Dr Trevor Trueman. Oromia Support Group 2 Viewfield, Como Rd Malvern, Worcs, WR14 2TH, UK Tel (44) 1684 573722 Email truemanosg@cs Abstract The Ethiopian government, using its extensive and sophisticated security apparatus, is deliberately and systematically destroying all serious political opposition. The Oromo and other southern peoples believe themselves to have been colonised and oppressed since the incorporation of their territory into Ethiopia at the end of the 19th century. They were initially represented in the transitional administration, established at the downfall of the Derg military dictatorship in 1991, by their nationality-based liberation fronts. Since 1991, Oromo nationalists have been targeted for human rights violations. Oromo peasants, academics and businesspeople who are suspected of supporting the nationalist movement have been killed, disappeared, tortured and detained. The Oromo region is being impoverished and its environment degraded. The Oromo people, who number 25-30 million and constitute at least 40% of the population of Ethiopia, have been further persecuted by famine, fire and forced conscription. According to criteria included in the 1951 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the Ethiopian government is committing genocide against the Oromo and other oppressed southern peoples of Ethiopia. International financial institutions and foreign aid, on which Ethiopia depends, are complicit in this genocide. Biography Dr Trueman is a medical practitioner and has been chair of the Oromia Support Group (OSG), since it was established in 1994. OSG receives information on human rights abuses from informants within Ethiopia and from refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries and the West. Dr Trueman trained health workers for the Oromo Relief Association from 1988 to 1991 and travelled in rebel held areas of Ethiopia before the government was toppled in 1991. Background The Oromo and other non-Abyssinian peoples of Ethiopia claim they have been colonised and oppressed since the incorporation of their territory into present day Ethiopia at the end of the 19th century The nationalist movements among these peoples, especially the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), contributed alongside the liberation fronts from Tigray and Eritrea, to the downfall of the communist military dictatorship of the Derg, in 1991. The OLF and other nationality-based political bodies were initially part of the transitional Ethiopian government in 1991. They were barred from effective power sharing, despite the OLF being the most popular and established party among the 25-30 million Oromo, at least 40% of the population of Ethiopia. They withdrew from the June 1992 elections because of ‘widespread arrest and intimidation of candidates’. OLF offices were then attacked and staff killed. OLF troops, encamped away from towns for the elections, were attacked and overrun, despite international guarantees for their safety. Between 20,000 and 45,000 suspected OLF supporters were detained in harsh conditions and hundreds killed. Stated government policy Oromo nationalism is perceived as the greatest threat to the ruling government party (the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front – EPRDF – an umbrella party, led and dominated by the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front – TPLF). According to the EPRDF party journal, Hizbaawi Adera [People’s Custodian], Tahsas, 1989, Ethiopian Calendar [December 1996], ‘To defeat narrow nationalism . . . must be part of our struggle’. ‘In order to have a lasting solution to our problem . . . we have to break narrow nationalist tendencies in Oromia . . . we have to fight narrow nationalism to the bitter end . . . to smash it in a very decisive manner. . . . fighting the higher intellectual and bourgeoisie classes in a very extensive and resolute manner. . . . The standard bearers of narrow nationalism are the educated elite and the bourgeoisie’. ‘[W]e must be in a position to eradicate all narrow nationalists . . .’ Extra-judicial killings, disappearance, arbitrary detention, torture and rape Since 1991, suspected Oromo nationalists have been killed, tortured, raped and made to disappear. The Oromia Support Group has received credible reports of 2,754 extra-judicial killings and 842 reports of disappearance, since it was established in 1994. Representative accounts are given in the Appendix to this paper. The US State Department reports that suspicion of belonging to the OLF is the most common cause for detention in Ethiopia. The report for 2000 states that the Ethiopian government ‘continued to detain persons suspected of sympathizing with or being involved with the OLF’. Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross visit 10,000 detainees in Ethiopia, nearly all in official prisons. Clandestine human rights organisations in Ethiopia claim that ten times that number are being held in unofficial detention centres. A defecting official from the Ethiopian Security Ministry, confirmed the existence of secret detention centres; underground cells for solitary confinement in military camps and ‘ghost houses’ in Addis Ababa, as reported many times by correspondents and interviewees to the Oromia Support Group (OSG). Amnesty International report that torture and disappearance are more likely to occur in these centres than in official places of detention. After he defected, the Minister of Justice in Oromia Region, Yonatan Dhibisa, stated that 30,000 Oromo political prisoners were being held in official detention centres in Oromia Region. According to several hundred reports sent to OSG and over thirty interviews with victims and their relatives, beating of detainees is routine. Torture – especially arm-tying, beating of the soles of the feet, suspension of weights from genitalia and mock execution – is commonplace, at least in unofficial places of detention. Female detainees estimate that 50% of women are raped during detention, often by several soldiers or policemen on several occasions. The Minnesota Center for Victims of Torture has surveyed over 500 randomly selected Oromo refugees. The majority had been subject to torture and nearly all of the rest had been subject to some kind of government violence. Members of the EPRDF surrogate Oromo party, the Oromo Peoples Democratic Organisation (OPDO), are also subject to purges, if they complain of lack of investment or of human rights violations in Oromia Region. The vice-president of the OPDO, Hassan Ali, escaped to the USA after an assassination attempt by security forces. He reported other killings of OPDO officials, because they were suspected of holding nationalist sentiments. OLF supporters are pursued to neighbouring countries – Djibouti, Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Somaliland – where they have been detained, tortured, killed and subjected to refoulement back to Ethiopia. Several were killed in South Africa in 1998 and 1999. In late 1997 and early 1998, all board members of the Human Rights League were detained in Addis Ababa. The Human Rights League was a newly formed body of Oromo, working legally, which held workshops on human rights and which intended to report violations. Most board members of the Macha-Tulama Association, a 37 year old Oromo cultural and self-help organisation, and the Executive Director and other staff of the Oromo Relief Association, an indigenous relief and development agency caring for over 300,000, were also detained, along with journalists, doctors and nurses. Amnesty International regarded many of these as prisoners of conscience. In all, 61 were still facing conspiracy charges, punishable by the death penalty, when after over three years of detention and over 20 court appearances, 28 were released in May 2001. One had disappeared in detention. Two detainees, held at the same time in Karchale Central Prison in Addis Ababa, died during detention, at least one from torture injuries. Detentions of Macha-Tulama Association members continued. The vice-president was detained incommunicado for two weeks in August 2000 and eight other members were kept in detention. Judiciary Successive US State Department country reports state that prolonged pre-trial detention is partly due to a shortage of trained judges.12 Judges report intimidation, dismissal and detention, if they release or attempt to release detainees suspected of supporting the OLF. For example, all of the Oromia Region Supreme Court judges were dismissed in March 2000. Trials are frequently unfair.16 For example, 33 OLF members held in Zeway military camp were sentenced to 15-25 years imprisonment, in March 2001, on evidence given solely by soldiers who guarded them in the camp. Decisions by judges to release detainees because of lack of evidence are frequently reversed by military and security personnel. For example, 230 detainees in Batu military camp were ordered to be released in January 2000. The detainees wrote of their being in their sixth year of detention, in March 2001. Press The government, using an ambiguous press law, has succeeded in forcing most of the private press, which flourished in 1991, into dissolution. Frequent fines, detention of journalists, punitive bond payments and escalating prices of material have got rid of every indigenous Oromo magazine and newspaper. and The last newspapers written by Oromo were URJII and Seife Nebelbal. URJII ceased publication in late 1997, after three of its journalists were detained (as prisoners of conscience, see above). The editor of Seife Nebelbal wrote from exile in Kenya in January 2001, having fled Ethiopia with eight outstanding charges against him and fearful of another term in prison. The persecution of the remaining, non-Oromo, press continues. One journalist was driven to suicide in January 2000, apparently fearful of repeated detention. Non-government newspapers are effectively banned outside of Addis Ababa. Vendors are harassed and papers confiscated.36 Ethiopia has imprisoned more journalists than any other country in Africa in each year since 1993.37 Cultural rights Use of the Oromo language has been discouraged for over 100 years. In 1991, when the Minister of Education was an OLF official, text books in the Oromo language became available for the first time in Oromia Region. After the OLF withdrew from government, teachers of the Oromo language and the Latin script have been detained, tortured and killed. Cassette tapes of Oromo songs are confiscated from shops and premises often destroyed. Oromo singers have been killed, tortured, detained and raped. Ebbisa Addunya was shot dead in his home by security forces in Addis Ababa, in August 1996. Amnesty International has reported the detention of Oromo musicians and singers. The last remaining Oromo band, the Gada band, were forced into exile after refusing to perform at the 25th anniversary of the TPLF, in February 2000. Personal interviews with singers have corroborated reports of torture and rape. Dramatists and writers have also been detained, tortured and driven into exile. and Life conditions Development and commerce Government budget allocations to Oromia Region are less than those to the smaller Tigray Region and, as most projects are cancelled in Oromia, most of the allocation is returned to central coffers. Roads are deteriorating in Oromia and electricity is restricted in Addis Ababa. In Tigray, new hospitals, universities, medical schools and an airport have been built and Tigreans enjoy continuous electricity.42 Offices of the Oromo Relief Association were closed in 1995 and 1996. The government announced that a larger organisation, their own Oromo Self Help Association, was needed because development needs were large in Oromia Region. The Oromo Self Help Association was dissolved in early 1999 and its assets were transferred to a branch of the Relief Society of Tigray. The Relief Society of Tigray, Tigray Development Association and Endowment Fund for Rehabilitation of Tigray are controlled by central committee members of the TPLF. Through these companies, the TPLF and its members own most major business enterprises in Ethiopia.42, 50, Investment by mining companies, for example the Canadian, Canyon Resources Corporation which mines for gold in Oromia Region, benefits central government. Even employment is not given to the local population.42 Successful Oromo traders, businesspeople, farmers and hotel owners are particularly likely to be detained and tortured. Nearly all detainees report confiscation of property. Education Educational establishments flourish in Tigray, while the famous school of agriculture in Haromaya, Oromia Region, has been dismembered and parts transferred to Tigray. Although the largest nationality in Ethiopia, few Oromo are given places at Addis Ababa university. Medical facilities Rural Ethiopia has never enjoyed adequate access to health care. Two incidents indicate that medication and supplies are deliberately withheld from Oromia Region. An Oromo doctor, exiled to the USA, reported by interview in August 1998, that vital intra- venous fluids were withheld by the Health Ministry from Hararge Zone, Oromia Region, during a cholera epidemic. A helpful NGO supplied the fluids. A former reporter for the Ethiopian News Agency, interviewed in the USA, investigated a malaria outbreak in Jimma, Oromia Region, at the end of 1996. He reported that 400 died in a two month period, because medication was not supplied by the Ministry of Health. He was later forced to report that the government had the outbreak under control. Famine Famine in Ethiopia has long been associated with and believed to be due to warfare and denial of human rights. In 2000, the Ethiopian government stated, with agreement from the World Food Program, that at least 10 million were in need of food aid in Ethiopia. Areas which had never before lacked food were affected and the population was said by NGO officials to be more at risk than during the 1984-5 famine. Several correspondents complained that food aid was being denied to suspected OLF supporters and their families, to families who refused to present their sons as conscripts for the war with Eritrea and to families who refused to register for the May 2000 elections. Forced conscription Local correspondents and foreign journalists corroborate information obtained from prisoners of war. Youngsters, as young as 13, were rounded up from schools, markets and public meetings. Many schools closed because students stayed away, fearing conscription. Even Sudanese and Somali youths were caught up in forced conscription. At least two were killed for resisting conscription. and The prisoners of war described the human wave tactics used by Ethiopian commanders to breech fortified positions held by Eritrea and reported being forced at gunpoint to cross minefields, acting as human minesweepers as they were mowed down by Eritrean fire.61 Ethiopian media now put the Ethiopian death toll for the two year war at 123,000. Security network Any of the Oromia Support Group press releases and the report from Sue Pollock’s information gathering trip to Ethiopia in December 1995 and January 199642 portray the extent and depth of penetration of Oromo society by the government security apparatus. Whenever farmers take their produce to markets, they are liable to harassment and confiscation of their goods and vehicles. Many who report being arrested from their homes, also report their goods and vehicles being confiscated.11 Villagers travelling to nearby villages report being questioned on arrival by OPDO militia, who then hand them over to TPLF security men for interrogation.11 The government security apparatus is able to track suspects across the breadth of Ethiopia within one or two days. Nearly all accounts from former detainees include that their release is conditional on signing documents, agreeing that their life is forfeit should there be OLF activity in their area or they be showed to have involvement with the OLF. They are usually ordered to attend security offices every week. (See any press release from Oromia Support Group). Fires and protest in 2000 Possibly the most serious abuse of human rights, because of its long term effects on the environment and livelihood of civilians, is the deliberate burning of one sixth of Oromia’s forest and of forests in Sidama Zone (Southern Peoples’ Region), Ogaden (Somali Region) and in Benishangul Region. Deforestation for commercial purposes already claims 100,000 hectares per year, according to the Ethiopian Agricultural Bureau. The fires were nearly all started on the same day, 30 January 2000, by Ethiopian government officials, according to informants across Oromia and elsewhere. They wrote that the government was flushing out armed opposition movements in each of these areas and punishing the local population. Large areas of primary forest, including endemic species and other species of international significance, were destroyed. Villages and farms were razed. Farm animals were killed and beehives lost. At least 600,000 hectares of forest were burned in Oromia Region alone. The government claimed that the fires were started by farmers clearing land or honey collectors smoking bees out of their hives. However, these practices are long established and have not caused large fires before. Areas which have previously never been subject to fires were involved. Furthermore, it is not normal practice to clear land by fire at the end of January, especially if the December rains have been poor. Similarly, honey collectors only operate in October and November. The fires only occurred in areas which support armed opposition movements (Oromo Liberation Front, Ogaden National Liberation Front, Sidama Liberation Army). Initially, government spokesmen stated that the fires would have to be left burning until the rains began in April. One month later, responding to pressure from students and media, international assistance was sought and 350 Addis Ababa University students were allowed to help. They reported being harassed and intimidated. Thousands of students from other educational establishments were refused permission to help extinguish the fires. Villagers put out the majority of fires in inhabited areas but inaccessible tracts of primary forest in the Bale mountains continued to burn until put out by the onset of rain on 10 April. The fires precipitated unprecedented civil disturbance across Oromia. Four were killed at the first student demonstration, in Ambo on 9 March, including 12th grade student Getu Diriba, who was beaten to death by police. Subsequent demonstrations were not only against the government’s complicity in the fires. Students protested against forced conscription for the war with Eritrea, killings and beatings at other demonstrations and the organising and arming of Amhara settlers (the Galla Gadaye - ‘Oromo Killer’ - groups). Despite the use of violence to prevent demonstrations, including the killing of at least one student, Alemu Disassa, in Jimma, Illubabor Zone, protests occurred in Guder, Ginchi, Gedo, Mandi, Nekemte, Gimbi, Dembi Dollo, Nejo, Arjo, Horro Guduru, Ayra Guliso, Gori, Qilta Kara and Begi. Secondary schools and higher education establishments were closed ‘from Addis Ababa to Asosa’ and only re-opened in August. At least seven students were killed. Diribee Jifaar, a young teenager, was among two shot dead in Dembi Dollo on 2 April 2000. Many were injured and hundreds of demonstrators were detained, especially after a widespread round up of demonstrators at the end of April 2000. At least one of the 350 Addis Ababa University students, Terefe Ejere, disappeared. Terefe was taken from his dormitory on 2 May and was held incommunicado for several weeks. Other students who attended the fires have been intimidated, had their ID cards confiscated and restricted to the campus. The unrest continued into June. In May 2000, there were killings and detentions in Wollo and Hararge when civilians resisted forced conscription. Demonstrators were also detained in Shashemane. On 5 June 2000, after the fifth extra-judicial killing of a civilian within two weeks in Waliso, Showa, 6000 demonstrated at the funeral. Soldiers were called in from Ambo and Sabbata and ‘there was gunfire all day’, with many wounded. Over 100 were detained. On 11/12 June 2000, civil unrest in Ambo, Guder and Gindaberet resulted in severe damage to army barracks and the police station. Police attack on students Amnesty International appealed on 12 January 2001 about police invading the campus of Addis Ababa university and severely beating Oromo students in their dormitories. After being severely beaten at least 150 students were detained. Several were hospitalised. The action was precipitated by a clash between Oromo and Tigrean students, following which ten Oromo students disappeared from the campus, according to a statement issued by the students. The statement continued ‘The same night turns into a nightmare when Tigrean police and security . . . break into the dorms through doors and windows terrorizing the students. Doors that led out of the dormitories get locked and students from the other building cannot respond to the screams and cries of students in the locked rooms. Students who were in the rooms report that they got beaten and kicked with rifle butts, police batons . . . The men (with the aid of the Tigre students in campus) then proceed to look for the people whom they had come to collect.’ Provocation of violence between Oromo and other nationalities Formal inauguration of Hagere Fikir groups has occurred, at least in Nairobi, Kenya, and Johannesburg, South Africa. Hagere Fikir means ‘love of motherland/country’. The organisation was initially established by Haile Selassie, re-juvenated by the Derg in 1989 and again re-established by Ethiopian embassies, during the war with Eritrea, in 1998. Its stated purpose is to oppose any opposition to the Ethiopian government. Although it is run by the TPLF, it uses Amhara opposition to Oromo nationalism; its functionaries are mainly former Derg members or soldiers. The group has been responsible for killing, robbing, harassing and intimidating Oromo refugees in Kenya and South Africa. and The government refused to publish investigations into the reported massacre of Amhara in Bedeno in 1992, by the OLF. The OLF asked for the investigation, claiming that advancing government troops, fighting the OLF, had committed the atrocity. Many Amhara believe the massacre was the work of the OLF. Amhara settlers are encouraged to go to Oromia Region and have precipitated violence from Oromo peasants because of environmental damage they have caused in Wallega zone. Oromo in Borana zone complain that their land and water resources are being given to Somali Region and report eight being killed by Garre tribesmen in March 2001. Over 150 were reported killed by Garre tribesmen earlier in the year. In June 2000, the Ethiopian press reported the massacre of 39 Oromo by Issa tribesmen in Harage zone. Whenever clashes of this sort are investigated however, Ethiopian government troops are implicated. Degodia settlers who clashed with Boran Oromo in northern Kenya, which resulted in over 50 young men being killed by Kenyan ground troops in May 2000, are reported by Oromo residents to have been urged on and armed by the Ethiopian government. Fighting apparently between Guji Oromo (Borana zone) and Gedeo people of the Southern Peoples Region in 1994 was found by an investigating journalist to have been attacks by disguised TPLF soldiers on Guji Oromo. Captured soldiers, found killing animals, could not speak the Gedeo language and Gedeo people resided many miles from the incident.56 In December 2000, 12 Oromo were killed in North Wajir, Kenya, by Garre tribesmen, according to the Ethiopian embassy in Nairobi. Two soldiers who were killed in the fighting were wearing Ethiopian army uniforms. Genocide One UN definition of genocide, from the convention on its prevention and punishment, is that the term ‘means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: Killings members of the group Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.’ It is the author’s view that events in Ethiopia are consistent with its government committing genocide against the Oromo and other peoples of Ethiopia. In The Roots of Evil, Professor Staub lists pre-conditions for genocide, including: Difficult life conditions Devaluation of sub-groups (scapegoats) Hierarchical social structure Monolithic, not pluralistic culture Strong ideology These conditions exist in Ethiopia today. As the third poorest country in the world, with a declining standard of living, Ethiopia may be said to have difficult life conditions. Stereotypically, Abyssinians, i.e. Amhara and Tigrean people, regard the Oromo as ‘animals who don’t eat grass’. Anti-Oromo racism is a fundamental part of Abyssinian culture and of the conflicts between the Amhara and Tigrean peoples and the Oromo. Racist attitudes towards Oromo became more integral to Amhara/Tigre culture when Oromia was colonized in the late 19th century. As it became necessary in Europe to justify the colonization of Africa as a ‘civilising mission’; regarding Oromo as animals became necessary for Abyssinians. The devaluation and scape-goating of Oromo, especially those with nationalist views, is still inherent in ‘Ethiopian’ society. Ethiopian culture, as presented to the west, is Abyssinian culture. Unlike the long-standing democracies which belong to Oromo and other peoples’ cultures, Abyssinian culture is based on feudalism and imperialism. No Abyssinian leader has assumed power peacefully. Their society, at family and civil levels, is strictly hierarchical. Under the present TPLF regime, zero-sum, winner-takes-all, politics prevail. People are punished unless they show uncritical allegiance to the dominant party whose agenda is narrow and whose control is extremely profitable to a tiny elite. Society in Ethiopia is militarised and brutalised. The TPLF-controlled media whipped up frightening hatred of Eritreans during the recent conflict. Over 80,000 were deported. The ideology of ‘Ethiopia first’ struck familiar chords throughout Abyssinian society. These conditions are typical of those in which genocide occurs. Deep wedges are being driven between different peoples of Ethiopia, especially between Amhara and Oromo. The TPLF have rejuvenated the ultra-nationalist Hagere Fikir organisation – whose targets are primarily Oromo. At the Oromo Studies Association meeting in Toronto in July 2000, Dr Mekuria Bulcha estimated that up to a quarter of a million Oromo died needlessly in the previous year, because of TPLF oppression. The scale of abuse is greater than at any time since the Oromo population was reduced from ten to five million in the late 19th century, by the Amhara hero, Menelik II.
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 15:28:03 +0000
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