May I take this golden opportunity to thank the almighty God for giving me this golden opportunity to say hello to you all.

Today is a D-DAY for us. Oromos everywhere are looking foward to this conference with a lot of enthusiasm. This symposium brings together the most erudite and intellectual personalities that we have.Therefore we expect the participants to exhaustively and explicitly address all issues by going into their specifics.

The international community and UN Resolutions that are sometimes applied and sometimes not must be addressed. I am personally strucked by this selective indignation.

Today we are faced with the most intractable problems we have never witnessed before. Do we understand the gravity of human right abuses, famine, destruction of our flora and fauna and the economic malaise afflicting our people?

Our people are in trouble cocoon of despair and uncertainity, their life bedecked with endless problems - mass killings and arrest, assassination of political and religious leaders. The grevious gap left behind by some of this individuals is virtually impossible to fill. It was the intention of the TPLF Government to destroy the root and branch of the elites of Oromo people.

I had a privillege to visit southern Oromia recently and witnessed the destruction, hopelessness and fear that has cast a poisonous pall on once powerful and prosperous peace loving people. All that are no more today, to the delight of TPLF Government.

A chill run down my spine when I saw starving Boran children in Irdar, Bokuluboma and Charii Lichee. Their grey hair peels off from their heads when touched. Their stomach protruding which is a serious sign of malnutrition. They sit like a descrepit old men in front of their tiny huts that they call their home. Their bones are covered with only tightly stretched skin, their eyes bulging and they look around as if they know they are doomed. Elders walk around with support of their walking sticks pulling unwilling leg to move. I broke down in tears screaming uncontrollably, bitting my lips. Where are the self-proclaimed philantropists and human right activists who preach that humanitarian concern took precedence over everything else?.

Astonishingly, just 5 Kms away the Bokuluboma Military Store is full to the capacity with relief foods donated by generous international community. They never reach the intended recipients.

During the recent Ethio-Eritrea war 2 bags of maize is exchanged for one able-bodied man. Famine was used as a war winning policy.

POINTS TO PONDER

1. Why is there no international intervention in Oromo's plight?.

2. Why have the international community forgotten the Oromo people though the evidence of their suffering is very clear? Why is our plight treated callously and frivolously?

Do we know that:

• You don't take life lying down you attack it head on.

• You don't sit down waiting for things to happen, you make things happen.

• You don't wait for somebody else to do it for you, get it done!!

It is important for us to know that if we slacken our stand on these issues, there is a big price that we have to pay. I ask you brothers " should we content with tut-tuting around a boardroom tables drinking copious cup of coffee and lambasting TPLF and International community for their lack of actions?? Remember its important to put our words into action. This time we are trying but we need to pull our resources together and bring these suffering to an end as quickly as we can.

Once again I thank you all while wishing you a lively, fruitful and intellectually stimulating symposium.

My special thanks goes to members of the Organizing Committees, Distinguished Panelists, and all the participants who had travelled here from far flung places and our sponsors who provided the much needed financial resources to make this symposium a success.

Victory to the Oromo people!

Gurmuu Lammii

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