{"id":388,"date":"2019-05-07T13:20:09","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T13:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/?p=388"},"modified":"2019-05-07T13:20:12","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T13:20:12","slug":"the-massacre-of-benshangul-gumuz-people-by-the-amharas-special-forces-must-be-immediately-stopped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/the-massacre-of-benshangul-gumuz-people-by-the-amharas-special-forces-must-be-immediately-stopped\/","title":{"rendered":"The Massacre of Benshangul Gumuz People by the Amhara\u2019s Special Forces Must Be Immediately Stopped!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Press Release by Peoples\u2019 Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (PAFD) <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nMay 06, 2019  \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We are witnessing the biggest failure of humanity in\nEthiopian soil just after 12 months since the new PM has vowed to make such\nbarbaric actions towards unarmed civilians a history. Contrary to his and his\ngovernment\u2019s vows, we observe that the civilians are getting killed for no\napparent reasons by a highly armed Amhara regional special force in Benshangul\nGumuz regional state.  This armed group\nis not only targeting solely indigenous and legitimate owners of the land; but\nalso, hundreds of children and elderly are getting summarily executed for a\nsimple reason of being different from their killers in the aspect of their\nculture, skin colour and political beliefs. This is a clinical example of\ngenocide and it is tragically unfolding in Ethiopia as we speak. Apparently,\nthe unarmed civilians are getting executed in their own soil by those who are\nlegally allowed to occupy their land. As saying goes, a history is repeating\nitself in the Ethiopian soil. In 2003 between 430 and 500 unarmed civilians\nwere massacred by those who colonised their land for a simple reason of\nsilencing them whilst expropriating their resources and land in Gambella\nregion. The same massacre is now unfolding in Shaka zone on a Shakacho people\nby the same highlanders. Tens of thousands of Oromo, Ogaden Somali and Sidama\ncivilians were executed in the last 27 years alone.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benshangul People\u2019s Liberation Movement (BPLM) is a PAFD\u2019s\nmember. We strongly believe that the rights of our members and that of all\npeoples in Ethiopia must be always protected. We have confirmed that Benshangul\nGumuz civilians are increasingly targeted and executed by the highly armed and\nwell-trained Amhara youth who call themselves Fano. They were trained,\nradicalized and fully armed with modern machine guns by a National Movement for\nAmhara (NaMA). According to the eye witnesses, between May 1 and 2, 2019, over\n500 Shinasha people in Benshangul-Gumuz Region, Jawi Woreda, were summarily executed\nand tens of thousands of civilians were also made to flee their own villages\nfor their lives. The main victims were civilians including children, women and\nelderly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further threats of those who call themselves the defenders\nof the Amhara rights (Amhara extremists) all over the world are intensifying.\nFurthermore, these groups are also using extremely inflammatory remarks by\ncalling the victims \u2018Monkeys\u2019 whilst reinforcing their delusional and mythical\nlineages with the Judaism thus their capability of killing any group or nation\nthey think they can colonise their land. On this subject, we have gathered\nample and credible evidences that the killers of Benshangul Gumuz civilians are\nincreasingly employing inflammatory and derogatory remarks calling the victims\nuncivilised primitives needing execution in exact manner as the Europeans have\nemployed during, after and prior to the scramble for Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ethiopian Government neither condemn the killings of\ncivilians nor asked for apology for failing to safeguard them. Although some\nauthorities claim the restoration of the order, this is far from the truth as\nthe Government hasn\u2019t so far take any justifiable action against the killers\nand forces behind these tragic executions. Apparently, the Amhara Regional\nGovernment has got full knowledge of the indicated group although it has\ndeliberately refused to stop them from acting bestially. Some witnesses show\nthat it has even assisted the executors with technical aspects of the indicated\nbarbaric oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the aspects of Media coverage about such inhumane actions\nto unarmed civilians, we saw little or some misguided quotations about the\nincident. Instead, all Medias those usually daily reports when someone burps in\nAmhara region remain their mouths zipped. For example, some extremely biased\nMedias such as ESAT and ZeHabehsa- few days prior to the execution of civilians\nactively propagated the killing of between 10 and 13 Amhara civilians by the\nBenshangul Gumuz people who used traditional arrows. Witnesses believe to the\ncontrary about the fact that ESAT\u2019s and ZeHabesha\u2019s false propaganda has played\nkey role in escalating the situation to end up in such unsettling eventuality.\nAdditionally, some of the Amhara\u2019s army commanders including Colonel Demeke\nZewudu, and some activists in their social media accounts have boasted of the\nkilling of primitive people and stressed yet more to come to clear the\nremaining primitives so that they can overtake their land. These groups further\nthreatened even the Oromo people in relation to the ownership claims of\nFinfinnee (Addis Ababa) and vowed to repeat their success in Benshangul in\nWallo and other parts of Amhara-Oromia borders<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, we the PAFD member political organisations,\nunanimously condemn with the strongest possible terms such barbaric actions\ntoward the unarmed civilians, children, women and elderly of Benshangul Gumuz.\nWe urge the Amhara\u2019s regional state to exercise utmost restraint and lawfully\nhandle its anarchically behaving special forces that has been primarily trained\nto maintain law and order. There won\u2019t be any peace and security as long as\nsome groups are fighting to dominate and dehumanise fellow mankind. Therefore,\nwe must understand that refraining from bestially behaving to the other nations\nand groups must be seen as a sign of civility and wisdom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, we demand the federal government to immediately\nintervene and stop the on-going execution of powerless civilians whose lives\nare put at the mercy of their barbaric assailants. We also urge the federal\ngovernment to immediately investigate and bring those responsible for such\nhorrific and inhumane actions to civilians to justice. We advise the\ninternational human rights group and western countries politicians to earnestly\nbring this unsettling massacre of civilians to the attentions of obliviously\nsleeping Ethiopian authorities by urging them to take meaningful and corrective\nmeasures as a matter of urgency. We also call up on all Ethiopian peoples to\nunconditionally condemn such barbarism and demand the Amhara regional state to\nstop its inhumane actions to the unarmed civilians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we send our deepest condolences to the families of\nbarbarically executed Benshangul Gumuz civilians and show our consistent and\nunrestricted solidarity until justice is served on their behalf by bringing\nthose who have killed and maimed their sons and daughters to an independent\njustice and their rights to the ownership of their land is restored by removing\nthe colonial occupiers. The PAFD will always works for and speaks up for the\nvoiceless people in Ethiopia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freedom and Justice for All Peoples in Ethiopia! Press\nRelease by Peoples\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (PAFD) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 06, 2019   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Press Release by Peoples\u2019 Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (PAFD) May 06, 2019  We are witnessing the biggest failure of humanity in Ethiopian soil just after 12 months since the new PM has vowed to [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oromoliberationfront.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}