Page 96 - Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization

The Oromo National Movement
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Since the Tigrayan-led regime survives primarily on Oromo economic resources
internally, its terrorism has targeted the Oromo people.According to the Oromia Sup-
port Group, “Because the Oromo occupy Ethiopia’s richest areas and comprise half of
the population of Ethiopia, they are seen as the greatest threat to the present Tigrean-
led government. Subsequently, any indigenous Oromo organization, 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 sup-
234
The Oromia Support Group reported in 1997,“The current wave
porting the OLF.”
of arrests appears to be concentrating on all prominent Oromo, whether or not they
235
are associated with the OLF.”
Despite the fact that state terrorism is practiced in the
forms of war, assassination, murder (burying alive, throwing off cliffs, hanging), castra-
tion, torture, rape, confiscation of properties by the police and the army, firing profes-
sionals from their jobs without adequate reasons, forcing people to submission by
236
the U.S. Department of State de-
intimidation, beating, and disarming citizens,
clared,“There were no confirmed reports of extrajudicial killings by government se-
237
curity forces” in Ethiopia.
Several interviews conducted by Bruna Fossati, Lydia Namarra, and Peter Niggli
reveal that since 1992 several thousands of Oromos have been killed or arrested on
suspicion of being OLF supporters or sympathizers or for refusing proposed mem-
bership of the EPRDF. Based on their field research, these three scholars report that
former prisoners testified that their arms and legs were tied tightly together on their
backs and their naked bodies were whipped; larger containers or bottles filled with
water were fixed to their testicles, or bottles or poles were pushed into their vaginas;
there were prisoners who were locked up in empty steel barrels and tormented with
heat in the tropical sun during the day and with cold at night; there were also pris-
oners who were forced into pits so that fire could be made on top of them. 238 Umar
Fatanssa, an elderly Oromo refugee in Djibouti, says,“We had never experienced any-
thing like that, not under Haile Selassie, nor under the Mengistu regime: these people
just come and shoot your son or your daughter dead in front of your eyes.” 239
Explaining how systematic terrorism takes place through a tightly organized
party that functions from the central government to the grassroots committee,The
Oromia Support Group asserts,“Testimonies of victims of abuse by rural security per-
sonnel persistently pointed to the role of security committees, consisting of local of-
ficials, political cadres of the EPRDF and its affiliates and army officers, in control
of the peasant militias.The committee system made the militia an integral part of
the national political structure and placed them under the control of the central
government through the ruling party apparatus. They provided the interface be-
tween local authorities, the militia, the army and the ruling party, in practice subor-
dinating local security structures to the federal authorities.” 240 Being misled or
intentionally accepting the Ethiopian Constitution at face value, U.S. officials praise
the Ethiopian government for its goal of a “decentralized system that brings justice
closer to the people” 241 and reject the idea that “real power is retained at the cen-
ter and used repressively.” 242 It is paradoxical that when Oromos and others assert
that the Meles regime has brought terrorism and intimidation to their neighbors
and families, U.S. officials argue that it has brought justice closer to the people. As
the Oromo national movement has been intensifying its struggle for national self-
determination and democracy, the Tigrayan-led minority regime has been increas-
ing its repression and state terrorism.