Qeerransoo Biyyaa

Ergaan dhibbaa guddaa qabu suuraafi vidiyoodhaan uummama. Barattoota keessaa iccitiidhaanis ta'e fuulleen aarsaa kaffalanii suuraafi vidiyoo barataa-barattuu/miiltoo isaanii ajjeefama jiruu/jirtuu ykn nama cabee dhiigaa jiruu tokko waraabuun barbaachisaadha. Kuni akka gumaa nama du'ee baasutti laallamu qaba. Suuraafi vidiyoon kallattiin daddafee nubilisoomsuu baatus addunyaatti ergaa cimaa dabarsuun birmannaa wayyaba qabsoo keenyaaf hora. Barattoonni muraasini qaama fincilu keessa jiranis ta'e warri qabsoo nagaa adeemsisan kuun, yeroo maraa kaameraa dhokisaan hidhatanii socho'uu qabu. Kameeraadhaan dhugaa kiyyeessuniifi addunyaadhaaf tamsaasuun murteessaadha. Kaamerawwan kana ummata keessa galchuurratti uummanni biyyaa, jarmiyaaleen polotikaa Oromoo martuu irratti mari'atanii akka tooftaa qabsootti sagantaa saanii keessatti kaawwachuu qabu. Vidiyoon/suuraan bifa akkasiin argame biyyoota qarqara dangaa Oromiyaa jiranitti ergamuudhaan intarneetitti olbaasuun nidanda'ama.

Human rights reports, appeal letters and scholarly predictions of instability, conflict, war, genocide and ´politicide´ are prevalently treated as ends in themselves. They often make the hottest hard-hitting news of the day, but the next day they are dumped as irrelevant garbage. Trumping the entrenched culture of hypocrisy and promise-making by the international community, the most desirable practice is to turn information and knowledge into powerful tools of predicting risks and initiating preventative actions against regime elites and the internal forces that contend with them. How can it be ethical to know that human rights violations are being perpetrated against innocent victims, but remain inactive and silent? The knowledge and information we have need to serve life-saving purposes. While West keeps abundant data on the genocidal behaviors of the Ethiopian government against Oromos, Ogadenis, Anuak, and southern peoples, one may wonder what the international community is waiting for in order to act. Why are principal donors and enablers to the Ethiopian regime such as the United States, England, and other European powers postponing actions of stopping genocide and instability in Oromia and other targeted regions of Ethiopia´s south?

Before Christianity and Islam took hold in the subregion, Oromo people believed in Waaqayyo, the all-knowing monolithic black God. According to the teachings of Waaqefanna, the Oromo religion, the power of Waaqayyo is manifested to humans through a spiritual leader called Abba Muudaa. Oromo people, who trace their common ancestry to one father, consider Mada Walabu their prime place of origin. Located in the Bale zone, Mada Walabu, not too far from Dire Sheik Hussein, was once the site of Abba Muudaa where adherents made similar pilgrimage. Up until the arrival of missionaries, Sheik Hussein and Sof Umer among them, Waaqefanna was the main religion in the area. The pilgrimage, Muudaa, was also once an Oromo religious voyage. The Sufi Islamic missionaries came and introduced Islam while maintaining most of the preexisting rituals. Although Sheik Hussein was a Sufi missionary, the Sunni's started going to Muudaa until the emergence of Salafists in 1970's – when the practice saw some decline.

Social scientists have been grappling with the question of why post-colonial Africa has failed to achieve any semblance of democracy, peace, stability and development. People have looked for solutions and paradigms everywhere, including state-building based on Western concepts of democracy. Nevertheless "changes" in the desired directions remain elusive. The aim of this paper is to review a book whose author attempts to provide answers to the predicaments within current political systems in Africa, and to the uneasy relationships between western social sciences and grand African social issues.

At unprecedented rates than ever in the history of the colonization and oppression of the Oromo people, an ethno-racist Tigrean-elite led Ethiopian state is cracking down on Oromos from all walks of life natzi-style, amassing them into military camps, prisons and torturing and killing them without traces every passing day. Human rights groups cannot even keep up with the enormity of the situation as millions of Oromo and the south are wasted away in the empire. In response to the Oromiawide gross human rights violations, the International Oromo Youth Association launched a creative We the People Petition, asking the United States government , "to stop supporting dictator and state-terrorist Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia" and all his natzi institutions of repression and control.

Why is ´land grab´ both a structural and personal violence? Think of what you can buy with 40 cents if you walk into a grocery store in the U.S., or Europe? Will you be able to buy a piece of candy with 40 cents? Probably not! But if you go to Africa, you can buy an acre of land for money as small as 40 cents for a 99 years stretch of time into the future in countries like Ethiopia from dictators. This can be framed as ´the structural violence of globalization superimposed on local ethnic-racism against indigenous peoples such as the Oromo in Ethiopia. Violence is of two types (Galtung, 1969): one in which elites deploy soldiers and police and kill people directly—termed ´direct violence´ and another in which they create a system of perpetual unequal relationship between power-wielding minorities and the vast majority of peoples—termed ´structural violence.´ It is structural because states and corporations follow it at faceless policy levels.

Using the politics and power of human rights theoretical lenses, this paper examines why and how the Ethiopian security forces pursue civilian Oromo refugees into several neighboring countries of the East African region (Kenya, Djibouti, Puntland and Somalia). How do these human rights violations by state security forces and hitmen compare to regional and international conventions, treaties and legal instruments for refugees? What are the politics surrounding the institutions involved in ostensibly protecting human (refugee) rights in the region? I argue that interstate system in East Africa have come to exploit certain loopholes/exceptions in the regional and international systems to allow states to flagrantly disregard or violate major conventions and treaties they are signatories to regarding protecting civilians refugees caught between the crossfire of rebels, opposition parties and governments. The question is not whether or not the regimes violate human rights because they obviously do. A better question is: how can one state get into another sovereign state in order to retrieve and refoul UNHCR-mandated and certified refugees without habeas corpus? And who should take the responsibility?

This article discusses warning signs of collective violence with a view to helping the UN make timely and effective decisions to prevent civil war, genocide, ethnic-cleansing and political violence in Oromia, Gambella, Ogaden and Addis Ababa regions in Ethiopia.

According to recent reports obtained by HRLHA from its correspondents in Sana´a, Yemen, about 300 (three hundred) refugees from Ethiopia are currently languishing in an underground detention camp in Jawazat locality in the city of Sana´a. The detainees have been subjected to a high health risk resulting from suffocations and over-crowdedness in the underground prison.

Why does Columbia University continue the tradition of inviting some of our world's worst and most controvertial dictators of all time? In 2007, it was the Iranian President Ahmadinejad who spoke at Columbia University. This year it is Ethiopia's Prime Minster who is schedule to speak at Columbia on September 22,2010. Like so many Oromians and Ethiopians in Ethiopia and around the world, I am dismayed and offended by your invitation of Prime Minster Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia to speak at "The World Leaders Forum." This invitation will have serious moral and ethical consequences for Columbia University. Inviting Meles Zenawi to speak at Columbia University is tantamount to inviting Adolf Hitler, Iranian president Ahmadinejad, Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan or the surviving leaders of Khmer Rouge of Cambodia who in their respective countries like Zenawi masterminded genocide and crimes against humanity...

The new book elucidates the reasons for the confrontation between the nationalisms of the dominant Ethiopian elites and that of the colonized peoples such as the Oromo people. Jalata meticulously and powerfully examines contentious and original notions such as whether there can be racism between people of the same color and why Ethiopia failed to transform itself from an archaic empire to a sustainable country.

Muuxannoo biyyoota Aafrikaa baay'ee kan baroota bilisummaa duraa yoo laalle, qabsoon nagaa kan karaawwan dipilomaasii, hiriira nagaa, filannoowwaniifi balaaleeffannaa jaarmiyaalee hawaasaatiin mootummaa gitabittuu kamirrattuu geggeeffamu barbaachiisaa haata'uyyuu malee kophaa isaa mirga hiree murteeffanna argamisiisuu hindanda'u.

Thirteen of them were sentenced to 10-13 years in prison. One of them, Mesfin Abebe Abdissa (Engineer) was sentenced to death, while the court meted out life imprisonments to others--Mesfin Ittana and Tesfahun Chamada (Engineer).

Ethiopia´s minority ruling Tigire People´s Liberation Front´s (TPLF) kangaroo court meted out death sentences and life imprisonments to scores of Oromo political prisoners on the eve of the Easter holiday, but some Euro-American yellow journalists pretended that did not happen. I ran a Google News search on this event to see if BBC,Reuters, AP, AFP and Times reporters on the ground in Ethiopia reported on these tragic government-sponsored mass slaughters. The search returned no result for the listed Western media at the time. As I already suspected the possible involvements of the yellow journalists with the brutal minority Ethiopian regime, the search returned no news article or video results.

Kutaa 1: Oromummaafi Tokkummaa Oromoo Ija Amantiiwwan Oromootiin. Namoonni garee kana jalatti dhiyeessan hayyoota amantii Waqeffataa Isilaamaafi Kiristaanaati. Yaanni isaan dhiyeessanis waa´ee ga´eewwan amantiiwwan gurguddoon Oromoo kun sadan Oromummaafi tokkummaa Oromoo ijaaruu keessatti qabacha turan/jirani. Dubbattoonni garee tokkoffaa amantii Waqeffannaarraa Obbo Lammii Shuunaa, amantii Islaamaarraa Dr. Abdulsamad Amayyaafi kan Kiristaanummaarraa ergaa vidiyootiin Rev Dr. Gemechu Olaanaa turani. Kutaa kana jalatti Adde Xahaayi Wadajoofi Obbo Jawaar Mahaamad dhimmoota aadaafi siyaasarratti walduraaduubaan dubbatani. Kutaa 2: Filannoo Itoophiyaa kan Caamsaa 2010fi Dhimmoota Saamicha Lafa Oromoo. Kutaa kana keessatti, namoonni dubbatan Dai´eel Ayyaanaa (Ph.D.), Gulumaa Gammadaa (Ph.D. rakkoo xiyyaaratiif jedhe hinargamine jedhan). Haile Hirpha (Ph.D.fi Hayyuduree OSA) dhimma saamicha lafa Oromoo irratti dubbatani.

"There is no Ethiopia without Oromia, yet the empire continues to oppress the Oromo people," said a group composed of prominent Oromo political, religious and academic leaders at an annual international conference on human rights organized by the Oromo-American Citizens Council, a Minnesota civil society organization established to raise awareness and to advocate against human rights abuses in Ethiopia on behalf of an estimated population of 15,000 Oromo living in the State of Minnesota.

Embracing 11 official languages is one of the major breakthroughs that South Africa has achieved after the fall of apartheid and its transition to democracy in 1994.South Africa rightly prides itself on its linguistic and cultural diversity. See salanguages.com for a complete list of the South African official languages. In a sharp contrast to the progress in South Africa, successive Ethiopian regimes have violently suppressed the popular demand for more major official languages. Ethiopia remains a one-official-language country; that language is Amharic and is spoken by 32.7% (1994 census) of the country´s population, largely by ethnic Amhara.

Cabaarratti baqaqaa... Kan baroota 1990'ootatiin walbira qabinee yoo laalle, guddinni muuziqaa Oromoo baay'inaan dabalaa haa deemuyyu malee, dhiphachuun dhaamsoota ijoo (themes) muziqaa baranee keessatti mul'achaa jiru, dhabbanne aadaafi aartiin keenya eessa dhaqaa akka jiran akka xiinxallu nu tolcha.

***How are key internal actors in Ethiopia big factors in denying freedom and democracy in Ethiopia? ***Will the ruling EPRDF/TPLF government use the upcoming elections to further legitimize its stranglehold on 93 % of Ethiopians? Five years, hundreds of dead bodies, thousands of imprisonments, disappearances, evictions and land confiscations later after the 2005 parliamentary elections , Ethiopia is yet to stage other sham elections for its total seats of 547 in the House People´s Representative— commonly known as ´national parliament´—in May 210.

Amma dhaabbileen siyaasa maqaa ABO himachuun sosso'an sadan rakkina tokkummaa isaanii hiikkatanii akkuma waadaa galanitti uummatatti haala amansiisaadhaan gadi ba'anitti, uummanni Oromoo biyya keessatti karaa nagaa mootummaa Itoophiyaa filannoodhaan morumuuf warra hojjechaa jiran karaa danda'ameef maraa gargaaruu qaba.

If in your country academic freedom and the freedom of expression are guaranteed or respected , please pay attention to this article for you may not know what you have taken for granted. I recommed you read the comments at the end of the interview carefully and see the mindset and the war of words among opposing groups of people on issues. The comments are very revealing of the enormous amount of intolerance that exists in the current Ethiopian empire between the opressors and the opressed or more blantly the colonizer and the colonized peoples in Ethiopia. The support for and brutal verbal attacks agaisnt Dibaba symoblizes the harsh conditions under which Oromo live for expressing their scholastic and artistic views.

This article tries to generally explore the nexus between conflict and climate change and vice versa in Africa. In so doing, it uses US President Barrack Obama´s Accra speech as a point of entry. It cites concrete examples from some Horn of African countries and localities. "Africa gives off less greenhouse than any other part of the world, but it is the most threatened by climate change. A warming climate will spread disease, shrink water resources, and deplete crops, creating conditions that produce more famine and conflict," stated Barack Obama in his first speech to the sub-Saharan Africa as the President of the United States of America from Ghana, Accra.

As an exiled Oromo living in the United States, I understand and appreciate American people's celebration of the Independence day. Beyond every glamorous celebration, there are always heroes in any free society, who sacrificed their lives, property, knowledge and skills for freedom and justice.

This article will propose the creation of a three-state solution to the political standoff in Ethiopia. The creation of a three-state solution will undoubtedly end Abyssinians colonialism and ethno-racism in Ethiopia and in the larger Horn of Africa. This, in turn, will contribute to enduring peace and development in the region.

Action Professionals Association for the People (APAP), a non-governmental organization, has released a new pollution and impact assessment report for rivers Akaki and Mojo in Oromia, Ethiopia. Based on laboratory analyses of toxic industrial chemicals in the river waters and clinical data of people affected, the APAP study reveals that the two rivers are the most polluted water bodies on earth by any standard. The report says the pollution of the rivers have put the lives of an estimated 150-200,000 rural population in peril. Industrial chemicals, heavy metals, organic pollutants, which are said to severely impair water quality, have been discovered in the waters. The rivers under study were once sources of fresh, clean and safe drinking water for thousands.

I wanted to look at what Obama folks have accomplished to solve the African policy conundrum in their first hundred days in office. Practically, nothing. I am not aware of any major campaigns by the African Diaspora or African interest groups with the exception of Save Darfur Coalition that had agenda for the President in an effort to hit the ground running. Rather a whole host of expectations that the Obama people would be favorable in their approach towards African issues; hunger, poverty, HIV/AIDS, corruption, democracy, regional peace and stability etc. that are not addressed. There is no doubt that the financial meltdown and the many challenges Obama has inherited from his predecessor has overshadowed his African and other policy initiatives [IV]. But it seems to me that the no-drama Obama team could have done a lot better if they moved "swiftly and quickly" as they have promised us - the enthusiastic supporters.

The International Oromo Youth Association (IOYA), an umbrella organization for Oromo youth around the the world, marched in Washington DC, protesting Ethiopian government's toruture and kilings directed against the Oromo people and other non-ruling populations in South Ethiopia. The demonstrators highlighted that Ethiopia has passed laws criminalizing the activities of human rights and civil society organizations throughout the country.

Most elite athletes who have made Ethiopia globally famous come from the extremely repressed Oromo people of Ethiopia. Their winning credits usually go to the same repressive regime that leverages the athletes' victories to build Ethiopia's national image in favour of the ruling ethnic group.

The Horn of Africa has recently seen renewed interest from several competing global economic powers including China, Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Brazil. Part of these nations´ attraction to the region seems to be the region´s richness in oil, minerals, overseas farmlands, its being an ideal arms deal and piracy destination, as well the strategic importance of the region for military purposes. For these reasons, the Obama Administration has every responsibility to synchronize US policy and interests in the region with democratization and stability. Experts on the Horn of Africa in the fields of conflict resolution, international affairs, history, global studies and politics have analyzed the scenarios of US policy under the Obama Administration at a conference organized by the Oromo Studies Association (OSA) in Washington D.C, Howard University.

Americans and the rest of the west must start to be outraged by the mismanagement of their donated tax money in Africa. Literally, African leaders are rewarded bonuses for their evil deeds, just like the CEOs of the AIG. The western public needs to respond with the same outrage to funds that have been rewarded to Ethiopian and Sudanese leaders, with no effect on the hungry and destitute millions.

The pleasure of seeing one's language go global has been what, I think ,made the voluntary translation a huge success for Google. Often, poor people have dovote hours and years of translation for Goolge without compensation. Imagine marathon human translators in Africa, making sacrifices for Google and themselves. Within countries, I have witnessed groups competing to make their own languages go global and technological on Google.

In Oromiya regional administration, west Shawa Zone, government forces killed Wondimu Damana, a 12th grade Gedo High School student. The soldiers also injured Belay Motuma and another female student.

The focus of this piece is to highlight how the selfish, unethical, and eco-hostile Euro-Arab ´investment´ in collaboration with tyrannical and genocidal Horn of African regimes is leading to apocalyptic and irreversible disasters on the environment, human lives and wild lives.

Television pundits and reporters have approached Obama´s presidential speech from almost every angle, but I feel that pundits glossed over a part of his speech, where he warns dictators, perpetrators of genocide across the world. The lines from his speech I quoted above mean a lot to the people of some African countries, suffering under brutal dictatorships and ethnically motivated ongoing genocides and exclusions from national economies and benefits of citizenship.

If the visionary founders of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) such as H.M Haile Silassie of the Empire of Ethiopia, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and General Abdul Nasser of Egypt etc., who were also deeply rooted in African philosophy and politics of liberation, were to watch over the recent African Union (AU) leaders, would they ridicule and scoff at them for letting the continent fall apart in front of their eyes?

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," Martin Luther King Jr. I have a reason I started my article with a famous quote from Martin Luther King, the icon of African-American Civil Rights Movement. The quote captures for me the essence of what the mainstream western media such as the BBC fail to do when they give imbalanced coverage of political and economic crises in two equally despotic African nations, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. I am more interested in why Zimbabwe makes more headlines than Ethiopia, while famine and conflict are hitting millions of people that can exceed the total population of Zimbabwe in Ethiopia. Why do media like the BBC get obsessed with holding Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe responsible for the economic crises, cholera outbreak, but fail to hold his type Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia responsible for the famine and the conflict in Oromia and the rest of Ethiopia? What is in Zimbabwe that attracts western media that is not in Ethiopia? I will try to answer some of these questions and leave others to you to ponder.

The past weekend, the Oromo community in Washington DC deliberated on a number of issues: gross human rights violation of the Oromo people in Ethiopia and in East African countries, internal affairs of strengthening the coalition amongst Oromo opposition parties to challenge the regime and lobbying western governments to discontinue supporting the Ethiopian regime.

While we know that Oromo hip hop and spoken word art are widely spread and well known to the Oromo youth in the Diaspora, it is hard to tell how these forms of arts are likely to be received by the older generation of the Oromo Diaspora and population at home. While some youth in urban areas will have some idea about rap music in Oromia, the older generation and the village folks will not have any idea weather this genre is a song or not. Regardless of anticipated resistance to this genre, Oromo hip hop artists must realize that they are doing excellent jobs in effectively communicating messages human rights advocacy that help in the search for justice and freedom in Oromia .

At the event Tahiro was showcasing and explaining his spectacular work of art to the audience. Tahiro considers himself mainly as a digital science artist. He classifies his digital arts into three: design, abstract and nature. He explores various subjects in the areas, including global warming, forests set on fire in Oromia in Ethiopia, space exploration arts of the moon and mars. "I view my artwork as my ultimate discovery," said Tahiro.

Wayessa spokes about the importance of films to encourage cross-cultural commutations and understanding amongst parties in conflict. He stressed that this film will provide an opportunity for ruling Ethiopian groups to look at themselves from the point of view "others" construct for them. He envisions the film to serve the transcendental purpose of awakening humans from the dangers of narcissistic self-obsession that has been the tradition for far too long.

Amidst the already rampant gross violations against media and media workers, Ethiopia selectively removed the only Oromo language television broadcast off air on September 12, 2008. Sources from Finfinne (Addis Ababa), speaking on conditions of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said that police barred several dozens of journalists and staff from entering the premises of Ethiopian Television and then put them under custody. The exact number of journalists and staff under arrest is still unknown. However, one source said their number can be 40 to 50, while another source said the number of those arrested and put under surveillance could reach 60. These journalists and staff were immediately told they were fired.

In this article, I will accomplish one simple task of showing how political organizations which prefix the words "Ethiopia´´ and "Unity" to their names engage in conspiracy and counter- conspiracy campaigns against others who do not have those prefixes. This is the anti-thesis of their ostensible goals of bringing about unity, democracy and justice in Ethiopia. It is worthwhile to do so because these political organizations are spreading confusion and misinformation to the international community as well as to the nations and nationalities they claim to represent. These confusions and the divisions within Ethiopian political organizations have made it difficult to create a viable and genuine alliance between organizations representing different groups. It has also made it difficult for donors, the international community and continental supporters to rally behind these organizations.

The president of Macha and Tulama Association (MTA), Mr. Dirribi Bokku, who came to the United States, Minnesota, to make a keynote address at the 22nd Oromo Studies Association annual conference, exposes assaults against himself and the Civic Society Organization (CSO) he is leading. 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".