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HAWAASA OROMO BERLIN
OROMO COMMUNITY IN BERLIN e.V.
May 25, 2001
Berlin

We members of the Oromo Community in Berlin once again raise our voice in order to bring the plight and agony of our people, who are languishing under the unjust and authoritarian rule of the TPLF/EPRDF regime in Ethiopia, to the attention of the World Community through your government. We demand that your government help in curbing the ever unbridled dictatorial nature of the Ethiopian regime and thereby in fostering justice, peace and basic human rights for our people

The Oromo people constitute about a good half of the entire Ethiopian population. Our country, Oromia, being the largest and naturally richest region, it forms the backbone of the entire Ethiopian economy. Despite this fact, the Oromo and other peoples in the south are currently facing a serious famine because of the government’s wanton natural destruction, ethnically based ill equipped economic policies and, last but not least, because of its war mongering character. Though the government has been very loud and eulogizing about democracy, the Oromo people have never had any voice in the political affairs of the country or even of their own state which is totally monopolized by the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) and the surrogate ethnic-based organizations it created and controls, the so called the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Forces (EPRDF). The TPLF, which represents the Tigrean ethnic group from northern periphery of Ethiopia, constitutes only about 5% of the population of the country and fears Oromo numerical strength. As a result, the TPLF has even never attempted to entertain the idea of free election or democracy from the very beginning. It relied for its existence and maintenance of dominance on sheer force and brute suppression of any independent political position or organization. Accordingly, the atrocities committed by the TPLF/EPRDF against the Oromos have been boundless and indescribable in such short letter of appeal. Having taken into consideration the mass imprisonment, displacement and massacre hitherto visited upon the Oromo people by the TPLF forces, we can generally say however that the atrocities committed by the TPLF against the Oromo people scales in its essence with a genocide and holocaust.

After ten years of iron rule, the only incontestable legacy of the TPLF remains to be war, famine, disease, poverty, social unrest, conflict and an all out misery and wretchedness. Though at the beginning, the TPLF/EPRDF was smart enough in deceiving the international community, its true nature came to be disclosed to the International Community, particularly, since its adventurously declared war against Eritrea before the last couple of years. But even then, it is true that the war have been taken only in its face value, without deserving a due insight into its genesis and strategic consequences for the entire political fabric. Although it is quite possible to enumerate a number of factors to the war, we believe that the underlying reason and cause for the war was the internal political tension, i.e., the ever growing and expanding opposition against the ethno-centric rule of the TPLF/EPRDF. By appealing to populist ideas such as national integrity, the aim of the government was to divert and undermine the internal resistance against TPLF’s dictatorship. That was the only genuine reason why the regime afforded such a costly war (costly both in material and human sense) while millions of people were starving to death. Particularly concerning the Oromos, the war has served the government to use the Oromo youngsters as a cannon fodder. This concealed purpose of the government was once again uncovered as the TPLF regime resumed its massive terrorist action against the Oromo people as soon as the bloody war was over. Eritrea became a reason for every unjust action of the government in suppressing any dissenting voice in order to maintain its totalitarian and ethnic authoritative rule. But once injustice becomes the order of the day, then it would be so contagious that even its own subject cannot be immune from.

This is precisely what the world community witnessed in the latest political developments of Ethiopia, as Mr. Meles Zenawi, the Prime minister, dismissed 12 key members of the central committee of the TPLF and put them in communicado. Whatever the reason for the incident might be, the event shows a turning point in the political evolution of the ruling party, a beginning of contriving individual dictatorship out of a party dictatorship. That is where the endemic and contagious character of every injustice lies. Once one endorse injustice as the rule, oneself cannot be immune of falling into being a victim of it. Precisely, this is what explains the current entire political predicament and turmoil of the TPLF/EPRDF. What ever kind ideological difference may prevailed among the opposing factions of the TPLF, the only solid point that the incident confirms is the fact that the TPLF has ever been at loggerheads with democracy. Democracy is not about who to rule but about how to rule; it is more about the procedure of ruling than about the substance of ruling. Therefore what makes now the situation within the TPLF more worse is the fact that the Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, is emerging as unquestionable individual dictator, reminiscent of his predecessor, Mengistu Hailemariam.

The recent massacre the TPLF committed against the Addis Ababa University students, in which 42 students were killed and more than 250 were wounded, is a typical case in point that confirms the growing unbridled dictatorial posture of the Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi. The brutal military attack against peaceful and helpless student demonstrators is indeed the apex of TPLF’s political degeneration into a whole sale assault on civil society in general. As TPLF has never had the slightest popular support from the Ethiopian people except the Tigreans, the government is always desperate with any critical and dissenting voice like that of the University students. Following the faction and the erosion of even Tigrean popular support to Meles, TPLF’s desperation has even transformed into a hysteric political madness. It suspects not only its opponents but also its own members and Tigrean tribe fellows. We believe that the recent assassination of the head of Ethiopia’s security and intelligence forces, Kifle Gebremedihin, is another case in point about TPLF’s present hysteric political behavior.

As popular uprising is currently simmering and expanding throughout the country, including within the army, the government is getting prepared to do everything possible to put the situation under its control in order to prolong its life span on the verge of its demise. In fact, the government is currently adopting an open and all out state terrorism against any opposition and dissenting force. The new policy is recently released to inter-party discussion in a 189 pages document written in Amharic. Though the document is misleadingly titled "Fundamental Question of Ethiopian Democracy", its main content is about the need of a wide scale campaign against oppressed nations in general and the Oromo people in particular. According to the document, the campaign would be so multi-faceted that it would include ideological, economic and physical elimination of the propertied class and the intellectual element of the Oromo people.

Despite all these anti-democratic and anti-humanitarian direction of its political development, the TPLF government continues to enjoy a massive financial and economic support from the United States and the European governments. Financing TPLF really means financing war and state terrorism against the people and thereby prolonging the suffering of the people under Meles Zenawi’s dictatorship.

Therefore, we members of Oromo Community in Berlin demand your government to stop its assistance to the TPLF terrorist and anti-democratic government and instead to:

• put pressure on the Ethiopian government to at least respect its own constitution of 1994, uphold the right of self-determination of the Oromo and other oppressed peoples, abide by the rule of law, and above all, to guarantee basic freedom of press, speech and opposition.
• put strong political, economic, and moral pressure on Meles’ government to stop its secret assassination, extrajudicial killings and arrests of the Oromo civilians
• intervene and directly deliver food assistance to the famine stricken regions of the country and make sure that the assistance would not be diverted by the regime to feed its huge army.
• closely monitor the regime’s human rights records and demand its release of tens of thousand of Oromo prisoners.

We look forward that your government would play a constructive role in deterring dictatorship and fostering democracy, justice and freedom to our suffering people in Ethiopia.

Oromo community in Berlin