This article was presented at the 31st African Studies Association of Australia, Asia and the Pacific (AFSAAP) Annual Conference and won the AFSAAP 2008 Monash Postgraduate Essay Prize. The article details human rights and other abuses committed by the Ethiopian ruling elite against the Oromo people; these abuses, a human rights organization believes, amount to racism by the Ethiopian authorities against the majority Oromo people. Here’s the abstract of the paper, and the link to the entire article is found below.

By Tarekegn Chimdi

Systematic repression and rampant human rights abuses against the Oromo People in Ethiopia

From the time of colonization of Oromia at the end of 19th century, the Oromo people were faced with discrimination and marginalisation. Their egalitarian democratic institution of governance the Gada system; their cultural traditions and language were banned; their means of subsistence, land, was confiscated and, as a result, they were forced to slavery and servitude.

The policy of successive regimes in Ethiopia, including the current regime, has been implementing similar tactics of furthering their subjugation and repression, be it under the guise of democracy or socialism. The current TPLF/ PRDF dominated regime is a political, economic and social powerhouse for nearly past two decades after ousting the Amhara hegemony in 1991. In contrast to the Tigrayans which constitute about 5% of the total population, the Oromo people encounter rampant human rights abuses, absurd relocation and eviction from their lands, experimented with unplanned resettlement schemes in hostile environments, face abysmal poverty and contamination of epidemic diseases.

Since this regime came to power in 1991, serious systematic repression and pervasive human rights abuses against the Oromo people has been reported by international human rights organisations. So far, these abuses have been largely ignored by the international community, probably far from the eyes and ears of the international observers in Finfinne (Addis Ababa). Residents of the Oromia are particularly vulnerable to targeted atrocities due to their remote geography, lack of quick transport and communication infrastructure for rapid exchange of information, absence of human rights monitoring groups and lack of independent media coverage. Knowing this, EPRDF is acting with impunity. The government routinely subjects its critics to harassment, extrajudicial killings, imprisonment and torture. Police and military officials often imprison such people on charges of involvement with “anti-peace” or even “anti-people” groups, but convictions and even trials are rare.

In general, people are being terrorized by federal police working-hand-in glove with local officials and militias. Such crackdown on citizens from all walks of life is a day to day activity in Oromia, including children as young as 11. According to a renowned international human and peoples rights organisation, gfbV “If intellectuals, students, teachers, journalists, aid agency workers, artists, human rights activists and peasant farmers are subjected to human rights abuses solely on the basis of their origin, then Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker believes that the Ethiopian authorities are guilty of racism”.

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