Secretary Antony Blinken’s trip to Ethiopia Must Pay Attention to the War in Oromia

HRLHA’s Appeal March 13, 2023 The US Department of State announced on March 10, 2023, Secretary Blinken will visit Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on March 15, 2023, where he will discuss with government officials the implementation of the cessation of hostilities agreement to advance peace and promote transitional justice in northern Ethiopia. HRLHA welcomes the US government’s continued commitment to restoring peace and security to northern Ethiopia. In particular, we greatly appreciate secretary Blinken’s significant contribution to bringing an end to the two-year conflict between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government forces and their allies in which thousands of people have died, millions have been displaced, and thousands have been subjected to severe human rights violations of all kinds. However, Secretary Bilnken’s trip, which focused to resolve the northern conflict alone, could not bring peace and security to the whole country while currently, a full-fledged war is going on in Oromia Regional State (the largest region in both size and population) between the Oromo Libration Army and government forces. As the war in Tigray has been agreed to a ceasefire in November 2022, in Pretoria, South Africa, the war front has been shifted to the western, southern, and central Oromia regional State. In Oromia, drone strikes, armed attacks targeting civilians, and other violations of human rights have continued to take place. The current conflict in Oromia started after the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) returned from exile in mid-2018. The failure of the government of Ethiopia to fully implement Asmara’s agreement with the OLF prompted the Oromo Liberation Army (OLF’s military wing) to split from the latter and pursued an armed struggle for the full realization of Oromia’s right to self-determination, as it claims. In the past three years, while the international community’s attention was accentuating the conflict in northern Ethiopia, regrettably, the war in Oromia has been ignored and is not getting the attention it deserves. Due to the unfolding armed conflict, civilians in Oromia have been undergoing gross violations of human rights and dire humanitarian crises.  Dozens of senior OLF officials, and thousands of Oromo political dissents, and activists have been undergoing unlawful detention in the pretext of supporting the Oromo Liberation Army. In addition, extrajudicial executions of detainees, and pillages of civilians’ homes and property are widespread across the region. HRLHA warmly welcomes secretary Blinken to Ethiopia and appeals to HE to urge the Government of Ethiopia:

• To unconditionally and immediately start peace talk with Oromo Liberation Army to end the war in Oromia, which has started in 2019 and continued unabated to date.
• To unconditionally release all arbitrarily detained officials, members, and supporters of the OLF that have been languishing in different official and unofficial detention centers.
• To stop politically motivated arrests, killings, forceful disappearance and pillage of civilians and political dissents with a pretext of supporting the Oromo Liberation Army
• To urge the Government to devise an all-inclusive political dialogue followed by a transitional government that paves the room for a transitional justice process across the country in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation.
• To collaborate with the International Commission of Human Rights Experts in Ethiopia to conduct an investigation into violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in the two years long the Tigray war, and to support the UN Human Rights Council to extend the commission’s mandate to cover all conflict zones of Oromia region.