This report is part of OLLAA’s monthly report series documenting the ongoing pattern of human rights abuses perpetrated against Oromo civilians, both inside Ethiopia and throughout the world. These reports also document the humanitarian situation inside Oromia, including the effects of the drought and conflict on civilians.
Violence Against Civilians:
Hawas Mato Borra – Gada leader of Karayu Oromo, Photo Credit: Addis Standard
During the month of March, OLLAA received multiple reports of attacks against Oromo civilians committed by both state agents and non-state armed actors. For example, in mid-March, it was reported that Amhara militants and fano had been crossing the border in order to perpetrate a series of attacks against Oromo civilians. According to the report, the latest attacks occurred in Fiixa Baqqoo, Angar Guutee, Haroo, and Giddaa Ayyaanaa in the East Wollega zone and Abee Dongoroo, Wobaancii, Amuruu Cidhatti, and Agamsa town in the Horo Guduru Wollega zone. On March 12th, Hawas Mato Borra–a leader of the Karayu Oromos who survived the 2021 massacre–was reportedly shot and killed by “Amhara militants” as he was herding cattle in the Fantaalle district of the East Shewa zone.
Multiple reports of clashes between communities at the border of the Oromia and Somali regions also emerged during the month of March. In one instance, it was reported that at least seven civilians had died during an attack near the Tulu Guled district of the East Hararghe zone on March 14th. One resident of the area told reporters that Oromia regional special forces and local militias were involved in the attacks.
Escalating Tensions in the Guji and Borana Zones
Protests in Guji Zone, Oromia. Photo Source: Facebook
On February 27, 2023, the Oromia regional government announced that it would be restructuring the Oromia region, which would lead to the creation of a new zone, called “East Borana.” This new zone would be made up of 10 districts that were formerly part of the Borana, Guji, and Bale zones. Since the announcement was made, there have been ongoing protests throughout the Guji zone, particularly because residents felt they were not consulted by relevant bodies during the decision-making process. There have been reports of abuses and the excessive use of force by Ethiopian security forces since the protests began. One resident told reporters that “Four people were shot and three died in the Bore district. I also have information that one person was hospitalized after being beaten by police in Adola Wayu district. Many have been arrested.”
Unfortunately, tensions between the Borana Oromos and Guji Oromos appear to have risen in recent weeks related to the redistricting, and there have been numerous posts circulating on social media calling for violence, including calls for attacks on anyone who refers to the headquarter of East Borana as Nagelle Borana. In response to these escalating tensions, OLLAA issued a statement urging all community members to remain calm and to refrain from acts of violence or from issuing calls that incite violence. OLLAA also called on the government of Ethiopia to take measures to calm tensions in the area.
Calls for Peace in Oromia:
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Photo Credit: Addis Standard
Over the past few months, there have been growing calls for the Ethiopian government to enter into a peace agreement with the OLA, similar to the one that was reached with the TPLF in November 2022. Such calls continued throughout the month of March, when several members of the national parliament from the Oromia region sent a letter to the African Union, urging them to “intervene” and resolve the conflict between the Ethiopian government and the OLA. Meanwhile, the leaders of several opposition political parties walked out of a nationwide consultation on transitional justice, noting that such measures could not take place while there are ongoing conflicts throughout the country, including in Oromia. Lencho Letta, a retired Oromo politician, also issued a call for the Ethiopian government to remove the OLA from its list of designated terrorist organizations in order to lay the groundwork to “speak with the fighters with the aim to negotiate and solved the conflict in Oromia through dialogue.”
Most importantly, there continued to be signals from the Ethiopian federal government and the OLA that they may be open to finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict. On March 28th, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appeared before the House of People’s Representatives, where he was questioned by two members of parliament on whether any efforts had been made to resolve the conflict in Oromia. In his response, Prime Minister Abiy noted that his administration had “a high level of interest to resolve this conflict [with OLA] in peaceful terms,” that they had reportedly created a committee tasked with leading such a peace process, and that they had made at least 10 attempts to contact the OLA, although he continued to claim the group did not have a central command that would be capable of speaking for the group as a whole.
In response to the latest comments by Prime Minister Abiy, the OLA claimed that the 10 attempts at contact by the Ethiopian government were not “sincere efforts to engage with OLA leadership,” and were instead attempts to persuade OLA officers to surrender. They also responded to the claims that the OLA was not united, noting that, “the regime should not be attempting to develop a new propaganda narrative suggesting that the OLA is too decentralized to negotiate with,” and that, “the OLA’s leadership is the High Command”. Ultimately, the OLA noted that it remained committed to dialogue and said that “there are positive signs that peace talks, with appropriate neutral international third-party mediation, will take place.”
Humanitarian situation:
Borana zone, Photo Credit: OMN
The Oromia region of Ethiopia is currently experiencing a perilous humanitarian situation and increasing food insecurity due to multiple factors, including drought and conflict. On March 10, UN OCHA released its latest Drought Situation Update, which found that 6.85 million livestock had died since 2021 throughout the country. Of these, 4.64 million were from the Oromia region.
During the month of March, international attention was drawn to the particularly dire situation facing residents of the Borana zone, where it was reported that over 1.7 million livestock had died due to drought. Unfortunately, heavy rainfalls in late March led to flooding in the zone, causing more livestock deaths and affecting civilians who were already displaced by the drought. Unfortunately, some claims have emerged that humanitarian aid that was supposed to support the drought-affected Borana community was not reaching the victims, and was instead being sold.
It is important to note that the Borana zone is not the only zone in Oromia that has been gravely affected by the drought. For example, in March, it was reported that 23 people had died of starvation in an IDP camp composed of civilians who had been displaced from Goro Dola, East Guji zone and that civilians from Bale are facing extreme levels of food insecurity. Cholera continues to be a problem throughout the East Bale, Guji, and Borana zones of Oromia and the Daawa zone of the Somali region, with the latest reports finding that there have been 2,276 cases of cholera in those areas, alongside an associated 50 deaths.
International Responses:
United Nations
Human Rights Council at the European Headquarters of the United Nations, 2019. Photo Credit: Magali Girardin/Keystone via AP
The United Nations Human Rights Council held its 52nd session from February 27-April 4th. As part of this session, an Interactive Dialogue was held with the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE), an independent body tasked with investigating allegations of human rights abuses committed across Ethiopia since November 2020. During this dialogue, the ICHREE confirmed it was investigating alleged violations in the Tigray, Arar, Amhara, and Oromia regions of Ethiopia, and called for the international community not to forget the gravity and scale of violations that had been committed since November 2020.
As previously reported by OLLAA, the Ethiopian government had called for members of the Human Rights Council to vote to terminate the mandate of the ICHREE during the latest session. Ultimately, the Ethiopian government did not table the resolution that would have revoked the ICHREE’s mandate, owing to a lack of support from the various members of the HRC. This means that the ICHREE will be able to continue its mandate until at least September 2023.
United States
- Secretary Blinken’s Visit to Ethiopia
Secretary Blinken’s meeting with Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister on March 15, 2023, Photo Credit: REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri/Pool
In March, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken conducted a visit to Ethiopia. Prior to his visit, OLLAA’s staff held meetings with representatives from USAID and the U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. During these meetings, OLLAA spoke about the need for greater US engagement regarding the dire human rights and the humanitarian situation facing the Oromo throughout Ethiopia, for the US embassy to visit those areas most deeply affected by the drought, and for any transitional justice measures adopted to be truly inclusive.
During the course of Secretary Blinken’s visit to Ethiopia, he met with multiple officials and members of civil society, including Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the Minister of Finance, the signatories of the Pretoria peace agreement, and Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Although his visit primarily focused on the situation in northern Ethiopia, he did raise the situation in Oromia on two occasions. First, during his meeting with PM Abiy, he “expressed concerns about the situation in Oromia and the need for a resolution through dialogue.” During his Press Briefing, while discussing the need to implement an inclusive and comprehensive transitional justice process, he noted that “Overcoming poisonous grievances and ethnic divisions is the only way to break the cycle of political and ethnic violence in the north, in Oromia, or anywhere else.” Secretary Blinken also announced the provision of an additional $331m in humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia in order to “provide life-saving support to those displaced and affected by conflict, drought, and food insecurity,” and plans to put $1.975 million towards supporting “independent investigations of human rights atrocities and justice and accountability processes for alleged atrocities committed by all sides in Ethiopia.”
Following the visit, the United States Institute of Peace published an article on the next steps the US government should take to advance justice in Ethiopia. This article noted that the conflict in northern Ethiopia is not the sole conflict in the country, and that, “The central region of Oromia is seeing violence and human rights abuses in the conflict between the central government and the Oromo Liberation Army — and the same need to end violence and advance peace will apply there as in Tigray.”
- US State Department Releases 2022 Human Rights Report on Ethiopia
On March 20th, the US Department of State released its 2022 Human Rights Situation Report on Ethiopia. OLLAA was pleased to see that this report contained a far greater focus on the human rights situation in Oromia than previous reports, including reports of attacks on civilians, extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests and detentions, freedom of movement, internal displacement, gender-based violence, and the forcible recruitment of child soldiers. The report also explicitly recognized that multiple parties were responsible for the commission of human rights violations throughout the region. At the same time, we were concerned that there were a number of deficiencies in the report, which ultimately failed to include several key events that occurred throughout Oromia in 2022, including reports of drone strikes that led to the deaths of civilians.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The Oromo have faced systematic human rights abuses at the hands of multiple Ethiopian governments. Despite the repressive tactics they have faced for generations, they have, time and again, sacrificed their lives to advance human rights in Ethiopia, including by leading the peaceful protests that led to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power in 2018.
Unfortunately, over the last two years, the situation for the Oromo has only worsened, particularly following times of relative peace in northern Ethiopia. Since the signing of the peace agreement between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government in November 2022, there have been increasing reports of attacks against civilians, both by Ethiopian security forces and non-state armed actors. As documented above, these trends continued in March 2023.
Despite the growing body of evidence of a systematic pattern of human rights abuses being perpetrated against the Oromo, the plight of the Oromo continues to be ignored by the international community. OLLAA fears that the continued failure of the international community to pressure the Ethiopian government to protect human rights and seek a peaceful means to end the conflict inside Oromia will only lead to further loss of life and the destabilization of the entire Horn of Africa.
As such, OLLAA calls on the international community to:
- Condemn the human rights violations noted in this report, as well as all other credible allegations of human rights violations throughout the country;
- Consider launching independent investigations into reports of human rights violations committed inside Oromia and across the country, and support the work of the UN International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia;
- Pressure the Ethiopian government to find peaceful means to end the conflict in Oromia, as it has done with TPLF in northern Ethiopia;
- Ensure provision of humanitarian assistance to all who need it across Ethiopia, including inside Oromia;
- Ensure the Oromo are included in any transitional justice measures, including inclusive dialogue processes.