Why the successive Ethiopian rulers target Oromo?

Why the successive Ethiopian rulers target Oromo?

Oromo people the largest indigenous Ethnic group in East Africa with a population of around 40 million in Ethiopia and also extending in to Kenya, parts of Somalia and Egypt. The Oromo’s are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and their language is the fourth most spoken in Africa (after Arabic, Hausa, and Swahili). Oromo is spoken over a geographically wide expanse. The other names of the language include, Afaan Oromo, Oromiffa and Oromo. But start to be marginalized and discriminated by successive Ethiopian government.

The Oromo people in Ethiopia have been subjugated by the Ethiopian rulers since the last quarter of 19^th century since then, the Oromo language was banned for use in education, the mass-media and public life. Afran orom was banned first during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, this time the Oromo language and speakers were privately and publicly ridiculed. The government did every thing in its power to ensure the domination of the Abyssinian language and cultures over the Oromo people and subsequently, during the communist regime that followed the Emperor’s overthrow. Since 1992, the ban has been lifted up and the language is used in the Oromia state with some restrictions.

All along, the successive Ethiopian regimes including the current regime have embarked on deliberate and systematic campaigns of misinformation about the Oromo people, their language and culture in order to sustain the subjugation of the Oromo people.

Why the successive Ethiopian rulers target Oromo?

The Tigrayan-led regime mainly targets the Oromo because of their economical resource and political resistance. According to the Oromia support 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 supporting the OLF”

 Human right watch and Amnesty International others international media often expose the Oromo, are being ruthlessly targeted by the state based solely on their perceived opposition to the government. It added how Oromos have regularly subjected to arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention without charge, enforced disappearance, repeated torture and unlawful state killings as parts of the government’s incessant attempts to crush dissent.

”The Ethiopian government’s relentless crackdown on real or imagined dissent among the Oromo is sweeping its scale and often shocking in its brutality,” said Clair Beston, Amnesty international’s Ethiopia researcher. “This is apparently intended to warn, control or silence all signs of political disobedience in the region.” According to Amnesty International reports at lest 5,000 ethnic Oromos have been arrested between 2011 and 2014 based on their actual or suspected peaceful opposition to the government.

These include peaceful protesters, students, members of opposition political parties and people expressing their oromo cultureal heritage. In addition to these groups, people from all walks of life farmers, teachers, medical professionals, civil servants, singers, businesspeople, and countless others are regularly arrested in Oromia based only on the suspicion that they don’t support the government. Many are accused of ‘inciting others against the governmet. Family memebers of suspects have also been target by association based only on the suspicion they shared or ‘inherited their relative’s views or are arrested in place of their wanted relative.

Many of those arrested have been detained without charge for months or even years and subjected to repeated torture. Throughout the region, hundreds of people are detained in unofficial detention in military camps. Many are denied access to lawyers and family members. Dozens of those actual or suspected dissenters have been killed. The majority of those targeted are accused of supporting the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) the armed group in the region.

Source: Amnesty International Report published date 28, October 2014  

  Oromia support Group

  BBC NEWS 28, October 2014

  UCLA  Language Materials Project