URGENT ACTION CAMPAIGN BY OSG |
URGENT ACTION - November 1997 Recently, the Oromia Support Group has received several independent reports of increasing human rights violations committed by Ethiopian government forces against Oromo citizens in Addis Ababa and elsewhere in Showa, the central province of Ethiopia. Extra-judicial killings on the streets of Addis Ababa have been publicly proclaimed to be the justifiable elimination of armed members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Independent, corroborated reports claim that the killings were of unarmed Oromo civilians who had nothing to do with the OLF. The following account of killings, disappearances, illegal detention, torture and stifling of the free press is taken from mutually consistent reports from several informants. It indicates an increasingly hostile climate for those who peacefully oppose the government of Ethiopia.(See Note 1 below). Following small scale military activity by the OLF around Jeldu (Gojo) in W.Showa, in July, there was a security clampdown. The market was shut and all movement of people prohibited. Oromo farmers and businessmen from Jeldu and Ambo (80km to the west) faced detention, torture and disappearance. For example, Mrs Elfnesh Huluqaa and Mrs Mulu Negash, both Ambo restaurant owners in their mid-forties, 55 year old Mrs Gadisse Minta, mother of five, Ashebir Honcho, Sime Qumbii, aged 55, and Capt. Diribssa Mossissa, in his sixties, both farmers from Wedessa, near Ambo, and Kebede Bulbula, farmer from Goromti, near Ambo, were detained and tortured. Ashebir Honcho, a teacher, has a paralysed right hand because of torture. Haile Mariam Deressa, Dejene Deressa, farmers in Megno Rogee Kebele, Enchini, 65 km northwest of Addis Ababa, and all of the adults living in their houses were taken on September 17th. They have disappeared. Their children and livestock were left without supervision. The crackdown then spread to Addis Ababa. Agessa Lemmessa, 40 year old Akaki Oil factory employee, was taken with four others from his house, no.643, Woreda 19, Kebele 27, by Tigrean men in a British-donated Land Rover on 27th September. Four children were left without adult supervision. The house was searched and nothing found. The five adults remain held without warrant or court appearance in Maikelawi Special Investigation Centre in Addis Ababa. Family visits are not allowed. On 8th October, Terefe Qumbii, 43 year old director of properties and services at the Oromia High Court, and his relatives, Capt. Gudissa Annisa and Tesfaye Kumsissa, a young street vendor, were detained by police after leaving a local grocery/bar. Terefe Qumbii had reached the gate of his house when he was abducted; the others were just outside the grocery. The three men were taken to the road by the Vatican Embassy and shot in cold blood at 8.00 pm. In the same operation, Haile Mariam Chala and one other person were taken and have disappeared. Government radio and television announced that Tesfaye Kumsissa had masterminded the OLF operation in Jeldu and had been helped by the other two who were murdered. They were unarmed and were not taken to a police station or court before they were shot. URJII, an independent newspaper written by Oromo, reported some of the above. Their political correspondent, Moti Biyya, has been in detention since September. On October 16th, the Acting Editor-in-Chief, Solomon Namarra, and his assistant, Tesfaye Dheressa, were taken from the URJII office to an unknown destination. They appeared briefly in court a week later but the place of detention is not known. They were remanded in custody but not charged. Legal representation, family visits and medical treatment are being denied. There are fears for their safety. Garoma Bekele, until 8 months ago General Manager of URJII and now General Secretary of the Addis-based Human Rights League, was taken from his office at 11.00am on October 27th and is being held incommunicado and his safety is at risk. Today in Ethiopia, fourteen journalists are detained and as well as URJII, two other independent newspapers, Ethiop and Wonchef, have been closed recently and have staff in illegal detention. The current wave of arrests appears to be concentrating on all prominent Oromo, whether or not they are associated with the OLF. Over twenty officials of the Oromo self-help organisation, Matcha / Tulama, including Gabissa Lameessa (also an employee of Save the Children Fund), Beyene Abdi, Beyene Ballissa, Hussein Abdi and Haji Sahlu Kabte, were detained on November 5th. While the Ethiopian government is flaunting the UN Universal Declaration on human rights and the UN treaties to which it is a signatory, it is receiving more material and moral support from the European Union and the United States of America than any other country in the world. The strict linkage of aid to human rights observance is proclaimed by the European Commission and US State Department to be fundamental to their foreign policy. The Oromia Support Group calls on all readers to write to European Commissioner for Africa, Prof. J.D. Pinheiro, and The Hon. Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa at the addresses below. Please ask them if it is time to reconsider their aid to Ethiopia and to put into practice their policies on linking aid to human rights observance. Be polite and concise. Prof. J.D. Pinheiro, (Dear Commissioner) The Hon. Susan Rice (Dear Mrs Rice) |
| Note 1. The OLF was a legal political party and seen as the legitimate representative of the Oromo people in the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) from 1991 to 1992. Internationally acknowledged electoral malpractices by the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front, which is led by the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front and completely dominates the present government, led to the withdrawal of the OLF from the TGE. The OLF was outlawed; officials and members imprisoned, disappeared or killed. Because the Oromo occupy Ethiopia's richest areas and comprise half the population of Ethiopia, they are seen as the greatest threat to the present Tigrean-led government. Subsequently, any indigenous Oromo organisation, including the Oromo Relief Association, has been closed and suppressed by the government. The standard reason given for detaining Oromo people is that they are suspected of supporting the OLF. |