(Citizen TV) — Eritrea accused Ethiopia on Tuesday of having orchestrated evidence in a landmark United Nations report last week that accused Eritrean leaders of committing crimes against humanity including torture, murder and enslavement.

Foreign Minister Osman Saleh told the U.N. Human Rights Council that information had been gathered from “witnesses organised by Ethiopia” and that an armed border attack on Sunday had been timed “for maximum impact on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Eritrea”. His government, he said, was focusing on human rights and freeing Djiboutian prisoners of war.

Ethiopian Ambassador Negash Kebret Botora took the floor at the Geneva forum to dismiss the statement as “baseless”, adding: “Internally the (Eritrean) regime continues to commit crimes against humanity as well as externally.”

The United States Calls for Restraint on the Ethiopia-Eritrea Border

The United States is gravely concerned about the military action that took place on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border, June 12 and 13. As both Ethiopia and Eritrea are party to the 2000 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement and there cannot be a military solution, we call for both sides to exercise restraint and engage in political dialogue. We also urge both Ethiopia and Eritrea to cooperate in promoting stability and sustainable peace in the region.

New Oromo Music Temam Tekalign & Muluna Mena 2016 – ILUU ABBAABOR

Falmata Rorroroo (Oromo Music) **Hiriraa Nagayaa**

By Jonathan W. Rosen

Women stitch pieces of a cotton dress at the Ayka-Addis textile and garment factory, Oromia, Ethiopia, April, 2016 (Photo by Jonathan Rosen).

ALEM GENA, Ethiopia (WPR – World Politics Review)—As she shuffles about the factory floor, watching over the machines that weave spools of thread into fabric, Asrat Yimam personifies the future of the Ethiopian workforce.

A 27-year-old mother of one from the nearby capital, Addis Ababa, Yimam has spent the past six years toiling for Ayka-Addis, a Turkish-owned textile and garment factory and the largest firm in Ethiopia’s emerging apparel industry. Six days a week, for 1,500 birr ($68) a month after taxes, she rises early for her eight-hour shift, dons her spotted blue and white Ayka uniform, and spends her day churning out cotton for t-shirts, pajamas and bed sheets bound for Europe. As a relatively senior employee, she’s better paid than many of Ayka’s 6,000 Ethiopian staff. With her 10th-grade education, she admits it would be hard to find better. Yet Yimam and her husband still struggle.

“There aren’t many companies that pay more than Ayka,” she says over the whirl of more than 200 knitting machines. “But it’s still barely enough.”

Today, in a country where more than three-quarters of the workforce is engaged in small-scale agriculture, Yimam’s job as a cog in the global rag trade is still a relative novelty. Despite recording one of the world’s highest rates of economic growth over the past decade, Ethiopia remains an industrial laggard even on the world’s least-industrialized continent. As of 2015, the country of 97 million inhabitants derived just 4.6 percent of its GDP from manufacturing, less than half the sub-Saharan African average. Over the past 12 months, instead of realizing a long-envisioned boom in industry, Ethiopia has faced twin reminders of its dismal past: a drought and hunger crisis worse than any since its infamous famine of the 1980s; and unrest within its largest ethnic community unlike any in the quarter-century since the end of its 17-year civil war.

Yet a critical turning point may be just around the corner. After years of implementing an active industrial policy, characterized by massive state investments in infrastructure, energy and human capital, Ethiopia’s economic architects insist the building blocks are now in place to spur a manufacturing-sector takeoff driven by foreign investment. Like China and the Asian Tiger states before it, which transformed from peasant societies to leaders of industry in the course of a generation, Ethiopia plans to start by focusing on labor-intensive merchandise bound for export. Most notably, its abundance of cheap labor, low-cost electricity, and cotton-growing potential have made it the newest frontier of the global garment trade—an “African Lion” alternative to industry-leader China, where wages are quickly becoming uncompetitive. Already, “Made in Ethiopia” garments can be found on the racks of global retailers like H&M, Wal-Mart and Tesco. In the coming months, the U.S. sourcing giant Phillips Van Heusen (PVH), which owns brands like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, will begin operating from a new 130-hectare industrial park in the southern Ethiopian city of Hawassa. It will be joined by 10 other leading textile and apparel firms from India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Hong Kong and China. According to Arkebe Oqubay, a special economic adviser to Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, the park is expected to generate 60,000 jobs and $1 billion in export earnings from textiles and garments—nine times the sector’s current level—once it reaches full capacity in the next few years. At least eight other government-financed parks, intended for textiles, apparel, leather, pharmaceuticals and food processing, are under construction or being planned across the country.

Already, “Made in Ethiopia” garments can be found on the racks of global retailers like H&M, Wal-Mart and Tesco.

“We are entering a new stage of development,” says Arkebe, the former mayor of Addis Ababa, and the country’s most vocal economic policymaker. “In the next 10 years, we’re planning for an economic miracle.”

Industrialization Deferred

Should Ethiopia’s push toward manufacturing prove even partially successful, it would stand out on a continent where industrial development has long trailed other regions. Over the past 15 years, the economy of sub-Saharan Africa has more than doubled in size, growing at a rate of roughly 5 percent a year, and fueling the widely adopted narrative that the world’s most underdeveloped continent is finally “rising.” The bulk of this growth, however, has been driven by years of high commodity prices, as well as the expansion of services like banking, construction, hospitality and telecommunications. Unlike the high-growth Asian economies of recent decades, which achieved high standards of living by shifting labor en masse from low-productivity agriculture to higher-productivity jobs in factories, Africa, by some measures, has actually deindustrialized. Between 1975 and 2014, the share of manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP fell from 18 percent to 11 percent. Today, the continent as a whole is responsible for less than 1 percent of global manufacturing exports.

This poor performance is largely the result of acute challenges at home, such as corruption, civil unrest, unfavorable geography and long-neglected energy and transport infrastructure. Yet Africa has also been a victim of Asia’s rise. In the years following independence, many African states had kick-started the industrialization process by adopting policies of “import substitution” that utilized trade barriers and support to infant industries in a bid for self-reliance. By the time of the “Asian miracle,” however, most had liberalized their economies and opened up trade as part of World Bank and International Monetary Fund-induced structural adjustment reforms. Soon, Africa was flooded with low-cost Chinese imports. Many of its existing manufacturing hotspots, like northern Nigeria’s once-thriving garment sector, began to founder.

“From a competitive standpoint, China was a major reason why Africa didn’t industrialize,” says Henock Assefa, managing partner of Precise Consult, an Addis Ababa-based firm specializing in investment and business intelligence. “China came up with an industrial productivity the world had never seen, which has caused deindustrialization on the entire African continent. Nobody else could produce at that level.”

Finally, however, the tide may have turned back in Africa’s favor. After years of robust economic growth, wages in China have risen fast enough that even the country’s own manufacturers are increasingly looking for labor beyond its borders. Justin Lin, the former World Bank chief economist, has estimated China will shed 85 million jobs in manufacturing in the coming years as it relocates its labor-intensive industries to countries where wages are still competitive. While many will shift to low-cost neighboring states like Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia, Africa—where the climate for industry is slowly improving—also stands to benefit. According to a 2016 study commissioned by the U.K.’s Department for International Development, manufacturing output in sub-Saharan Africa more than doubled in real terms from 2005 and 2014, from $73 billion to $157 billion. The report notes that “strong growth in the Africa region, rebalancing and rising wages in China, and improvements in the policy and institutional context provide a unique opportunity that African countries should now use to attract investment in higher value-added export-oriented manufacturing.”

Despite recording one of the world’s highest rates of economic growth over the past decade, Ethiopia remains an industrial laggard even on the world’s least-industrialized continent.

For a continent in the midst of a population boom, this would be a critical development. With fertility rates still high, Africa’s current population of 1.1 billion is projected to double by 2050. Moreover, 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africans today are under the age of 25, which means the workforce will grow tremendously in coming decades. For all the buzz surrounding Africa’s growth in services, and the possibilities offered by the continent’s embrace of tech, history has shown that the most effective way to absorb excess labor and boost worker productivity is through a sustained shift toward labor-intensive industry. Aside from a handful of Gulf oil producers and tourism or finance-oriented microstates, no country on earth has managed to achieve a high standard of living without putting large numbers of workers into factories.

A Lion Emerges

Nowhere in Africa is the drive toward industrial development as deliberate as in Ethiopia. Much of this is the legacy of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the former guerilla fighter who ruled the country from 1991 until his death in 2012. Despite readily accepting foreign aid, Meles was one of the few African heads of state in the 1990s to openly reject the Washington Consensus, describing the dominant neoliberal paradigm as a “dead end.” Instead, he argued, development in Africa required an activist state, which could overcome a lack of comparative advantages by guiding investment toward targeted industries and effectively forcing long-term value creation. Meles looked in particular to models from Asia, including those of China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which had all succeeded, to varying degrees, by shunning neoliberal dogma and using the state to capture rents that could be channeled toward industrial development.

In a similar manner, Meles’ “developmental state” was built on the government’s pooling of savings into investments in areas deemed critical for long-term growth, including roads, railways, electricity, agriculture, health care and education. By improving tax collection, shutting out foreign banks and refusing to privatize telecommunications, the government managed to mobilize domestic resources at a scale never before seen in Africa outside of a commodities-driven context. Along with foreign aid, this enabled Ethiopia to boost public investment from 5 percent of GDP in the early 1990s to 19 percent in 2011—the third-highest rate in the world. It also fueled robust economic growth and improvements in human development. Although many Ethiopia watchers question the official numbers, government statistics show that GDP has grown by 10.9 percent per year since 2004, and poverty has fallen by 33 percent since 2000.

Critically, these investments have also forged the building blocks of industry. Arkebe, who wrote a book about Ethiopia’s industrial policy and has been its most prolific champion since Meles’ death, presented a laundry list of key achievements in an interview from the Prime Ministerial complex. Since coming to power, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has established 34 public universities and 1,350 post-secondary technical schools as part of a new German-inspired system that stresses vocational training. It has also invested widely in strategic infrastructure. A Chinese-built electric railway connecting Addis Ababa to the nearest port in Djibouti—one of several rail lines under construction—is expected to begin operating in the coming months and drastically reduce the shipping costs of exporters.

Nowhere in Africa is the drive toward industrial development as deliberate as in Ethiopia.

A sustained investment in hydropower, meanwhile, in concert with subsidized tariffs, has helped Ethiopia offer electricity at one of the lowest rates in Africa. Along the Blue Nile in the country’s northwest, thousands of workers are building the $5 billion, 6,000-megawatt state-funded Grand Renaissance Dam, which will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric facility upon completion. In the coming years, once this and other large-scale projects come online, Ethiopia is expected to pass Nigeria as sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest power producer.

“We’ve been putting the largest amount of money toward improving our generating capacity,” Arkebe says. “If you don’t have energy, you just have to forget about manufacturing.”

Toward the Factory Gates

Translating that infrastructure into assembly lines, however, has proved more difficult than expected. Ethiopia’s first five-year Growth and Transformation Plan, launched in 2010, targeted the construction of five state-financed industrial parks by 2015, as well as 22 percent annual growth in manufacturing output. Today, only one park, in Addis Ababa, has been completed, and the sector has grown by less than half that, roughly at the same rate as the economy as a whole. Foreign investment—essential to the industrialization process—remains held back by the challenges of doing business in the country, among them an excessive bureaucracy. According to the World Bank, Ethiopia ranks 39th out of 47 sub-Saharan African countries in the ease of starting a business. Investors complain that merely obtaining a needed signature can take months.

Increasingly, however, outside firms—including manufacturers—are taking a chance on Africa’s second-most-populous country. Ethiopia’s foreign investment flow, near zero when the EPRDF took power, has grown to average more than half a billion dollars in recent years, reaching an estimated $1.5 billion in 2015. In addition to low electricity costs, the promise of sourcing local raw materials has drawn many investors. The Chinese shoemaker Huajian, which established a factory on the outskirts of Addis Ababa in 2012, came in part because of Ethiopia’s large supply of leather: By some estimates, it has the largest stock of cattle on the continent. The wage differential with China was also essential. Huajian’s 4,000 Ethiopian staff, which churn out 3 million pairs of shoes per year, mainly for the U.S. market, earn a minimum of 600 birr ($27) per month, one-sixth of the rate at the company’s two plants in China. According to Jack Zeng, a company spokesperson, Huajian’s Ethiopian staff are only one-third to one-half as productive as their Chinese counterparts. Yet the company is actively working to change that. Every morning, Huajian’s army of stitchers, cutters, gluers and polishers are required to perform marches and calisthenics intended to instill discipline. Affixed to the walls of the Huajian factory, banners written in Chinese, Amharic and halting English remind workers that “late arrival is delay, and quality is life, speed is profit.”

Employees of the Chinese-owned Huajian International Shoe City prepare a shipment of women’s
loafers for export to the United States, Dukem, Ethiopia, April, 2016 (Photo by Jonathan Rosen).

“We train them to keep order and follow standards,” Zeng explains. “Before we came here, Ethiopia didn’t have a factory culture. It was the same in China 30 years ago.”

Huajian’s experience has been positive enough that the company plans to build an entire new industrial zone: a small city, as Zeng describes it, that is shaped like a boot and will accommodate 30,000 to 50,000 jobs in shoemaking, leather processing, garments and textiles. It is not alone in eyeing Ethiopia’s apparel sector. In a 2015 survey by the management consultancy McKinsey, 36 of 40 international apparel firms polled said they planned to source garments from Ethiopia by 2020. (At least a quarter of those surveyed also planned to source from Kenya, Mauritius, Lesotho, Madagascar, Uganda and Tanzania). According to the report, Ethiopia’s draw, aside from the low cost of inputs, stems from duty-free agreements with the EU and U.S., as well as the availability of 3.2 million hectares of land with a climate appropriate for growing cotton. Recent stagnation of cotton production and concerns over local quality mean that many existing textile producers, including Ayka, still rely extensively on imports. The government, however, says it is targeting an overhaul of the cotton sector, in part through the use of genetically modified seeds, which parliament approved for use last year.

Affixed to the walls of the Huajian factory, banners written in Chinese, Amharic and halting English remind workers that “late arrival is delay, and quality is life, speed is profit.”

Yet it is the industrial park strategy, now finally making tangible progress, that could be the most important catalyst of the sector. Aside from offering tax incentives, the parks will provide companies with ready-made production sheds, a reliable electricity connection, on-site waste-management facilities and one-stop shops to handle administrative tasks and reduce delays associated with bureaucracy. The nearly completed park in Hawassa, intended as a model for the eight other government parks to come, could alone enable Ethiopia to pass Mauritius as the region’s leading textiles and garments exporter. The $1 billion in annual exports its planners believe it can generate represents just a fraction of the $800 billion global export market. Nonetheless, the arrival of major buyers like PVH is likely to send a signal to others that the country’s sourcing prospects are legitimate. In addition, as firms sourcing from China, which is responsible for more than a third of global exports in the sector, increasingly seek alternatives elsewhere, the opportunities for growth are seemingly endless.

“We are still in a transition period,” says Fassil Taddesse, president of the Ethiopian Textile and Garment Manufacturers’ Association. “But our takeoff is coming. The big guys are now here.”

Stumbling Blocks

Even if this takeoff is realized, however, the economic transformation envisioned by Ethiopia’s planners is still incredibly ambitious. In an ideal scenario, Arkebe says, the manufacturing sector will add 200,000 jobs per year—a major scale-up, yet only a fraction of the more than 2 million Ethiopians entering the labor force annually. Another goal, he notes, is for manufacturing to reach 20 percent of GDP within a decade—a level where many Asian countries stood around 1980. Assuming overall growth in line with recent trends, however, this would require the sector to expand each year by more than 25 percent. This challenge is exacerbated by a shortage of foreign currency, linked to spending on the country’s many infrastructure megaprojects, which makes it harder for the state and domestic firms to purchase needed foreign-sourced inputs.

Ethiopia’s emergence as an important garment-sourcing destination also comes at an awkward moment. Over the past year, an El Niño-induced drought has led to the country’s most severe food crisis since its infamous 1980s famine. With more than 10 million people in need of or relying on food aid, nearly half a million children facing severe malnutrition, and torrential rains now causing deadly foods and landslides, the situation hardly resembles a country on the brink of transformation. Although better roads and a national food security network have aided the emergency response, the crisis has also undermined the EPRDF’s narrative of progress. The new Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, a potent symbol of this contradiction, was meant to herald the growth of an industrial economy. Instead, it has been utilized before its official opening to deliver emergency relief to drought-affected areas.

The state-owned Hawassa Industrial Park, expected to open in the second half of 2016, will host
10 international textile and apparel firms, Awassa, Ethiopia, April, 2016 (Photo by Jonathan Rosen).

The country, which is less culturally homogenous than many of the Asian states it seeks to emulate, is also emerging from a period of unprecedented ethnic discontent. Beginning in late 2015, protests erupted across much of Oromia, the largest and most populous of Ethiopia’s nine ethnically based regional states, over the planned expansion of Addis Ababa into adjacent Oromo farmland. The capital’s explosive growth has already infringed significantly upon the region. According to Oromo activists, the city’s sprawl into peripheral areas like those now home to Ayka and Huajian has displaced more than 150,000 Oromo farmers over the past decade, often without adequate compensation. The demonstrations, also driven by feelings of historical marginalization, were largely peaceful. In isolated cases, though, protesters looted government buildings and vandalized foreign investments, including a Dutch flower farm and a cement factory owned by Nigerian magnate Aliko Dangote. Authorities responded with a brutal crackdown. Human rights groups estimate that more than 200 people were killed, mainly by security forces, and thousands of others arrested. Merera Gudina, leader of the opposition Oromo People’s Congress, called it the “worst crisis in our people’s history.”

It remains to be seen, however, to what extent the crisis represents a threat to the country’s industrialization efforts. In a concession to the protesters, authorities announced in January that they would cancel the Addis Ababa urbanization plan, a move that would presumably hinder further growth of the city’s industrial footprint. Already, however, authorities had planned all but one of the new state industrial parks for other parts of Ethiopia—a deliberate move to limit the capital’s expansion and promote more-balanced growth across the country.

Ethiopia, which is less culturally homogenous than many of the Asian states it seeks to emulate, is emerging from a period of unprecedented ethnic discontent.

Critically, though, the episode raises larger questions about the compatibility of the developmental state, which requires centralized control, and Ethiopia’s decentralized federal system. Ethiopia’s constitution, which was designed to mitigate historical fragmentation among the country’s different “nationalities,” gives extensive control to the governments of the nine ethnically based regions to both plan and implement policy decisions. In practice, critics say the EPRDF, like all the regimes of modern Ethiopia before it, governs the country in a top-down manner that severely restricts political opposition as well as the autonomy of its regions. The party and its allies, which control all 547 seats in parliament, are largely unencumbered by dissenting voices. According to Gudina, many in Oromia and elsewhere interpret the developmental state not as a driver of progress, but as an imposition crafted by a small ruling clique in Addis Ababa. In particular, many resent the control of Meles’ ethnic Tigrayan minority, which continues to have disproportionate influence in government, business and the military. A major risk, he and other critics say, is that development policy that continues to be dictated from the top, without adequate local participation, will only cause further splintering across the country.

“Federalism was a compromise—it was a solution to the country’s main problem of national integration,” says Ezekiel Gebissa, an Ethiopian professor of history at Michigan’s Kettering University. “But the developmental state is actually working against that solution. We need genuine participation in economic growth, not command and planned development.”

Toiling for the Market

Whatever the risks of Ethiopia’s chosen development path, one thing appears certain: The country’s drive to industrialize will have a significant impact on the lives of millions of its citizens. Whether spinning machines and assembly lines can be harnessed in the best interests of those laborers, however, remains an open question. Although a poorly paying job may be better than none at all, the importance of low wages in attracting investors to the country is a concern for many human rights activists and labor leaders. Today, Ethiopia has no national minimum wage in the private sector. According to Angesom Yohannes, an official with the Industrial Federation of Textile, Garment, Leather, and Shoe Workers Trade Unions, fewer than 10 percent of the country’s 350,000 workers in these sectors belong to unions.

Ayka’s 6,000 staff are an exception. There, an active workers’ union has succeeded in raising the company’s minimum wage to 990 birr per month ($45). With the help of periodic strikes, the union has also negotiated annual salary increases and has helped propel more Ethiopian staff into management positions. Tanju Kavlakli, Ayka-Addis’ general manager, says the union’s presence helps boost worker morale and provides its staff an opportunity to air their grievances. Still, their comparatively low efficiency and the low-margin nature of the business mean that there are limits to wage concessions.

“I tell our workers they have to understand we need to be competitive on the global market,” Kavlakli says. “Otherwise these jobs won’t come to Ethiopia.”

For workers like Teshale Yohannes, this means that life is a daily struggle. A machine operator from southern Ethiopia, he came to Ayka in 2012 because the company offers free lunch and transport—perks unavailable in his previous job at a steel factory. Still, he says, he struggles with the heat of the textiles plant and worries about his exposure to chemicals. (An Ayka safety inspector, who listens to Teshale’s concerns, insists his job does not involve exposure to anything toxic).

Most importantly, Teshale says, the pay is simply too low. After rent, his salary leaves him with just 450 birr a month ($20) to support his wife and child.

“The money is never enough,” he says. “It’s not easy to make it to the end of the month.”

Jonathan W. Rosen is a journalist specializing in East Africa and Africa’s Great Lakes Region. His reporting for this story was funded by the Alicia Patterson Foundation.

FB: Ferhan Abdulselam

Dead body Ethiopian soldiers at the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea

Wayyaaneen maqaa ittisa biyyaa jedhuun, baajata Waraanaaf birrii bilyoona 15 baafti kan ifatti beekamu. Kan lafa jalaan dhoksaan kennamu yoo xiqqaate harka dachaa birrii bilyoona 7 olitti shallagama. Baajatni kun dhibbeentaan/harki 80 Tigraay keessatti basii ta’a. Kunis, wantootni waraanaaf barbaachisan warshaalee uffataa, qorichaa, … meeshaalee biroo dabalatee Tigraayitti waan oomishamuufi. Sababa kanaaf, baajata kana haala kanaan saamuuf akka isaaniif mijaa’uuf jecha Eertiraa waliin kan yeroo hedduu lola barbaadaniif jedhu keessa beektotni.

(Ijoo Dubbii ABO)

(ABO) — Qabsoon walabummaa biyyaa fi bilisummaa ummatootaa argamsiisuuf mootummoota Itiophiyaa sirna loogummaa fi jibbiinsaa tarkaanfachiisan irratti adeemsifamu dhalootaa dhalootatti dabraa har’a gahe. Gaaffileen bara dheeraaf ummatootaan kaafaman, gaaffiin mirga dimokraasii, walabummaa fi bilisummaa har’ayyuu deebii hin argatne. Qabsoon ummatootaa baroota dheeraa kun jijjiirraa hundee argamsiisuu hanqatuu irraas, warreen aangootti dhufan ummatoota hunda tajaajiltuu godhatuun saamaa jiraatuu kanneen barbaadanii ala tahuu hin dandeenye.  Nagaa waaraa, dimokraasii fi bilisummaa ummatootaatti kan hin amanne, dantaa murnaa fi ummata murtaawaa kabajsiisuu kaayyoo godhatanii ti kan aangootti ol bahan.

Uumama Itophiyaa irraa eegalee mootummootni biyyattii irratti aangomanii  osoo lola hin seenin dabran  hin jiran. Biyyoota olla halaalaa fi dhihoo akkasumas walii isaanii gidduu hedduutu adeemsifame. Loloota kanneen keessattis kan namaanis tahe qabeenyaan miidhaman ilmaanii fi qabeenya ummatoota cunqurfamoo ti. Ummatoota cunqurfamoo keessaas Oromoon durummaan kaafama. Kan yeroo fagoo dhiifnee loloota jaarraa walakkaa as adeemsifaman keessatti dirqisiifamaniis tahe fedhiidhaan hirmaatnaa qabaniin kan ilmaan Oromoo dorgomu hin jiru. Lola hunda keessatti baay’inaan akkuma hirmaatan heddumminaan wareegaman. Miidhaan qaamaa fi qalbii irra gahe. Lola keessatti hirmaatuun wareegama baasuu qofa osoo hin taane, lola adeemsifamu mara qabeenyaan utubuun dirqama Oromoo taasifamee qabeenya ittiin saamameera.

Lola Adwaa irraa eegalee mootummootni Itophiyaa hundinuu kan Oromoo hawwatanii fi barbaadan wayta lolaa qofa akka tahe seenaa irraa hubachuutu danda’ama.  Lolli wayta xumuramee aangoon isaanii amansiisaa tahutti ammoo karoorri isaanii golgaa Itophiyummaan Oromummaa irratti duuluutti jijjiirama.   Saamichaa fi cunqursaa babal’isuun Oromoo deegsuu irratti bobba’ama.

Ilmaan Oromoo loloota hedduu keessatti gootummaa fi of qusannaan alatti lolanii mootummaan Itophiyaa akka injifatu taasisan illee, injifannoo argameen kan badhaafamanii fi muudaman  kanneen lola keessatti hirmaatnaa homaatuu hin qabne aangoo mootummaa of harkaa qabani dha.

Gootota ilmaan Oromoo lola Adwaa keessatti gootummaan isaanii akka urjii ifee mul’ate,

Lola Somalee waliin marraa sadii godhame keessatti kanneen seenaa gootummaa galmeessan,

Lola Erteraa waggaa Soddoma godhame keessaatti kanneen Jeneraalummaa fi sadarkaa adda addaatti lolaa fi lolchiisaa turan,

Lola Wayyaaneen Erteraa lolte keessatti kanneen lolanii fi  fanjii karaa irraa haxaawaniif irra guddaan ilmaan Oromoo tahan illee, kan ittiin guddatanii fi jiraataa jiran, kanneen aangoo siyaasaa of harkaa qaban tahuu Generaalota Tigrootaa %98 tahan ilaaluu qofti shira bittootni Itophiyaa ilmaan cunqurfamoo irratti hojjatan bareechee agarsiisa.

Mootummootni Itophiyaa wayta aangoon isaanii gaaffii jala seenuu fi mormiin ummatootaa itti jabaatutti, yaada ummatootaa qixa biraatti jallisuuf, akkasumas, mararfannoo hawaasa addunyaa argatuuf diina halaalaa fi dhihoo uummatu. Mootummaan Wayyaanee dura ture, Impeeriyaalizmii, Arabaa fi Erteraa osoo balaaleffatuu umriin bittaa isaa dhumate.  Mootummaan Wayyaanees fincilaa fi diddaa ummatootaa roga hunda irraan mul’ataa jiruun muddame Erteraa fi shororkeessitoota maqaa dhahuun ilmaan ummatoota cunqurfamoo lola biraa seensisuuf dibbee lolaa dhaanuu jalqabee jira.

Ilmaan ummatoota cunqurfamoo addatti ammoo ilmaan Oromoo kuma kudhanoota danuun lakkaa’aman har’a Kaaba  Itophiyaatti argamu. Kana malees dirqama tajaajiltummaa Wayyaaneen ofitti fudhateen Somaalee keessatti kan argaman kumootaan lakkaa’amu.  Hundinuu biyyaa fi ummata hin beekne keessatti maatii fi fira irraa fagaatanii dahannoo keessa jiraatan. Kan dhama’uu fi dararamu, kan beela’u fi dheebotu, kan wareegamuu fi madaa’u, ilmaan ummatoota cunqurfamoo tarree lolaa duraa keessatti hiriirfaman kanneeni.  Har’a Ilmaan Tigrootaa ajajoo malee ajajamoo miti. Bakka hamtuu fi wareegama gaafatu irraa fageeffamanii jiran. Maatii waliin baka nagaa jiraatu. Halaala taa’anii ilmaan cunqurfamoo ibidda lolaatti naquu fi fanjii irra oofuudhaan akkuma kumootaan ficcisiisanii aangoo isaanii tikfatan, yeroo ammaa kanas ilmaan cunqurfamoo lola isaan hin ilaallee fi hin fayyadnetti oofuudhaan ittiin umrii bittaa isaanii dheereffatuuf karoora lolaa baasaafii jiran.

Mootummaan faraqaan aangoo  irra dhufu hundi humna namaa Oromoo fi qabeenya Oromoo abdatee lola bana. Haa tahu malee as irrattti Oromoon fayidaa maaliif bara baraan mootummoota Itophiyaaf lolaa jiraata? gaaffii jedhu kaasuun dirqii taha.

Ilmaan cunqurfamoo lola kamuu keessatti hirmaatan fayidaan argatan himamu tokko illee hin jiru. Kumaatamaan miidhamuu fi qabeenyaa guddaa ittiin dhabuu malee. Ammas marsaa biraaf Mootummaan Wayyaanee ilmaan Oromoo waggoota 25f, saamaa, ajjeesaa, hidhaatti guuruun dararuu irratti argamu Erteraa lolsiifatuuf sossobatuu irratti argama. Akeekni lola Wayyaanee ifaa dha. Fayidaan irraa argatus beekamaa.

Wayta ammaa kana keessa ummatootni Itophiyaa maalummaa Wayyaanee hubatuu irraa of irraa gatuuf qabsaawaa jiran. Gaaffii eenyummaa Kaaba empaayera Itophiyaa fi Kibba Ummatoota Itophiyaa keessatti belbelaa jiru, gaaffiin walabummaa fi bilisummaa Oromiyaa, Ogaadeen, Benishangul,Gambeellaa fi Sidaamaa keessatti finiinaa jiru, mootummaa Wayyaanee hudhee qabeera. Mootummaan diddaa hin bitamnuu ummatootaan sardamaa jiru kun diddaa bakkaa bakkatti guyyuu babal’ataa fi jabaataa jiru kana daandii irraa jallisuu fi of irraa qabbaneessuuf lola karoorfate. Kana malees  ajjeechaa duguuggii sanyiin wal gitu Oromiyaa fi naannoolee biraatti raawwateen hawaasa addunyaa biratti balaaleffatamuu irraa yaada addunyaa gara lolaatti jallisuuf lolatu ana baasa jechuun lola uumuuf abbala.

Addi Bilisummaa Oromoo (ABO)_n hundeeffama isaa irraa jalqabee Oromoon ofiif malee alagaaf akka hin lolle barsiisuu fi hubachiisuu hojii duraa godhatee irratti hojjataa ture. Wareegamni inni mootummoota Itophiyaaf baasu kan walabummaa hin gonfachiifne, bilisummaa isaa hin mirkaneessine tahuu hubachiisuun ofiif akka lolatu barsiisaa ture; barsiisaas jira.  Alagaaf du’uun cunqursaa fi saaminsa, tuffii fi salphina of irratti jabeessuu fi itti fufsiisuu akka tahe barsiisuun hidhannoo isaa diinatti akka naannessuuf hojii hin tuffatamne hojjate. Hojiin waggoota dheeraa gaafate, wareegamni adda addaa irratti baafame kunis yeroo ammaa hubannoo argatee ummatni Oromoo,  ofiif malee alagaaf lamuu hin wareegamu! sadarkaa jedhuun gahe. Kana irraas har’a ummatni Oromoo bakkayyuutti, diina dura dhaabbatuun mirga isaaf falmataa jira. Barataa, barsiisaa, hojjataa, daldalaa fi qotee bulaa, baadiyyaa fi magaalaatti akka nam-tokkootti yaada tokkoon walabummaa isaaf wareegama baasuu irratti argama.

Gabrummaatti Xumura Gochuu qabna! jechuun fincila geggeeffamaa jiruun kan rifate mootummaan Wayyaanee, lammiilee Oromoo gara jabinaan fixaa akka jiru ifatti beekama. Kumootaan mana hidhaatti guuree irratti roorrisaa jira. Biyyaa baqachiisuun jireenya biyya ormaa hadhaawaaf saaxileera. Fincila teessoo mootummaa Impaayera Itophiyaa raasaa jiru kana qabbaneessuu fi dhaamsuuf kan inni akka malaatti dhiheeffate lola Erteraa waliinii ti. Har’as Oromoon naaf lola, qabeenya Oromoon lola kana utubuun danda’a abjuu jedhuun cidha lolaa qopheessaa jira.

Waan taheef ummatni Oromoo akeeka lola kanaa hubatuun lola isa hin laalle keessatti hirmaatuu lagatuu qaba. Lolli isa ilaaluu fi dantaan isaa ittiin tikfamu, lolaa fi fincila diddaa gabrummaa ti. Walabummaa fi bilisummaa kan isa gonfachiisu lola bittootaa keessatti wareegamuu osoo hin taane, lola fi fincila alagaan hin bulfamu! jechuun adeemsisu jabeeffatuun waan taheef, ABOn ammas irra debi’ee ilmaan Oromoo lola isaan hin laalle keessatti hirmaatuu diduun ofiif akka lolatan hubachiisa.

Bara 2015 kesa waliisaa kenya jaalatama fii kabajamaan nuhoo goobanaa haala kanan dhukubsate mana yaalaa ciise ture yaroo san kesati namni isa cinaa nuuf dhaabate haadha Caayaa oromoo galani ishii bilisumaf walabumaa ha tahuu ishinis enyu yo jetaan haadha Gadise Shemsedin jechudha galani ishii anafii hawasaa oromoo hunda biraa ni bada nati hin fakaatu gonkuma

‪#‎Artist‬ FALMATAA ROOROO FI HAADHA MANAA ISAANII AADDEE HAWAA
artist falmataa roorroo oromoon cufti kan beeku garuu haala isaan amma itti jiran waan hin beekne qabdu. Maalumaafu sagantaa biraan walitti dachaana. Maali laatas jechaa ‪#‎umrii_haa_dheeressu‬ jedhaanii

{‪#‎FINFINNEE‬}
( 15,2016) FXG Fnfinnee keeysatti ka’a sodaa jedhuun humni waraana wayyaanee akka saree maraatuu finfinnee keessa olii fi gadi kaatti
Mootummaan abbaa irree wayyaanee yeroo ammaa kana waan qabuu fi gadi dhiisu wallaalee jira. Qeeyroon magaala Finfinnee fi godina addaa keeysatti waraqaa warraaqsaa facaasen diinni waraana isaa Finfinnee keessa olii fi gadi kaachisaa jira.
FXG Oromiyaa keeysatti wayita kana walgayii wayaanee diiguudhaan, daandii cufuudhaan magaalotaa fi baadiyaalee keeysatti waan jabaatee itti fufeef wayyaaneen humna waraanaa qabdu kan ishee utubee jiru Oromiyaa keessatti bittimsitee kan jirtu amma magaalaa guddicha Oromiya Finfinnee keeysatti FXG ka’a kan jedhu sodaattee waraana ishee har’a Waxabajjii 15,2016 ganamaan Finfinne keeysa bakka bakka qabsiisaa jirti. Keeysattuu nannoo yuuniversitiiwwanii waraanni marsee ka jiruu dha.
Dabalataan Qeeyroon godinoota addaa Oromiyaa keeysatti barruu warraaqsaa bittimsuun wal qabatee bakka Qeeyroon itti walgahu, ummanni Oromoo yoo walitti deeme bakka cidhaa fi bakka du’aatti FXG sodaadhaan wayyaneen ummata nagaa humna qabduun burjaajeessa kan jirtu bakka naannowan kanneenitti poolisii federaalaa ramaddee jirti.
Qeeyroon dhaadannoo fi qabsoo isaa jabeessuun ija poolisii duratti FXG jabeeffateera.
Injifannnoon Ummata Oromoof!

Qophii Qaanqee show Wax 14,2016 Haala xiinxaala yaroo irraati Obbo Yaadasaa Badhaasaa Kutuu waliin sagantaa addaa Australiatti fashaluu waalgahii jila Wayannee, Lola Ethio-Eritrea fi Alshabaab Aleellaa waraana Waranaa Wayannee irraan gahuu isaa https://www.facebook.com/Qaanqee-Show-459497130922793/
Good job Habtamu Lamu!

Waraanni Liyyuu Polisi kan naannoo Soomaalee duula daangaa dabruun ummata Oromoo haleeluu itti fufuun kaleessa ummata keena kan Harargee Bahaa aanaa Qumbii weerree magaalaa guddoo aanichaa Minoos too’annaa jala oolfachuun beekamee jira. Weerara kanaan lubbuun namoota hedduutis galaafatamuun gabaafamaa jira. Wantummaan ‘mootummaa naannoo Oromiyaa’ ofiin jettu tun jarattima tanallee ummatarraa dhoowwuu dadhabdii? Ajaja Wayyaaneetiin ummata keenya daangaaleerra jaru qawwee irraa hiikkachiisan. Har’a kunoo harka qullaa alagaan itti taphata.

‪#‎Oromoprotests‬ Lolli Wallo, Aanaa Baatee keessaatti guyyoota muraasaf Qotee Bultoota Oromootifi Afaar jidduutti guyyoota afur (4) dura jalqabe deema ture guyyoota muraasaf addaan dhaabatus guyyaa kaleessaa waxabajjii 14/2016 akka haarawatti egaluudhan itti fufa jira ja’an. Gamaa birrattin lolii guyyaa kaleessaa deema ture Burqaafi naannawa isatti ja’an. Uummanni walloo bakkaa addaa addaattirra waalif dirmaatani diinaa isaani dura dhaabata akka turanis ni himani.
Uummaanni walloo kan nannaawwa addaa addaa fknf Dawwee, Harxummaa, Dugugguruu, Jillee fi Caffaa irraa dirmannaaf Gara Baatee dhaqanii uummaata afar dura dhaabatani injjiffannon galani ja’an. Gamaa afar irra horii boojji’ani jirani ja’an Akkasumas namni midhamees jira ja’an. Garuu akka Uummaanni afar ja’uutti lolla kan Uummaata qofa miti ‪#‎ABO‬nun Lola ture jechuun mootummaa wayyanneetti himataa jirani ja’an mootummaan uummaata keenyaa ABO ja’ee akka fixxuf afaroonni yaada kan uummaatani ja’an namni tokkoo tokkoo.
Garuu haawasni walloo mootummaa miti maalif waan fedhan qabatni hin dhufne nuuti sodaa takkaa qabnu jechuun dhaadataa jirani ja’an viva walloo!

---

Waxabajjiin 15,2016 Guyyaa Hundeeffama SBO Waggaa 28ffaa ti. Baga Waliin Geenye!

---

የወያኔ ኣገዛዝ ካድሬዎች በጅማ ዞን አማራው ላይ ጥቃት ከፈቱ።
‪#‎Ethiopia‬ ‪#‎Jimma‬ ‪#‎Amhara‬ ‪#‎Genocide‬ ‪#‎TPLF‬ ‪#‎MinilikSalsawi‬
Minilik Salsawi (ምንሊክ ሳልሳዊ) በጂማ ዞን በሶከሩ ወረዳ የሚኖሩ አማሮች ላይ ሕወሓት መራሽ የሆነ ጥቃት ከዛሬ ጠዋት ጀምሮ እየተፈጸመ አንደሆነ ከኣከባቢው የተገኙ መረጃዎች ጠቁመዋል።
የአማሮችን ቤት በማቃጠል እና በገጀራ በመጉዳት የተጀመረው ጥቃት በቅዱስ ሚካኤል ቤተ ክርስቲያን የኪዳን ጸሎት ላይ የነበሩ አማሮች ጉዳት የደረሰባቸው ሲሆን ዘረኛው መንግስት እንደለመደው ጥቃቱን ሃይማኖታዊ ለማስመሰል በመፍጨርጨር ላይ ይገኛል፤ ይህ ጥቃት ሕወሓት አማራውን ሕዝብ ለማጥፋት ከሚወጥነው ስዐራ ኣንዱ ኣካል መሆኑ ታውቋል።‪#‎ምንሊክሳልሳዊ‬

---

የኤርትራው ማስታወቂያ ሚንስተር ኤርትራ ከኢትዮጵያ ህዝብ ጠብ የለብንም ሲል ፀባችን ከ ህዋሓት ጋ ነው ሲል መግለጫ አውጣ
☞ ሕዝባዊ ወያኔ ሃርነት ትግራይ (ሕወሃት) ሰኔ 7 ቀን 2008 በጾረና ግምባር ወደ ኤርትራ ግዛት ተንቀሳቅሶ ጥቃት መፈጸሙን ተከትሎ የኤርትራ ኢንፎርሜሽን ሚኒስቴር ባወጣው አጭር መግለጫ “የሕወሃት አገዛዝ በፆረና ማዕከላዊ ግንባር ጦርነት ከፍቶብናል” ነበር ያለው።Eritrea says the TPLF Regime launches an attack
የኤርትራ መንግስት “ኢትዮጵያ ጥቃት ፈጸመችብኝ” አለማለቱ ኤርትራውያን የኢትዮጵያን ሕዝብ በዘረኛና አምባገነን አፋኝ ሥርዓት ስር ደፍጥጦ እየገዛ ያለው በሕዝብ ያልተመረጠና ከአንድ አነስተኛ የህዝብ ብዛት ካለው ብሄር የወጣ እራሱን የብሄረሰቡ ነጻ አውጪ እያለ የሚጠራ አናሳ ቡድን ሕወሃት እንደሆነ በሚገባ ስለሚያውቅ ነው።
ለወትሮው ኢትዮጵያን በመግዛት ልይ ያለውን ዘረኛና ጨቋኝ ቡድን “ሕወሃት” በሚለው ትክክለኛ መጠሪያው አዘውትረው የሚጠሩት ከሕወሃት የአፈና አገዛዝ ውጭ ያሉ ኢትዮጵያውያን፣ የተቃዋሚ ድርጅት መሪዎች፣ የመብት ተሟጋቾች እና አንዳንድ በሃገር ቤት የሚገኙ ኮፍጣና የተቃዋሚ አባላት ብቻ ነበሩ። ይሁንና አለማቀፍ የዜና አውታሮች በኢትዮጵያ እና ኤርትራ ድንበሮች ጦርነት ተቀሰቀሰ መባሉን ሰምተው ጆሮዋቸውን አቅንተው በሚጠብቁበት ወቅት የኤርትራው ኢንፎርሜሽን ሚኒስቴር “የሕወሃት አገዛዝ በፆረና ማዕከላዊ ግንባር ጦርነት ከፍቶብናል” የሚል ቋንቋ በመጠቀሙ ምዕራባውያኑ የዜና አውታሮች ምናልባትም ለመጀመሪያ ጊዜ የኢትዮጵያውን አገዛዝ በትክክለኛ ስሙ “ሕወሃት” ሊጠሩት ተገደዋል።
ሕዝባዊ ወያኔ ሃርነት ትግራይ (ሕወሃት) እራሱን “ኢሕአዴግ” በሚባለው ጭንብል ስር ቀብሮ ለዓመታት ኖርዋል። እርግጥ አብዛኛው ኢትዮጵያዊ “ኢሕአዴግ” በሚባለው ድርጅት ስር አለን የሚሉትን ድርጅቶች “ጥርስ የሌላቸው አንበሶች” እንደሆኑ ጠንቅቆ ያውቃል። የድርጅቶቹ ዋነኛ ተግባርም እንወክለዋለን የሚሉትን ብሄረሰብ/ሕዝብ እጅና እግር አስረው ለሕወሃት እንዲገዛ ማድረግ ነው።
ኢትዮጵያውያን በኢትዮጵያ እና ኤርትራ ድንበሮች ጦርነት የመቀስቀሱን ዜና ከሰሙ በኋላ በማህበራዊ ድረገጾች እያንጸባረቁ ያሉት መልእክትም ይህንኑ ነው።
የኢትዮጵያ ህዝብ ከተጫነበት ዘረኛና አምባገነን የጭቆና አገዛዝ እራሱን አላቆ ነጻ ለመውጣት የሚያደርገውን የነጻነት ትግል አቅጣጫ ለማሳትና የሕወሃትን አገዛዝ ለማስቀጠል ታስቦ ከኤርትራ ጋር የሚደረግ ጦርነት የኢትዮጵያን ሕዝብ አይመለከትም!

Jubilant Eritrean soldiers, congratulating each others

---

Ethiopia Admits it Sustained Heavy Casualties

Eritrea says it successfully repulsed the attack on the Tsorona Central Front with TPLF troops sustaining heavy casualties. Ethiopian government spokesman admits its forces suffered significant casualties [by the very fire it lit].

(Tesfanews) — Ethiopian government spokesman, Getachew Reda, who had initially claimed no knowledge of the fighting, told AFP its troops had in fact sustained significant casualties.“There were significant casualties on both sides, but more on the Eritrean side,” said gullible Reda stressing rather its heavy loses and the far larger scale of the battle.“The attack launched by the TPLF regime on the Tsarina Central Front on Sunday, 12 June 2016, has been repulsed with TPLF troopssustaining heavy casualties,” Eritrea’s ministry of information said in a statement today, still accusing Ethiopia of military aggression.

Both sides blamed the other for starting the attack. While Eritreahas been consistent with its claims, Ethiopia rather issued five different and contradictory versions of the story in the space of three days.

The first version issued through proxy media outlets alluded to advances of its army to Tsorona village in a fighting that erupted on Sunday June 12, 2016 at 5:00 a.m.

The second version issued yesterday through proxies again claimed that its troops were attacked by Eritrea while “playing football” (at 5:00 a.m.?).

Third version quoted an anonymous official who denied any fighting of any sort and claimed the story was fig-leaf in Eritrea’s imagination.

Fourth version by the Minister of Communications and Spokesman talks about “retaliatory action” and all the earlierversion are for the ambush that was taken place in previous week.

Fifth and current version by the Spokesperson claims fighting started when Eritrean artillery fired shells across the border and hit an ambulance.

“Eritrean forces started shelling our positions, including civilian ambulances, and we responded,” Getachew told AFP.

“The purpose and ramifications of this Ethiopian attack are not clear,” Eritrea said on Sunday, adding it “will issue further statements on the unfolding situation.”

Eritrea also says the border situation has calmed down ‘for the moment’ and what will happen next depends on Ethiopia’s next move.

Ethiopia on the other hand said it will not escalate the dispute on its own and in fact already started withdrawing its forces.

---

Surraan arkitaan kun kan ilmaan oromoo yeroo Sudaan irra gara Egypt Deeman kara irratti owwaa, beelafi Aduun it time buutee karatti bifa surraa irratti gartan kannan lubbuun baate! Subban-allaah yaa rabbii! !! Yaa oromoo mee maalummaaf deemtan biyyaa san? Rabbii sodaadha hin deemina? Waan gonnuu qabnu rabbiin jannaata isiinif haa kannuu warraa du’ees! ! /Sirkanan Ahmed

Destroyed military equipment is piled high in the “tank cemetery” in Asmara, a product of a previous confrontation between Ethiopia and Eritrea (Photo credit: Flickr/David Stanley)

(Atlantic Council) — According to Eritrean officials, in the early hours of Sunday, June 12, Ethiopian forces launched an unprovoked assault over the Eritrean border at the town of Tsorana. Heavy fighting lasted throughout the day and continued after dark, when the Eritrean forces managed to launch a counter-offensive that ended the assault.

Near midnight on June 12, Eritrea’s information minister released a press statement accusing Ethiopia of the attack, and stating that “the purpose and ramifications of this attack are unclear.” Privately, officials expressed concern that the skirmish could presage a return to full-scale war.

Eritrean officials suggest a review of satellite images of the Ethiopian-Eritrean border, which they claim will show that Ethiopia has been building up its forces over the past two months. That would not be surprising, as Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has repeatedly and very recently warned of his intention to use “proportionate military force” against Eritrea in response to its “provocations,” though the United Nations Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) has found little evidence of destabilizing acts by Eritrea in recent years.

The United States, EU, and United Nations Security Council should act quickly to ensure that Sunday’s border skirmish does not escalate further. And for once it should point the finger of blame firmly at Ethiopia. Past aggressions by Ethiopia have failed to draw censure from the international community, but the refusal to assign blame in this latest incident would dangerously threaten stability in the Horn. The details of the current conflict may be unclear, but Ethiopia has been frank about its desire to punish Eritrea militarily. Given that, the dire escalation of the conflict on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border was utterly predictable. And the international community is complicit in this escalation, because it has consistently failed to censure Ethiopia for its past aggressions.

Who is to blame?

Ethiopia has denied that it initiated the conflict at the Tsorona front on Sunday, but only weakly. When questioned, Ethiopia’s information minister, Getachew Reda, initially claimed to know nothing about the fighting. Later, he vaguely accused Eritrea of provoking the skirmish, calling the fighting “an Eritrean initiative,” and referring to “an incident on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border” and “a provocation”—one that apparently triggered a rapid and unprecedentedly large-scale deployment of Ethiopian heavy artillery and tanks.

Gedab News has subsequently offered what seems, on its face, to be a fairlycredible account of what might have occurred. The account alleges that Eritrean forces chased a group of deserters onto Ethiopian territory, where they skirmished with at least three of the Eritrean rebel groups that are being illicitly backed by Ethiopia. The article notes that neither Eritrea nor Ethiopia would want the details of such an incident to slip out, since it suggests not insubstantial misconduct by both sides. But whether or not this particular account is accurate, it’s fairly likely that some minor incident along these lines occurred on Sunday at the Tsorona front—as such incidents do, with some regularity, along the militarized border—and that Ethiopia seized the opportunity to pursue Eritrea’s forces back across the border with tanks and heavy artillery, apparently causing a substantial loss of life. The pursuit of Eritrean forces over the border (which has not been demarcated due to Ethiopia’s refusal to comply with the terms of a 2000 peace treaty and subsequent boundary determination) was predicted by Hailemariam’s ongoing threats to punish Eritrea with military force.

I cannot of course rule out the possibility that Eritrea may be single-handedly responsible for this latest border skirmish. But Ethiopia’s failure to offer any specific explanation of what Eritrea has actually done to provoke such a significant strike should be regarded as a red flag of blame, as should Getachew’s press statement in Addis Ababa on Tuesday morning, in which he argued that Eritrea simply deserved to be attacked: “We believe that the regime doesn’t have any moral ground whatsoever to complain to the international community that it has been attacked because it has all along been working to invite such an attack from any responsible country in the region.”

Getachew then referred to Eritrea’s efforts to “destabilize” the region. This is a constant Ethiopian refrain, but because he made no specific allegation, it remains unclear what Ethiopia thinks Eritrea has done to provoke an attack.

(The SEMG is charged with monitoring the arms embargoes on Somalia and Eritrea, and routinely investigates Eritrea’s activities in the region. For the past several years, it has reported that both Ethiopia and Eritrea have continued to fund rebel and opposition groups operating on each other’s territories. But it has failed to uncover any significant destabilizing acts or violations by Eritrea. And there is no doubt that the volume of funding provided to rebel groups by Ethiopia vastly exceeds that which is provided by the much smaller, and poorer, Eritrea.)

Ethiopia has recently complained about efforts by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to improve Eritrea’s ports, which they hope to use as a launching pad for assaults against Al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen. But there is no evidence that the UAE cooperation will adversely affect Ethiopia’s security. Unrelatedly, Ethiopia has also recently accused Eritrea of fomenting protests by Oromos in the southern part of the country. But that claim is wholly unsubstantiated, has been denied by the Oromo protesters, and is routinely dismissed by security analysts and human rights investigators.

Earlier this year, in March, Ethiopia’s prime minister publically threatened to take military action against Eritrea in response to various alleged acts of “provocation” and “destabilization.” It is very likely that the attack on the Eritrean border is simply a fulfillment of what was, in effect, a public pledge to escalate the conflict with Eritrea at the earliest opportunity.

Previous Ethiopian assaults on Eritrea

Ethiopia has a history of attacks on Eritrea. In March 2012, Ethiopia illegally sent troops across the Eritrean border to attack three military bases that it claimed were operated by the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front. In March 2015, Ethiopia bombed two targets in Eritrea, apparently in retaliation for an EU decision to provide development funding to Eritrea. (Neither Eritrean nor Western diplomats will consent to discuss this incident on the record, but the basic facts of the incident are already in the public arena.) Eight soldiers were killed in the strike on a military depot in Asmara; and in violation of the rules of war, the other strike was directed at a civilian target, a Canadian-operated mining venture at Bisha. No-one was killed in that attack, and it appears to have been intended to undermine investor confidence in Eritrea’s security.

The United States, European nations, and the United Nations Security Council failed to censure Ethiopia for these attacks—nor have any of these bodies respond to Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s very public threats to use military force against Eritrea (for example, in speeches made in October 2015, November 2015, and March 2016). This failure to contain Ethiopia’s repeated aggression has unquestionably contributed to a sense of impunity on the part of Ethiopia, which is also considered an essential partner of US counterterror efforts in the Horn of Africa region. Because of Ethiopia’s key role in US security efforts, Washington has typically avoided criticizing Ethiopia’s regional aggressions, as well as its escalating domestic civil and human rights violations.

Who benefits from the skirmish?

Some analysts have argued that Eritrea stands to benefit from the conflict, because “it diverts attention away from the alleged crimes against humanity, and [justifies Eritrea’s] need for an enormous and compulsory conscription,” according to Charlotte King of the Economist Intelligence Unit.

That could be so – I would be the first to admit that the motivations of both the Eritrean and Ethiopian regimes are inscrutable to distant eyes. But I would assess that the Eritrean regime has little to gain from contributing to a media narrative that is already focused on its “bad behavior” at home and in the Horn. And, given the ongoing and illegal occupation of Eritrean territory by Ethiopian troops, on top of the aggressions cited above, Eritrea does not have to work that hard to prove that has significant national security concerns stemming from its border conflict with Ethiopia. If anything, media headlines about the border are likely to draw more attention to the crimes against humanity charges, by keeping Eritrea’s affairs in the news.

Giving Ethiopia an excuse to restart the border war would also be a dangerous gamble by Eritrea. In the years since the last border war ended (in 2000) Ethiopia has been flooded with development and military assistance, the latter given by the US and EU in exchange for Ethiopia’s participation in the UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia. At the same time, Eritrea has been starved of both economic investment and development support, and has lost hundreds of thousands of youth to migration. Both factors have no doubt caused a substantial decline in Eritrea’s military capabilities. If Ethiopia and Eritrea go back to war, it’s clear who would win. And it would be suicide for Eritrea to provoke such a conflict at time when the world’s opprobrium is focused on Asmara. The odds of any nation or intergovernmental body rising to Eritrea’s defense is painfully slim – as the muted response to Sunday’s fighting has shown.

If Ethiopia wants a war, on the other hand, there’s good reason to think that there will never be a better time. The US national security advisor, Susan Rice, is a committed defender of the Ethiopian regime and will remain in her office for only a few more months. With the allegations of crimes against humanity, international criticism of Eritrean has certainly plateaued. And Ethiopia is facing a worrying pile-up of domestic problems, particularly among its Muslim and Oromo populations, but also in the Gambella and Somali regions, among others. The temptation to quell domestic unrest by uniting the population against an external foe must be fairly strong, and Ethiopia’s Tigrean elite has long desired absolution for its loss of Eritrea and, in particular, the port of Asab. “A second round of full-scale war between Ethiopia and Eritrea cannot be ruled out,” Ethiopia’s information minister says.

No pragmatic analyst of US foreign policy could demand that Washington exercise its responsibility to ensure the implementation of the Algiers Agreement, which Ethiopia has violated for the past thirteen years. No matter how just that demand, no matter how long overdue, no matter how profoundly such action would increase the stability and peacefulness of the Horn, it is simply not realistic to expect Washington to take up this burden at a time of global economic instability and ever-escalating security concerns. But there is no excuse for Washington’s silence in the face of Ethiopia’s clearly announced intention to restart hostilities against Eritrea, and in the face of its continued military aggressions. Ethiopia is testing the waters for a return to war.

For now, the Ethiopian forces have withdrawn, and it is to be hoped that Washington is exerting pressure on Addis Ababa behind closed doors. Because: If Ethiopia and Eritrea go back to war, Washington, the European Union, and in particular the UN Security Council, will have no one but themselves to blame.

Eritrea is liable for some time to much criticism and the Committee of the United Nations Human Rights will consider in June the qualification of the charges against him “crime against humanity”. If you dig things, as I got the opportunity, and we do not rest on what is commonly spread, one discovers a different truth …

By Henri Fourcadis | MediaPart

Asmara, Eritrea

(Media Part) — I have been able to meet Eritreans on their national territory, Eritreans during their application for refugee status and after obtaining it, staff of NGOs hosting them and also Eritrean authorities in Asmara. Here is what I discovered…

First let’s begin by making a reminder of what is Eritrea. This unrecognized country in the Horn of Africa is located on the Red Sea between Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti and faces the shores of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Strategic location in this region of conflict at the gates of the Middle East and passage required to reach the Suez canal.

Eritrea since the middle of the second half of the 19th century was an Italian colony. Following the defeat of Italy in the Second World War, the United Nations decided in 1952 to federate Eritrea and Ethiopia. The latter annexed Eritrea in 1962. Thus began a war of independence that will last for decades and will end in May 1991. In 1993, independence was recognized internationally.

Since independence, some territorial disputes have emerged in particular with Ethiopia. This conflict ceased in 2000 with the Algiers agreements but Ethiopia challenged the boundary between the two States which earned a deployment of peacekeepers to the region and an arbitration of the United Nations in 2003. Ethiopia rejected arbitration and still continues to occupy a part of Eritrean territory. Many Ethiopian provocations are held regularly in this border area now a climate of tension requiring Asmara (Eritrea’s capital) to remain on the alert and to keep the country in a State of emergency despite the theoretical end of the conflict settled by United Nations agencies.

Eritrea is a country of just over 6 million people with a total area of 121 320 km2. Ethiopia meanwhile has an area 10 times larger and a population of 91 million. It is understood that the balance of power may worry the Eritrean authorities especially when Ethiopia said clearly does not accept the boundaries established by the international community and continues thereby to occupy part of the territory of its neighbor.

The Eritrean government expects an attack from Ethiopia at any time. Let us not forget the strategic location of Eritrea, by the sea, which since independence has deprived Ethiopia of a port, requiring it to pass through Djibouti to import and export by sea. Eritrea is a mountainous region with many metal deposits (gold, copper …). Ethiopia would therefore have every interest in annexing Eritrean territory as its own again.

Due to this state-emergency situation and precariousness of their independence, Eritreans are led by a regime that must be strong. Democracy is not yet possible given the influence and pressure maintained by Ethiopia with the support of some countries still in search of influence for the interests of their economies, like the United States of America. The State of Eritrea is too afraid of losing its real sovereignty by the use of these foreign powers tools of democracy (media, NGOs, political parties) to take power.

The subject can be discussed, but from a Marxist independence movement, the government is wary of the influence of the western world. The result is that the economy is weak and the country is poor. However, the government takes care of the needy, no one dies from hunger in Eritrea. The state organizes free distribution of basic commodities. School and university are free and as well as access to the health system.

Given the very weak economic activity and the state of emergency, the country and its people are in a permanent mobilization to meet the administrative needs and defense of it. Thus, each citizen of Eritrea, after a 18-month military service, is assigned to a work of public utility.A kind of paid civil service, slightly considering the means of the State, and whose duration is variable. Sometimes it can last several years.

The Eritrean government is the target of much criticism and accusations. A commission of inquiry of the Council of Human Rights (HRC) of the UN has even been set up. A damning report was presented by its chairman Mike Smith and his Special Rapporteur Sheila Keetharuth.

For several months we see in the media many Eritreans presented as fleeing the regime of their country and seeking political refugee status. Sometimes, some of the media relay the number of 5000 per month. It is a delusional number because that would mean that 1% of the Eritrean national population would flee the country every year. When one looks at things more closely and that we survey all the world, that is to say the Government of Eritrea, the “refugees” before their request for political asylum and after, and staff framing NGOs who receive them, but also the Eritrean people in Eritrea, one perceives a different truth.

Let’s start with the number of migrants. How can some organizations advance the number 5000? Well, because many African countries or countries bordering Eritrea pretend to be Eritrean, Eritreans say. Why do they do this? Just to get political refugee status because it is systematically given to Eritreans who say are fleeing from the regime. If they did not do that, Sudanese, Ethiopians and others would see themselves taken back to their countries, because of not being in “danger of death”.

You see, the situation is very paradoxical.

Very easily giving asylum to Eritreans because they say they are in danger. Their country being closed to journalists and NGOs, it is very easy for them to tell what they want. Nothing is verifiable. As the thing works so well, it’s always the same story that is told. And if anyone who wants to obtain the status of refugee is wrong in his narrative, it is common that the translator corrects himself to tell the story that has the greatest chance of obtaining asylum. If ever the opinion were not positive, it is advised to say that the translator was mistaken and to ask for another who often will know, to tell him the good story.

So why do they flee?

They are fleeing because they want to escape from the civil service. Service that can last a long time and somehow prevents them from starting their own lives to them. They are also fleeing because the economic situation is very precarious. The average wage is less than $100 per month. Young people, who have not experienced the war of independence may feel less inclined to accept the State of emergency in which they live permanently, especially because they have access to all the imagery and the Western dream by internet. Contrary to what might be imagined, Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, is filled with Internet Café giving internet access via computers or wifi. Eritreans make extensive use of Facebook. The connection is slow, but it is there and it is a window of the outside world. One can understand these young people who aspire to be something else. This also is not true of all, Many Eritrean youth prefer to stay to participate in the maintenance and development of their country.

The government is aware of this and knows that this strategy is, in part, orchestrated by its neighbor, Ethiopia, with the help of the United States. Several emails released by WikiLeaks shows clearly that the Ethiopian government maintains contact with the CIA about the destabilization of Eritrea. The CIA says to his partner how to induce the desertion of Eritrean youth. All this requires, among others, the establishment of opposition websites that boast the ability to obtain political refugee status in European countries, this coming with housing and allowance … This is  why that in recent months, the Eritrean authorities organize the visit of their country and opened with caution to journalists to show the truth. They also made a tour of influential European capitals to make their voices heard. The country also seeks to gradually open up to some foreign investors: Canada, Italy, Qatar, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia … It is understandable that the US wants a piece of the cake …

This is the paradox. The more Eritreans leave  their country and tell stories to obtain asylum, the more this feeds the thesis that speaks of forced labor, torture, rape..

If all this were true, why after obtaining political refugee visa, do Eritreans living abroad would pay a share of their income to support their country’s reconstruction? Why would they return to their countries to see their families, taking care not to stamp their passports at the border but a small piece of paper with the collusion of customs officers not to leave traces and risking to lose the status of political refugee? Because what refugee would return to his country if it were genuinely threatened death or torture by the regime?

These economic migrants, finally, even if they aspire to a life other than the one proposed today in Eritrea, still love their country.

As you can see, things are quite different views from this angle.

As in many African countries, why don’t the leaders of Eritrea live like kings? Why are their children doing civil service too? Why do they have small salaries? Why aren’t security forces found on the corner of every street? Why do religious and ethnic communities live together without worries? In the streets of Asmara people are smiling. Christians, Muslims and Jews meet and live together without problems. Even mixed marriages are possible. I can testify.

When the Commission submitted its report in June 2015 in Geneva, hundreds of Eritreans, who came from all over Europe, gathered to demonstrate their disapproval with the conclusions of the report. These were the same Eritreans who a few months or years before left their country by distorting their experiences in order to obtain asylum.

So there is a real injustice that is experienced by Eritrea and its people when the CHR report proposes to accuse the State of Eritrea of “crimes against humanity”. The study of this issue is scheduled for June 2016. Here’s how to destabilize a country, how to outcast of the world, because if this qualification is held, how long will it take before American and Ethiopians arrive in Eritrea to “liberate” the country?

Already seen strategy. Hopefully for the State of Eritrea and its people that this time things do not go like this.

Note: Full document is attached in PDF, CLICK HERE for English version, CLICK HERE for Afaan Oromo version and CLICK HERE for Amharic version

Free Wrongfully Held Detainees, Independent Inquiry Needed

(Nairobi) – Ethiopian security forces have killed more than 400 protesters and others, and arrested tens of thousands more during widespread protests in the Oromia region since November 2015. The Ethiopian government should urgently support a credible, independent investigation into the killings, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses.

The 61-page report. “‘Such a Brutal Crackdown’: Killings and Arrests in Response to Ethiopia’s Oromo Protests,” details the Ethiopian government’s use of excessive and unnecessary lethal force and mass arrests, mistreatment in detention, and restrictions on access to information to quash the protest movement. Human Rights Watch interviews in Ethiopia and abroad with more than 125 protesters, bystanders, and victims of abuse documented serious violations of the rights to free expression and peaceful assembly by security forces against protesters and others from the beginning of the protests in November 2015 through May 2016.

“Ethiopian security forces have fired on and killed hundreds of students, farmers, and other peaceful protesters with blatant disregard for human life,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should immediately free those wrongfully detained, support a credible, independent investigation, and hold security force members accountable for abuses.”

Human Rights Watch found that security forces used live ammunition for crowd control repeatedly, killing one or more protesters at many of the hundreds of protests over several months. Human Rights Watch and other organizations have identified more than 300 of those killed by name and, in some cases, with photos.

The November protests were triggered by concerns about the government’s proposed expansion of the capital’s municipal boundary through the Addis Ababa Integrated Development Master Plan. Protesters feared that the Master Plan would displace Oromo farmers, as has increasingly occurred over the past decade, resulting in a negative impact on farm communities while benefiting a small elite.

Ethnic Oromo march on a road in Ethiopia after security forces fatally shot protesters in Wolenkomi, some 60 kilometers west of Addis Ababa, December 15, 2015. ©2015 AFP/Getty Images

As protests continued into December, the government deployed military forces for crowd-control throughout Oromia. Security forces repeatedly fired live ammunition into crowds with little or no warning or use of non-lethal crowd-control measures. Many of those killed have been students, including children under 18.

“Such a Brutal Crackdown”

Killings and Arrests in Response to Ethiopia’s Oromo Protests

The federal police and military have also arrested tens of thousands of students, teachers, musicians, opposition politicians, health workers, and people who provided assistance or shelter to fleeing students. While many detainees have been released, an unknown number remain in detention without charge and without access to legal counsel or family members.

Witnesses described the scale of the arrests as unprecedented. Yoseph, 52, from the Wollega zone, said: “I’ve lived here for my whole life, and I’ve never seen such a brutal crackdown. There are regular arrests and killings of our people, but every family here has had at least one child arrested.”

Former detainees told Human Rights Watch that they were tortured or mistreated in detention, including in military camps, and several women alleged that they were raped or sexually assaulted. Some said they were hung by their ankles and beaten; others described having electric shocks applied to their feet, or weights tied to their testicles. Video footage shows students being beaten on university campuses.

Despite the large number of arrests, the authorities have charged few individuals with any offenses. Several dozen opposition party members and journalists have been charged under Ethiopia’s draconian anti-terrorism law, while 20 students who protested in front of the United States embassy in Addis Ababa in March were charged with various offenses under the criminal code.

There have been some credible reports of violence by protesters, including the destruction of foreign-owned farms, looting of government buildings, and other destruction of government property. However, the Human Rights Watch investigations into 62 of the more than 500 protests since November found that most have been peaceful.

The Ethiopian government’s pervasive restrictions on independent human rights investigations and media have meant that very little information is coming from affected areas. The Ethiopian government has also increased its efforts to restrict media freedom. Since mid-March it has restricted access to Facebook and other social media. It has also restricted access to diaspora television stations.

In January, the government announced the cancellation of the Master Plan. By then, however, protester grievances had widened due to the brutality of the government response.

While the protests have largely subsided since April, the government crackdown has continued, Human Rights Watch found. Many of those arrested over the past seven months remain in detention, and hundreds have not been located and are feared to have been forcibly disappeared. The government has not conducted a credible investigation into alleged abuses. Soldiers still occupy some university campuses and tensions remain high. The protests echo similar though smaller protests in Oromia in 2014, and the government’s response could be a catalyst for future dissent, Human Rights Watch said.

Ethiopia’s brutal crackdown warrants a much stronger, united response from concerned governments and intergovernmental organizations, including the United Nations Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch said. While the European Parliament has passed a strong resolution condemning the crackdown and a resolution has been introduced in the United States Senate, these are exceptions in an otherwise severely muted international response to the crackdown in Oromia. The UN Human Rights Council should address these serious abuses, call for the release of those arbitrarily detained and support an independent investigation.

“Ethiopia’s foreign supporters have largely remained silent during the government’s bloody crackdown in Oromia,” Lefkow said. “Countries promoting Ethiopia’s development should press for progress in all areas, notably the right to free speech, and justice for victims of abuse.”

Interview: Ethiopia’s Bloody Crackdown on Peaceful Dissent

By Birgit Schwarz
Senior Press Officer | June 15, 2016

(HRW)–Since November 2015, Ethiopia’s Oromia region has been rocked by widespread protests. State security forces have responded to the largely peaceful protests with lethal force, resulting in the loss of more than 400 lives. Thousands have been wounded. Tens of thousands have been arrested and many remain in detention without charge. Many of those killed or detained by security forces are students. Human Rights Watch’s Birgit Schwarz talks to Ethiopia researcher Felix Horne about what triggered the protests, why the government’s brutal crackdown has received so little attention, and how he went about gathering credible evidence for his latest report, “Such a Brutal Crackdown,” in a highly repressive country that refuses to let in human rights researchers.

What triggered the Oromia protests?

The initial trigger was the Addis Ababa Master Plan, a very ambitious growth plan, which proposed to expand the municipal boundaries of Addis Ababa twentyfold in order to manage the capital’s rapid growth. This would force mainly ethnic Oromo farmers living around Addis to move. Many of these people have repeatedly been displaced from their land over the last decade without adequate compensation. The protests soon spread — we know of about 500 incidents of protests across all 17 zones of Oromia. Many are taking place in rural areas, where people have been displaced because of  investments in commercial agriculture projects.

What options do displaced farmers have?

Ethiopia is a country of 100 million people, with high population density, especially around the capital. As with many expanding cities, there simply is no available land near the capital. So this is a difficult issue to resolve. However, in most cases we found that there was no attempt to compensate or provide alternate land for those farmers. They either have to live with family members elsewhere, flee the country, or go to Addis and search for low-paid work. Some farmers ended up working on their own land as watchmen or laborers.

Ethiopia is considered a development success story. Is this the price of its success?

Ethiopia is making major strides economically and its population does benefit from the country’s growth. But the government has a very authoritarian approach to development. The ruling party occupies 100 percent of the seats in the federal parliament as well as in all regional parliaments. When the government earmarks land for  major investment projects, such as sugar or cotton plantations, flower farms, or manufacturing, the communities living on the land are hardly ever consulted and residents are often displaced without compensation. Those who express any kind of dissent are frequently targeted for harassment, arrest or even torture. Ethiopian law has made  virtually impossible the operation of  independent organizations  that can represent victims of abuse or work against injustice. And the courts are not remotely independent when dealing with politicized cases.

Who are the protesters?

Initially the protesters were young, rural secondary and primary school students. They are much more aware of what is happening and of  their rights  than many in the older generation. University students are also involved. There was a period when the farmers joined in. But the older generation has been through these crackdowns many times; they know there will be harsh consequences if they raise their voices too loud. For example, farmers are largely dependent on the government, which provides fertilizers and in some cases, seeds or food aid. Those who actively speak out against government policy risk their access to these critical resources. So farmers avoid criticizing the government because it puts their ability to grow food in jeopardy.

How did students mobilize in a country that restricts any independent media and where surveillance is pervasive?

“Who is mobilizing? Who is behind this?” were questions the intelligence services constantly put to those they interrogated. Most of the students don’t have an answer. There is no puppet master who is pulling the strings. This has mainly been a spontaneous, grassroots movement. When I asked students how they know what is happening in other parts of Oromia, they said they knew through friends in neighboring villages, through Facebook – before the government restricted Facebook in Oromia – and occasionally through the Oromia Media Network, an independent diaspora television station.

How did the government respond to the protests?

After first responding with local police in Oromia, the government deployed the military, claiming that the protesters had been hijacked by outside forces and were bent on destroying government property. We did indeed find some cases in which protesters acted violently or in which there were attacks on  government offices  near the protests. But the vast majority of the protests were peaceful. Nevertheless, the security forces made tens of thousands of arbitrary arrests and shot live ammunition indiscriminately into the crowds. Because young children were often at the forefront of the protests, many of those struck by bullets were students. We estimate over 400 mostly young people have been killed since the protests began.

But didn’t the government halt the plan to expand the boundaries of Addis Ababa?

In January the government announced the cancellation of the Master Plan. This was a rare concession for a government that is not used to making them. But by that time, theprotesters’ concerns had become much broader. Not only were they talking about the plan, but also about the brutal response of the security forces to the protests, the jailing of students and children, and the decades of discrimination that ethnic Oromo have endured. So the announcement had little impact on the protesters. And the conduct of the security forces did not change either. They have continued to use live ammunition and make mass arrests.

How did you collect and corroborate the evidence for this report?

Surveillance is heavy, sources are targeted, and interpreters are at risk. In some cases, bothlocal and foreign journalists have been detained. Despite this, we did manage to find ways to interview a number of protesters inside Ethiopia. We compared what they said with information given to us by people who had recently fled the country. We corroborated their accounts with photos, videos, police documents, health records. To confirm the authenticity of videos, we checked the footage’s metadata. We also spoke to the people who shot the videos, confirmed who the protesters in the videos were, and interviewed some of them. And we spoke to several local government officials who had fled the country.

What are some of the worst atrocities you documented?

Some of the protesters who had been in detention had weights tied to their testicles. We also documented cases of students arrested in their dormitories, blindfolded, taken to unknown places, hung upside-down by their ankles, beaten and told to reveal who was behind the protests.

Which stories moved you most?

There was one 17-year-old student who had gone to the protests not really understanding the issues. When he saw his friend get shot in the chest and go down, bleeding, he just ran and kept running. I interviewed him as he crossed the border into Kenya. One minute, he was worrying about school and his grades. The next minute, he realized that he might never see his family again, all because he joined a peaceful protest.

The other was the story of a young girl from the Arsi zone, a grade 8 student. Of the 28 students in her class, 12 had been arrested and their whereabouts were unknown, 3 had been arrested but later released, 4 had run away, 1 had been shot and killed, and 2 had been injured. When the teacher was arrested, and classes stopped, she fled.

Given the repressive climate, how were you able to protect your sources from retaliation?

We have seen many examples in the past where individuals who supplied information to international journalists and occasionally to human rights organizations were arrested or had to flee the country. The threats are real. Individuals only open up when they believe that we will protect their information and ensure their confidentiality. That’s why we do not supply names of those we interviewed or of locations nor any other detail that could identify our sources.

What effect has the crackdown had on the Oromo community?

Even though the government has cancelled the Master Plan, people remain skeptical. After decades of broken promises, many feel that those announcements are solely made for the benefit of an international audience, and that the government has no real intention to back down on its abusive approach to development.

Most of the mothers and fathers we spoke to have at least one child either in detention or in some refugee camp across the border. Some have no idea what happened to their children. They know they went to the protests, and that was the last they heard of them.

Thousands of student protesters have been forced to flee their homes and have sought asylum in neighboring countries, where they face numerous security risks and economic hardships. Often they find themselves stranded in a country whose language they don’t speak and where they are unlikely to be able to finish their education. For them, the future looks very bleak.

Mersen Chala holds a photo of his brother Dinka, who was killed by Ethiopian security forces a day earlier, in Yubdo village, Oromia region, about 100 kilometers from Addis Ababa, December 2015.
© 2015 ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/Getty Images

What has the international response been?

The United States and Ethiopia’s other allies like to highlight the regional counterterrorism initiatives Ethiopia is involved in, but turn a blind eye to domestic repression. The fact that Ethiopia hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees, and is the seat of the African Union, makes it even more difficult for other governments to publicly criticize the country’s response to these protests. However, if they continue to disregard the crackdown, Ethiopia’s long-term stability will be at risk. The situation is tense. The kids I talked to just want a future. But after hundreds of students have paid with their lives for  taking their grievances to the streets, a growing number of people feel that there is no avenue left for peaceful expression of dissent.

What ought to be done to end the crisis?

The US and other allies should take a much firmer stance against these abuses and let Ethiopia know that it is not ok to arrest tens of thousands of students and shoot at kids who are peacefully protesting. There needs to be an independent, transparent investigation into this crackdown. Since the Ethiopian government has not shown that it is able or willing to conduct such investigations, allied countries and  international entities  ought to lend  their support to ensure that members of the security forces responsible for abuses are held to account, whatever their rank.
========================

Birgit Schwarz
Senior Press Officer

Birgit Schwarz is a Senior Press Officer at Human Rights Watch, a position she has held since 2011. Based in Johannesburg, she is responsible for media advocacy and outreach in the region. Before joining HRW, she held positions as editor, host and reporter with Germany’s biggest public broadcaster WDR, opened and managed the first dpa (German Press Agency) office in South Korea; worked as an investigative reporter and editor for Die Zeit and as Asia editor and foreign correspondent for Der Spiegel, Europe’s major investigative news magazine. A German national, she came to South Africa in 1997 as Der Spiegel’s Africa Correspondent. In 1996, Schwarz was awarded the Emma award for best female journalist. Her reportage about the practice of female genital mutilation in Europe was shortlisted for the Egon-Erwin-Kisch award. Schwarz studied in Germany, Wales and Canada and has an MA in English and French.

(Newsweek) — Ethiopian security forces have killed more than 400 people, including children, in the Oromia region by using excessive force to quell anti-government protests, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Tens of thousands of people have been arrested and many remain in detention without charge, HRW said in a report published on Thursday. The organization called for Ethiopia to investigate and prosecute those among its security forces responsible for abuses and demanded greater pressure be exerted by the international community on the Horn of Africa state.

The protests in Oromia began in November 2015 in response to the Ethiopian government’s proposed Addis Ababa Integrated Development Master Plan, which suggested an expansion of the Ethiopian capital that could result in farmers from the Oromo ethnic group being displaced and losing their land. The Oromo are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, constituting around a third of the population at the last census in 2007. Oromia is the largest state in Ethiopia and surrounds the capital Addis Ababa on all sides.

The Ethiopian government announced in January that it was dropping the expansion plan, but protests have continued in Oromia, in part motivated by the brutal crackdown up until that point. According to Felix Horne, Ethiopia and Eritrea researcher at HRW and the report’s lead author, methods used by the security forces included firing live ammunition into crowds. “It’s quite often indiscriminate, randomly spraying bullets into crowds,” says Horne. “Children are often the ones at the front of the protests—they’re more eager, [so] they’re often the ones that were hit.”

Abiy Berhane, minister counsellor for the Ethiopian Embassy in London, told Newsweekthat HRW’s report was inaccurate. “The allegations in the HRW report talking about 400 deaths are not acceptable. HRW always gives exaggerated figures because it does not have a physical presence in Ethiopia and relies on casualty numbers supplied by opposition groups,” says Berhane. He cites a report compiled by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission that was submitted to parliament on June 10, which found that 173 people were killed—including 14 members of the security forces and 14 local government officials—and 261 were seriously injured, 110 of whom were from the security forces.

The HRW report was based on more than 125 interviews with protesters, witnesses and government officials, and documented around 60 of the 500 reported demonstrations. The Ethiopian government has previously accused the Oromo protesters of being armed and inciting violence . Horne says that HRW did document instances of violence by protesters—including the targeting of government buildings and private farmland—but that, in the majority of instances, the use of violence by police was unwarranted. “These are not tens of thousands of protesters that are overwhelming security forces. These are hundreds at most, so there’s no excuse for the level of force that the security forces used,” says Horne.

Ethiopian migrants from the Oromo community protest against the Ethiopian regime in Valletta, Malta, December 21, 2015. Hundreds of Oromo protesters have been killed in the demonstrations. DARRIN ZAMMIT LUPI/REUTERS

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn—who previously accused neighboring Eritrea of manipulating the protests to incite civil disobedience—issued an apology for the deaths of protesters in March but accused “anti-peace forces” of being responsible for the violence. But according to Etana Habte, an Ethiopian author and PhD candidate at SOAS University of London, the apology has proved hollow as the security forces have not faced punishment for their actions. “If he apologized for what happened in Oromia, [where] over 500 people have been killed, no one was brought to justice in relation to this,” says Habte, citing a higher death toll. “No one was released from prison, among the killers no one was brought to justice. The government did nothing practical, it simply said ‘we are sorry.’”

Oromos have suffered a difficult history in Ethiopia. The Oromo language was not taught in schools for much of the 20th century, and activists from the ethnic group have often clashed with the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which has ruled the country since 1991. A 2014 report by Amnesty International found that at least 5,000 Oromos were arrested between 2011 and 2014 on the basis of alleged opposition to the government.

According to the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’s report, the violence was prompted by poor governance in Oromia and failure to address public grievances. The Commission’s report said that legitimate demonstrations were hijacked by armed groups including the Oromo Liberation Front—a group established to campaign for Oromo self-determination but designated a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian government—which used women and children as human shields by placing them at the front of crowds during demonstrations.

Berhane says that the Ethiopian government has begun dealing with the aftermath of the violence by arresting those alleged to be involved in corruption and running public consultations. “In short, the government is listening to the people and addressing their grievances,” says Berhane.

Coverage of the protests has been limited in Ethiopia, which is ranked 142 out of 180 countries in the 2016 World Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders. Several journalists covering the protests were reportedly detained in March, though a representative of the Ethiopian government said the detentions were because the reporters had violated the terms of their accreditation.

Note: Full document is attached in PDF, CLICK HERE for English version, CLICK HERE for Afaan Oromo version and CLICK HERE for Amharic version

Namoonni badii tokko malee qabaman gadi yaa dhiifaman, qorannoon bilisaa ni barbaachisa

Naayiroobii (HRW) –  Hiyumaan Raayit Wochiin gabaasa har’a baasen, humnoonni nageenyaa Itiyoophiyaa yeroo mormiin Oromiyaa keessatti  baldhinaan gaggeeffamen Sadaasa 2015 eegalee  namoota 400 ol kan ajjeesan yoo ta’u kan kuma kudhaniin lakkaawwaman immoo hidhanii jiru. Mootumman Itiyoophiyaa ragaa amanama ta’en akka utubu, qaama bilisa ta’e tokko hundeesun waayee namoota ajeefamanii akka qoratu, waayee namoota badii tokko malee hidhamaniifii dhiitamuu mirga namaa adda addaa gabaasa akka dhiheesu.

Gabaasin fuula 61 qabu “tarkaanfii gara jabinaa mormii ukkamsuu, ajjeecha fi hidhaa, deebii mootummaan Itiyoophiyaa mormii Oromooti kenne” jedhu baldhinaan akka ibsetti, mootummaan Itiyoophiyaa sochii mormii kana cabsuuf humna barbaachisu ol fayyadamuu, jamaa hidhuu , mana hidhaa keessatti hidhamaa miidhuu, fi mala namni odeeffannoo akka hin arganne gochuutti  dhimma bahee jira jedha dhaabbanni mirga namaa hordofu kan afaan Ingiliiziin Hiyumaan Raayit Wochi jedhamu. Hiyuman Raayit Wochin gaafif deebii namoota biyya keessa akkasumas biyya alaa jiraatan wajjin Sadaasa 15 eegalee hanga Caamsaa 2016 gaggeesen, mormitoonni 125 ol, kara deemtonni fi midhaan adda addaa kan irra gahe, dhoorkaa cimaa yaada ibsachuu, mirga waliitti qabamuu dhoorkamuu humnoota nageenya eeggisiisaniin akka irra gahe himatanii jiru.

Daarkiteerri dhaabbata mirga namaa hordofu, Hiyumaan Raayit Wochii kan taate Lesilee Lafkaw akka dubbattetti “humnoonni nageenyaa Itiyoophiyaa, lubbuu namaaf tufii guddaa argisiisun, baratoota, qonnaan bultoota fi mormitoota nagayaa irratti dhukaasun ajjeesanii jiru.

Mootummaan hatattamaan namoota badii tokko malee hidhaman gadi yaa dhiisu, miidha gahe ilaalchisee qorannoo bilisaafi amanamaa ta’e yaa dhiheesu, humnoota nageenyaa tarkaanfii kana fudhatan seeratti yaa dhiheesu.

Humnoonni nageenyaa rasaasa dhugaa fayyadamuun deddeebi’anii namoonni akka walitti hin qabamne gochuun mormii tokkorratti yoo xinnaate nama tokko yookin sana ol ajjeesun ji’oota qubaan lakkawwaman keessatti mormitoota dhibbaan lakkawwaman ajjeesanii jiru. Hiyumaan Rayit Wochiif dhaabbileen biroo namoota du’an keessaa namoota 300 maqaan  muraasa immo suuraa isaan wajjin adda baasanii jiru.

Mormiin Sadaasa darbe ka’e, sodaa karoora mootummaan Finfinnee baballisuuf baase, kan Maastar Pilaanii Qindaa’aa Magaala Finfinnee jedhu mormuun kan eegaleedha. Mormitoonni akka jedhanitti Mastar Pilaanichi haala waggoota kurnan darban muldhateen qonnaan bultoota lafarraa buqqisuun, namoota naannoo magaalicha jiraatanirratti dhiibbaa guddaa fiduun namootni muraasni qofti akka fayyadaman godha jedhu.

Mormiin kun Muddee keessas yoo itti fufu mootummaan mormii kana too’achuuf loltuu bobbaase. Humnoonni nageenyaa of egannoo tokko malee yookin meeshaa qaama namaa hin mine osoo hin fayyadamin rasaasa dhugaa jamaatti dhukaasaa turan. Kanniin ajeefaman keessa irra caalan barattoota yoo ta’an daa’imani waggaa 18 gadiis keessatti argamu.

Poolisiin Feedaraalafi loltuun, barattoota kumaataman lakkaawwaman, barsiistota, weellistoota, miseensota paartii mormitootaa, hojjatoota fayyaafi namootaa baratoota poolisii jalaa baqatan daheesan hunda hidhaa turan. Namoonni baayyen qabamanii hidhaman baayyen gadi dhiifamanis, kanniin lakkoofsi isaanii hin beekamne, himanni osoo irratti hin banamani, gorsaa seeraa fi maatii isaanitiin osoo wal hin argin hafanii jiru.

Namoonni dhugaa bahan akka ibsanitti gaaga’umsi gahe hanga yaadamuu olidha. Namni Yoosef jedhamu, kan umuriin isaa 52 , Wallagga Lixaa kan jiraatu akka ibsettii “umurii koo guutuu asin jiraadhe. Gaaga’uumsa akkasii tasuma argee hin beeku. Nama hidhuufi ajjeesun baramee jira. Namnii yoo xinnaate maatii tokko hidhaadha hin qabne hin jiru”.

Namni kana dura hidhamee bahee Hiyumaan Raayiiti Wochiitti   akka himetti, mana hidhaa keessatti darara suukaneessan akka  isaaniirra gahe, haalli hidhamaan mana hidhaa keessatti qabamu jibbisiisa akka ta’e, kaampii waraanaa faa keessatti hidhamaa akka turan, dubrtoota baayyee irratti gochi suukaneessan akka gudeeduu fi tutuqaan walqunnamtii saala adda adda akka irratti raawwatamu ibsee jira. Namoonni tokko tokko akka ibsanitti, jilba isaanii hidhun, mataa isaanii gadi dhundhulchuun faana isaanii keessa reebama akka turan, kan biroo immoo faanni miila isaanii humna ibsaatin akka waaddame kan hafan immoo qaama saala isaanirratti wanti ulfaatu hidhamaa akka ture dubbatanii jiru.

Viidiyoon kun barattoonni mooraa Yunivarsiitii keessaatti enna reebaman argisiisa.

Aangowwan mootummaa namoota baayyee qabanii hidhanis namoota muraasarratti himannaa banu. Miseensonni paartii siyaasaa mormitootaa hedduunifii gaazexeesitoonni seera farra shororkeessumma adabbii cimaa qabu kanaan kan himataman yoo ta’u barattoonni Yuunivarsiitii Embasii Yunayitid Isteet, Finfinneetti argamu fulduratti Bitootessa keessa hiriira bahan  seeraa yaakka adda addaatin himataman.

Sababii humnoonni nageenyaa  naannoo mana baruumsaa fi mana baruumsaa keessatti argamaniif, barsiisonnii fi barattonni waan hidhamaniif, barattoonni baayyeen humnoota nageenyaa kana waan sodaataniif sirna baruuf barsiisuurratti rakkoon uumamee ture.

Aangowwan mootummaa mormicha dhaabuf iddoo tokko tokkotti mana baruumsaa torbeewwan muraasaf cufanii ture. Barattoonni tokko tokko Hiyumaan Raayiti Wochitti akka himanitti loltoonni mootummafii humnoonni nageenya biroo mooraa keessa mandhefataniin barataa Oromoo gatii ta’aniif qofa akka sakata’amaniif akka ifataman ibsanii jiru.

Iddoo tokko tokkotti mormitoonni lafa qonnaa abba qabeenya biyya alaan qabame barbaddeessuu, gamoo mootummaa saamuu fi qabeenya adda adda mootummaa akka barbaddeessan ragaan qabatamatu jira. Haa ta’u malee Hiyumaan Raayit Wochiin mormii 500 ol ta’an keessaa 62 ilaalee irra caalana isaanii karaa nagaan kan gaggeefaman ta’uu hubatee jira.

Ugura mootummaan Itiyoophiyaa qoratoota mirga namaa bilisa ta’aniifi miidiyaa dhuunfarra kaa’ee irraa kan ka’e odeeffannoo muraasatu naannoo mormii kanaa dhufaa jira. Mootummaan Itiyoophiyaas bilisummaa miidiyaa takaaluf tattaafii  guddaa godhe. Bitootessa walakka eegalee feesibookifii midiyaa hawwaasaa irratti takaallaa kaa’ee jira. Bufata teelevizyiin daayasporaas ummanni akka hin ilaalle uguree jira.

Amajji keessa mootumman Mastar Pilaanicha akka haqe ibsee ture. Yeroo sanatti garuu deebiin gara jabuummaa mootumman mormitootarratti fudhate garaa mormitoota hammeesee ture.

Mormitoonni saba Oromoo Olonkomii, Finfinneerra gara kibba dhiyaatti 60 km irratti argamtutti humnootni tikaa mootummaa mormitoota irrati dhukaasa erga bananiin booda, Mudde 15, 2015 . © 2015 AFP/Getty Image

Mormiin ummataa Ebla irra eegalee qabanaa’a dhufus tarkaanfin humnoonni mootumma fudhatan akka itti fufee jirachuu Hiyumaan Rayit Wochiin raga argatee jira. Namonni hedduun qabamanii ji’a turban darbe hidhuma keessa kan jiran yoo ta’u dhibbaataman kan lakkawwaman iddoon isaan jiran kan hin beekamne yoo ta’u gochi kun humnaan dhabamsiisuu akka ta’e beekamee jira. Mootummaan dhiittaa mirga namaa kanarratti qorannoo gaha hin gaggeesine. Loltoonni ammallee moora Yuunivarsiitii keessa waan jiraniif sodaa guddaatu jira. Sagaleen mormii bara 2014 xinnaas ta’u hanga amma kan itti fufe yoo ta’u tarkaanfiin gara jabinaa mootumman fudhatu baroottan dhufu keessa mormii kana daraan akka hammeesaa deemuu tilmaamama jedha Hiyumaan Raayit Wochi.

Tarkaanfiin gara jabinaa mootumman Itiyoophiyaa mormitoota nagayaa irratti fudhatu deebii cimaa fi walta’insa mootummolee dhimmi kun ilaalu, gumii mirga namaa mootummaa gamtoomanii dabalatee barbaada jedha Hiyumaan Raayit Wochiin. Manni marii Awurooppaa ibsa ijjannoo cimaa tarkaanifii humnoonni nageenyaa fudhatan balaalefatu baasus, ibsi ijjannoo biroo gochaalee humnoota nageenya kana balaalefatu seneetii Yunayitid Isteetiif dhiyaatus isaan kanarra kan hafe ummanni addunyaa waaye dhiitamuu mirga namaa Oromiya keessatti gahe kana waan jedhan hin qaban.

Gumiin Mirga Namaa Mootummaa Gamtoomanii dhiittaa mirga namaa hamaa kana xiyyeeffannoo  kennuun, namoota badii tokko malee hidhaman akka gadi dhiifaman fi qorannoon bilisaa dhiitamu mirga nama kana ilaalchise akka gaggeefamu gargaaru qaba.

“Biyyoonni alaa mootummaa Itiyoophiyaa kara adda addaan deegaran yeroo humnoonni nageenya mootummaa Oromiyaa keessatti dhiiga nama hedduu dhangalaasan ni callisan” jetti Lafkaw. “Biyyoonni guddina Itiyoophiyaa dhaadhesan,mootummichi gara hundaanu guddina akka argisiisu keessaattu mirga dubbachuu fi warri miidhame haqa akka argatan dhibbaa gahaa gochuutu irra jira eegama.

Officials have acknowledged that more than 170 people were killed during the protests

(BBC News) — Ethiopian security forces killed more than 400 people in the recent wave of anti-government demonstrations, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

In its most comprehensive report into the Oromo protests, HRW lists the names of more than 300 it says were killed.

The government has acknowledged that protesters have died but has said HRW was “very generous with numbers”.

Protests were sparked by fears that a plan to expand the capital into Oromia region would displace Oromo farmers.

They began in November last year, but the government dropped the proposal to enlarge Addis Ababa in January.

Oromia is Ethiopia’s largest region, completely surrounding the city.

The change of policy has not stopped the demonstrations, but they have reduced in their intensity.

An investigation by the Ethiopia Human Rights Commission, appointed by parliament, found that 173 people had died during the unrest.

Information Minister Getachew Reda said that in the main the security forces conducted themselves “in a very professional and responsible manner”.

He put the killings down to “a few bad apples”.

The government has said that it will investigate and deal with those responsible.

But critics point out that previous investigations into alleged human rights abuses have not led to prosecutions.

The anger over urban planning was an expression of much older complaints over a lack of political and economic inclusion of Oromo people, correspondents say.

At the last census in 2007, the Oromo made up Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group, at about 25 million people out of a population at the time of nearly 74 million.

Note: Full document is attached in PDF, CLICK HERE for English version, CLICK HERE for Afaan Oromo version and CLICK HERE for Amharic version

ያለ አግባብ የታሰሩ ይፈቱ፤ በገለልተኛ ወገን ማጣሪያ ይደረግ

ናይሮቢ፤ ሰኔ 9 ቀን 2008 ዓ.ም (HRW) – ከህዳር ወር 2008 ዓ.ም. ጀምሮ በኦሮሚያ ክልል በተካሄዱ የተቃውሞ ሰልፎች የኢትዮጵያ መንግስት የጸጥታ ሀይሎች ከ400 በላይ የሚሆኑ ሰልፈኞችን የገደሉ ሲሆን ከአስር ሺህ በላይ የሚቆጠሩትን ደግሞ ማሰራቸውን ሂዩማን ራይት ወች ዛሬ ይፋ ባደረገው ሪፖርት ገለጸ፡፡ የኢትዮጵያ መንግስት የተፈጸሙ ግድያዎችን፣ እስራቶችንና ሌሎች የመብት ጥሰቶች በአስቸኳይ ተአማኒነት ያለውና ገለልተኛ የሆነ ማጣሪያ እንዲካሄድ ድጋፍ ማድረግ አለበት።

ይህ ባለ 61 ገጽ ሪፖርት “‘ጭካኔ የተሞላበት አፈና’ – የግድያ እና የእስራት ምላሽ፤ ለኢትዮጵያ የኦሮሞ ተቃውሞ” የተሰኘው ሪፖርት የኢትዮጵያ መንግስት ተቃውሞሙን ለመቆጣጠር የተጠቀመውን ከመጠን ያለፈ ሀይል እርምጃና እስከ መግደል የሚያደርስ ሃይል፣ የጅምላ እስር፣ ጭካኔ የተሞላበት የእስር ቤት አያያዝ፣ እንዲሁም የተቃውሞ ሂደቶችን በተመለከተ መረጃዎች ለህዝብ እንዳይሰራጩ ማፈንን አጠቃሎ በዝርዝር አቅርቧል፡፡

ይህን ሪፖርት ለማጠናቀር ሂዩማን ራይትስ ዎች እ.ኤ.አ. ከህዳር ወር 2015ዓ.ም. ጀምሮ እስከ ግንቦት 2016 ዓ.ም. ድረስ በሰላማዊ ሰልፈኞች ላይ እንዲሁም ሀሳባቸውን በነጻነት በሚገልጹ ዜጎች ላይ በመንግስት የጸጥታ ሀይሎች የተወሰደውን እርምጃ አስመልክቶ በሀገር ውስጥና ከሀገር ውጪ የሚገኙ ኢትዮጵያውያንን፣ ከ125 በላይ የሚሆኑ የተቃውሞ ሰልፎች ተሳታፊዎችን፣ ጉዳዩን በአንክሮ ሲከታተሉ የቆዩ ግለሰቦችን፣ በተለያዩ ጊዜያት የመብት ጥሰት የተካሄደባቸውና ጉዳት የደረሰባቸውን ግለሰቦች ያካተተ ቃለ መጠይቅ አድርጓል።

“የመንግስት የጸጥታ ሀይሎች ሰብአዊነት በጎደለው ሁኔታ የተቃውሞ ሰልፈኞች ላይ በቀጥታ በመተኮስ በመቶዎች የሚቆጠሩ ተማሪዎችን፣ ገበሬዎችን እና ሌሎች የሰላማዊ ሰልፍ ተሳታፊዎችን ገድለዋል።” በማለት የሂይውማን ራይትስ ወች የአፍሪካ ዳይሬክተር ሌስሊ ሌፍኮው ተናግረዋል። ሌፍኮው አያይዘውም “መንግስት ያለ አግባብ የታሰሩትን በአስቸኳይ መፍታት አለበት፣  ተአማኒነት ያለው እና ገለልተኛ የማጣራት ሂደት እንዲከናወን ድጋፍ ማድረግ አለበት፣ እንዲሁም ይህን ጥቃት የፈጸሙት የጸጥታ ሀይል አባላት ላደረሱት የመብት ጥሰት ተጠያቂ መሆን አለባቸው፡፡”

ሂዩማን ራይትስ ወች የመንግስት የጸጥታ ሀይሎች ለወራት ያህል በኦሮሚያ ክልል  የተለያዩ አካባቢዎች በተካሄዱ ተቃውሞዎች ሰልፈኞችን ለመቆጣጠር ቀጥታ መተኮሱን እና  በእያንዳንዱ የተቃውሞ ሰልፍ ላይ ቢያንስ ሁለትና ከዚያ በላይ የሆኑ የተቃውሞ ሰልፈኞችን መገደላቸውን አረጋግጧል። ሂዩማን ራይትስ ዎች እና ሌሎች ድርጅቶች ከ300 በላይ የተገደሉ ሰዎችን ማንነት በስም ለይቷል እንዲሁም በተወሰኑት ጉዳይ ላይ  በፎቶ ለማረጋገጥ ችሏል።

እ.ኤ.አ. የህዳሩ ተቃውሞ የተቀሰቀሰው መንግስት የዋና ከተማውን የማዘጋጃ ቤት ድንበር በአደሲ አበባ የተቀናጀ ማስተር ፕላን መሰረት ለማስፋፋት ማቀዱን ተከትሎ በተፈጠረ አሳሳቢ ሁኔታ ነው፡፡  ተቃውሞ አድራጊዎቹ ማስተር ፕላኑ የአካባቢውን አርሶ አደሮች ያፈናቅላል እንዲሁም በአካባቢው የእርሻ መሬት ላይ አሉታዊ ተጽዕኖ ያሳድራል፤ የሚጠቅመው ጥቂት የበላዮችን ብቻ ነው የሚል ስጋት ያደረባቸው ሲሆን የማፈናቀል ተግባሩ ባለፈው አስር ዓመት እየጨመረ የመጣ ጉዳይ ነው፡፡

እ.ኤ.አ. በታህሳስ ወር ተቃውሞው ሲስፋፋ መንግስት ተቃውሞውን ለማፈን የጦር ሀይሉን በመላው የኦሮሚያ ክልል ውስጥ አስፍሯል። የጸጥታ ሀይሎች ምንም አይነት ቅድመ ማስጠንቀቅያ ሳይሰጡ ወይም ጉዳት የማያስከትሉ የአድማ መበተኛ መሳሪያ ሳይጠቀሙ ወደ ሰልፈኖች በቀጥታ ተኩሰዋል። በዚህም አይነት ሁኔታ ከተገደሉት ሰልፈኞች መካከል አብዛኞቹ ተማሪዎችና እድሜያቸው ከ18 አመት በታች የሆኑ ታዳጊዎች ናቸው።

የፌደራል ፖሊስ እና የጦር ሰራዊት በጋራ በመሆን በአስር ሺህ የሚቆጠሩ ተማሪዎችን፣ መምህራንን፣ ሙዚቀኞችን፣ የተቃዋሚ አባላትን፣ የጤና ባለሙያዎችን፣ እንዲሁም ለተቃውሞ ሰልፈኞቹ እርዳታ ያደረጉ ወይም በፍርሀት በመሸሽ ላይ ለነበሩ ተማሪዎች መደበቅያ ያዘጋጁ ሰዎችን በሙሉ አስረዋል። በርካታ ታሳሪዎች የተፈቱ ቢሆንም አሁንም ድረስ ቁጥራቸው በውል የማይታወቁ እስረኞች ምንም አይነት ክስ ሳይቀርብባቸው፣ ከህግ አማካሪዎች እና ከቤተሰቦቻቸው ጋር ፈጽሞ መገናኘት እንዳይችሉ ተደርገው ዛሬም ድረስ በተለያዩ እስር ቤቶች ውስጥ ይገኛሉ።

የአይን እማኞች የእስራቱን መጠንና ስፋት ‘ከዚህ በፊት ፈጽሞ ታይቶ የማይታወቅ’ ሲሉ ገልጸውታል። ነዋሪነቱ በወለጋ ዞን የሆነ ዮሴፍ የተባለ የ52 አመት ሰው “ሙሉ እድሜዬን እዚሁ ነው የኖርኩት። እንዲህ አይነት ጭካኔ የተሞላበት የግፍ ድርጊት በህይወቴ አይቼ አላውቅም፡፡ በየቀኑ እስራት እና ግድያ በህዝባችን ላይ ይፈጸም የነበረ ሲሆን ከእያንዳንዱ ቤተሰብ ውስጥ ቢያንስ አንድ ልጅ ታስሮ ነበር” ብሏል።

ከዚህ ቀደም ታስረው የነበሩ ግለሰቦች በእስር ቤቶች ውስጥ ከፍተኛ ስቃይና የሰባዊ መብት ጥሰቶች እንደተካሄዱባቸው እንዲሁም ሴት ታሳሪዎች አስገድዶ መድፈር እና ጾታዊ ጥቃቶች ይፈጸምባቸው እንደነበር ለሂዩማን ራይት ወች ተናግረዋል። ጥቂቶች እግራቸው የፊጥኝ ታስሮ የቁልቁሊት በመዘቅዘቅ መደብደባቸውን የገለጹ ሲሆን ሌሎች ደግሞ በኤሌክትሪክ እግራቸው ስር መነዘራቸውን ገልጸዋል፤ እንዲሁም በዘር ፍሬያቸው (ብልታቸው) ላይ ክብደት ያለው ነገር ታስሮባቸው እንዲሰቃዩ መደረጋቸውንም ተናግረዋል። በዩኒቨርስቲ ካምፓሶች ውስጥ ታማሪዎች ሲደበደቡ እንደነበር የሚያሳይ ቪዲዮም ታይቷል።

ከጅምላ እስራቱ ባሻገር የመንግስት ባለስልጣናት በጥቂት ግሰቦች ላይ ክስ በመመስረት ፍርድ ቤት አቅርበዋቸዋል። ከፍተኛ ቁጥር ያላቸው የተቃዋሚ ፓርቲ አባላት እና ጋዜጠኞች በአወአዛጋቢው የኢትዮጵያ ጸረ ሽብርተኝነት ህግ የተከሰሱ ሲሆን

አዲስ አበባ በሚገኘው የአሜሪካ ኤምባሲ ፊት ለፊት በመገኘት ሰላማዊ ተቃውሞ ያደረጉ 20 ተማሪዎች በወንጀለኛ መቅጫ ህጉ መሰረት ክስ ተመስርቶባቸዋል።

የመንግስት የጸጥታ ሀይሎች በየትምህርት ቤቱ በመስፈራቸው እንዲሁም በርካታ መምህራንና ተማሪዎች በመታሰራቸውና ቀሪዎቹም ወደ ትምህርት ገበታ ለመመለስ በፍርሀት በመዋጣቸው የተነሳ ተቃውሞው በተካሄደባቸው ብዙ ስፍራዎች ላይ የመማር ማስተማር ሂደቱ ከአንደኛ ደረጃ እስከ ዩኒቨርስቲ ድረስ ሙሉ በሙሉ ተቋርጧል። በአንዳንድ አካባቢዎችም ተቃውሞው እንዳይቀጥል በመስጋት ለስልጣን አካላት ትምህርት ቤቶችን ለሳምንታት ያህል እንዲዘጉ አድርጓል። በርካታ ተማሪዎች ለሂዩማን ራይት ወች እንደተናገሩት ወታደሮች በየትምህርት ቤቱ ቅጥር ጊቢ ውስጥ የሰፈሩ ከመሆኑም ባሻገር የኦሮሞ ብሄር ተወላጆችን ለይተው ከመቆጣጠር አልፈው የመብት ጥሰት ሲያደርጉባቸው ነበር።

አንዳንድ ተአማኒነት ያላቸው ዘገባዎች እንደጠቀሱት በተቃውሞ ሰልፈኞቹም የተካሄዱ የወንጀል ድርጊቶች እንደነበሩ ተስተውሏል፤ ከእነዚህም መካከል የውጭ ሀገር ዜጎች ንበረቶች ወድመዋል፣ የመንግስት ህንጻዎች ተዘርፈዋል፣ እንዲሁም ሌሎች የመንግስት ንብረቶች ወድመዋል። ይሁን እንጂ ሂዩማን ራይት ወች ባደረገው ማጣሪያ እ.ኤ.አ. ከህዳር ወር ጀምሮ በተካሄዱት ከ500 በላይ የተቃውሞ ሰልፎች አብዛኞቹ ፍጹም ሰላማዊ ነበሩ።

የኢትዮጵያ መንግስት በገለልተኛ የሰብአዊ መብት ተሟጋች ተቋማትና በመገናኛ ብዙሀን የጣለው ጽኑ እቀባ ምክኒያትችግሮቹ በሚታዩባቸው ስፍራዎች ላይ ስላለው ሁኔታ የሚወጡት መረጃዎች እጅግ አነስተኛ እንዲሆኑ አድርጓቸዋል። የኢትዮጵያ መንግስት የመገናኛ ብዙሀን ነጻነትን ለማፈን የሚያደርገውን ጥረት ጨምሯል። በዚህም ከመጋቢት ወር አጋማሽ ጀምሮ ፌስ ቡክንና ሌሎች ማህበራዊ ድረ ገጾችን ገድቧል። ከዚህም በተጨማሪ መቀመጫቸውን ከሀገር ውጪ ያደረጉና በሀገር ውስጥ የሚሰራጩ የቴሌቪዥን ጣቢያዎችን አፍኗል።

በጥር ወር ላይ መንግስት የአዲስ አበባን ማስተር ፕላን ሙሉ በሙሉ ማቋረጡን ይፋ አድርጓል። ይሁን እንጂ በወቅቱ  መንግስት በወሰደው የሀይልና የግፍ እርምጃዎች ሳቢያ የተቃውሞው አድራጊዎቹ ብሶት ግንፍሎ ወጥቶ ነበር።

እንደ ሂዩማን ራይት ወች ጥናት ከሆነ ከሚያዝያ ወር ጀምሮ በተለያዩ ስፍራዎች ይካሄዱ የነበሩ ተቃውሞዎች እየተቀዛቀዙ  የነበረ ቢሆንም የመንግስት የጸጥታ ሀይሎች የሚፈጽሙት አፈና ግን ቀጥሏል። ላለፉት ሰባት ወራት ያህል የታሰሩት በርካቶች አሁንም በእስር ላይ ያሉ ሲሆን ሌሎች በመቶ የሚቆጠሩት ደግሞ የት እንደደረሱ ለማወቅ አልተቻለም፤ ይህም በሀይል እንዲሰወሩ ሳይደረጉ አይቀርም የሚል ስጋት ፈጥሯል። መንግስት ስለቀረበበት በዚህ ሁሉ ውንጀላ ምንም አይነት ተአማኒነት ያለው የማጣራት ስራ አልሰራም። ወታደሮች አሁንም በአንዳንድ ዩኒቨርስቲዎች እንደሰፈሩና በአካባቢውም ከፍተኛ ፍርሀት እንደነገሰ ነው። ተቃውሞ አድራጊዎቹ ምንም እንኳ በመጠኑ አነስተኛ ቢሆንም እ.ኤ.አ. በ2014 ዓ.ም በኦሮሚያ ክልል ተነስቶ የነበረውን የተቃዎሞ ጥያቄ ነው ያስተጋቡት፣ እናም የመንግስት ምላሽ ለወደፊት ተቃውሞ የበለጠ እንዲባባስ ሊያደርግ እንደሚችል ሂማን ራይትስ ወች ገልጿል።

የኢትዮጵያ መንግስት ጭካኔ የተሞላው የግፍ አያያዝን በተመከተ የተባበሩት መንግስታት የሰብአዊ መብት ምክርቤትን ጨምሮ ሌሎች ጉዳዩ የሚመለከታቸው መንግስታት እና መንግስታዊ ተቋማት ጠንካራና የተቀናጀ ምላሽ የሚጠይቅ ነው በማለት ሂዩማን ራይት ዎች አሳስቧል። የአውሮፓ ህብረት ፓርላማ ድርጊቱን በማውገዝ ጠንከር ያለ የአቋም መግለጫ ያወጣና ይሄው መግለጫም ለአሜሪካ መንግስት የተገለጸ ቢሆንም በኦሮሚያ ክልል የተፈጸመው የግፍ ድርጊት በአለማቀፍ ደረጃ በአብዛናው በዝምታ የታለፈ ነው። የተባበሩት መንግስታት ድርጅት የሰብአዊ መብቶች ምክርቤት ይህን ከፍተኛ የመብት ጥሰት በአትኩሮት ሊያየው፣ ያለአግባብ ለእስር የተዳረጉት እንዲፈቱና አስቸኳይ ገለልተኛ የሆነ ማጣሪያ እንዲካሄድ ጥሪ ሊያደርግ ይገባል።

“የኢትዮጵያን መንግስት የሚደግፉ አብዛኛዎቹ የውጭ አጋር ተቋማት መንግስት በኦሮሚያ ክልል የወሰደውን አስከፊ አፈና በተመለከተ በዝምታ አልፈውታል፡፡” በማለት ሌፍኮው ተናግሯል። “የኢትዮጵያን ልማት የሚደግፉ ሀገራት በኢትዮጵያ በሁኒም መስኩ መሻሳሎች እንዲታዩ ጫና ማድረግ አለባቸው፤ በተለይም የንግግር ነጻነትና ለተጠቂዎች ፍትህ እንዲያገኙ መስራት ይጠበቅባቸዋል። ” ብለዋል።

Eritrean soldiers parade during the young country’s 16th Independence day celebrations in Asmara on May 24, 2007. Eritrea has also been accusing Ethiopia for hosting the Eritrean Democratic Alliance, which is a group of 13 political groups working to end Isayas’ regime. PHOTO | AFP

(AFP) — ritrea claimed Thursday to have killed “more than 200” Ethiopians in a battle last week, one of the fiercest border clashes since a 1998-2000 war, while giving no mention of its own casualties.

Each side blames the other for starting the two-day battle which broke out on Sunday, saying also that their rival suffered the most losses.

There was no immediate response from Ethiopia, which has not released numbers killed.

“More than 200 TPLF (Ethiopian) troops have been killed and more than 300 wounded,” Eritrea’s Ministry of Information said in a statement, calling it a “conservative estimate”.

There was no mention of any prisoners of war.

Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Reda on Tuesday said “there were significant casualties on both sides, but more on the Eritrean side.”

Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after three decades of war, but returned to battle in 1998-2000, when nearly 80,000 died.

The neighbours are bitter enemies, with tens of thousands of troops dug into trenches eyeing each other along the heavily fortified frontier.

Open-ended, compulsory national service makes Eritrea one of the world’s most militarised nations, but with just five million citizens it is dwarfed by Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation with some 96 million people.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday urged both governments to exercise “maximum restraint,” and resolve differences through peaceful means. The United States has voiced similar “grave” concerns.

– ‘Wake-up call’ –

Cedric Barnes, from the International Crisis Group, said the clash appeared to have been the “most serious conventional military engagement for some time”, while noting there had been “at least eight significant flare-ups” since 2011.

Eritrea and Ethiopia have long traded accusations of attacks and of backing rebels to needle each other.

Barnes said that one theory for the clash was that it was a “response by Addis Ababa to an armed action by the Asmara-linked Ginbot 7 group in southern Ethiopia in May”, referring to an outlawed opposition force.

The two countries remain at odds over the flashpoint town of Badme, awarded to Eritrea by a United Nations-backed boundary commission but still controlled by Ethiopia.

Long-isolated Eritrea has recently boosted ties with Gulf nations, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), keen to utilise its strategic Red Sea port of Assab, a useful base just across the waters from war-torn Yemen.

While Ethiopia remains the far more powerful military, the ICG warned the clash should act as a “wake-up call” for renewed efforts to solve the conflict.

“Ethiopia’s well trained and armed military probably knows that delivering a decisive blow against Eritrea may fatally damage the regime and risk (another) complicated civil war on its doorstep,” Barnes added.

“A policy of robust containment has been pursued instead, but that looks increasingly difficult to sustain.”

By David Mepham

Ethiopia: Oromo community protest in London over ‘ethnic cleansing’ IBTimes UK

(IBTimes UK) — The Ethiopian government is engaged in its bloodiest crackdown in a decade, but the scale of this crisis has barely registered internationally. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 400 people, including many children, have been killed by the country’s security forces in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region, with lethal force unleashed against largely peaceful, student-led protests.

For the past seven months, security forces have fired live ammunition into crowds and carried out summary executions. While students were first on the streets, many others have joined them, including teachers, musicians, opposition politicians and healthcare workers. Tens of thousands of people have been arrested, some of whom remain in detention without charge, and there are credible reports that detainees have been tortured or beaten – some of them in public. Hundreds of other people have been forcibly disappeared.

In normal circumstances, a crackdown on this scale would generate large-scale media attention and prompt strong international censure. But global media coverage has been very limited, in part because of Ethiopia’s draconian restrictions on media reporting and the difficulties journalists face in accessing the region. The response of governments internationally, including the British government, has also been extremely muted.

The reason for this is not a lack of information: diplomats in the country have a fairly good idea of what is going on in Oromia. Instead, it appears to be a flawed political calculation that the UK’s massive investment in Ethiopia’s development efforts (over 300 million pounds of aid is provided annually) would be undermined by public criticism or greater pressure on the government to rein in its abusive security forces.

The other obstacle is Ethiopia’s acute food crisis, where a severe drought – the worst since the famine of 1984-85 – has left 18 million people in need of aid. Global attention on this issue has led many governments around the world to overlook or downplay the other very urgent crisis unfolding in Oromia.

But these trade-offs are short-sighted and counter-productive. Ethiopia’s repression and its deepening authoritarianism hinder, rather than help, the country to combat food insecurity, promote development and tackle a range of other challenges. And they create the conditions for further instability and polarisation.

Ethiopia is struggling with its worst drought for 30 years, with millions in dire need of life-saving aid Getty Images

Indeed, it was the very lack of respect for rights in the Ethiopian government’s approach to development that first triggered unrest in Oromia last November. The early protests were a response to the so-called ‘Addis Ababa Integrated Development Master Plan’, which proposed a 20-fold expansion of the municipal boundary of the capital.

Protesters objected that this top-down initiative from the government, introduced without meaningful consultation or participation of the affected communities, would displace thousands of ethnic Oromo farmers from land around the city. Those displaced by similar government initiatives over the past decade have rarely received compensation or new land on which to rebuild their lives – and protesters feared a repeat of this experience on a larger scale.

Mersen Chala holds a photo of his brother Dinka, who was killed by Ethiopian security forces a day earlier, in Yubdo village, Oromia region, about 100 kilometers from Addis Ababa, December 2015.
© 2015 ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/Getty Images

Concerns were also expressed about mining and manufacturing projects in Oromia and their impact on the environment and access to water. In mid-January 2016, the government announced it had “cancelled” the Master Plan. But despite this, the government does not seem to have changed its approach (it is still marketing land to investors, for example), there has been no let-up in the repression, and the protests continue. The government’s violent response and the rising death toll have further inflamed the situation and decades of historic Oromo grievances around cultural, economic and political marginalisation have come to the fore.

With or without the plan, the forced displacement of farmers looks likely to continue – as it has in many parts of Ethiopia – unless the Ethiopian government fundamentally changes its approach to development. That would mean treating communities as genuine partners in the development process, meaningfully consulting them, and allowing them to shape development projects. And it should mean opening up space for peaceful dissent and political opposition, as well as independent media.

In the short-term, the Ethiopian government could ease tensions by releasing all those arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned, establishing a credible independent investigation into the killings and other violations – with those responsible for abuses held to account – and it could start a dialogue with the Oromo community about their legitimate grievances that have fuelled these protests.

But given the awful rights record of the government in Addis this seems highly improbable without stronger international pressure. As a major development partner to Ethiopia – including support for work in the Oromia region itself – the British government should use its leverage more assertively and help galvanise a concerted international response – one which highlights, to the Ethiopian government, the cost of its ongoing repression. And it should press the Ethiopians to pursue a development strategy that respects human rights, rather than tramples all over them.

David Mepham is UK Director of Human Rights Watch

ቁልፍ የሆኑ የኢትዮጵያ ደህንነቶችን ማን ገደላቸው? ከደህንነት መሥሪያ ቤት የወጣን ተጨባጭ መረጃ በመንተራስ የተሰናዳ ፕሮግራም።(መደመጥ ያለበት)

Tigist Gammee

Faayilii – Mormii baratoota Yunvarsiitii Haramayaa, Oromiyaa

WASHINGTON, DC (VOA Afaan Oromoo) — Hiwmaan Raayitis Waach, dhaabbanni mirga dhala namaatii falmu, gabaasa ballaa mormii Oromiyaa laalchisee haarra baasee, mata duree “tarkaanfii gara jabinaa mormii ukkamsuu, ajjeecha fi hidhaa – deebii mootummaan Itiyoophiyaa mormii Oromooti kenne” jedhu jallatti akkamitti mootummaan Itiyoophiyaa sochii mormii Oromiyaa ukkaamsudha humana barbaachiisaa hin turre akka fayyadame, bayyina namoota mormii Oromiyaa irratti lubbun darbee fi namoota hidhamanii akkasumaas tarreessa.

Fiilix Hoorn ,Hiwumaan Raayitis Waachitti qorataa dhimmoota Itoophiyaa fi Eertiraa

Gabaasnni fuula 61 qabu kun, mootummaan Itoophiyaa mala namni odeeffanno akka hin argannee fi walii hin daddabarsine gufuu ta’u hojjirra olchuus dhaabbanni isaanii qorannoodhan mirkaneeffachuu agarsiisa.

Kana malees, humnoonni nageenyaa rasaasa fayyadamuun deddeebi’anii namoonni akka walitti hin qabamne gochuun mormii tokkorratti hoo xinnaate nama tokko yookin sani ol ajjeesdhan ji’oota xinnookessatti mormitoota dhibbaan lakkawwaman galaafataniirus jedha.

Daarkiteerri dhaabbata mirga namaa hordofu, Hiwumaan Raayitis Wochii kan taate Lesilee Lafkaw akka dubbattetti, humnoonni nageenyaa Itiyoophiyaa, lubbuu namaaf tufii guddaa argisiisun, baratoota, qonnaan bultoota fi mormitoota nagayaa irratti dhukaasun ajjeesanii jiru.

Gabaasnni Humaan raaytis baasee kun gabaasa torbbanuma kana Koomishiniin Mirga Dhala Namaa Itoohpiyaa, han teechoon isaa Itoophiyaa ta’e, dhimmi Mormii oromiyaa irratti baaseen addaan goraadha. Komishinichi tarkaanfiin humnoonni mootummaa fudhatan madaalawaa akka ture dubbata.

Faayilii – Naannoo Oromiyaa magaala Holonkoommiiti mormii godhamee keessa konkolaataa caccabe, Muddee 17, 2015

Fiilix Hoorn ,Hiwmaan Raayitis Waachitti qorataa dhimmoota Itoophiyaa fi Eertiraati. Qorannoo gabbasa amma baheee kana irattis adda dureedhan hirmaatera. Waayee gabaasichaa fi haala Oromiyaa yeroo ammaa laalchisee Filex hasofisiisera. Mootummaan Itoophiyaa hoo Gabaasa Hiwmaan Raayitis kana akkamitti laala lata? Gabaasaan Raadiyoo Sagalee Ameerikaa, Heenook Samagzaabeer ministiri dhimoota koominikeeshinii Itoohpiyaa Obboo Getachoo Raddaa Dubbiseera. Kutaa duraa sagantaa kanaa armaan gaditti caqasaa. Kuta lamaata wajjin boru sinitti deebina.

Aisha Oromia Ali | OMN
Gabaasa dhiheenya kan Human Right Gaanfa Afrikkaa Oromiyaatti godhe qabatte isiniif dhihaattee isinitti gabaa. Thanks Aisha

Dr Merera Gudina arrived in Washington DC. It appears the perfume on his passport has dried up.  Two months ago, airport security prevented him from boarding a plan to the US claiming machines could not read his passport due to contamination with oily perfume.

Breaking :TPLF arrested at least 12 OPDO official . Mainly GELAN administrator ;the place where under Tigregna long periods ambition .why Tigregna arrested those official may be they resist to do .why Tigregna elite take this action . previously they arrested 60 sabataa administrator .

Via ‪#‎Sirkanan_Ahmed‬
Guyyaa har’aa waxabajjii 16,2016 baqattoota itoophiya (irra jiresssi oromoof somalee ) ta’an 50 gara Afrikaa kibbaa imalaa turan keessaa 15 kan lubbuun darbe yoo ta’u kan hafaan poolisa Zambia tiin ukkamamanii dhumuu irraa bararaaman. Kunis kan mul’ate wayita sakattaaf daangaa Zambia irratti konkolaatan dhaabsifametti.

….” MAARAMII BIYYA GUJI’II ”
Bara Gadaa Tukee Guyye’ee jetti maanguddoon, duulli woraana ”Dajaa-Baalchaa Abbaa-Nafsoo ” guutumaa guutu’utti lolee achaasse. Gujiin ifirraa facisaa dhaqee injfatame. Dhufa Baalchaan ”Kuukku” Ardaa Bulee-Horaa dhufeen woggaa 1-2 duratti , Ardaa jilaa ( Uddeessaa Yaa’aa ) ka yaa’i Guji’ii (Uraaga’aa) Korma jalaqalu
Daamuun Dammaa itti-qubattee dhaggan. Abbaan Gada’aa Tukeen rifatee Yuuba koree, farraaf damboobaa DAAMUUN qaddu gaafate.
Yuuddi akkana jetteen;
…” Daamuun EKERA’A, Ardaan kun ka-ekera’aa te’uu jira, Gadaa keeti kana malee Gadaan dhibiin ardaa kanatti jilsu’uu hinjiru (hinfalu ), si’iif womaa hinqadduu jilfadhu …” jetteen jedhan.
Woggaa 1 ykn 2 (sirri’iitti hinqaabadhu) Baalchaan dhufee biyya Guji’ii oliif-gaditti toowatee , Bulee-Horaatti qubatee , command post ( buufata woraanaa isaa) ADDISII ( Hagere Selam) irraa asifdatee, Ardaa jilaa keenna ammoo mana amanti’i MAARAMII (ORTHODOX ) itti ijaarsisee ,” Hagere Mariyaam ” (biyya maarami’ii ) jedhee maqaa-tibaase, ardaa keenna EKERAA DHAALCHISE !!! Maqaa Guji’ii awwaale. Maaramiin isaanii tun Shaakkisoolle balaa baadhattee seente. ta shakkiso’oolle heger dubbanna,
EKERAAN NUTTA QUBATTE LAFA TEENNATTI GAD-HODHANTULLE , BOQQOOR, BAQAQ, GAM-TOKKEEN ……. EENNUMMAA TEENNAA, (BULEEN-HORAA ) WAAN NUUDEEBITEEF.
BAGA GAMMANNE !!! ” ILMI QAROON NYAATAA BOOYAA, TANA BOBA’ATTI QABANNEE TA-DURANAATIIF HAAHIIXANNUU !!!
NB, ( Hubadhaa ), aka an hubadhutti , injifannoo tanaaf abbaan galataa , yo Bariisoo Dukkallee , ekeraa kolbaa teennaa ta SURROO , diqqa’aaf guddaa ilma Gujii Gurraachaa yo teete malee , dhaabaaf moottummaan galata kanaan male tokkolle hinjiru . INJIFANNOON TA-DHUGA’AAT !!!!!!!!!!!

Waxabajjii 16_2016 Yuunivarsitii Jimmaatti waraanni mooraa keessa qubatee jiru lecture Oromoo tokko irratti reebicha cimaa raawwatee jira. Kaampaasii kittoo furdisaa keessatti waraanni yeroo hunda balbala irratti sakattaaf bobba’ee barattoota hiraarsun beekkamu barsiisaa Oromoo irratti reebicha cimaa gaggeessun amma hospitaalatti yaalamaa jira.