Falls Church, Virginia (12/17/2021) — Today, the United Nations Human Rights Council (Council) held a special session on the grave human rights situation in Ethiopia. During this session, the Council voted to adopt a resolution on Ethiopia by a vote of 21Y-15N-11A. This resolution acknowledges that violations of human rights “have continued to be committed by all parties across a number of regions in Ethiopia, including Afar, Amhara, Oromia and Tigray” since the start of the conflict in northern Ethiopia in November 2020. It also establishes an international commission of human rights experts on Ethiopia charged with conducting “thorough and impartial investigation into allegations of violations and abuses of international human rights law and violations of international humanitarian law and international refugee law in Ethiopia, committed since 3 November 2020 by all parties to the conflict”.
OLLAA supports the content of this resolution, and applauds the Council’s decision to adopt it. However, we believe that the investigation will be too narrow in scope to address the root causes of instability across Ethiopia. OLLAA believes that the conflict in Tigray and other northern regions of Ethiopia is not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of volatile and repressive tactics utilized by both the current and former governments that affect most of Ethiopia’s ethnic communities including the Oromo, Kemant, Benishangul, Afar, Gambela, Agaw, Sidama and Somali. Prior to the session, OLLAA submitted a letter to the EU Delegation to the UN outlining these concerns, and we will continue to call on the Council to expand the scope of the investigation to include all allegations of human rights abuses perpetrated across Ethiopia since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018.
OLLAA is an umbrella organization that represents dozens of Oromo communities around the world.