It is with at utmost distress that we bring the sad news of the ongoing killings, arrests, detantions and harasments of Oromo University and high school students taking place in many parts of the Oromia regional state in Ethiopia to your attention on behalf Union of Oromo Students in Europe. UOSE is an organization with members in many European countries. We hope the European commission and the governments of the member states take immediate action to help change the serious human rights situation affecting Oromos and other peoples under the Tigrean led minority regime in Ethiopia. The Oromo people are struggling for their self determination and constitute about 50% of the population in Ethiopia.

As we write this letter, young university and high school students and their teachers are peacefully demonstrating against the brutality of the Tigrean led minority regime. The peaceful demonistration that started in the town of Naqamte in the western part of the country has spred to other major urban centers such as Ambo, Shambu, Ghimbi, Dambidollo and Jimma. It is also to be noted that there were Oromo student protests in Tigray region.

Armed to its teeth, the Ethiopian regime tried to crush the peacefully organized student protest and oppend fire on the students. Reports reaching us from the area indicate that many students were killed, wonded and detained. The killiig is going on.

It is not new that the Tigrean led minority government has consistently waged war on the Oromo and other peoples, violating their human rights and depriving them of personal security. The current brutal action taken against peacefully demonistrating Oromo students is just an example. Records from several human rights organizations including Amnesty international, Human rights Watch, the US State Department, the Oromia Support Group, indicate extra judicial killings, disappearances and detentions under the current regime since it came to power in 1991. Any Oromo who demands her or his basic right is immediately branded as a sympathiser of Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and persecuted. It is to be recalled that hundreds of Oromo university students were forced to leave their country and joined tens of thousands of oromo refugees suffering in refugee camps in Kenya. UOSE would like to use this occasion to express its appreciation to all governmental non-governmental agencies for the help they give to Oromo refugees in Kenya.

In view of the situation described above, we here by call upon the Eurpean Commision, Governments of the member states and the European Community to urge the Ethiopian government;

• to free all oromo students with out any condition,
• to stop the systematic elimination of Oromo intellectuals, business men and human rights activists, and
• to stop its extrajudicial killings, arrests, tortures, and detentions of innocent people.

Sincerely,

Union Of Oromo Students in Europe (UOSE)