OIN,
October 20, 2000
About 500 Oromo University students in Finfinne held a peaceful demonstration Friday, September 13, protesting the abrogation of Finfinne as the Capital of Oromia. According to news reaching OIN, the peaceful demonstration was held in front of the so-called "Oromia Council" office to demand the reversal of the decision to move the capital to Adaama. The OPDO officials' response to the peaceful demonstration was to call the TPLF security forces and disperse the demonstrators. Upon arrival at the scene of the demonstration, the security forces started savagely thrashing peaceful demonstrators eventually dispersing them. At the end of the day, the security forces arrested at least three students, Darajjee Taddasaa a 4th year Chemistry major, Balaay Kabbadaa, a 3rd year statistics major, and Faqaaduu Lameessaa, a 2nd year statistics major. The three students' whereabouts is unknown. The police commissioner, Debesai Raggaasaa, in his interview with the VOA Amharic program claimed that the students were arrested for illegally demonstrating and blocking roads. Nonetheless, eyewitness reports tell OIN that the students were arrested in front of the University entrance, hours after the police dispersed the demonstration.
The Oromo University student's demonstration comes following similar protest and outrage from Macha and Tullama Association. Since the Oromia Council on July 12, 2000 rubber stamped the TPLF’s decision to move the capital of Oromia from Finfinne to Adama, Oromos’ protests against the move is expanding to different sectors of the Oromo population. Commentators indicate that the decision to move the capital from Finfinne is consistent with TPLF's agenda of denying the Oromos their own cities, land, and their holly shrines among others.
It is also clear that the masterminds behind such wicked move are not only TPLF but Amhara chauvinists who are also trying to detach not only Finfinne, but several other beautiful cities such as Diredawa and Adaama from the rest of Oromia.
Since the occupation of Oromia over a century ago, successive Ethiopian regimes have oppressed, subjugated and dehumanized the Oromo people. But the degree of suffering to which the Oromo people are subjected at the hands of EPRDF surpasses the atrocities of previous dictatorships, and about match that of the first colonizer -- Menelik -- who butchered of the Oromo. Today, elders, prominent Oromo professionals, businessmen, lawyers, journalists, civic leaders, and students are subjected to arrest, torture, and extra-judicial execution. It is clear that denying Oromia her own beloved city is adding political insult to the deep injuries TPLF perpetrated on the Oromo through war, famine, and raging fire in its efforts to dominate the Oromo in every way possible. Notwithstanding, all indications are that the evils of TPLF, rather than weakening the Oromo resolve, is actually uniting the Oromo. The recent unity among all liberation forces is one such positive development and show the Oromo resolve to free itself once and for all from the shackles of Abysinnian colonialism our people have been subjected to for over a century.