October 24/2000

 GOVERNMENT FANS ETHNIC CONFLICT AND CAUSES MASSACRES

The right to life is a fundamental and basic right of the people that is being routinely denied by the EPRDF government. As SOCEPP has stated time and again, the EPRDF government's ethnic politics/policy is inherently against the rights and interests of the people and as it encourages disunity and hostility it militates against the civil society. The policy unavoidable fans ethnic conflict and, in fact, its raison d'etre is this same conflict the spread of hatred and bloodshed amongst ethic groups. 

From Arbagugu to Asebot, from Water,Arka and beyond this has been proved to be true through blody conflicts and massacres. The ongoing ethnic conflict between the Borena.Guji and Gere (Somali) ethnic groups stems in part from the traditional competition for pasture and agricultural land but in the last nine years has been mainly caused by the conscious and deliberate manipulation of the problem by the EPRDF government. 

The EPRDF had in the past armed and supported one groups against the other. In the present instance the EPRDF appointed district administrator provoked the conflict by calling for the expulsion of the Gere/Somalis from Ethiopia. Following his incendiary statement aqnd other covert manipulations by EPRDF cadres, the Borena and Guji communities clashed with the Geres. More than 200 people have perished in the fierce fighting while close to 400 others (including children) have been wounded. It is revealing of the government's intentions that it has named TPLF's central committee member Hassan Shifa (the same man who is on record for having declared "to stamp out dissidence we must track and wipe out all dissidents") to head the commission to study the causes of the conflict. The EPRDF should heed the people's call for the shelving of its ethnic politics which violates the right of the people on many levels and leads to ethnic conflicts and deaths rather than to removing the alleged inequalities.

SOCEPP