23 May 2006 - (The Sidama Concern) This week marks the fourth anniversary of Looqe massacre. It happened four years ago on 24 May 2002. In the morning of the same day, in the vicinity of known as Looqe, a small village few kilo meters from Hawassa (also known as awassa), over three thousand people, mostly Sidamas, took to the streets demanding the restoration of their basic human rights. The protest was peaceful and people carried none other than banners and green leaves as markers of peaceful intent. The Ethiopian EPRDF
government, unwilling to address the problems in a peaceful manner, resorted to violent repression and ordered its security forces to use live ammunition. Over a hundred peaceful demonstrators were slaughtered including school children. [Listen music] www.sidamaconcern.com
The incident was widely covered by the international media; human rights organisations expressed their concern. The World Organisation Against Torture condemned the attacks. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch deplored the use of excessive force. The EU demanded independent inquiry into this and other related massacres. Describing the pattern of government violence on civilians in Sidama and elsewhere in Ethiopia, the Human Rights
Watch wrote:
"Security agents used machine guns mounted on armoured vehicles to fire into the group of unarmed farmers..... Twelve of those killed were children....The Awassa killings come shortly after police shootings in Shambu, Ambo, and other towns in Oromiya State.... A year earlier, police killed at least forty civilians and injured 400 others when they violently cracked down on student demonstrations at the capital's Addis Ababa University. Rapid deployment forces of the federal and regional police also killed two at a meeting in Siraro Woreda in Oromiya last year. The government has failed to prosecute police officers responsible for shooting at these demonstrators." No independent inquiry, so to speak, took place and those who were directly
involved in the Looqe massacre were not brought to justice. Instead, the victims are further condemned to a wave of arrests, intimidation, and harassment. Soon after the massacre, hundreds of Sidamas were jailed; an estimated 500 Sidama workers were put out of jobs; and hundreds of Sidamas were forced to seek refuge in other countries; over 200 ethnic Sidama members of the police force were removed for alleged support to the demands raised by the people. Incapable cadres who helped or oversaw the massacre were rewarded with higher positions while those advocated for the rights of the people were imprisoned, tortured or made to flee the country.
Four years on, there are is no sighting of justice. The Ethiopian government security force and its local instruments of brutal rule who committed untold suffering on Sidama are still at large or promoted to high places (including ambassadorship to South Africa) while the victims and their relatives left without voice and justice. The recent request by Sidamas for regional status did not receive positive response. Like other times, peaceful request faced violent response, a dozen students and protesters were killed in January and February 2006 while about 60 people were imprisoned.
The deterioration of conditions of life shows no signs of abating. Hundreds fled the country becoming refugees near and far. Thousands were displaced from their jobs and residences. The ironic "green famine" claims thousands of lives. Diseases and unemployment are rife made worse by gross neglect, discrimination, rights violations and lack of opportunities. The Ethiopian elections of last year (15 May 2005) exposed the naked nature and obscenity of power in Ethiopia. We have already said they were nothing but a hollow exercise where the criminal political system competed against itself and claimed a win for itself while the Sidama remain collectively disenfranchised. Sidamas knew the outcome of the hollow exercise long before
it was begun. One of the most archaic oppressive systems on earth is facing a crisis of its own making.
In the mean time, Sidamas eagerly await justice and remember the dear lives lost for a cause that will inevitably see the dawn or light at the end of the tunnel. For no system is permanent; and the most brutal ones end permanently.
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