Oromos Should Defend Themselves Against Atrocities and Massacre that is in Violation of International Law!
OLF Press Release on Oromo Massacre | September 5, 2022
The successive government of Ethiopia has settled people from other regions in Oromiya to contain Oromo resistance. State structures have backed forced settlements and land grabbers to remove Oromo from their land in the name of resettlement. Settlers were sources of intelligence and militia recruitment and were armed to the teeth against the local people. Recently, these settlement camps have become the Federal government military and intelligence backbone of militants called Fano from intruding into the Oromiya from the Amhara Regional State. Evidence has repeatedly indicated that all the massacres perpetrated against the Oromo are vehemently organized, deployed, and supported by state intelligence and military apparatus.
On August 30, 2022, these armed Fanno militants, supported by the settlers and the state security apparatus, invaded the Agamsa town, Horro Guduru Zone, in Oromiya Regional State and slaughtered more than 65 people, consisting of the elderly, the young, and women. Militants looted cattle, shops, and furniture. On September 3, 2022, the same militant group killed 31 innocent people in Oromia Regional state, Horro Bulluq district, in Bone Abuna and Gudina Abuna (Ganjii). Many are wounded, property looted, and destroyed. It is now confirmed that federal forces in civilian clothes were part of the attacking force under the cover of Fano.
OLF has expressed its outrage and condemned the killings against the citizens of Oromo in Dilla Gogola of Guliso Woreda, Tole, Abuna Gindaberate, and North Showa and the brutal killing of Karrayu Abba Gada members. All the killings were, we suspect, conducted by groups that have links with the government state structures or where government forces have created a security lull knowingly or unknowingly in a possible alignment with the armed groups. Such attacks were made on civilians in anticipation of a new war or a blame game against Oromo or Oromo
political groups and a bid to evict Oromo from their father’s land. Government actors, including those leaders in the apex, had condemned the killings framed to be perpetrated by the Oromo groups while they kept silent when the Oromo were slaughtered.
Such endless massacre of Oromo sons and daughters has been unabated since the establishment of the Empire of Ethiopia in the 19th Century by Menelik and his surrogates. It is going to continue with no mechanism in sight to control it. It can only stop if Oromo rise together and defend themselves. We thus call upon the Oromo people to protect their sons and daughters, elderly and women, and their property as the state structure has proved to be anarchy that is ruthless against Oromo. The ages of death and agony must come to an end. The last four years have shown that, more than any time, the death of the Oromo is becoming a mundane act that can be cheerfully accepted by those groups in power.
We also call up the international community to discharge their duty in the spirit of international laws and human rights protection protocols. They should not only condemn such acts but stop empowering a state which discriminates among its citizens and use the death of the innocent for political gains.
Victory to Masses!
September 5, 2022
Oromo Liberation Front
Finfinnee