SILENCE IN THE FACE OF INJUSTICE WILL ONLY DIVIDE, NOT UNITE ETHIOPIA!
May 4, 2014 (OromoTV) — The recent unrest and ongoing slaughter of innocent University #OromoStudents by Ethiopian Government forces has once again revealed Ethiopia’s deep seeded hatred for Oromo’s. Although, the vicious attack on Oromo’s and #OromoProtests is nothing new and perhaps can be traced back to more than a century. The faces, ethnicities, and regimes change from Menelik to Meles and beyond, however, the untold atrocities against Oromo’s and #OromoProtests continue. We have been forcefully silenced for far too long. Thanks to our enemies we have witnessed the arms and breasts of our sisters, aunts and mothers get cutoff by inhumane government forces. Not to mention our brothers, uncles, and fathers get arrested, languish in despicable prisons, vanish without trace, and ultimately lose their lives at the hands of government forces.
These systemic atrocities against Oromo’s are only the tip of the iceberg. It would take historians years to list all the heinous crimes that Oromo’s have suffered at the hands of various governmental regimes. However, what has remained true then and still continues to this day is the fact that others such as the handful extremist Amhara’s have perpetrated these crimes in the past and in recent times while refusing to identify with Oromo’s especially innocent University students as they suffer throughout Ethiopia.
Recent history has shown the lengths the Ethiopian government or specifically Tigray’s will go to retain power. In 2005 when the government violently crackdown on Amhara’s and supporters of pseudo-political groups such as Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), it was Oromo students from Ambo and surrounding area who lent their support and staged protests. However, this week when the government once again ensued its continued assault against #OromoProtests, Amhara’s and others appear to show little to no support let alone protesting in unison.
What makes all this ironic is Amhara’s and other groups throughout Ethiopia and the Diaspora constantly preach a single and united Ethiopia. However, when a single group is systemically targeted and being slaughtered by government forces they remain silent. As Dr. King once said, “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” During this challenging time for Oromo’s all across the globe, the majority of non-Oromo’s have chosen to conveniently remain silent and aloof to the ongoing slaughter of innocent University students. Their silence clearly speaks volumes, proving once again if they are not direct recipients of government brutality, they have no need or desire to speak up and voice their opinion against atrocious government forces. In fact even the pseudo-media Ethiopian Satellite Television Service (ESAT) that clearly claims it is, “a nonpartisan, independent media outlet established primarily to promote free press, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law in Ethiopia” has remained detached from the current and ongoing suffering of Oromo’s across Ethiopia. Clearly, this pseudo-media is not only against free press, democracy, and respect for human rights as it discriminately ignores the suffering of Oromo’s, it perpetuates the age old bias of extremist Amhara’s toward Oromo’s. After all, ESAT the well known media arm of Amhara’s and extremist Amhara’s in general preach unity, perhaps a united Ethiopia by their standard means the death and disappearance of all groups including Oromo’s. This sort of ill advised, despicable, and caveman mentality is not only abhorrent, but lacks basic human compassion for the historically oppressed Oromo’s. Therefore, a hallow unanimity by extremist Amhara’s would lead this country into chaos. In fact absolute uniformity is not even historically unrealistic, but repressive at worst for Oromo’s in general.
So how can they claim to be Ethiopian irrelevant of their Ahmara background and remain neutral to the heartbreaking sufferings of fellow Ethiopians especially students full of potential whose life is cut short for the outrageous crime of peacefully protesting against the current Addis Ababa partition plan. It is beyond one’s imagination that a fellow Ethiopian can be so heartless as to not identify with innocent Oromo Students being slaughtered. As Dr. King once said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Therefore, the silence of Amhara’s as well any and all Ethiopians speaks volumes in terms of how much they care for the unity of Ethiopia. By remaining silent on the ongoing slaughter of Oromo’s they continue to show their support for the destruction of the Oromo state and ultimately the demise of all Oromo’s. However, what they have failed to realize is Oromo’s who constitute the largest majority with over 40 million people and the fourth largest language in all of Africa will continue to fight for their rightful self or mutual governance at all costs with or without other groups. And, irrelevant of extremist Amhara governments with previous dark and heinous history toward and the failed attempt of destructing Oromo’s including the suppression of the Oromo language as well as the current Tigray controlled government’s efforts to demise Oromo’s and Oromia will no longer work. The young and highly educated Oromo population all over the globe will work faithfully to amass support for and the eventual freedom of Oromo’s. Although, Amhara’s and subsequently Tigray’s have chosen to continuously stand on the wrong side of history time and time again, the Oromo’s strong and unbreakable determination to bring democratic rule will never be shattered!!!
Source: OromoTV
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Finally, a joint press release was condemned by the TPLF’s brutal offensive and heinous crimes against the peoples of Oromia and Ogadenia.
Oromo tv if you stand for what you wrote many people will not attend the rally. This is discord among even Oromos let alone the Ethiopians.
If the purpose of Oromo Tv is what you post in hear let the general public of Oromo from any walks of life know your hidden agenda.
If there is you are there to saw a seed of political unrest this will damage the sacrifice students and Oromo people are paying.
There will be support from every one starting from Wednesday on from Ethiopian community every where.
why don,t you talk about problems you are creating every day. stop the denial and stop the opression. peace.
The culprits of the masacare has to be the main focus. Forge relation with oppressed and leave others alone let them chose whomever they want to be with. Our struggle continues.
Victory to the Oromo Nation
And WhiteStar and other ….
- The need to strengthening different media networks such as Oromia Media Network (OMN). OMN has a mere two months since it came to existence. But, it is hard to overstate its importance to unravel the current events transpiring back home. We need to redouble our effort in supporting our networks, OMN and others so that they will have people on the ground back home to expose and report the deeds of the regime to the world. Remember, battles are won not just in battle fields, but also in media studios.
- The need to establish and strengthen Oromo civic entities. The duties of these entities should include, but not limited to Organizing resources for development, establishing a legal defense fund to represent Oromo prisoners languishing in prison cells back home, bringing the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against our people tantamount to genocide to justice.
- The need to establish a lobbying group. This group, for example in the United States, can lobby the US congress (both the House of Representatives and the Senate) up to the Executive branch. I can assure you, not many elected officials in the US Congress know about the existence of the largest ethnic group, Oromo in Ethiopia let alone our plight. So it’s up to us to educate them.
- The need to strengthening initiatives such as “Afaan” Publication. By teaching the Oromo values, language, and culture to the next generation of the diaspora Oromo communities, we can empower our kids and enrich our language and culture.
- The need to render assistance to the Qeerroos back home militarily and materially.
Justice and freedom to our people!
I respect your opinion. The question is we as Oromos are more than 40 million. we have different socioeconomic and political views. No one can lead all these people in a single way or political out look. Most of the ways we tried to follow starting from 1974 is leftist view and didn’t took as no where.
The biggest argument of all is why most of the elites of Oromo of the days were “meson”, “ehiapa and echet” not the ideology you are trying to persuade as here?
The issue at hand right is not about past history but what is happening now, the massacre may be paralleled with The Soweto massacre of June 1976 in South Africa if there is one in world history.
so we are fighting back to stop this and also remember even though all we are all Oromo, we are not a factory product that are uniformed in thought.
All we share is Oromo psychology and identity not political uniformity. As such there will be no need of autocratic leader who try to shape people after himself is just another version of Stalinism.
one more question for you, if all we are fighting “the Amhara supremacy”; are you trying to persuade as to create Oromo supremacy or what?
Since Minilik vanquished the Oromo people in the nineteenth century, the Amharas are expanding their territory at the expense of the Oromos. Have you ever thought about the Oromos of Wello and Rayya in Tgray? After more than four hundred years of assimilation, they have almost reached to a point of no return up to losing their identity. This is a struggle that we are undertaking to reverse this situation. Linguistic scholars tell us that there are about seven thousand languages spoken today in this world. A century from now half of these languages will be lost forever. We are fighting to preserve our identity, language, culture and way of life. This is a cause worth fighting!
By the way, nowhere in my article that I claimed to suggest Oromo supremacy over any other group, nor did I assert that all Oromos have one school of taught. I understand we are as diverse as our number indicates. Let’s use our diversity as our strength.
Thank you again for this dialogue.
Power and opress others…NO NO NO that is what people dont understand.
Oromos are fighting only for their right. If any other people opressed we would stand up
For them as well. Oromo are not selfish..self centered.
Like Allah/Waqqayoo expect from us..we want others to have, what we want for our self.
RIP those innocents who lost their life and down with those fanatics whose is in their a**hole
I dont even get why Habash come on this site…keep your filthy self from our
Wesite.
Many commentator here were/are proponents of the regime’s governance (fake federalism, fake self- rule, fake parliament, fake federal president, fake regional president, fake local security etc., etc.). Now, when the going tough, it is not right to blame Amharas, Oromos, Gurages, Tigres, Somalis, etc, etc. for what is happening currently. Blame the masters of divide and rule and engineers of South African type Apartheid system, i. e., the woyanes/TPLF. We are also partly or wholly accountable to this tragedy directly or indirectly.
If we cannot pinpoint who the culprit is in the current tragedy, it is like aiming while our eyes are closed or blind-folded and wanting to hit a target. That is exactly what the writer (Oromo TV) of this piece is doing, firing his/her gun while his/her eyes closed or blinded-folded to shoot the enemy.
You stated the crux of the matter clearly. Sadly Federalism based on ethnicity is the cause all the trouble. Nowadays, everyone has its own agenda and in most instance that agenda are not shared by many others.
You talk about collective understanding and shared vision, they label you as neftegna. The whole essence of ethnic based federalism is to erect impregnable walls amongst ethnic groups so that they don’t read each other. This is not an innovative approach of TPLF. It has been tested and proved to work time and again during the era of colonialism.
Oromo must rely on themselves.
together as Oromo and countinue our fighting untill we assured all our God
given rights.