Black Gold: The Story Behind Your Morning Brew
Green Options blog, CA - May 9, 2007
The Fair Trade coffee documentary Black Gold has been screening for over a year now but because it wasn't released widely I had not had a chance to see it until it was shown at the Chicago Green Festival a couple weeks ago - and I was impressed. The Village Voice called it "a model of patient storytelling," which is just what you should want from a good documentary. The movie opens with starkly contrasting images of rural Ethiopian coffee farmers and urban swarms of coffee drinkers, the effect of which lingers for the duration of the movie. Black Gold then goes into patient storytelling mode and methodically describes the international coffee industry and how it effects producers of coffee ...

Starbucks strikes deal with Ethiopia
Guardian Unlimited, UK - May 3, 2007
The long-running dispute between Starbucks and Ethiopia looked headed for a resolution today after the two sides said they had reached an outline agreement that recognises Ethiopia's ownership of its premium coffee brands.
The announcement is potentially a major victory for the impoverished East African country which had been thwarted by the Seattle-based coffee giant in its attempts to gain a higher price for its premium coffees, bringing its coffee farmers tens of millions of dollars extra each year ...

Latest fabrication of lies by the TPLF regime
Sudan Tribune, Sudan - April 19, 2007
For the past 16 years, the TPLF regime has shown itself to be the mother and father of all mendacity. The regime has fabricated a great deal lies to confuse and victimize the Oromo and other peoples in Ethiopia. In the process the regime's survival has totally depended on manufacturing lies and hate propaganda on those it believes threat to its multiple agendas. The regime has been fabricating such baseless lies primarily for the consumption of its international financiers. Thus, over the years the regime has perfected the art of deception for the purpose of obtaining financial and military support from its international backers. Recently as usual, the regime is concocting and spreading a series of false propaganda about the circumstances of the abduction of Kumsaa Gadaa and other Oromo compatriots...

Oromo Students Hold Rally On Mall
Howard University The Hilltop, DC - April 17, 2007
While the eyes of America are focused on the war in Iraq, thousands of Oromo people are trying to survive a different type of war in Africa, a war where innocent people are being murdered simply because of their nationality.
This is the message that the Oromo Youth Association wanted to convey to the U.S. government during their rally in Washington, D.C. on March 31.
The rally, which began at 11 a.m., started in front of the U.S. State Department and ended in front of the U.S. Capitol at 2 p.m. The protest gathered more than 500 supporters, including those who are not Oromo.
The Youth Association participants used several different ways to get their message across, such as painting their clothing to depict bloody wounds and walking in lines with ropes tied around their necks. Looking out at the rally, one could glimpse a small part of Oromo culture within the colorful sea of reds, yellows, greens and whites...

Training community workers to sustain pastoralist livelihoods
Reuters AlertNet, UK - April 17, 2007
Jemal Adem, a 20-year-old pastoralist, has spent every night in the last seven months away from home, often sleeping on dusty ground, and always surrounded by his camels.
Jemal left his village in Ethiopia's Fentale district in the southern Oromia regional state last September, along with seven relatives, in search of pasture for their livestock. Since then, have reached Shashemene, 297 km from home.
"It was bona [dry season] in our area," he explained. "We went in search of something for our camels to eat."
Grazing their 1,000 camels in the small village of Wokitiu, near the town of Adama, Jemal said he was hoping that the rains that had started falling would persist. "If the rain continues at this pace, it will hasten my return to our village of Jida," he told IRIN ...

OSA Must Continue to Function as an Independent Scholarly Oromo Voice - Follow Up
Oromia Online, North America - April 15, 2007
Given the full determination of a well financed dubious political group to keep the association [OSA] under its control, the odds that OSA can be reinstated back to its scholastic stature any time soon, unless we rally genuine OSA scholars to intervene is virtually impossible. For us personally and as we declared before, membership in OSA remains no longer an option so long as the association lives outside the limits of universally accepted code of scholarly conduct...

Ethiopian MP calls for intl probe on human rights situation in Oromia
Sudan Tribune, Sudan - April 15, 2007

To: European Union, UNO, USA Congress, Human Rights Watches, Amnesty International, ICRC, and UNHCR.

Dear Sirs:

I am writing you behalf of the Oromo Parliamentary Group. The Oromo Parliamentary Group (OPG) is made up of Oromo members of Ethiopia federal parliament and the parliament of the regional sate of Oromia and as representative of Oromo people and Ethiopian people as whole. We had high hopes and aspiration that by participating in the legal political forum of Ethiopia we would contribute to the democratisation process and bring stability, peace and development. It was with strong belief that the constitution will be respected and supremacy of law will prevail, that we decided to join the legal political system ...

Games hope who fled torture dies in poverty
Telegraph.co.uk, UK - April 12, 2007

An athlete who fled torture and persecution in Ethiopia and hoped to run for Britain in the Olympics has died in poverty in London.

Dejere Kebede-Tulu, 25, came to Britain as part of a gold medal-winning World Championship team and was widely considered to be one of the best long-distance runners in the UK.

It was predicted he would be a medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

An inquest heard how the athlete's body was found by a friend in June last year after lying undiscovered for days in his flat in Holloway, north London.

Mr Kebede-Tulu escaped Ethiopia in 2001 following the murder of his father, a political activist. He sought political asylum here but was not allowed to work and had to live on £53 a week while trying to train as an athlete ...

"Ethiopia" means Alam-baqqany: The End of Life
American Chronicle, CA - April 12, 2007

A Historian's perspective over FIO Vice Chairman Aman Kamsare's interview

A while ago, we published an bi-partite interview with Aman Kedir Kamsare, Vice Chairman of the Front of Independence of Oromia (FIO), a leading political organization representing the oppressed Oromo majority of Abyssinia.

FIO fights for freedom, independence of Oromia, and traditional African Gadaa democratic system, and along with other liberations fronts, political parties, cultural associations, and organizations represents the best guarantee for a Free, Tolerant, Democratic Horn of Africa in the years ahead.

Far from its political ramifications, and beyond the extensive electronic coverage and republication that this interview has got, it is still a valuable stuff for historical commentary and historico-sociological analysis that can better illuminate Western understanding and empathy for the Noble Cause of the long tyrannized Oromos ...

Oromo: Event Addresses Democratic Growth
UNPO, Netherlands - April 10, 2007

During the past two decades, rebel leaders and regimes have taken control of several African countries promising positive change but have instead executed attacks on civilians.

Last Friday [06 April 2007], the University Law School, along with the Human Rights Center and several other supporting organizations, coordinated the daylong event "The 'New Breed' of African Leaders and the Future of Human Rights and Democracy in Africa."

Bringing together prominent policymakers, academics and leaders, the event focused on broad topics of African democracy and progress and drew about 150 attendees.

President of the Oromia Student Union Gada Beshir cosponsored the event. Beshir, who was born in an Oromia region of Ethiopia, said this "new breed" of African leaders have suppressed the will of the Oromo people and have participated in mass human rights abuses such as arbitrary detainment and torture ...

US Envoy Visits Somalia and Urges Truce for Capital
New York Times - April 8, 2007

The highest-ranking American official to set foot in Somalia in more than a decade returned from a trip there on Saturday conceding there were "significant problems" but saying "we have to have faith in the people of Somalia."

The official, Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, spent five hours in Baidoa, Somalia, meeting with top officials of the Somali transitional government, which has been struggling to gain control of the country ...