Human Rights are Universal and Indivisible
Over the past 21 years, the Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF)-led and dominated Ethiopian government has imprisoned tens of thousands of political opposition and citizens, mainly Oromos. As a consequence to the government’s repressive policies, thousands of innocent citizens have been languishing in prisons and secret camps, and many have been and are being severely tortured, disabled and/or killed. Others have been abducted in broad daylight, and made to disappear or murdered secretly.
Rampant arrests, unlawful killings, abductions, tortures and other human rights abuses by the Ethiopian government, consistent with the direct experiences of many of us, are documented and confirmed in the annual reports of well-respected human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and the U.S. State Department.
Despite these tangible facts of human rights abuses, the Ethiopian government continues receiving billions of dollars of aid money every year. Subsidizing over one third of its budget from foreign aid, Ethiopia has built one of the biggest and best-equipped armies in Africa – while millions of its citizens depend on food aid. In fact, the aid money is used to impose the Tigrayan ethnocentric dictatorship on Oromos and other peoples in an involuntary multinational society.
It is frustrating to witness the West’s reluctance to use their influence to effect real change, and even worse to believe the fairytale of a human-rights-abusing government that claim to be moving on the road to democracy.
While thousands of Oromos and others are languishing in prisons under bogus terrorism charges, the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Mr. Hailemariam Dessalegn, brazenly argued in public that there are/were no political prisoners in Ethiopia.
Such blatant misinformation has been the norm within the entire leadership of the TPLF-regime – intended to deceive international donors and allies. Again, referring to his inauguration speech, the new prime minister also promised to continue implementing the policies of the late autocratic Prime Minister Meles Zenawi; this is a clear indication that the new prime minister is under the control of the Tigrayan elites and that he cannot make any reform and democratic changes in the empire-state of Ethiopia.
Observing the painful agony and sufferings of the ordinary people, the political prisoners in particular, and the worsening situation at home, we, members of the Oromo communities and the Union of Oromo Students in Germany, held a peaceful demonstration on August 30, 2013 in Frankfurt am Main, to protest against the tyranny of the TPLF-Ethiopian government, and earnestly appeal to the German government and its allies to use their good offices with the Ethiopian government and facilitate the following:
1. Immediately stop of financial support to the dictatorship in Ethiopia
2. Immediately stop to ethnic-cleansing now underway in eastern-Oromia’s Anniyya region
3. Unconditionally and immediately release of all political prisoners
4. Practical action to promote real democratic changes in the country
5. Immediately stop to Land-grabbing and their restitution to the indigenous owners
6. Immediately implement the right of the Oromo and other nations for national self-determination.
7. Respect freedom of religion and journalism
8. justice for those criminally murdered in Arsi–Kofele and all parts of Oromia
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