Ethiopia has over 80 diverse ethnic groups with the oromo(called borana in Kenya) being the largest at 34%, Amhara 24 Somali 7% and Tigre 6.2% of the entire population of estimated 94 Million in 2013…political, economic and military power is seemingly concertrated on a small elite of the Tigre with their party TPNLF which overthrew the previous regime in the 80’s. The Oromo have been instgating for autonomy of the Oromia region and more inclusivess in the political process through the Oromo Peoples Liberation Front .
This current peaceful protests started from a government program to evict the Surma Ethnic group from the Omo basin to build a dam.
The protests have been met with a forceful response from the Armed Forces leading to hundreds of deaths and detentions of thousands. Last week the Wallaga University was raided by the Army and over 40 students shot and admitted to hospital and uknown number arrested.Why have you not heard about this?? well Ethiopia has a mobile phone penetration of 4% and social media is highly restricted by the iron fisted regime…and we’ll little media freedom
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Surma tribesmen arrested during protests
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[ATTACH=full]33321[/ATTACH] wallaga university students in hospital with gunshot wounds
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That’s Addis Ababa not Nairobi. Here bored foreign correspondents while away their time in hotel lobbies waiting for something to happen. You can therefore imagine how gleefully they used to rush to the scene of a grenade attack and terribly over exaggerate the situation. Ethiopia doesn’t allow such nonsense.
Ethiopia does not rely heavily on western aid as Kenya so they don’t have to dance to any pipers tune…it’s a command economy is hata equity na coop bank hazijakubaliwa
Those Ethiopian/Eritreans you see hauled in courts risking life and limb to escape to SA in thousands every other day are running away from this maddness
the best way to explain it In the Kenyan context is to assume the Oromo are the kikuyu during the Moi’s regime and the Tigre are the Tugen who control all the buttons of power and economy. welll the Tigre People Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Oromo People Liberation Front (OLNF) and other armed groups came together to fight the Mengistu regime with a clear power sharing agreement…after ousting Mengistu The Tigre reneged on the power sharing agreement and took the whole cake to control the armed forces and all other organs of power. (Kibaki/Raila MOU) Also Ethiopia has a parliamentary system of Gvt so the Prime Minister comes from the party with a parliamentary majority so tyranny of numbers cannot occur
Ethiopia is a strong ally of USA which sponsored its invasion of somalia to oust the Islamic Courts and now In the fight against alshabab…so they look the other way when Ethiopia labels this protest terrosist activities and crack down on them hard without a word from the sponsors