Statement on the cowardly and barbaric act of the TPLF on Oromo people and their culture at Irreecha celebration

United Oromo People Liberation Front

October 8, 2016

 

We are shocked by the carnage of this past Sunday, October 2, that took place at

this year’s Irreecha, Oromo Thanksgiving, celebration at Bishoftu. Unprovoked and

without warning, the criminal enterprise of the TPLF massacred upward of 600 people

and injured many others by indiscriminately firing tear-gas and live ammunitions into a

peaceful crowd celebrating the perennial festival. To add an insult to injury, the TPLF

regime has arrested even those who were fortunate enough to survive the mayhem.

First and foremost, we extend our heart -felt condolences to the families and

relatives of the victims. We also express that our prayers and thoughts are always with

the Oromo people and other people in the region tormented by the TPLF. Those who

perished celebrating Irrecha and defending our nation deserve a special place in our

heart and in the annals of Oromo history.

Then, we condemn the TPLF in the strongest terms for its cowardly and barbaric act

on peaceful celebrants of our sacred Oromo culture Irreecha. We consider this latest

wanton act of the TPLF not an attack only on our people but also on our culture, our

faith, and our identity as a nation. Simply put, the attack is the epitome of the genocidal

policy that the TPLF cabal groups have actively followed for a quarter of a century to

efface the Oromo people and their culture from the face of the earth. For twenty- five

years, the TPLF has subjected the Oromo people, as well as other ethnic groups in the

region, to unimaginable human suffering and destruction. As the most populous ethnic

group in the region and as the inhabitant of the most fertile land with abundance of

natural resources, the Oromo people has borne the brunt of a quarter-century barbaric

repression by the TPLF whose main objective is to establish a Tigre supremacy over

the Oromo people and other people in the region.

Hence, the horrific tragedy we have witnessed this week at Thanksgiving gathering is

an affirmation of our assessment of life under the TPLF dictatorship and also an

affirmation of the extent of moral decadence and brutality exhibited by a rejected and

dying TPLF regime. Fortunately, history is on our side: no amount of brutality and

crackdown on oppressed people can save a rejected empire and authoritarian regime

from crumbling.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, ‘’injustice anywhere is a threat to justice

everywhere.” This statement is self –evident that injustice in Oromia region is also a

threat to justice in Amhara region, in Sidama region, in Gambela region, in Somali

region and so forth. Therefore, we call on all other people in the region to join us in a

fight against our common enemy TPLF to usher stability, peace, and democracy.

We also call on governments and organizations around the globe, especially the US,

UK, Canada, the UN, and the EU, to strongly condemn the human right practices of the

TPLF and to immediately terminate providing assistance to the repressive regime, and

also exercise their influences in setting up an independent investigative body to look

into the human rights abuses committed by the TPLF.

Finally, we call on all Oromo political Organizations and civic organization to set their

differences aside and stand in solidarity with our heroic youth and masses to hasten the

downfall of the decaying regime of the TPLF.

Victory to Oromo people and all oppressed people of Ethiopia!

United Oromo People Liberation Front