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Last updated: 2002-05-08 |
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Current Issues - The Oromo Student Uprisal |
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A prominent Oromo politician has fled
Ethiopia and is seeking asylum abroad. (BBC News, 8 May) - Melese Dayessa - a minister in the regional government of Oromia - told the BBC he had fled because he was facing persecution as a result of his ethnicity.
Mr Dayessa's defection is the latest sign of ethnic tension within Ethiopia's ruling coalition - which is dominated by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Tigray People's Liberation Front 'Untold suffering' Speaking on the BBC's Network Africa programme, Mr Dayessa said he found it impossible to work and felt unsafe. "When you remain an Oromo nationalist they suspect you," he said. Mr Dayessa rejected allegations that he was collaborating with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which is fighting for the independence of the Oromo people from Ethiopia. He is now in another country in east Africa. Last August, the Speaker of Ethiopia's upper chamber of parliament, Almaz Meko - who is also Oromo - applied for political asylum in the United States, saying the government had "brought untold miseries and sufferings" on the Oromo people. Ms Meko's defection followed the suspension of four senior Oromo officials for alleged corruption. |
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National
crisis reportedly forces ruling party to hold urgent meeting (BBC Monitoring, 3 May ) - Threatened by the growing Ethiopian public opposition to Meles Zenawi, particularly related to the border issue, the ruling EPRDF is seated through an extraordinary meeting since May 2 to seek ways and means to defuse the tension building up in the country. Credible sources say the EPRDF Executive Committee meeting was being conducted without the two-third's majority as the political crisis threatened to spiral out of control particularly following the revelation that Eritrea has won more areas that had once been an undisputed Ethiopian territories. "It is not only the mass opposition that is threatening to destroy the Meles group but also the opposition within EPRDF itself. . Particularly the recent developments of the democratic movement within TPLF [Tigray People's Liberation - dominant partner of the ruling coalition] and some steps taken by this movement became serious headache to the Meles and his group. Despite his war-like stance with Eritrea, the border fiasco has saddled Meles with another strong evidence of being an Eritrean agent. And this has fuelled the resentment in Tigray , the home-base of TPLF, the group Meles and associates used to advance Eritrean independence that severely compromised Ethiopia's national interests," one political observer said. Such political developments in the country have driven the Meles clique into political frenzy which manifested itself as EPRDF's emergency meeting, the source added. It is to be recalled that the Meles -Bereket [Simon - information minister] regime has turned down requests by the popular opposition Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) to hold public rallies in Addis Ababa. While Oromiya is being rocked by student protests which the regime would like to treat as Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) insurgency, northern Ethiopia is now bubbling with a new democratic movement within TPLF that is opposed both to the Meles Zenawi group and the TPLF dissidents who kept the region under severe political repression for over 10 years. EPRDF's emergency meeting is a response to put out the fire which is picking up steam every passing day.
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