As Ethiopia boils, Minnesota's Ethiopians feel the heat
Twin Cities Planet - July 10, 2008

Attacks-by-Proxy

Another example that is having repercussions in this state is a bloody clash that occurred in May between the Oromo and Gumuz ethnic groups in western Ethiopia, that left more than a hundred people killed.

On the surface, the inter-tribal nature of the Oromo-Gumuz conflict left little trace of Ethiopian government involvement.

Yet Oromo in Ethiopia and in the Minnesota diaspora have charged - as one or another party nearly always does in such cases - that the Ethiopian government instigated the conflict by various means, such as ceding land belonging to one party to another, as a way to foment violence and launch a brutal attack-by-proxy on a targeted ethnic group.

"It's a nightmare what Oromos are subjected to in Ethiopia," says Lencho Bati, a professor at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, and a native Oromo. "It's exactly what blacks in South Africa suffered under apartheid - lack of access to resources, education, power, cultural enrichment and the right to self-determination." Read More.