Oromo Action Group (OAG) Protests Ethiopian Dictator's Visit to Harvard

September 1, 2000

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs
Center for International Development
Harvard University
79 J.F. Kennedy St., E414
Cambridge, MA 02138

Fax:  617/495-8685
Email: jeffrey_sachs@harvard.edu

Dear Prof. Sachs,

We members of Oromo Action Group are disturbed by the news that your institution, Harvard University, is hosting Mr. Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, giving him an opportunity to speak on campus. Mr. Zenawi is responsible for one of Africa's worst human rights records in recent years perpetrated against the Oromo and other nationalities in Ethiopia. Innocent people have been systematically imprisoned, tortured, kidnaped, and murdered under the watchful eyes of Mr. Zenawi.

In the name of democracy, Mr. Zenawi conducted a sham and rigged elections in which his ruling party claimed to have the support of over 90% of the population when in fact he was rejected by as many in Oromia and elsewhere in the South. Ethiopia has one of the worst records in the world in suppressing freedom of speech as evidenced by the highest number of imprisoned journalists. Several independent journalists including those from the now banned Urji newspaper are still lingering in Ethiopian prisons for exposing the regime's political scandals. Just last month, Dr. Mogga Firisa, a physician and Vice President of Macha Tulama Association has been taken from his office by government agents, and still remains detained without any charges.

During the last few years, Mr. Zenawi's government also waged a senseless war against Eritrea that cost one hundred thousand lives while millions are starving in the South. Oromo children were forcibly conscripted to the war and used as mine sweepers and cannon fodders, a concern noted and criticized by President Clinton's administration. Innocent citizens of suspected Eritrean origin were deported to Eritrea separating families and abandoning their personal properties. Mr. Zenawi who comes from a Tigrean minority group is also engaged in discriminatory and exclusionary economic policies heavily investing in Tigray, his home province, while heavily taxing the other parts of Ethiopia to meet the uneven budget. This has contributed to a build-up of exasperation between Tigreans and other peoples of Ethiopia.

Excessive use of cyanide in Adola mining and massive shipment of lumber to the north causing extensive deforestation in already volatile south are only few examples of Mr. Zenawi's tragic environmental records.

Prof. Sachs:

There is no rule of law in Ethiopia, and the regime is engaged in systematic elimination of elders, intellectuals, businessmen, and students of other ethnic groups to weaken opposition forces. Such routine criminal practices have been documented by many international humanitarian organizations including Amnesty International.

It is outrageous for a prestigious institute such as Harvard, to provide a stage to a tyrant that imprisons, tortures, and kills its own people. Your action undermines the pain and senseless death of thousands of innocent people, and it is indeed tantamount to endorsing Mr. Zenawi's heinous crimes. We are hereby registering our strongest protest against your decision to host Mr. Zenawi, and ask you to cancel his scheduled appearance. There is nothing to be gained for humanity, nothing to benefit academia from offering a stage to a culprit so that he can air his demagogue views; only more pain and sufferings.

Sincerely,

Oromo Action Group (OAG)

(signed)

cc:

Dr. Neil L. Rudenstine, President, Harvard University

Dr. Paul S. Grogan, Vice President, Harvard University, Community, Government, and Public Affairs

Dr. Joseph S. Nye Jr., Dean, John F. Kennedy School of Government

Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, Director, Africa Program

Dr. Anthony Appiah, Chairman, Committee on African Studies

Dr. Henry L. Gates, Jr., Chair, Dept. of Afro-American Studies

Dr. Rita M. Breen, Executive Officer, Committee On African Studies