It has become a matter of common knowledge that the violation of human rights in Ethiopia has reached its maximum. Devoid of very little element of democracy in its style of governance of its own internal affairs, the TPLF led Ethiopian political system has grown to be a complete threat to the peace and security of East Africa.
The fact of falling in the hands of this brutal regime has never been safe for the Ethiopian people, particularly the Oromo people used to receive the harshest treatment from this government over the last 17 years.
In its uncontested monopoly of power, the TPLF led government has been exercising all the evils, which international communities blame in their legal documents and to which Ethiopia is a party. This could be evidenced by the extra judicial killings, tortures and above all the disappearances of hundreds of thousands of citizens that underwent for the past 17 years. The targets of these abuses were people of any age and the main reasons, as Human Right activists have continuously reported it, are those who were taken by the system to be political dissidents.
It has been reported by many international human right activists that Oromo students were continuously gunned down empty handed and for no justified reasons. In many of such killings those with good academic background were selected. For example, the killings of Mr. Gaaddisaa Hirphasaa, one of the distinguished engineering students in AAU who was tortured, denied medical treatment and left to die and Mr. Alamayyoo Garba who was shot dead while in prison are among the thousands of youngsters who were victimized by a series of acts of government sponsored brutality.
Also the TPLF government is involved in gross economic crimes that amongst others through its party owned companies. It has now become a matter of commitment for the government to deny all other ethnic groups, particularly Oromos, to involve in any significant economic activities. While this is the case for Oromos in general, particularly Oromo farmers are facing unprecedented scale of eviction from their farming land which time immemorial, belonged to their ancestors.
As power is assumed to be everything by this regime, any effort of exercising ones own right either as group or individually follows detention, torture, or any form of persecution.
As everybody knows, this irresponsible regime has become the most notorious threat to the east African region itself. We all remember the reasons why TPLF went in to the war with Eritrea in 1998-2000, which ended up with the loss of 70,000 lives and displacement of more than 750,000 people.
In the involvement of Ethiopian government in today’s Somali internal affairs, the direct target of TPLF are Oromos who took refuge in Somalia; and the big nations who believe that they have got an allay in their fight against terrorism are in reality supporting a terrorist government which never satisfied by chasing nationals from their homeland. Whether it is a matter of coincidence or of intention the US government is supporting the most brutal and undemocratic, corrupt and uncivilized political power in Ethiopia, which used to kill, leave alone over the period of 17 years, many hundreds of people just in the recent 2005 election.
As it has been disclosed by their closest old comrades like Mr. Abraham Yayeh, who narrated how the TPLF Leaders assassinated dozens of their friends overnight, this government had a long and established experience of killing its critics. This being their own headache, the tradition has continued after their assumption of power and they used to follow and kill people in the neighbouring countries where they took refuge. The killing of Mr. Jatani Ali in Kenya is among the killings and abductions of many refugees in Kenya by same group, is a living evidence for what we are complaining.
As Congressman Chris Smith put it “no regime that terrorizes its own citizens can be a reliable ally in the war on terror. Terrorism is not just a military issue. It is also a human rights issue. Terrorists come from countries where their governments fail to respect their human rights. In promoting human rights in Ethiopia, we are attacking terrorism at its roots.”
In Ethiopia to live a life, one needs to belong to one of the political parties made by TPLF itself. Now it has become a matter of general practice that to get employment or to work freely in the private sector one must belong to or is a proven sympathizer of TPLF led political organizations or is from Tigre origin. Life is made impossible for ordinary citizens and the threat ranges from extrajudicial killing to any kind of harassment emanating from unknown laws either to man or to God.
Therefore, we Oromo young people in Britain
- Urge all democratic institutions to stand up and protect nothing but their long established values like justice, fairness, and democracy in governance, which the Ethiopian people are completely denied.
- We may need to call the attention of the international community towards all the killings that at least have been taking place in front of their international observers like in the 1992 snap election and the mass murder that took place after the highly rigged and twisted result of the 2005 election.
- We cry out to awaken the strongest and influential nations which had been considered and been served to be the guardian of international covenants for civil political and cultural rights to take actions.
- We need to remind those who, under the false pretext of having an ally in the fight against terrorism, not to approve the brutal act of the TPLF led Ethiopian government.
- We also need to appeal to the developed nations and international communities that work with and are directly or indirectly funding the wide-ranging TPLF abusive and violently oppressive projects.
- We need to inform all the funders of TPLF government projects, which all meant for killings, torturing and serve the sole purpose of TPLF and Tigrean supremacy over every Ethiopian citizen in general and Oromos in particular.
- We need to draw to the attention of the taxpayers that the money they are paying in support of the poor nations is undoubtedly invested in ill motivated projects in Ethiopia and used to orchestrate the brutality of the regime against the poor and helpless people.
- We need to remind the civilized nations and international institutions that in Ethiopia people run out of all their patience and the system, already entangled with undemocratic exercise of power, is leading all situations towards an endless crisis. Therefore we believe that it is time to break their silence and also it is time for the international communities and the big nations to stop to give a deaf ear to criminal gangs to rule a nation.
Thank You!
Presented by: Oromo Youth Representative in UK
09 December 2007
London , UK
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