



Ethiopia: Seb-Hidri Tigray Civil Society Press Release – On The On-going Humanitarian Crisis and Genocide in Tigray (21.02.2021)










Jawar Mohammed, Bekele Gerba, Hamza Borana and other Oromo political prisoners are on their 24th day of a hunger strike in Kaliti Federal Prison. They are all in critical condition.
DEMANDS:
1. Release All Oromo Political Prisoners.
2. Allow Oromo political party offices to be opened and to operate fully.
3. End mistreatment of families of political prisoners while they visit their loved ones at Kaliti Prison and elsewhere.









The Oromo Studies Association (OSA) offers this urgent message to Oromo political prisoners detained unjustly in Ethiopia. You have resorted to put your lives on the line through a hunger strike to make your voices (and all Oromo voices including ours) heard inside the country and in the public arena. Your voices were now silenced at a critical time. Yet today you are heard.
You are our fellow OSA members, our former President, 2015 Keynote Speaker and 2016 and 2018 conference presenters together with 22 fellow prisoners who are also victims of erasure. We hear you loud and clear. We are all trying to ensure that the world hears you loud and clear. We wholeheartedly support your just demand that the Ethiopian government release you, putting an end to the lethal delaying tactics of “due process” and the creation of bogus charges. Your actions have waked the world to the stakes of using state power to eliminate the participation of millions in the political process.
OSA members share your strong commitment to the movement to bring democracy to Ethiopia. We share your belief that fundamental human rights are the building blocks of democratic governance systems and that no just society can be built on any other foundation. We are committed to do everything in our power to protect these rights in deed as well as in word.
We wholeheartedly join with you in pursuing each of the demands you have identified.
Here is our appeal to you now, as you are in the third and possibly deadly week of this hunger strike – please know that we struggle with you, that we feel the enormous frustration over the injustice, outrage at the disenfranchisement and fury at being erased by a government brought to power through our sacrifices. We understand that you are willing and committed to die to bring resolution of these staggering obstacles. In the face of this we urge you to acknowledge that the enormous changes we all demand together will require longer than your life span on this trajectory.
We ask you to pause the hunger strike and take sustenance while we all continue to work full speed ahead to achieve the objectives of the strike.
Your good health and well-being are public assets to the Oromo people and also for all other marginalized peoples in Ethiopian whose participation in the political process is obstructed. We need to fight this battle together with urgency. We believe that your experience is irreplaceable as is your dedication to the Oromo struggle. All of you provide a moral uplift for the Oromo struggle. We plead with you to suspend this action while we appeal to the Government of Ethiopia with the assistance of the United States, the EU, the UN, the AU, and private groups to ensure that these demands can be met in full.
Oromo Studies Association (OSA)
February 18, 2021
Background:
Demands of Oromo Political Prisoners on Hunger Strike
February 12, Day 16 of Hunger Strike at Kaliti Federal Prison
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Jawar Mohammed, Bekele Gerba, Hamza Borana and other Oromo political prisoners are on their 16th day of a hunger strike in Kaliti Federal Prison. They are all in critical condition. Five of the strikers are hospitalized, and all of them have developed kidney problems.
The prisoners asserted that they started this hunger strike because of a worsening political condition and the derailed transition to democracy.
The Oromo political prisoners put their demands as follow:
1. Release All Oromo Political Prisoners.
Jails and prisons are full of Oromos, more than any other group in the country. Currently there are more than 50,000 Oromo political prisoners in Ethiopia. In Kaliti alone there are more than 5,000 Oromo political prisoners, constituting 90% of the nation’s entire prisoners.
There are also more than 30 Oromo political prisoners in Ethiopia who returned from different parts of the world following the 2018 promised transition to democracy. Among the returnees are high ranking officials of the OLF & OFC, including the most influential young political figure from the U.S, Jawar Mohammed.
Therefore, release all prisoners of conscience languishing in Ethiopian jails and prisons, of which the overwhelming majority are Oromo political prisoners.
2. Allow Oromo political party offices to be opened and to operate fully.
More than 103 offices of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) across the country, including the HQ in Finfinne, have been closed by the government. More than 90 Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) offices across Oromia are also now closed by the government.
The ruling party must stop the alienation and systematic disenfranchisement of the Oromo Nation from political participation in the country. Government must allow Oromo media TV station offices that were closed and their licenses suspended to be reinstated and to resume operations. We also demand that they organize an all-inclusive national dialogue before the national election.
The government must open up and widen the political space in order to bring the derailed transition back on track, so that all who have a vision for the betterment of Ethiopia could participate in a free and fair election.
Hence, the hunger strikers demand is to open and allow opposition political parties offices to operate. Stop the alienation, systematic disenfranchisement and to open up the political space equally for all.
3. End Mistreatment of Families of Political Prisoners.
Government security forces must end mistreatment of political prisoners while they visit their loved ones at Kaliti Prison and elsewhere. End any inhumane treatment of prisoners under custody or under investigation.



This month the Eritrean President Isias Afwerki had an interview on State-Owned Eri-TV on the 7th February 2021. The broadcast is intended to be a piece to “whitewash” and be “good reasons” for the involvement of Eritrea in the Tigray conflict. As one of the allies of Addis Ababa after the leadership of Mekelle. That is clear that Asmara and Addis had co-operate in time and held meetings to prepare for the warfare in the region. This has been reported on as well.
Afwerki is doing the same bidding as Prime Minister Ahmed Ali Abiy. Who has used same sort of story to validate the attacks. While it has later been proven that the Ethiopian troops suddenly moved across to Eritrean bases. There was also proven reporting from Addis Standard in January 2021 that Amhara regional government and actors was prepared ahead of war. Not like they we’re suddenly ambushed and hadn’t stationed troops ahead of the early November attack by Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Who they are making as the devils here.
Yes, to set the record straight. TPLF have been the tormentor of old, they have been vicious, vindictive and destructive. The TPLF as a government has atrocities and blood on their hands. I been a vocal critic of how they operated as a key part of the Ethiopian Democratic People’s Revolutionary Front (EDPRF) coalition government. However, that does not stop me from attacking the injustice and lies of the present day government (Prosperity Party) and its Eritrean allies. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it. That is how I see the world. So, don’t think I am in favour of TPLF, but I call out lies when I see them.
President Isias Afwerki highlights:
“That President Isaias had expressly asked Debretzion, Acting President of the Tigray Region – in the brief meeting in Omhager, why the TPLF was making huge preparations for a senseless war; Against this backdrop, no body imagined that the TPLF would resort to such unprecedented and reckless move to attack the Northern Command of the Ethiopian Defense Forces (EDF) in early November. This was inexplicable and mind boggling but borne out of miscalculation as is often the case with most wars. TPLF plan was to neutralize the 32,000 Contingent – one-third of which were affiliated with the TPLF and topple the Federal Government. Part of this plan was subsequent invasion of Eritrea” (Shabait – ‘Highlights of Interview with President Isaias Afwerki’ 18.02.2021).
We are seeing his playing the same game as the Prosperity Party and PM Abiy have said in the past. They are holding on to the same narrative before the invasion and direct attacks in Tigray. Tigray was already ostracises and been shunned by the Federal Government in the months ahead. They had even called the September election 2020 “unconstitutional”. While the state “suspended” theirs and had started their unconstitutional 6th Year in the House of Federation (HoF). So, it is always rich of them say this.
However, there are more evidence that Afwerki and Abiy is lying about how it started. As these stories doesn’t connect with reporting. Both what Mesfin wrote in December 2020 and what Addis Standard stated in January 2021. That is why I taken passages from there to prove my points.
Eritrean Involvement in Tigray:
“Abiy did not disclose to the Ethiopian public and international community that even more federal troops were airlifted into Eritrea following the outbreak of conflict on November 4. In the 48 hours before TPLF’s bombing of Asmara on November 14, local sources counted close to 30 military airplanes flying in thousands of soldiers from Ethiopia. Subsequent flights transported more soldiers into the Eritrean seaports of Massawa and Asseb. The Prime Minister also hid from the world the Eritrean military’s direct involvement in combat along the entire border that Eritrea shares with Tigray regional state as well as inside Tigray. The following information is pieced together from three different sources: first, reliable sources inside the Eritrean Ministry of Defense; second, Eritrean opposition intelligence sources in Sudan and Ethiopia; and finally, anecdotal pieces communicated from friends and relatives, including some academic researchers” (Mesfin Hagos – ‘Eritrea’s Role in Ethiopia’s Conflict and the Fate of Eritrean Refugees in Ethiopia’ 04.12.2020, World Peace Foundation:
Commissioner Abere Adamu said:
“Because it is history let me tell you what happened during this time. At the time, Amhara region police and Temesgen [Tiruneh] who was the president of the Amhara Region, already knew that this thing was going to happen, especially TPLF’s preparation, as they were next door to us. Therefore we have already done our homework, and accordingly deployment of forces had taken place in our borders from east to west. The war started that night after we have already completed our preparations” (Addis Standard, 04.01.2021)
As Adamu continues:
““What we have talked about was, because it is now in the past, let me make it clear for you today: what we discussed was that we had communication with those from within; with whom we had close relations, especially with those members of the Mechanized Forces stationed near Humera; we had relations with them and we have already studied how to retrieve the force to come to us if something happened. So when I and Assistant commissioner Biset say “according to what we discussed” we understand what we were saying. So he told me “things are going as we discussed.” What it meant was to make members of the steel-clad mechanized Special Forces to come to us under the protection of our Special Forces, and after they reached us, to commander them to turn back to face the enemy. So he asked me “they are coming, what do I do with them?” so I told him to divert them back face the enemy; he did it. The armored mechanized members that we provided protection and retrieved from there provided protection for our forces and the foot soldiers marched in. You all know what happened next. This is how the war started; this was the day” (Addis Standard, 04.01.2021).
For me as I see it. The reporting on the flights across with troops from Ethiopia into Eritrea tell me it was preplanned ahead of time. You cannot move troops in the blink of an eye and especially not 30 planes in-coordination. Also, the mechanized brigades and soldiers-on-foot in Amhara region as well. Both of these manoeuvrers proves there was underlying intent. Either the TPLF would attack the Northern Command or not. The Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF), Amhara Para-Military (Fano) and Eritrean National Army (ENA) was all prepared ahead of time.
Therefore, the blame-game of TPLF is just a fitting one. Because, to make the previous tenants of power the villains is easy. As they have done so much and caused so much horrific harm in the past. That they can easily be transformed to devious people now too. Even, when the most cunning ones are the one currently in power. That is the reality of it all and Afwerki trying to sell that story. Which the Prosperity Party and Addis has been selling for months. Since that fits them in a glove and gives them a reason. Though, when you look into it. It isn’t that truthful and its a lie. A lie they deserved to be called out for. Especially, when there is such proof of their ways. Peace.
Reference:
Addis Standard – ‘NEWS ANALYSIS: AMHARA REGION POLICE CHIEF REVEALS HOW REGION’S POLICE FORCE GUIDED FEDERAL STEEL-CLAD MECHANIZED FORCES TO JOIN “WAR” IN TIGRAY’ 04.01.2021 link: https://addisstandard.com/news-analysis-amhara-region-police-chief-reveals-how-regions-police-force-guided-federal-steel-clad-mechanized-forces-to-join-war-in-tigray/