International Journal on Minority and Group Rights
May 6, 2008
In order to better identify a pattern of human rights violations, the regional states with the highest number of reported incidents – Oromia, Somali, SNNPR, Amhara, Gambella, and Addis Ababa/Dire Dawa – are organised along a time axis (see Figure below ). Such an overview illuminates several important inferences.
In every year during the time period from 1995 to 2005, the majority of the reported human rights violations in Ethiopia have occurred in the Oromia regional state. In all years but one, extra-judicial killings and arbitrary arrests have been reported. No other regional state has such a consistency of reported human rights violation during this time period. Th e majority of these reported incidents relate to contexts where Ethiopian security forces countered the quest for political recognition by the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), the most prominent representative political organisation among the Oromos. In addition, violations against members and sympathisers of legally registered Oromo political parties (such as Oromo National Congress and Oromo Federal Democratic Movement) were reported during the electoral processes of 2000 and 2005.
Somali regional state shows a similar consistency in reported human rights violations during this period, although with fewer reported incidents each year; and with the exception that no violations were reported in Somali region in 2001 or 2005.
To read the whole paper, visit Ayyaantuu’s blog.
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