B.Sc. Hons Anatomy              1969    Birmingham
M.B.,Ch.B.                             1972    Birmingham
M.R.C.P.                                 1976    Edinburgh
M.D.                                        1981    Birmingham

Medical Experience

1972-3          House Physician & Surgeon.  Dudley Rd Hospital, Birmingham.
1973-5          Medical Resident. McMaster University. Hamilton. Ontario.
1975             2 months, Medical Officer, International Grenfell Association,
                     Port Saunders, Newfoundland.
1976             6 months, Senior House Officer, Communicable & Tropical Diseases,
                     East Birmingham Hospital.

6 months, Senior House Officer, Cardiology,
East Birmingham Hospital.

1977-9          Research Registrar, Cardiology, East Birmingham Hospital.
1979-81        Medical Registrar, Ronkswood Hospital, Worcester.
1981             2 months Locum Consultant Physician, Ronkswood Hospital, Worcester.
1981-94       General Medical Practitioner, Malvern. Full time apart from 1986-91.

1986-91       While job-sharing in General Practice:

1986-7         6 months, Primary Health Care Trainer, Save The Children Fund, Port Sudan, Sudan.                   
                     Working in a Sudan Ministry of Health clinic retraining and encouraging demoralised Medical Assistant,                      setting up and training Sudanese nurses to run a TB programme and simple diagnostic laboratory,                      re-organising collection of clinic statistics and monitoring/ordering drug supplies.

1987-8         4 months, Medical Officer (Physician/Anaesthetist), Overseas Development Administration, St Helena, South                      Atlantic.

1988-9             7 months, Health Worker Trainer for Health Unlimited/Oromo Relief Association, among Oromo refugees                      in camps in Southern Sudan, organising medical supplies, overseeing small field hospitals and ongoing health                      worker training, including establishing and training staff for TB programme, liaising with Sudanese Ministry of                      Health physicians, liaising with and lobbying government and non-governmental organisations to provide                      medical supplies. Included 2 week cross-border visit to part of Wallega, Ethiopia, controlled by the Oromo                      Liberation Front (OLF).

1989-90        6 months, as 1988-9, plus assisting in organising vaccinations and control of meningitis epidemic among                      encamped refugees.
                     Severely injured in land-mine explosion when crossing border into Ethiopia..

1990-91        7 months, as 1988-9, plus organising cross-border meningitis vaccination campaign, including designing                      and arranging funding for the programme from Oxfam, importing vaccines and equipment to Sudan, training                      28 Oromo health workers in care and administration of vaccines, designing and overseeing logistics for three                      teams of vaccinators to travel by truck and foot over Ethiopian border to areas of western Ethiopia which                      were controlled by OLF. Accompanied teams on two 2-week trips.
                     The final 2 months were spent training village health workers and their trainers in OLF-controlled areas.

1994-2004   Locum General Practitioner, providing out-of-hours cover for practices in Worcestershire and Herefordshire,                      surgeries for practices in Malvern and Colwall and performing Disability Living Allowance assessments for                      Medical Services / Department for Work and Pensions.

2004 to May 2008       Locum/Assistant General Practitioner in Colwall practice.

Oromia Support Group

Study of historical, political and human rights literature about Oromo and
Ethiopia began in 1988. This study and acquaintance and dialogue with Oromo civil society and political leaders have continued since 1988.

During cross-border trips to Ethiopia between 1988 and 1991, a total of more than three months was spent living and talking with Oromo and other peasant farmers in Wallega province of the presently-named Oromia Region in western Ethiopia. Much was learned about Oromo culture and recent history during these months.

Writing articles and lobbying concerning human rights abuses in Ethiopia began in
1992. The Oromia Support Group was established in May 1994, with Dr Trueman as
Chair. Until 1999, newsletters and press releases were published every two months.
Since 1999, publications were reduced in frequency and since 2004 have been limited to annual reports of human rights abuses in Ethiopia.

Information on the human rights situation in Ethiopia was obtained from registered and clandestine organisations within Ethiopia until 1997/1998. The Human Rights League was closed and its members imprisoned in 1997. Clandestine groups were disbanded as their members were detained or forced to flee from Ethiopia. From 1998, most information has been obtained through informal contacts with relatives of victims of abuses living in diasporan Oromo communities in Kenya, Djibouti, Sudan and outside of Africa. The Oromo community in Djibouti was expelled and contact with the small community in Sudan was lost in 2004. Diasporan Oromo communities in Kenya, Europe and America continue to send information.

Ethiopian media reports are obtained via Amnesty International, Germany, and Oromo community electronic networks. Large amounts of published information and news reports from inside and outside Ethiopia are sent on a daily basis to the Oromia Support Group from the Bureau of Human Rights and Democracy in the US State Department and the Integrated Regional Information Network of the UN.

Lobbying has included contact with officials of British and American embassies in Ethiopia, Members of the European Parliament, staff of the European Commission, officials of the U.S. State Department, the Carter Centre, Atlanta, Georgia, and of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Immigration and Nationality Directorate.

Information on the human rights situation in Ethiopia was presented by Dr Trueman to members of the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Irish Parliament on 6 December 2006.

A close working relationship has been established with staff of Amnesty International (International Secretariat), Human Rights Watch and lesser-known organisations concerned with human rights in Ethiopia, and, until his retirement in 2006, Lord Avebury of the UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group.

Liaison has been established with UNHCR staff in several countries and advice has been sought by UNHCR on validity of refugees’ claims in Nairobi, Jerusalem, Bangkok and Stockholm.

An Oral Statement was made to the 1997 UN Commission for Human Rights. OSG was accredited status at the UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), in South Africa, 2001. An Oral Statement was made by Dr Trueman to the Working Group for the Second Preparatory Committee Meeting of the WCAR, in Geneva, March 2001, and a statement was written by Dr Trueman and presented by a colleague in the Oromia Support Group to the WCAR in September 2001.

From 2000 to 2008, 251 expert witness statements have been written to facilitate decision-making by immigration authorities assessing claims by asylum seekers from Ethiopia, in the UK and elsewhere.

Presentations and publications

Papers on human rights abuses in Ethiopia were presented to:

African Studies Association, USA, in November 1997 and 2000

African Studies Association, UK, September 1998

Annual conferences of the Oromo Studies Association from 1995 to 2007

Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, in November 2000

‘Human Rights in Africa in the New Millennium’ conference organised by African Studies Association, UK, and the University of Central Lancashire, September 2001

Biennial conferences of the International Association of Genocide Scholars in 2001, 2003 (with organising panel of four speakers) and 2005, in Minneapolis, Galway (Ireland) and Boca Raton (Florida) respectively.

Dr Trueman was chairman and discussant in a panel on human rights in Ethiopia at the University of Manchester conference ‘War, culture and humanity from ancient to modern times’ April, 2004.

Papers on recent human rights violations in Ethiopia were presented at:

Conference of Oromo Human Rights and Relief Organisation, Hannover, 22 September 2007

Crisis in the Horn of Africa, conference organised by the OLF, Stockholm, 16 February 2008

Seminar ‘The quest for democracy, peace and sustainable development in the Horn of Africa’, organised by the OLF, Frankfurt, 11 May 2008

Chapters published

Democracy or dictatorship, pp 141-150, in
Ethiopia: Conquest and quest for freedom and democracy. Eds Seyoum Y. Hameso, Trevor Trueman, Temesgen M. Erena. TSC Publications. London. 1997.

Western foreign policy, profits and human rights: the case of Ethiopia. Journal of Oromo Studies. 6. 1&2. 91-107. 1999.