Ethiopia's Oromo people demand equal rights in protests

Largest ethnic group in Ethiopia continues to rally against the government despite crackdown.

Charles Stratford

Wolonkomi, Ethiopia(Aljazeera) - Six-year-old Abi Turi and her nine-year-old brother Dereje have not been attending classes in Wolonkomi.

Their school was closed in January as the Ethiopian government began what its critics call a crackdown on protests by the Oromo, the country's largest ethnic group.

It is uncertain how many people have died in clashes between security forces and protesters since November, when a series of demonstrations began.

Local estimates put the figure at between 80 and above 200. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has said that more than 200 people may have died in about six months, a figure the government denies.

"With regards to allegations from human rights groups or self-styled human rights protectors, the numbers they come with, the stories they often paint, are mostly plucked out thin air," Getachew Reda, the information minister, told Al Jazeera.

Abi and Dereje's mother was among those shot in January. She was hit by a bullet in the neck. Despite receiving medical treatment, she died of her wounds in March.

"The little girl cries and keeps asking where her mother is. We feel her pain," said the children's grandfather Kena Turi, a farmer. "The older one cried when his mother was shot and died, but now it seems he understands she's gone."

Oromo students began rallying to protest against a government plan they said was intended to expand the boundaries of Addis Ababa, the capital, into Oromia's farmland.

Protests continue

Oromia is the country's largest region, and many there believe the government did not want to redevelop services and roads, but that it was engaged in a landgrab.

Though the government shelved its "Integrated Development Master Plan" due to the tension, protests continued as the Oromo called for equal rights.

In February, another anti-government rally turned violent. Nagase Arasa, 15, and her eight-year-old brother Elias say they were shot in their legs while a demonstration happened near their home.

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READ MORE: Oromo protests continue amid harsh crackdown

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"I was in the back yard walking to the house when I was shot," Nagase told Al Jazeera.

"My brother was in the house. I couldn't walk I was bleeding. Then I was hit again when I was on the ground I felt the pain then my brother came to help me and he was shot too."

Ethiopia has an ethnically-based federal system that gives a degree of self-rule to the Oromo people.

But the Oromo opposition, some of whose members have been detained, says the system has been corrupted by the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front.

A 'marginalised' community

Merera Gudina, an Oromo politician, said that members of his community feel marginalised — excluded from cultural activities, discriminated against because of their different language, and not consulted in political or economic decisions.

With double-digit growth over the last decade, Ethiopia has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, but the majority of the Oromo remain poor.

"Until the Oromo's get their proper place in this country I don't think it [dissent] is going to go. The government wants to rule in the old way; people are resisting being ruled in the old way," Gudina said.

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READ MORE: Ethiopia accused on bloody crackdown

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Reporting and recording human rights abuses is also risky, activists told Al Jazeera. Local and foreign journalists said attempts were made to intimidate them, with some detained.

Al Jazeera spoke with local reporters who said they were too afraid to even try and cover the issue.

"It's very dangerous. Everybody is living in fear. They imprison people every day. People have disappeared. Doing this work is like selling my life," a human rights activist told Al Jazeera, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Government rejects claims

Kumlachew Dagne, a human rights lawyer, said there was a need for "public forums and consultation for debates on public policy issues" to allow for different views to be heard. He added that the protesters who were injured or killed had not been armed.

"Many of those people were killed after the protests took place many of the people were shot in the back some were shot in the head, which shows that these people were not armed," he said.

"They were peaceful demonstrators. That is consistent with reports we had from victims' families."

The government rejects such claims as exaggerated or fabricated.

"People, whether they are civilians or security officials who have been involved in an excessive use of force, will be held responsible," Reda said.

He said the government would consult with the Oromo people and "address the underlying problems".

To listen click Video 1 and video 2

The Rotten Foundation of Ethiopia’s Economic Boom

(Diretube) Brutal repression was the secret to the country's rapid rise. It could also bring it crashing down again. For those who would speak frankly about politics in this landlocked East African country, the first challenge is to find a safe space.

But on a recent evening in Adama, a city in the heart of a region reeling from the largest protest movement Ethiopia has faced in decades, most people seemed at ease. University students poured out of the city’s main campus, spilling into claustrophobic bars and pool halls. Others crowded around a cluster of aging taxis, jostling for a quick ride home.

Though it is one of the largest cities in Oromia — where members of Ethiopia’s Oromo ethnic group have taken to the streets in recent months in unprecedented numbers to protest their political and economic marginalization — Adama has remained mostly quiet.
Hidden beneath the casual veneer of daily life, however, lurks a deep-seated suspicion of the government, which has built a massive surveillance apparatus and cracked down violently on its opponents. Citizens feel they have to watch what they say, and where they say it. At the hangouts where crowds have gathered, a political statement might be overheard. Out on the sidewalks, government spies could be on patrol. Inside the university campus, security officials are on the lookout for suspicious behavior.

In a way, the recent unrest is rooted in Ethiopia’s rapid economic rise. The federal government claims to have notched double-digit GDP growth rates over the past decade, but its rigid, top-down approach to developing industry, and attracting foreign investment, has resulted in mass displacement and disrupted millions of lives. This, in turn, has heightened ethnic tensions that today threaten Ethiopia’s reputation for stability.
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Image:Families of those who killed in the Oromia Protest morns to their relatives

Dhimmi Dabbasaa Guyyoo Mana Murtii Keeniyaatti Laallame

Obboo Dabbasaa Guyyoo

(VOAafaanoromoo) NAAYROOBII — 

Manni murtii Keeniyaa nama Dhabamuu Obbo Dabbasaa waliin walqabatee himatame irraatti ragaa dhaggeeffate. Obbo Dabbasan nama ganna 70ti, keeniyaa erga jiraachuu jalqabanii waggaa 30 ol yoo tahu, fulbaana 27 erga ayyaana Irreechaa miseensota hawaasa baqattoota Oromoo as Naayiroobii jiraatanii waliin kabajanii booda, bakka buuteen isaanii dhabame. Ergasiis maatiin isaanii mootummaa keeniyaaf kan beeksisan yoo ta’u, haga yoonaa garuu maanguddoon kuni eessa akka jiran baruun hin dandaa’amne. Dhimma kana ka hordofaa jiru Poolisii Keeniyaa yoo ta’u, nama dhimma kanaan wal qabatee shakke jedhu irrattis Mana Murtii Naayiroobii Makadaraatti bitootessa gaafa 16/2016 ragaa dhaggeeffattee sanaan booda ammas ragaa hafe dhaggeeffachuuf beellama onkoloolessa 13, bara 2016 tti qabatee jira.

Haa ta’uyyuu malee hawaasni baqattoota Oromoo Naayiroobii jiraatan, Obbo Dabbasaa Guyyoo barbaachuudhaaf sochii gahaan hin godhamne jechuun komatu.

Obbo Dabbasaan mana obbo Shaamil Aliyyiitii bahanii dhabamani, Dhaddacha kan-irrattis akka ragaatti uffanni fi meeshaaleen aadaa Obbo Dabbasaan gaafa ayyaana irreechaa uffatanii fi qabatanii turan ka dhiyaatani yoo ta’u, dhimma kanaan wal qabatee abukaatoo obbo shaamil yoo gaafannu ‘meesholiin kuni mana obbo Shaamilitti argamuun ragaa guutuu ta’ee Obbo Shaamiliin yakkamaa hin taasisuu’ jechuun waraabbii sagaleetiin ala nuuf himanii jirani.

Maanguddoon kun Lafa Keeniyaa keessa waggaa 30 ol jiraataniiru, irra caalaas baqattoota Oromoo as Naayiroobii jiraatani duukaadha baayyee walitti siqu turani. Hawaasa baqattoota Oromoo Naayiroobii jelatti gumii aadaa fi seenaa Oromoo baqattoota barsiisu tokko kan maqaan isaa isaa Argaa fi Dhageettii jedhamu keessatti, barsiisaa fi gaggeessaa akka turan miseensi gumii kanaa kan maqaan isaanii akka dhahamu hin feene tokko nuuf himaniiru.

Dhaddacha bitootessa 16 taa’ame kana irrattis, maatiin Obbo Dabbasaa Guyyoo argamanii jirani. Mucaan isaanii ka taate Darmii Dabbasaa Guyyoo akka jettuttii, dhimma mana murtii jiru kana irraa tarii abbaan koo argamuu…. argamuu dhabuus danda’aa ani garuu hamman danda’e kophaa koo ta’us deddeebi’ee gaafataan jira jetti.

Poolisii Keeniyaas sadarkaa barbaachi maanguddoo kanaa maal irra akka jiru baruuf gaafannus, dhimmi kuni mana murtii jira kanaaf yeroodhaaf yaada itti kennuu hin dandeenyu deebii jedhu nuuf kennan. Onkoloolessa dhufus dhaddachi waa’ee dhabamuu obbo Dabbasaaf taa’u kuni kan inni walitti deebi’u, ragaa nama dhuunfaa tokkoo fi kan poolisii tokko dhaggeeffachuudhaafi.

Dhageefachuuf as tuqaa

Unrest in Ethiopia: Grumbling and rumbling

Months of protests are rattling a fragile federation

(Economist) AN OUTBREAK of public protest unprecedented in its duration and spread since the ruling party took power in Ethiopia in 1991 is stirring a rare cocktail of discontent. Demonstrations started in November mainly by members of the Oromo ethnic group, which accounts for about a third of Ethiopia’s 97m-plus people, have refused to die down. Indeed, they have spread. The government has dropped its plan, the original cause of the hubbub, to expand the city limits of Addis Ababa, the capital, into Oromia, the largest of the federal republic’s subdivisions of nine regional states and two city-states. But the protests have billowed into a much wider expression of outrage. People are complaining about land ownership, corruption, political repression and poverty. Such feelings go beyond just one ethnic group.

Human-rights advocates and independent monitors reckon that at least 80 people and perhaps as many as 250, mostly demonstrators, have been killed since the protests began. The government says the true figure is much lower and instead lays stress, as it always does, on terrorist and secessionist threats to the country’s stability. It points out that foreign-owned factories have been attacked, churches burnt down and property looted by organised gangs during the protests. Last month seven federal policemen in the south were killed by local militiamen during a particularly violent wave of disturbances.

All the same, most of the protests have been peaceful. The Oromo particularly resent the sale or lease of land (almost all of which is state-owned) by the government to foreign investors. The government’s decision to shelve its master plan to expand Addis Ababa is regarded by the assorted opposition as a rare step in the right direction. But the protesters say the government must now allow Ethiopians to exercise their constitutional right to express dissent, or discontent could escalate.

The army was deployed to bolster the federal police in the south. Both are regularly accused of brutality and are generally deemed able to operate with impunity. Shooting at protesters and arbitrarily arresting them, especially if they are students, has a long tradition in Ethiopia, going back to the military dictatorship that ran the country from 1974 until its downfall in 1991.

The government is particularly suspicious of the Ethiopian diaspora, especially its representation in America, which fled abroad during that period. The foreign-based opposition, bolstered by social-media campaigners in America, is stirring things up for its own malign purposes, says the government. That, argues the opposition at home and abroad, is what it always says when seeking to discredit peaceful dissent.

In any event, tension is bound to persist because the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which takes China’s top-down style of authoritarian government as a model, is loth to loosen controls at the centre, despite the federal constitution. For their part, critics of the government cannot escape from the fact that it has until now succeeded in holding together a diverse collection of ethnic groups. Moreover, under the current government the economy has boomed and poverty has fallen sharply, though a severe recent drought is causing new problems. Neither the government nor the federal system, however imperfect, is under immediate threat.

Meanwhile Western governments, with America and Britain to the fore as large donors of aid to Ethiopia, have been notably silent about the turmoil. In a region battered by terrorism and violence in such nearby places as Yemen, South Sudan and Somalia, Ethiopia is still regarded as an anti-terrorist bulwark.

Priceless piece of advice to my Oromo brothers and sisters

#OromoProtests started in small town of Ginchi on November 12, 2015. The town is one of the 36 to be incorporated into Finfinne Master Plan. Within days the protest gripped the whole Oromia.

By Ali Yare (opinion from non-Oromo)

(Ayyaantuu) I am aware of the situation in your motherland and how Woyane’s barbaric army forces are killing the unarmed civilians because I am following what is happening there on daily basis. I know how cruel the Woyane regime is and what they are capable of doing. The Somali Ogaden people have been going through the same difficulties that you, as Oromo people, are going through now. I can feel the plights of your civilians now, the relentless horror that the women and children are facing as I am speaking to you, but whatever has happened to you or whatever lives you have lost, there is one thing you should never do and that is to heed to the military pressure. You should never stop the uprising because if you do so, it’s going to be a disaster not only to your people but also to your cause and all of what you have sacrificed so far will be useless. All the people that got killed and all the properties that got destroyed in this revolt will be futile. There are two reasons that you cannot afford to abandon your current protests and they are as the following:

1. By far, this is the largest civil disobedience led by Oromo people that the Woyane regime or any other regime has ever faced. It is factual that this uprising has created unity among the Oromo people. It united them in one goal which is not to allow the minority groups such as Ahmara or Tigre to rule the majority such as Oromo people. Therefore, if you yield to the pressure and cease the ongoing revolution out of, either fear or intention of saving lives, you will be doomed. If you don’t seize this opportunity, this powerful uprising and the current Oromo unity may not come back to you for the next 100 years.

2. Ahmara and Tigre believe that Oromo cannot sustain a fight for a long time and that is what they have at the back of their head. If you look at the social media, where they exchange their view points, they deeply believe that Oromo can be pacified easily through force. So, if the protest gets stopped, that will support their belief and they will definitely say “Didn’t we say so”? I know that the Oromo people are resilient when it comes to defending their lives and properties, but the Woyane regime misunderstands you because of their ignorance.

Our reliable sources are telling us that the regime is about to collapse. It is running out of finance and manpower, and we are all aware of the internal fighting among the EPRDF as well as TPLF. I don’t have to prove this to you because the situation in Addis Ababa proves itself. The weak prime minister has even been unable to form his government because of the Woyane military generals who were installed by former dictator Zenawi. All you need now is persistence and endurance against the brutal regime and your efforts will pay off. The power is the people, not the brutal regime in Addis Ababa. If the people reject the oppressed authority, the TPLF led administration, no one can shovel through their throat. Even if they kill millions of Oromo people, never allow them to impose this outdated regime upon you.

Ali Yare

The Shadow Over Ethiopia's Construction Boom

By  William Davison

Ethiopian farmer Mulugeta Mezemir on his farmland in front of Country Club Developers properties in Addis Ababa, Ehiopia.

 

Photographer: William Davison/Bloomberg

• Building glut seen fueling biggest political crisis in decade
  Fatal land protests near capital have raged since November

(Bloomberg) When Ethiopian farmer Mulugeta Mezemir ceded his land three years ago to property developers on the fringes of the expanding capital, Addis Ababa, he felt he had no choice.

A gated community with white picket fences and mock Roman pillars built by Country Club Developers now occupies the fields he tilled in Legetafo, Oromia region, after the 60-year-old said local government officials convinced him to accept an offer or face expropriation. He took the cash and vacated the land, which in Ethiopia is all state-owned.

“We were sad, but we thought at the time that they were going to take the land for free,” said Mulugeta, a father of 12, while feeding hay to cattle a few meters from foundations for the next phase of housing. “We thought it was better to take whatever they were paying.”

As Ethiopia, which the International Monetary Fund estimates saw 8.7 percent economic growth in the last fiscal year, undergoes a construction boom, complaints over evictions and unfair compensation have fomented the country’s most serious domestic political crisis in a decade. 

Fatal Protests

In protests by the largest ethnic group, the Oromo, that began in November, security forces allegedly shot dead as many as 266 demonstrators, according to the Kenya-based Ethiopian Human Rights Project. The government says many people died, including security officers, without giving a toll. Foreign investors including Dangote Cement Plc had property damaged.

Ethiopian Communication Minister Getachew Reda said protesters were in part angry at “some crooked officials” who have been “lining their pockets by manipulating” land deals around the capital. Property developers CCD followed legal procedures, paid standard rates of compensation and employed many members of farmers’ families, according to Tedros Messele, a member of the company’s management team.

Cases such as Mulugeta’s have been a growing trend on the outskirts of the capital over the past two decades, said Nemera Mamo, an economist at Sussex University in England. No recent, independent studies have been conducted into how many people have been affected.

‘Beggars, Laborers’

“The booming construction industry has contributed to Addis Ababa’s rapid expansion that’s dispossessed many poor farmers and turned them into beggars and daily laborers,” Nemera said. “The Oromo protest movement opposes the mass eviction of poor farmers.”

Ethiopia’s state-heavy model seeks to industrialize the impoverished nation within a decade by improving infrastructure and combining investment with cheap labor, land and water to produce higher-value goods. Projects for what the IMF calls African’s fastest-growing economy include the continent’s largest hydropower dam, railways and the building of 700,000 low-cost apartments by 2020.

Construction accounted for more than half of all industry in the fiscal year that ended in July after it grew an annual 37 percent, according to National Bank of Ethiopia data. Industry comprised 15 percent of output.

Domestic Supply

Investors such as Diageo Plc, the world’s largest liquor maker, and Unilever Plc are tapping into the expansion by building Ethiopian facilities. Citizens of Africa’s second-most populous nation are using money earned there or abroad to build residences, malls and offices.

The ruling party hasn’t kept pace with the boom by improving governance and the ability of domestic manufacturers to supply the industry, said Tsedeke Yihune, who owns Flintstone Engineering, an Ethiopian contractor that’s built upmarket housing and African Union offices.

“Construction has not been used as it was supposed to, as a means of building domestic capacity, building good governance, as well as delivering the government’s development agenda,” Tsedeke said in an interview in the capital.

More than 70 percent of construction materials are imported, including cables, steel, ceramics, locks, furniture and electrical fittings, Tsedeke said. Ethiopia’s trade deficit increased by $3 billion to $14.5 billion last fiscal year.

Government Spending

Addis Ababa-based Orchid Business Group is another recipient of government capital spending, which the IMF says could double to almost $15 billion a year by 2020. Orchid’s projects include one with Italy’s Salini Impregilo SpA building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, said Hailealem Worku, the construction and engineering head.

Cement plants built by companies including Dangote have made Ethiopia self-sufficient in the material, while manufacturing incentives means glass, paint and steel factories will play a bigger role soon, Hailealem said.

The government wants to improve regulations and change attitudes so contractors boost their skills and ethics, Construction Minister Ambachew Mekonnen said in an interview. “The construction industry suffers from a lack of good governance,” he said.

In Legetafo, Mulugeta was paid 17 birr ($0.80) a square meter in compensation. Meanwhile, people were bidding as much as 355,555 birr per meter to rent land in Addis Ababa last year. Mulugeta used the 200,000 birr he received for the plot for expenses including renting more farmland. Two of his children now work as CCD cleaners, earning 40 birr a day.

“We are getting deeper into poverty,” he said.

Italian firm accused of posing threat to thousands in Ethiopia, Kenya

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

(Sudantribune) March 17, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – Survival International (SI)‚ a global movement for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples has lodged complaint against an Italian giant construction company, Salini, over impacts of one of Ethiopia mega projects, the Gilgel Gibe III hydro power plant it has built.

The US$1.5 billion Gibe III project dam is expected to generate 1870 MW of electricity.

Survival said it has reported the Italian engineering giant Salini to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) over the rights impacts to communities in Ethiopia and Kenya.

It also stressed that the construction of the controversial dam in Ethiopia’s Omo River cuts off the Omo River’s regular flooding‚ over which 100‚000 people rely on to water their crops and livestock and a further 100,000 depend on indirectly.

It said the dam project will eventually destroy the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in Ethiopia and Kenya.

“Up to half a million people face starvation as a result of the dam Salini has constructed on the Omo River,” Survival said in a statement it issued on Monday.

According to experts, the dam project threatens Lake Turkana – the world’s largest permanent desert lake – and disaster for the 300,000 people from tribes living along its shores.

Survival said Salini did not seek the consent of local people before building the dam, but claimed that an “artificial flood release” would compensate them for their losses. However, this promised flood never came and thousands of people now face starvation.

According to Survival, the region is one of the most important sites in early human evolution‚ and an area of exceptional biodiversity‚ with two World Heritage Sites and five national parks.

“The head of Kenya’s conservation agency said last week that the dam is unleashing “one of the worst environmental disasters you can imagine.”

Stephen Corry of Survival international said “Salini has ignored crucial evidence‚ made false promises and ridden roughshod over the rights of hundreds of thousands of people.”

"Thousands are now facing starvation because Italy’s largest contractor‚ and one of its best known companies‚ didn’t think human rights were worth its time,” he said.

He said the real consequences of the Ethiopian government’s devastating policies for its country’s ’development’‚ which were “shamefully supported by western aid agencies like the UK’s DFID and USAID”‚ are plain for all to see.

Stealing people’s land and causing massive environmental destruction, he added, is not progress; it is a death sentence for tribal peoples.

Ethiopia has been facing massive protests from a number of international rights groups and environmental campaigners over the construction of the Gibe III dam project.

Groups like the International Rivers, Friends of Lake Turkana, The Oakland Institute, and other groups argued that no inclusive Environmental and Social Impact Assessment was made ahead of the construction and extensively campaigned for halt of the project.

According to the groups, Gibe III like those Gibe I and II diverts the flow of the Omo River in Ethiopia, which feeds 90% of Lake Turkana in Kenya and endangers the lake and tens of thousands of people from 17 ethnic groups who live in the Lower Omo Valley.

Despite huge pressure, Ethiopia however recently completed the Gibe which is the country’s second largest hydro power plant after the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam; the horn of Africa’s nation is building along the Nile River.

Gibe III, a 610 meter-long and 243 meter high roller-compacted concrete dam has power generation capacity of 1,870 Megawatt.

Ethiopia has dismissed allegations that its dam projects will cause environmental damage to populations in Ethiopia and Kenya.

Previously, Addis Ababa however said claims released by the rights groups are bogus. It further accused them of working for the interest of their western alleys.