President Exposes Government Assaults on Himself and Oromo Civil Society Organizations in Ethiopia
Qeerransoo Biyyaa
August 25, 2008
Mr. Dirribi Bokku is the incumbent president of the oldest Oromo civil society organization (CSO) known as Macha and Tulama Association (MTA) in Ethiopia. MTA´s office is based in Finfinnee, Addis Ababa. Dirribi also worked for the Ethiopian Airlines for many years before he was imprisoned in the year 2004 and sacked in the last quarter of 2007. Bokku is also the author of a new Oromo book "Ilaalcha Oromoo" (Oromo View), which is a guide to the traditional African Oromo religion "Waaqeffannaa". He is a prominent local NGO leader in Ethiopia.
Mr. Bokku, who came to the United States, Minnesota, to make a keynote address at the 22nd Oromo Studies Association annual conference, exposed assaults against himself and the CSO he is leading.
MTA Goals
"MTA is the oldest Oromo civil society organization, established in early 1960s to advance the socio-economic development of the marginalized and repressed Oromo people under Emperor Haile Sillassie," says Bokku. He explained that the objectives of the MTA have been to expand literacy, health care, Oromo culture, history and political consciousness. The impetus for doing these stemmed from the policy of segregation the central government followed against the Oromo people in all walks of life. MTA is the oldest Oromo CSO based in Finfinne (Addis Ababa) in Ethiopia.
Bokku said politically conscious individuals established the organization to save Oromos from physical disappearance and loss of identity. The Oromo constitute the largest and the most wide spread of all Ethiopia´s ethnic groups, forming 40 % of the population (Library of Congress, 2005:5 and mostly occupying a regional state called Oromia since 1991/2. Despite their large numeric size the Oromo have powerless and unrepresented in the politics and the economy of Ethiopia. The Europe-based UNPO lists the Oromo as one of the unrepresented peoples in the world. The current goals of the organization are no different than what it was established to do in the early 1960s. From the years 2004 to the end of 2007, the organization was liquidated and banned. And Bokku fears for the extinction of this experienced and well known civil society organization under the new Ethiopian NGO law.
Human Rights Watch (2008) has reviewed the draft NGO law and reached these conclusions: "the provisions create a complex web of onerous bureaucratic hurdles, draconian penalties and intrusive powers of surveillance mechanisms to allow for direct government control over the work civil society engages in".
The 2 previous regimes murdered several MTA leaders, but they did not dissolve the organization, but the current regime does. It continued to struggle and survive.
Becoming a prisoner of conscious
MTA´s president, Bokku, was no stranger to prisons and tortures. "I spent five and a half years in prison during the reign of the Derg military junta". He told me he has been imprisoned three times in recent years and served a jail term of 3 and half years under the current brutal government, which meted out harsh regimes of punishment to him under tramped up charges.
In the years 2000, the Ethiopian government passed a resolution to unjustly remove the capital of Oromia regional state from Finfinnee (Addis Ababa) to Adama about 70 miles to the South East of the capital. Later in the year 2003, Bokku said the MTA called a public meeting to protest the decision of the government. That, he said, became the reason he was arrested and jailed.
" I was swept from the street and taken to the area of Police Headquarters, which was under construction in the capital city then. They confiscated my bag and forced me to take off all my clothes except for my underwear at gun point. They took me to the edge of the big holes dug for construction and threatened to burry me alive if I did not give up calling the meeting about Finfinnee´s being the indigenous center of the Oromo people. And I said to them, I prefer you take my life instead of doing what you demand. They held a gun at me and shouted that they would kill my son and my wife if I did not comply." Such was the tragedy Bokku described during his first imprisonment.
In 2004 the government tightened its screw and sent Bokku to jail again on charges of mobilizing people against the government. The date was May 18, 2004 when he was taken from his work place at the Ethiopian Airlines by a small army battalion that he describes as "an overreaction for an unarmed civilian individual like me"
Endless Trial
After the 2004 massive protest against the moving of the Oromo capital from Finfinnee, Bokku was charged with mobilizing people against the government, and feeding and accommodating Oromo students who were expelled from Addis Ababa University in connection with student demonstrations.
"The main problem in the court system is the judges keep changing and every time the newer judge starts studying and working on your case from scratch. This is deliberately made to extend our stay in jail without being tried. Or one judge finds you not guilty and when you walk out thinking you are free, the police will arrest you and put you in jail again," said Bokku.
He said, "Finally, despite the 400 pages long charges and the 76 false witnesses lined up against me, I was acquitted because their evidence was really unfounded and faked."
Four other MTA leaders still incarcerated
Bokku still thinks justice has not been served as the following leaders of the CSO are still in jail:
1. Mengistu Desta (Excutive Secretary of MTA)
2. Solomon Bekele (board member)
3. Eshetu Aseffa (board member)
4. Tadesse (board member)
Financial and material losses and the future of MTA
The CSO mobilizes millions of people at the grass roots level for the purposes it was established for. Despite that, it suffered huge amount financial and material losses after its liquidation in 2004. Bokku said that the MTA was allowed to reopen its office four years later in 2008 under conditions that it must renew its license after three years, present its financial report annually to the government, and hand over the list of its registered members.
Describing the material losses, Mr. Bokku says, "10, 000 copies of magazine publications, expensive paintings of Oromo heroes like General Taddesse Birru, six shelves of books and documents have been confiscated and they (government) might have burned them down by now. It is sad because these are extremely valuable materials accumulated over four decades"
Bokku said the government has also robbed the organization of Ethiopian Birr 165,000 (US $ 18, 151).
He cited the material and the financial losses described above to show how the government has financially crippled this specific NGO and the devastating effect that will have on its future.
In addition to my interviews with him, Bokku also told the conferees that he was fired from his job and makes his living by begging for help. For a man of such a huge stature as Dirribi Bokku, this is humiliating and dehumanizing.
He is determined to continue to work for the organization to achieve its goals despite government onslaught.
For the CSO and Dirribi himself the future is intimidating because the government is flexing its muscles, using the new NGO law to crack down on local and international NGOs.
The future of existence is uncertain for SCOs like the MTA, who have already suffered what Human Rights Watch described as "…draconian penalties and intrusive powers of surveillance".
From his body language, the interviews, effective speech, and warm and modest personality, my mind quickly wandered to make the comparison between the Dalai Lama of Tibet and Dirribi Bokku of Oromia. They both are outstanding leaders representing the aspirations of peoples suffering under repressive regimes. The only difference I saw was that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet wears a red robe while Bokku wears European style. Most importantly, the Dalai Lama and his nation have attracted a world-wide attention while Bokku and his nation have not still been widely covered by the global media.