Wide spread arrest in all corners of Oromia continues unabated
AFRO-O - October 29, 2007
The Advocacy for the Fundamental Rights of Oromos & Others (AFRO-O) would like to inform Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about the ongoing mass arrests and torture of hundreds of Oromos in Ethiopia at the present time. Last week, when pressed by Oromo opposition parliament members the Ethiopian prime minister admitted that his government is arresting some Oromos because they were Oromo Liberation Front members and supporters. He went even further by accusing senior opposition MPs, including the honorable Bulcha Demeksa and the honorable Dr.Marara Gudina, of being OLF leaders themselves. He further threatened them by saying that “once the government had enough evidence the culprits would be arrested and put on trial.” This in itself is a clear breach of principle of any democratic governance, for the leader of the ruling party to threaten members of parliament with arrest.
The Advocacy for the Fundamental Rights of Oromos & Others has just received a list of a list of 148 Oromo men, women, students and farmers and their places of residences and locations of their detentions. We notice the fact that many individuals are brought to the famous Makelawi detention center in the capital, Addis Ababa, known to Oromos as Finfine. We strongly suspect that the reason for transporting these individuals to the Makelawi is to torture them. The Makelawi in Ethiopia is synonymous with torture to the people of Ethiopia. All the listed Oromo individuals are suspected of involvement with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). We believe that the list is a “tip of the Iceberg,” since the arrests are in the thousands according to news reaching us and are ongoing.
We appeal to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to follow up and investigate this new arrests and their plight to all peace loving people around the globe. We suspect that the real reason for these new arrests is to intimidate the electorate into supporting the ruling party of Prime Minister Zenawi ...