can go on and go on to expose the genocide TPLF is committing against the Oromo nation and its people. For example, the small maize and potato farming Muslim village of Totolamo in south west Oromiyya near the strategic town of Shashemene is in deep mourning after 11 of her citizens gunned down in cold blood by the genocidal Tigre People Liberation Front/ TPLF federal police commandos on Saturday August 3, 2013.
In order to cover up their crime in Oromia, TPLF regimes has recruited some power individuals like former Ambassadors and lobbyists such as Peter Pham-Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, whom TPLF pay them millions of dollars to hide and defend their atrocities on the Oromos and other nations without any challenges.
TPLF has already passed the Darg, Haile Selassie combined in the number of Oromos it killed, displaced, jailed, and its race is with that of Menelik, who committed genocide on Oromos and other nations and got away with it because he was then supported by powerful three European powers. In turn, TPLF regime is supported by the most powerful nation on earth, the USA and some European powers, who fund its genocide on our people. Therefore, if we do not rise up as a nation under attack now not tomorrow, TPLF will intensify its crime under any pre-text and as it sees fit.
The Government of Ethiopia interferes with the rights of disadvantaged ethnic groups to take part in cultural life , Oromos, for example, do not feel free to speak Oromiffa in public or to use distinctively Oromo names because doing so makes them targets of formal and informal discrimination. Oromos face widespread hostility from members of other ethnic groups and are often called a name that is an ethnic slur and an affront to their cultural heritage. Moreover, the Government of Ethiopia has targeted prominent Oromo cultural figures for persecution.
In Ethiopia, discrimination based on ethnicity is often related to discrimination on the basis of real or perceived political opinion. The government actively impedes the rights of disadvantaged ethnic groups, including on the right to self-determination, the right to work and to have just and favorable conditions of work, the right to form and join trade unions, the right to protection and assistance of their families, the right to adequate food and housing, the right to health, the right to education, and the right to take part in cultural life.
The EPRDF (TPLF) has for long targeted Oromo Liberation Front members, supporters and militant of the Oromo ethnic group and undertaken repression in Oromia and other countries. In line with this, The EPRDF regime has passed death sentence, lifelong imprisonment without legal bases. The regime kept thousands of Oromo origin people in secret prisons without bringing to court. For example, The Federal High Court of Ethiopia sentenced 21 Oromo Nationals (most of whom are university students) to as much as 2-8 years in prison on 7th August, 2013.
We strongly condemn the illegal human rights violation of the TPLF regime and calls for immediate release of all Oromo political prisoners. The regime must stop forcing Oromo peasant to leave our land without any compensation. Directly or indirectly it is obviously known that the wayane regime has declared being Oromo alone as a crime.
The Tigrayan-led government has been systematically targeting and killing all Oromo leaders and those who have potentials of leadership while promoting the most despicable elements of Oromo society and the children of colonial settlers as leaders of the Oromo nation.
We have moral and national responsibilities to achieve the objectives for which our heroines and heroes sacrificed their lives. The Oromo national movement is a very dangerous project. Tens of thousands of our people have been imprisoned, tortured, raped, and received all forms of abuse from successive Ethiopian governments in general.
Now, at a time we are struggling for our independence, self-determination, peace, equality and respect, human dignity, democracy, freedom.
Oromia shall be free!!
God bless Oromia!!
Meron Admasu
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