Ethiopian migrants, all members of the Oromo community of Ethiopia living in Malta, protest against the Ethiopian government and its crackdown on demonstrations in the Ethiopia’s restive Oromia region, Dec. 21, 2015. PHOTO: REUTERS/DARRIN ZAMMIT
(International Business Times) — Ethiopian authorities are allegedly violently quashing protests in its restive Oromia region, with near-daily accounts of killings and arbitrary arrests, researchers at Human Rights Watch said Monday in a damning report. Activists claim more than 200 people have been killed, while thousands remain in detention without charges since November. Security forces have shown no sign of letting up.
“Things have become considerably more violent in the last few days,” Felix Horne, Horn of Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in an interview Monday. “The government needs to back down and stop the brutal crackdown.”
Since late November, massive anti-government demonstrations have erupted in towns across Oromia, home to Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo. The protesters and opposition members were initially fighting against an urban plan that would integrate infrastructure development and expand the municipal boundaries of the capital of Addis Ababa into surrounding towns in Oromia. There were fears the expansion would displace ethnic Oromo farmers from their land.
Oromia is the most populous of Ethiopia’s nine ethnically based federal states, with a population of at least 27 million people. The region has its own language, Oromo, which is distinct from Ethiopia’s official Amharic language, according to Agence France-Presse.
#Ethiopia: Stop firing on peaceful demonstrators and listen to their concerns #Oromoprotests http://bit.ly/1TUXAgd
The Ethiopian government responded to the largely peaceful protests by flooding Oromia with federal security forces. The proposed Addis Ababa Integrated Development Master Plan was retracted Jan. 12, but activists and researchers said that has not halted protests or the alleged crackdown in Oromia.
Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights group, has been unable to verify the total number of people reportedly detained and killed due to the government’s restrictions on access and independent reporting in Ethiopia. But researchers have interviewed a number of witnesses and 20 people who have been arrested since the demonstrations began, and social media has helped disseminate photos and videos from scenes of the protests.
“Given the limitations on independent reporting on the ground, it’s hard to know precisely what has been happening, but there definitely appears to be an escalation in the intensity of the protests in some locations and also of the government’s response,” Horne said Monday. “There have been many reports of killings in the last several days.”
Many of those arrested have been children under 18 because primary and secondary school students in Oromia were among the first to protest. Some schools and universities have remained shuttered throughout Oromia because authorities have also arrested teachers and closed the facilities to curb demonstrations, according to the report.
One 17-year-old student described to Human Rights Watch researchers how Ethiopian security forces shot dead three classmates who were chanting against the expansion plan. “They walked into the compound and shot three students at point blank range,” the student said in the report. “They were hit in the face and were dead.”
Multiple eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch that security forces hurled a grenade at students at Jimma University in western Oromia and wounded dozens Jan. 10. Security forces also allegedly stormed the school’s dormitories and beat ethnic Oromo students, the report said.
#OromoProtests TPLF soldiers invade Darimu town Elu ababo in anticipation of protest there #Ethiopia #Oromia
Getachew Reda, Ethiopia’s communications minister, dismissed the report’s allegations against security forces as an “absolute lie,” telling BBC News Monday that Human Rights Watch has been “churning out report after report” on Ethiopia without a presence in the landlocked East African nation. He said it was a “stroke of magic” for the group to release a report “from halfway across the world.”
In January, the European Parliament passed a motion for resolution condemning the reported crackdown, saying the Ethiopian government has “labeled largely peaceful protesters as ‘terrorists’” and are “deploying military forces against them.” The United States, however, has not outright condemned the violence but rather expressed deep concern and called for dialogue.
For years, the U.S. has enjoyed cozy relations with Ethiopia, which is strategically located in the Horn of Africa region. In 2012, Ethiopia received $580 million in American foreign aid. The Ethiopian government has allowed the United States to deploy drones into Somalia from southern Ethiopia to target al-Shabab militants, according to the Washington Post.
“Ethiopia’s donor countries have responded tepidly, if at all, to the killing of scores of protesters in Oromia,” Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Monday. “They should stop ignoring or downplaying this shocking brutality and call on the government to support an independent investigation into the killings and other abuses.”
Ethiopia’s crackdown on land protests ongoing: rights group
By Aaron Maasho
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia continues to crack down on demonstrators in its vast Oromiya region some four months after protests began over plans to develop an economic zone on what is now farmland around the capital, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.
Although the government dropped the scheme last month, sporadic demonstrations have continued throughout the region, which is the Horn of Africa country’s largest in size and population.
“Security forces, including military personnel, have fatally shot scores of demonstrators. Thousands of people have been arrested and remain in detention without charge,” Human Rights Watch said in a report.
“While the frequency of protests appears to have decreased in the last few weeks, the crackdown continues,” it added.
Government spokespeople were not immediately available for comment.
The plan to create a special zone with new infrastructure around Addis Ababa had sparked some of the worst civil unrest in in a decade in the nation of more than 90 million people. Protesters say the scheme would displace many Oromo farmers.
The government is yet to give a death toll, but some opposition figures said in December about 90 people had been killed. U.S.-based dissidents said the toll was more than 200.
The government has blamed the violence on armed gangs, while opponents have blamed heavy-handed police tactics. Ethiopia’s 25-year development plan, aimed at attracting investment to help industrialise its agrarian economy, first sparked some small protests in 2014. But when it emerged in mid-November last year that land was to be leased near Ginchi, a town in Oromiya, bigger protests erupted.
Human Rights Watch said protesters it spoke to who had been detained after the outbreak of demonstrations had been subjected to severe beatings and never appeared before a judge.
Women suffered sexual assault and mistreatment, it said, while one 18-year old student was “given electric shocks to his feet”.
Some schools and universities have remained closed with teachers arrested in a bid to prevent more protests, Human Rights Watch said.
“The Ethiopian government should end the excessive use of force by the security forces, free everyone detained arbitrarily, and conduct an independent investigation into killings and other security force abuses,” it added.
Ethiopian forces in bloody crackdown on Oromia protests: HRW
The demonstrations began November due to a government plan to expand the boundaries of Addis Ababa into the Oromia region surrounding the capital, raising fears among Oromo people that their farms would be expropriated (AFP Photo/Solan Gemechu)
Addis Ababa (AFP) – Ethiopian security forces are carrying out a relentless and bloody crackdown on peaceful protests in the Oromia region, at a cost of scores of lives, Human Rights Watch reported Monday.
“Almost daily accounts of killings and arbitrary arrests have been reported to Human Rights Watch since 2016 began,” said the New York-based non-governmental organisation.
The demonstrations began November due to a government plan to expand the boundaries of Addis Ababa into the Oromia region surrounding the capital, raising fears among Oromo people that their farms would be expropriated.
Authorities dropped the urban development plan on January 12 and announced the situation in Oromia was largely under control.
But the demonstrations continued, along with the brutal response.
“Flooding Oromia with federal security forces shows the authorities’ broad disregard for peaceful protest by students, farmers and other dissenters,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
Protesters and witnesses told HRW that since mid-January, “security forces have shot randomly into crowds, summarily killed people during arrests, carried out mass roundups, and tortured detainees,” the report said.
The Oromos are the largest ethnic group in the east African country, estimated at 27 million people in a total population of some 99 million. Their land encircles Addis Ababa and they also live on large tracts of the west, centre, east and south of Ethiopia.
Their language, Oromo, is distinct from Amharic, spoken by the Ahmara people and used by the national administration.
HRW noted that researchers were unable to determine how many people have been killed or arrested because access to Oromia is restricted.
“(Ethiopian) activists allege that more than 200 people have been killed since November 12, 2015,” the rights watchdog said. In a previous document at the beginning of January, HRW reported at least 140 killings.
Security forces have arrested several thousand people since November and are holding them without charge, the organisation said.
But communication minister and government spokesman Getachew Reda told AFP that the recent incidents do not involve protesters but criminals.
“Now they are armed gangs who are committing crimes; they destroyed bridges, burned down churches. It’s nothing like before,” Reda said.
“If one thinks this is demonstration, it’s far from the truth,” he told AFP.
The HRW’s Horn of Africa expert Felix Horne told AFP that “the protests are still going on albeit in less locations.”
“There is also less and less information coming out from the areas where the protests are happening.
“Many individuals who provided updates and information have either been arrested, have disappeared, or are afraid to provide further information,” Horne added.
“The Ethiopian government should end the excessive use of force by the security forces, free everyone detained arbitrarily, and conduct an independent investigation into killings and other security force abuse,” HRW stated.
“Ethiopia’s donor countries have responded tepidly, if at all, to the killing of scores of protesters in Oromia,” Lefkow said in the report.
“They should stop ignoring or downplaying this shocking brutality and call on the government to support an independent investigation into the killings and other abuses,” he added.
ETHIOPIAN PROTESTERS SUBJECT TO ‘LETHAL FORCE’: HRW
People mourn an alleged Oromo protester shot dead by Ethiopian security forces, in the Oromia region, December 17, 2015. Oromo protesters, who opposed plans to expand the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, are still being subjected to violent force by security forces, Human Rights Watch has said.
ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
(Newsweek)–Ethiopian security forces are guilty of “lethal force” in an ongoing crackdown against opponents of the expansion of the capital Addis Ababa, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Protests have been ongoing in Ethiopia’s Oromia region—home to the Oromo, the country’s majority ethnic group—since November 2015 over plans to expand the capital. The government wanted to take over territory in parts of Oromia surrounding Addis, which could have potentially resulted in loss of farming land and forced evictions of farmers from one of the country’s most arable regions. At least 140 protesters had been killed by January 7, according to HRW.
The Addis expansion plans were dropped later in January but the protests and crackdown have continued unabated. HRW claims to have documented “almost daily” instances of killings and arbitrary arrests by security forces since the start of 2016. These include the detention of thousands of protesters without trial and security forces allegedly firing on peaceful protesters, including a wedding party and unarmed Oromo students.
“We believe that the vast majority of protests have been peaceful and certainly started peacefully, and that they have been met with lethal force in many circumstances,” says Leslie Lefkow, HRW’s deputy Africa director. “The violent suppression has exacerbated the grievances and people don’t trust the government.”
The governing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has clashed with the country’s Oromo before, which constituted some 25 million out of the total population of 74 million at the last census in 2007. An October 2014 report by Amnesty International claimed that at least 5,000 Oromo had been arrested between 2011 and 2014 based on suspected opposition to the government. Leading members of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress party, including deputy chairman Bekele Gerba, have also been arrested in connection with the latest protests. Gerba remains in detention.
Newsweek contacted Abiy Berhane, the Ethiopian ambassador to the U.K., for a response to the allegations but received no reply. Ethiopian Communications Minister Getachew Reda told the BBC that the allegations were “an absolute lie” and called it a “stroke of magic” that HRW had produced the report without a presence in Ethiopia. The minister added that armed gangs of protesters had carried out attacks on public buildings and were “trying to stir up emotions in the public.”
“This is a very typical Ethiopian government response. Their knee-jerk reaction to allegations of human rights violations is denial,” says Lefkow. “To deny the killings and deaths and brutality is not the right message to send to people who are angry and frustrated about the violence they are experiencing at the hands of their police and military.”
Lefkow says that the protests over Addis’ expansion are an outpouring of a “much broader and deeper range of grievances” among the Oromo community. “There’s a deep vein of frustration among many Oromo for what they feel has been decades of political and cultural marginalization by successive governments. These protests have tapped into that,” says Lefkow.
The Ethiopian government has accused the Oromo Liberation Front—a secessionist movement that has been waging an independence struggle since 1973—and opposition group Ginbot 7 of involvement in the protests. Both are classified as terrorist organizations by the government. Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said in a televised address in December 2015 that “destructive forces” were masterminding the protests and that the government would “take merciless legitimate action against any force bent on destabilizing the area.”
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