Does British aid to Africa help the powerful more than the poor?

As Ethiopia’s regime is accused of atrocities, David Blair asks whether British aid might – inadvertently and indirectly – be subsidising repression

British aid to Ethiopia amounted to £329m last year

October 30, 2014 (The Telegraph) — Ethiopia’s security forces have carried out terrible atrocities during a brutal campaign against rebels from the Oromo Liberation Front. So reports Amnesty International in ahorrifying investigationwhich concludes that at least 5,000 people from the Oromo ethnic group have suffered torture, abduction or worse in the last three years alone.

Sadly, anyone familiar with Ethiopia will not be surprised. With a long record of suppressing dissent, its government is one of the most authoritarian in Africa. Yet Ethiopia also benefits handsomely from British aid, receiving £329 million last year, making it the biggest recipient of UK development assistance in Africa – and the second biggest in the world.

You could put these facts together and reach the headline conclusion: “British aid bankrolls terrible regime”. But the Department for International Development (DFID) would point out that things are not quite so simple. First of all, Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a national income per capita of less than £300. At least 25 million Ethiopians live in absolute poverty, defined as an income of less than 60p per day. Should you refrain from helping these people just because, through no fault of their own, they happen to live under a repressive government?

Second, no British aid goes to Ethiopia’s security forces. Instead, our money is spent on, for example, training nurses and midwives, sending children to primary school and ensuring that more villages have clean water. If an Ethiopian military unit carries out an atrocity in the Ogaden region, would it really help matters if Britain stopped funding a project to give safe water to a village in Tigray?

This is a serious argument and there are no easy answers. But DFID’s case also has two key flaws. First, when outside donors spend large sums in a poor country, they change the way the relevant government allocates its own resources. Put simply, if rich foreigners are prepared to pick up a big share of the bill for useful things like health and education, then the government could, for example, take the opportunity to spend a lot more on its horrible security forces.

The great risk attached to aid is that you give national administrations more freedom to spend their money on what they think is important. That’s fine if the government concerned has the welfare of its people at heart. I put the point delicately: this is not universally true in Africa. In Ethiopia, there must be a real possibility that the government has bought more weapons for its appalling security force than would otherwise have been possible if DFID had not been covering a share of the bill for health, education, water, sanitation and so forth. The danger is that, inadvertently and indirectly, we could be subsidising Ethiopia’s campaign of repression.

The second problem concerns the political setting in which aid is spent. Ethiopia is an authoritarian state with a dominant ruling party that holds 499 of the 547 seats in parliament. In this context, any outsider who invests large sums in Ethiopia will probably end up strengthening the regime’s grip on power, whether intentionally or not. Every time a school is built or a hospital opened, the ruling party will claim the credit. And if the party in question has a long history of crushing it opponents with an iron fist – which is certainly true in Ethiopia – then the donors could find themselves underwriting this system of repression, albeit indirectly.

None of this suggests that Britain should cut off aid to Ethiopia tomorrow or that all our money is necessarily wasted. My only purpose is to show that the law of unintended consequences works more perniciously in the field of international development than just about any other. There are real dilemmas – and aid can end up helping the powerful more than the poor.

Source: The Telegraph

Thousands of Ethiopians tortured by brutal government security forces… while Britain hands over almost £1 BILLION in aid money

• Amnesty International says 5,000 people tortured, raped and ‘disappeared’
• Over the last three years the UK Government has given Ethiopia £1 billion
• It pocketed £261.5 million in 2012 and £284.4 million in 2013

Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Hailemariam Dessalegn, has rejected accusations that his government tortures its own people

October 29, 2014 (The Daily Mail) — More than £1billion from taxpayers was given in aid to Ethiopia while its security forces tortured, killed and raped, campaigners claimed yesterday.

Amnesty International has documented thousands of shockingly brutal abuses against citizens suspected of political opposition.

The human rights group’s report follows calls for greater scrutiny by Britain and other donors to ensure their money does not support state-sanctioned killings and brutality.

Amnesty warned that thousands have faced repeated torture while unlawful state killings have been carried out in a ‘relentless crackdown on real or imagined dissent’.

Horrors inflicted on ordinary Ethiopians include women being gang-raped and tortured by prison guards. Amnesty’s report also tells how a teacher was stabbed in the eye with a bayonet after refusing to teach pro-government propaganda to his students.

Entire families were arrested with parents and siblings ‘disappearing’ after they were taken to army camps, said Amnesty.

Britain has donated more than £1billion to Ethiopia in the last five years alone. The Government has denied funding security forces in the autocratic one-party state.

But Britain’s relationship with the East African country is likely to come under scrutiny in a judicial review into claims made by a Ethiopian farmer.

He has been given legal aid in this country to pursue allegations that UK aid supported the regime while it forced thousands of villagers like him from their land using murder, torture and rape.

Ethiopia remains one of the world’s poorest countries following decades of drought and famine, suffering highlighted by the 1984 Band Aid fundraising appeal.

The West has been accused of turning a blind eye to human rights abuse and effectively propping up the regime because of its support for the so-called war on terror.

Ethiopia has given support to combat radical groups such as Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa and Al Shabaab in neighbouring Somalia. Last year, an independent analysis accused countries giving aid of not stopping the hardline Addis Ababa regime from abusing its citizens.

It said donors had ‘failed to take decisive action to prevent policies that deny the basic human rights of some of the poorest and most marginalised people of Ethiopia’.

The US report went on: ‘Donor organisations have failed to hold the Ethiopian government to standards of human and political rights, a neglect principally illustrated by the accounts of the forced relocations of entire communities in the name of development.

It should be no surprise that unchecked assistance to a hegemonic political party gets diverted to efforts to maintain political control,’ it added.

International Development Secretary Justine Greening is under pressure to investigate allegations that major recipients of British aid are guilty of torture state-sanctioned murder

International Development Secretary Justine Greening is under pressure to investigate allegations that major recipients of British aid are guilty of torture state-sanctioned murder

The Oakland Institute, of California, added that the Department for International Development was the third biggest donor to the country after the US and the World Bank.

Questions have been raised over the value of some of the projects funded by the DfID in Ethiopia.

Last year, the Daily Mail told how £4million of taxpayers’ money paid for an Ethiopian version of the Spice Girls to spread a message of empowerment to women.

The DfID denies that aid money is used to force people from their homes or to fund security forces.

A spokesman said Britain gave £261.5million to Ethiopia last year. This was used to provide clean drinking water for more than 250,000 people, send 1.6million children to primary school and ensure 110,000 mothers gave birth safely.

‘Not a penny goes to Ethiopia’s police or security sector,’ he said. ‘We work with independent agencies like Unicef to make the security and justice sector fairer and more accountable, eg helping women and girls get better access to justice.

‘The UK provides targeted funding for health, education and sanitation, not to the central Ethiopian treasury. We have robust legal and accounting checks to ensure UK aid is spent where it is intended.

‘We regularly raise human rights with the relevant authorities, including at the highest level of the government.’

A spokesman for the regime ‘categorically denied’ Amnesty International’s claims. Redwan Hussein also accused the campaigners of being ‘hellbent on tarnishing Ethiopia’s image again and again’.

‘They put hot coals on us. We screamed as our clothes melted’

Harrowing accounts of rape and brutality were highlighted by Amnesty International.

In one case, three teenage girls arrested with their parents were tortured with hot coals by soldiers at a military camp where they were held for years.

One sister, named only as Nooria, said the soldiers came to her family’s home when she was 14 or 15, after her father was arrested on suspicion of political dissent.

She said she was interrogated and beaten, and still carried horrific physical scars from when she and her sisters were burned.

‘Two soldiers did this to me. They came into the room, tied up our hands and made us lie down on our backs. They put hot coals on my stomach. They didn’t just burn me; they also burned my two sisters.

‘Our clothes melted on us. We screamed but the soldiers didn’t care, they’re accustomed to screaming.’

Nooria was later released with one of her sisters but has not seen her parents or eldest sister since.

Other detainees told the campaigners how molten plastic was poured onto their legs. There were also shocking accounts of captors cutting off the ears and fingers of prisoners.

A 33-year-old woman told Amnesty she was detained without charge for nine months in a military camp.

‘I was thoroughly beaten,’ she said. ‘I cried for help saying that I was not guilty and should not be killed.

‘One night, three men came to my cell and said that I was being taken for interrogating but they just took me to a room and raped me.

‘After that, they just threw me back into the cell. I was not the only one –they would do the same to the other women there.’

A second woman said: ‘I was raped by three men – one after the other. I remember them very clearly and can identify them. Rape happened several times. This was not unique to me, the other women in the cell had the same experience.’

A midwife said he was beaten and punished after delivering the baby of the wife of a member of the banned Oromo Liberation Front.

A university student told how he was arrested at gunpoint after winning a competition to produce a business plan because security forces said it was political.

The student was beaten, starved and endured months of interrogation, including a mock execution.e

Source: The Daily Mail

STATEMENTS ON PLIGHT OF OROMO REFUGEE COMMUNITY IN CAIRO

Today on 28th October 2014, the Oromo community in Egypt protested in front of UNHCR office to denounce in response to the Ethiopian community allegation during the protest on 19th October 2014, supported by the Ethiopian Embassy in Egypt, to denigrates Oromo refugees in Cairo. On behalf of Oromo Refugees Community in Cairo, we want to express our serious concerns with the treatment of our community by the Ethiopian government allied Ethiopian community in Egypt.

As it is well known, Oromos have been oppressed in the Horn of Africa region over the past 120 years. Oromos still strive to save their lives in many ways, and often escape from Ethiopia, eventually crossing many borders until they find a peaceful place to definitely settle.

We, the Oromo community in Cairo in exile, would humbly forward our letter of complaints to your honored office concerning the above matter hoping for a timely intervention.

The Oromo people constitute 40% of Ethiopian population and have undergone successive oppression in the hand of present and past regimes through all sort of tortures which succumbed us to leave our beloved country ‘Oromia’ and made us scattered all over the world. The TPLF government sees Oromos as threats to its political power. For this reason, the TPLF government is intent on weakening the human, economic, and intellectual capacities of the Oromo people in and outside Ethiopia through political killings, intimidation, abductions and disappearances, unlawful imprisonments and torture against the Oromo people. This has been going on for over two decades.

To escape from such gross human rights violations, many Oromo refugees have been forced to flee from their homeland and are dispersed all over Africa, especially to Egypt through difficult journey and route to save their lives. Oromo refugees in Egypt are experiencing a multitude of human rights violations, including violent attacks by Ethiopian agents and attempts of political assassinations and intimidation targeted by the Ethiopian Embassy in Cairo through its extension of the Ethiopian community.

FEARS AND CONCERNS

The numbers of Oromo refugees in the Republic of Egypt are increasing day by day, and about 1000-1500 people refugees and asylum seekers have already registered at UNHCR, the current political situations in Ethiopia are not pleasing. When they reach Cairo, Oromos were subjected to harassment from agents of the Ethiopian Government and the Ethiopian Embassy in Cairo and the community allied to it i.e. the Ethiopia Community.

In a recent development, the Ethiopian community backed by the Ethiopian Embassy in Cairo to discredit Oromo refugees in Cairo and continuously distributed leaflets and other oppressive propaganda to all international media, such as the Amhara TV called ESAT and other medias outlets, which distort the reputation of our Oromo community by terming Oromo community in Cairo as “Islamic minority and terrorists.” The latest protests organized on 19/10/2014 by the Amhara community in front of the Office of the High Commissioner for refugees in Cairo were evident.

Through the aforementioned, it becomes evident that Oromos suffer in different ways in both, their homeland and their exile. For the above reason, we organize peaceful protests to condemn these practices and seek for national and international protection.

Resolutions and appeals

1. We condemn the Ethiopian community act of oppressing us backed by the Ethiopian authority
2. Oromo people have common political problem, and not religious problems. This claim of using religious issues to get sympathy from resettlement countries and marginalize oromo refugees, both Christian and Muslims, we want to show the world that the Oromo people are united – and we have three religion, Muslims, Christian and Waqefata. We know too well that a religion is for God, and our nation homeland Oromia for all and we, therefore, uphold our national unity irrespective of the religion of the Oromo belong to.
3. We condemn the Ethiopian Embassy hand in Oromo internal refugees affairs and condemn the Ethiopian Government to stop intimidating our community.
4. We appeal to the UNHCR to be proactive and make efforts to pressure the Egyptian government to protect Oromo refugees in Egypt – whose lives are threatened by Ethiopian agents, ensure that Oromo refugees human rights are respected and release Oromo refugees who were in Egyptian detentions to be released, ensure that they not forced to deportation to danger in home country.
5. Call upon the Office of the High Commissioner for refugees in Cairo refugee to give attention to the protection of Oromo refugee members, leaders and activist who were targeted by regime in Egypt. Make sure to give appropriate security and safety of our members who escaped the junta of the Ethiopian regime and those who were wanted by regime and possible resettlement in a third country.
6. Condemn the killing and disappearance of Oromo students in Ethiopia, murder and imprisonment of Oromo students in Ethiopian universities who were demonstrating a peaceful demonstration to protest the land grabbers and against expansion of capital Addis Ababa.
7. We appeal to UNHCR to understand this grave situation of Oromo claimants and make sure that when rendering protection and humanitarian services to Oromo in exile, consider that the undeserved people will not be favored. Those people who have two identities, secured by Ethiopian government and exit the country at there own will and return. Also had UNHCR documents. This type of injustice is happening while the oppressed Oromo refugees are suffering for long time waiting for services. To our deep disbelieve we Oromos in Cairo are experiencing total discrimination if this culprit have not been uprooted. We appeal to your office to investigate all Oromo claimants matter and solve it amicably so that justice in front of your eye is halted immediately. We therefore request your esteemed humanitarian body to attentively handle our grievance so that the oppressed community at home cannot be made to suffer again at the hand of same aggressors.
8. Lastly we need to remind UNHCR something concerning the Oromo language, it is historically known that any communities, tribes, in the world ignorant of his mother tongue and that are natural according to the law of God. Language as the core of identity of one tribe that express ones culture and heritage. For this purpose we clearly disagree with those culprits who identify themselves as Oromos and yet they are Oromo antagonist. Is it logic that one whose mothers and fathers native language is known and yet they don’t speak??? Reality is not hidden if not ignored. We assure your office that whosoever is from one race or tribe in Africa even if he is born in Hong Kong China, he speaks his mother tongue and that is his identity! What about those who grew up in their mother land and yet don’t know their language??? The huge problem is the problem of Oromo case / claimant which hinders our community. Some unnamed communities used to forge cases or get information to attain their goals using Oromo claims while they don’t belong to us. Through memorizing false cases .it is historically evident for such people hypocritically used Oromo names to achieve their goals. Reality they are agents of Ethiopian authority to destabilize Oromo refugees in diaspora. Refugees just because of their identity, language, culture. It unlawful to use false identity and claim and we request your kind office to review the Oromo problem.

We believes that our rights violations perpetuated against our Oromo people by Ethiopian embassy and allied community are one of the major contributing factors that are threatening our existence and destabilizing our refugee community in Egypt.. Ethiopian government security agent transnational activities perpetuate human rights violations against Oromo refugees; this is a sign of their long-term intent to harm the Oromo people everywhere.

We are convinced that any positive exit in all these issues will help drastically improve Egypt-based Oromo refugees’ life standards and personal conditions. We count on you, your understanding and commitment, being sure that you will not let us down.

UORA-EGYPT EXECUTIVE TEAM

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
PEACEFUL PROTEST

UNHCR REGIONAL OFFICE CAIRO EGYPT

28TH OCTOBER 2014

Amnesty: Ethiopia Systematically Repressing Oromo

FILE – Ethiopian migrants, all members of the Oromo community of Ethiopia living in Malta, protest against the Ethiopian regime.

October 28, 2014, ADDIS ABABA(VOA News) — Amnesty International has issued anew report claiming that the Ethiopian government is systematically repressing the country’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo.

Amnesty says the Oromo are subject to arbitrary arrest, detentions without access to lawyers, repeated torture and even targeted killings as part of the state’s efforts to crush dissident.

Claire Beston, the Ethiopia researcher for Amnesty International, said the East African country is hostile to any kind of dissent but particularly fears the Oromo for a number of reasons.

“[Reasons include] the numerical size of the Oromo because they’re the largest ethnic group; a strong sense of national identity amongst the Oromo; and also kind of [a] history of perceived anti-government sentiment,” said Beston.

Oromia is the largest state within Ethiopia. About 35% of the population is considered to be ethnically Oromo.

Oromo students protested in April and May against the capital city’s restructuring plan – which they said would dilute Oromo culture through annexing traditional Oromo land surrounding Addis Ababa. The rare protests led to violence. Several dozen people were killed and hundreds arrested. Peaceful Oromo Muslim protests in 2012 and 2013 were also crushed with force and mass arrests.

Beston said Oromo students and protestors are not the only ones who are at risk in Ethiopia.

“We’re talking about hundreds of people from ordinary people from all walks of life including teachers and mid-wives, and even government employees, singers and a range of other professions who’re all arrested just on the suspicion that they don’t support the government,” said Beston.

Amnesty International has not been allowed into Ethiopia since 2011. Researchers based the report’s findings on several hundred interviews with Oromo refugees outside Ethiopia and telephone and email conversations with Oromo inside the country. Many of the respondents said they had been detained in prisons, police stations, military camps or unofficial detention centers where they were subjected to repeated torture.

Amnesty has concluded at least 5,000 Oromo have been arrested and detained since 2011, many for weeks or months without being charged. The report said they are usually accused of supporting or being members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), an outlawed armed group. The OLF has been fighting for self-determination for more than 40 years. The report claims this is just a pretext for silencing dissent.

In response to Amnesty, the government – through the state-run Oromia Justice Bureau – said there is no clear evidence of violations as claimed by Amnesty and called the allegations “untrue and far from the reality.”

Beston said repression throughout the country, and particularly against the Oromo, is likely to increase as the May 2015 elections approach.

Source: VOA News

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Ethiopia ‘ruthlessly targeting’ and torturing Oromo people, says Amnesty

Damning report says thousands of people from country’s largest ethnic group are subjected to abuse including rape and killings

Oromo demonstrators protest in London earlier this year following the killing of student protesters in Oromia state by Ethiopian security forces. Photograph: Peter Marshall/Demotix/Corbis

October 28, 2014 (The Guardian) — Ethiopia has “ruthlessly targeted” and tortured its largest ethnic group owing to a perceived opposition to the government, Amnesty International has said.

Thousands of people from the Oromo ethnic group have been “regularly subjected to arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention without charge, enforced disappearance, repeated torture and unlawful state killings,” according to a damning report based on more than 200 testimonies. “Dozens of actual or suspected dissenters have been killed.”

At least 5,000 Oromos have been arrested since 2011 often for the “most tenuous of reasons”, for their opposition – real or simply assumed – to the government, the report added.

Many are accused of supporting the rebel Oromo Liberation Front (OLF).

Former detainees who have fled the country and were interviewed by Amnesty in neighbouring Kenya, Somaliland and Uganda described torture “including beatings, electric shocks, mock execution, burning with heated metal or molten plastic and rape, including gang-rape”, the report added.

One young girl said hot coals had been dropped on her stomach because her father was suspected of supporting the OLF, while a teacher described how he was stabbed in the eye with a bayonet after he refused to teach “propaganda about the ruling party” to students.

There was no immediate response from the government, which has previously dismissed such reports and denied any accusation of torture or arbitrary arrests.

“The Ethiopian government’s relentless crackdown on real or imagined dissent among the Oromo is sweeping in its scale and often shocking in its brutality,” the Amnesty researcher Claire Beston said.

“This is apparently intended to warn, control or silence all signs of ‘political disobedience’ in the region,” she added, describing how those she interviewed bore the signs of torture, including scars and burns, as well as missing fingers, ears and teeth.

With nearly 27 million people, Oromia is the most populated of the country’s federal states and has its own language, Oromo, which is distinct from Ethiopia’s official Amharic language.

Some of those who spoke to Amnesty said people had been arrested for organising a student cultural group. Another said she was arrested because she delivered the baby of the wife of a suspected OLF member.

“Frequently, it’s because they refused to join the ruling party,” Beston added, warning that many were fearful attacks would increase before general elections slated for May 2015.

In April and May, security forces shot dead student protesters in Oromia. At the time, the government said eight had been killed, but groups including Human Rights Watch said the toll was believed to be far higher. Amnesty said “dozens” had been killed in the protests.

Source: The Guardian

EU launches Operation Mos Maiorum: European police on a two-week hunt for tens of thousands of ‘irregular’ migrants

Ahmed Salihu is on the run from police amid an EU police operation targeting migrants [Yermi Brenner/Al Jazeera]

October 13, 2014, Berlin, Germany (Aljazeera) - A massive police operation was launched by 25 European countries on Monday seeking to detect, detain and possibly deport tens-of-thousands of so-called “irregular” migrants. 

During the 14-day Operation Mos Maiorum, some 20,000 police officers will stake out border crossings, railway stations, bus depots, and highways throughout Europe to apprehend so-called irregular migrants – people living clandestinely here without official documentation granting permission to stay.

EU officials say the operation is needed to combat human-smuggling rings and to gather information on smuggling routes. Rights groups, meanwhile, have denounced Mos Maiorum – a Latin term describing the unwritten code of laws and conduct in ancient Roman times – as inhumane.

No clear data exist on the number of irregular migrants in the European Union, but unofficial estimates range between 150,000 to 450,000 people.

These migrants are, in most cases, people who escaped dangerous homelands and are searching for safe and dignified living conditions, according to Karl Kopp, director of European affairs at ProAsyl, a German non-profit foundation.

“Mos Maiorum is an anti-refugee operation,” said Kopp. “Refugees are a target of this operation, let’s be clear.”

Targeting refugees

Interactive: The price of passag

Ahmed Salihu, a Nigerian who received refugee status from Italy in February 2013, has been living in the German capital for more than a year.

He is considered an illegal migrant according to European Union’s Dublin regulation, which stipulates recognised refugees must live in the country that handled their asylum application. But Salihu hates being called “illegal”.

“Look at me,” he told Al Jazeera at Oranienplatz, a meeting point for the refugee community in the centre of Berlin. “I am a human being, just like you. I have two eyes, I have a mouth, so why do they treat me different? Why say I am illegal?”

The 29-year-old Salihu said he came to Berlin because in Italy, even as a recognised refugee with a residency permit, he had no opportunities to work, study, or live a normal life. Because of this and a better existence in Germany, he stayed in Berlin even though German authorities notified him he must go back to Italy.

Now he is under threat of arrest and deportation back to Italy.

Mos Maiorum is an anti-refugee operation. Refugees are a target of this operation, let’s be clear.

- Karl Kopp, ProAsyl, German non-profit foundation

Kopp said refugees often turn to smuggling networks because lawful, regulated entry paths to and inside Europe’s Schengen Area are hard to come by. Many migrants – most of whom are refugees from the Middle East or Africa – come to Schengen because it is the safest nearby region and offers economic security.

Only three legal ways exist for asylum seekers to enter the EU: through resettlement, humanitarian admission, and family reunification. These measures are far from adequate, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which last weekurged EU ministers to create more safe and legal routes to Europe for people in need of protection.

The UN refugee agency has also criticised European countries, saying their low resettlement quotasare an insufficient response at a time when more than 51 million people are displaced – the highest number of refugees since World War II.

According to Kopp, a massive police operation such as Mos Maiorum is part of the EU’s deterrence policy against refugees, and it is a wrong signal in a situation that requires solidarity and humanity.

Fighting ‘organised crime’

The document announcing Mos Maiorum said its goal is “weakening the capacity of organised crime groups to facilitate illegal immigration to the EU”, and collecting information on smuggling routes. The word “refugees” does not appear in the document, even though during a similar two-week police operation last year, 36 percent of the 10,459 migrants intercepted were Syrians, and the second and third-largest groups were Eritrean and Afghan nationals, according to a EU document obtained by the NGO StateWatch.

The decision to set up Mos Maiorum was one of the first actions taken by the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union – a position that rotates among EU member states every six months.

The operation is led by the Italian Interior Ministry, which has so far not replied to Al Jazeera’s request for a comment.

Frontex is the EU’s border control agency. Its Executive Director Gil Arias Fernandez said in a statement its participation in Mos Maiorum is limited to providing the Italians with statistics and data analysis of migratory flows at the EU’s external borders. The European Union’s Home Affairs office, the authority in charge of migration and asylum policy, declined to comment saying only it is not directly involved in Mos Maiorum.

The operation has largely been kept out of the media spotlight in order to increase its effectiveness, critics say, but word has gotten out. In Berlin,activists who support refugees’ struggle for freedom of movement posted multilingual warning signs throughout the city urging “people without papers” to avoid public places for two weeks starting on Monday.

Immediate deportation

I passed a lot of dangerous things. I survived a bomb attack, a shooting gun attack. In the sea – I survived. If they come to arrest me or to deport me – I am ready for that.

- Ahmed Salihu, Nigerian asylum seeker

Salihu saw the warning signs on the Berlin streets, and also heard about Mos Maiorum from activists. He has reason to worry.

During last year’s operation, 1,606 migrants were caught inside Germany, the second-largest number of interceptions among countries that took part. Italy was first with 4,800 people arrested.

Germany confirmed to Al Jazeera that it is participating in Mos Maiorum. According Lisa Hager, a spokeswoman for Germany’s Ministry of the Interior, the handling of migrants who have no legal right to stay in Germany would be determined by authorities on an individual basis. 

For Salihu, that could mean immediate deportation to Italy.

Since leaving his homeland in fear of political persecution, Salihu has been forced to move repeatedly. He fled Libya when the civil war made it too dangerous for him to stay. He risked his life crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Italy on board an overcrowded fishing boat. Finally, he left Italy when he realised he had no chance for a normal life there.

Salihu said whatever happens during Mos Maiorum, he is not afraid.

“I passed a lot of dangerous things,” Salihu said. “I survived a bomb attack, a shooting gun attack. In the sea – I survived. If they come to arrest me or to deport me, I am ready for that.”

Source: Aljazeera

Tsehay Tolessa, the Widow of Rev. Gudina Tumsa, Passes Away

October 13, 2014

Tsehay Tolessa, the widow of Rev. Gudina Tumsa, passed away. Addee Tsehay was a person of faith, courage and great perseverance. The government of Ethiopia, during the 1980s, never tolerated Oromo people’s aspiration for freedom and justice, but forced them to submit to harsh treatment. They grabbed Tolessa and forced her hands under her knees and tied them there, right after her husband, whom she married to in 1951, was abducted on July 28, 1979 and subsequently got killed. They filled her mouth with dirty rags and they beat her breaking bones and causing the skin to peel off. Then they threw her in a cell with 60 other people. There was standing room only and she remembered that she could only feel broken bones and blood as she had to stand. There was only one toilet but since nobody could move in the cell they could not use the facilities properly. No doubt disease was rampant and they were already under an immense famine. There was no light that came in this cell. She could not even hold a cup to drink water as others had to help her.

She stayed in that cell A FULL YEAR!!!! With her broken bones, rotting flesh and dilapidating condition she stayed in that mess of a cell for a whole year! When they let her out of the cell they put her in another jail for 10 years!! She was morally strong, even though she lost a husband and brother in-law to the Oromo cause.

Addee Tsehay was a tower of her family, a shining light of courage to her people and a woman of deep faith in God. She survived by four children (Kulani, Lensa, Aster and Boruu) and many more grand children.  May God bless her!!

The funeral arrangement is in process

Sadaasa 9 Guyyaa Fincila Diddaa Gabrummaa Waggaa 9ffaa, 2014

Onkoloolessa 7, 2014

Bara 2005 waamicha ABOn ummata bal’aa Oromoof haaromseen Fincilli Diddaa Gabrummaa (FDG)n guutuu Oromiyaa keessatti erga bifa ho’aan qabsiifamee haga har’aatti bifa adda addaan mootummaa gabroomfattuu wayyaanee akka guggubaa jiru eenyullee haaluu hin danda’u.

Ebla Bara 2011 warraaqsi Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo erga finiinuu jalqabee kaasees guutuu Oromiyaa keessatti Qeerroon Oromoo (Barattootnii fi Dargaggootni) sabboontotaa fi walii galatti ummata Oromoo bal’aan walta’uun FDG bifa adda addaan mootummaa gabroomfataa wayyaanee irratti qabsiisuun ummatni Oromoo bilisummaa kan barbaadu ta’uu ifatti mul’isaa jiran.

Addatti bara 2014 kana keessa qooda Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoon (Barattootaa fi Dargaggoota)n warraaqsi FDG fi Falmaan Mirga Abbaa Biyyummaa sirna gabroomfataa wayyaanee irratti qabsiifame haga har’aatti mootummicha guggubaa, QBOf injifannoo galmeessaa jira. Fincila deemaa jiru kana keessattis wareegamni qaqqaaliin kafalameera; kafalamaas jira. Dargaggootni, barattootnii fi sabboontotni Oromoo Bilisummaan Oromoo kan hin hafne ta’uu lubbuu isaanii bakka bu’aa hin qabne wareeganii mirkaneessaa jiran. Ilmaan Oromoo qaroon, beekoo fi hubatoon, kanneen biyyaa fi ummata isaanii caalchifatan dhiiga dhangalaasanii, lafee cabsanii bilisummaa balbala Oromoon gahanii jiran. Bara baraanis seenaan QBO isaan yaadata!

Kanaaf Sadaasni 9 (November 9) Guyyaan Yaadannoo Fincila Diddaa Gabrummaa (FDG) bara 2014 kanaa Oromiyaa keessaa fi biyyoota alaa bakka Oromoonni itti argaman maratti kan duraarra haala o’aa fi adda ta’een ilmaan Oromoo qaalii fi muratoo kanneen lubbuu isaanii wareegan kana yaadachuu, hojii qaalii isaan dalagan faarsuun yaadatamee fi kabajamee oola. Qeerroo fi Qarree Oromoo, barattootaa fi sabboontota keenya FDG keessatti bilisummaa sabaaf jecha lubbuu isaanii aarsaa godhan haa yaadannu! Kabajaa Gootota Sabaaf Qabnu Agarsiisuun Dirqama Lammummaa Oromoo ti! Obbolootaa fi lammiiwwan keenya hidhaa gabroomfataa keessatti gidirfamaa jiranis haa yaadannu! Yaadachuu qofas osoo hin taane, karaa ittiin FDG caalaatti jabeessinu, QBO finiinsinuu fi gumaa jaallan keenyaa bilisummaan baasnu irratti ejjennoo lammummaa qabannee murtii marii keenyaa hojiitti haa jijjiirru.

Oromoon of irratti amantaa godhatee sagalee tokkoon, irree gamtoomeen yoo ol ka’ee diddaa mul’ise halkan tokkotti hidda gabroomfataa isa xaxee jiru cicciree, irree cunqursitootaa isa irra ciisee gadi isa qabe of irraa darbee bilisummaa fi mirga abbaa biyyummaa isaa gonfachuu akka danda’u FDGn waggaa kana keessa geggeeffamee fi ammallee geggeeffamaa jiru caalaatti nama hubachiisa.

Fincila kanaan Oromoon akkasumas ilmaan isaa dargaggootnii fi barattootni Qeerroo fi Qarreen akkasumas sabboontotni dallaa shira siyaasaa roga adda addaan diinni ijaare diiganii falmaa finiinsuun humna Oromoon qabu diinattis firattis mul’isaniiru. Bilisummaan Oromoo, walabummaan Oromiyaa lubbuun itti bahee, dhiigni itti dhangala’ee, lafeen itti caccabee kan hin hafnee fi bakka gahu ta’uu hojii fi gootummaan mul’isaniiru; mul’isaas jiran.

Kanaaf muuxannoo fi jabina akkasumas injifannoolee Fincila Diddaa Gabrummaa fi Qabsoo Bilisummaa Oromoon argaman kuufachaa, fincilaa fi diddaa caalu, qabsoo roga maraa kan bilisummaa balbala geesse ol seensisutti nu geessuuf of qopheessuun, bakkayyuutti irree tokkoomee fi gamtoomeen diina dura dhaabbachuun, akeeka jaallanii fi ilmaan Oromoo qaqqaalii lubbuu kitimaa godhanii bakkaan gahuuf mudhii hidhannee murannoon haa warraaqnu.

Ilmaan Oromoo, Sabboontotnii fi Qabsaawotni Fincila Diddaa Gabrummaa fi Qabsoo Bilisummaa Oromoo keessatti wareegaman bara baraan ni yaadatamu!
Kaayyoo fi Akeeka Gootowwan Oromoo Irratti Wareegaman Bakkaan Ni Geenya!
Sadaasni 9 Guyyaan Fincila Diddaa Gabrummaa (FDG) Bara Baraan Ni Yaadatama!

Injifannoo Ummata Oromoof!

Sagalee Bilisummaa Oromoo (SBO)

Onkoloolessa 2014