We are inspired to write this letter by your recent speech in which you captured our imagination and raised our hopes for the future of our people when you stated, "We must put people at the center of everything we do. No calling is more noble, and no responsibility greater than that of enabling men, women and children, in cities and villages around the world to make their lives better.”   Thank you for expressing so deeply and movingly our yearning to make the lives of our people better.  As an eloquent champion of freedom from poverty for all the people of the world, we hope this letter will demonstrate to you and the members of the world community why our people suffer in an abject poverty while their country is the most fertile and richest part of the Horn of Africa.

The Oromo constitute about 50% of the population in Ethiopia. They are the single largest nation in the Horn of Africa and one of the major African peoples. Oromia, the country of the Oromo, is the largest, the richest, and most densely populated regional state in Ethiopia. It forms the backbone of the Ethiopian economy.  Yet,  its people are currently facing a crippling famine and their resources are facing arbitrary destruction.   The Oromo have no voice in the political affairs of their own state which is totally controlled by the ruling Tigrean People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the fake ethnic-based  organizations it has formed and controls, the so-called Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Forces (EPRDF).  The TPLF, which is from the Tigrayan minority ethnic group from northern Ethiopian, represents only 5% of the population of the country and fears Oromo numerical strength in any free and fair elections.  As a result, it has systematically  destroyed all independent Oromo organizations including their legal free press. Even the Oromo Relief Association (ORA), a humanitarian organization which was established in1979, was closed down by the Ethiopian government and its property confiscated without any due process of law. The aim is to deprive the Oromo people from having any independent organization that does not receive its marching orders from the TPLF leadership.  Emboldened by the silence of international community about its human rights records, the Ethiopian government has recently embarked on catastrophic environmental destruction of Oromia and other states in southern Ethiopia.

Systematically set fires have been devouring virgin forests, coffee plantations, homes, and rare animals and plants in several regions of Oromia such as Bale, Borana, Wallagga, and Illu Ababora. Similar fires were blazing in the Ogaden region of the Somali state and Malka Wondo of Sidama district in southern Ethiopia. The fires destroyed not only rare indigenous animals, such as the Red Fox, Mountain Nyala, and Bushbuck, and rare plant species, but also precious other resources on which the inhabitants depend for their existence. More than 100,000 hectares of virgin forest were burned down.  In addition to the grave economic consequences, the destruction of these forests will lead to permanent loss of the unique flora and fauna, therein and the degradation of the natural resources base that would accelerate soil erosion and desertification of an already fragile region.

We believe that the fires were set by government agents for different reasons even though the government has been pretentiously blaming local farmers and honey gatherers as the culprits. In spite of such denials and passing the blame, farmers and honey gatherers lived for hundreds of years in this region without simultaneously setting fires to their homes and resources over such vast regions and different parts of the country.   Nevertheless, the repressive government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi failed to promptly report the fires and solicit assistance from the international community to put them out. Only belatedly, junior officials reported the existence of the fires to which the South African and German governments responded swiftly and provided vital assistance to help extinguish them.   The Government of Meles Zenawi not only downplayed and ignored the fires but also either discouraged or prevented Oromo students, environmentalists and civic societies from mobilizing to put out the fires.  For instance, government security forces killed several students and wounded many in Ambo and Dambi Dolo districts of central and western Oromia, respectively,  when they tried to demonstrate and draw public attention to help put out the fires. Many more students and their parents are arrested and jailed.  It is ironic that the government of Meles Zenawi goes to such extreme lengths to stop concerned volunteers from saving Oromia from an environmental calamity but builds Greater Tigray in the north via its conscription of the very same Oromo students it discourages from fighting the fires in the south.  All this is for a senseless war with Eritrea over a barren strip of desert.

The government has been pursuing environmentally harmful policies since it seized power in Ethiopia in 1991.  With total disregard for the long-term environmental consequences and under the guise of free market economy, the government has been awarding contracts to investors undertaking unregulated mining and mechanized farming in ecologically sensitive and vulnerable areas.  This policy has led to the significant degradation of the natural resources of Oromia.  This government has also adopted a policy of massive resettlement of armed northern migrants on Oromo land and in southern regions. The migrants impose their views on the local people, and seize and use by force the resources in a manner which is inconsistent with the local culture and traditions that had been always protective of the ecology.

Mr. Secretary-General,

We would like also to raise the urgency of helping victims of the catastrophic famine in many parts of the country including Borana and other lowland areas of Oromia.  In this regard, we would like to thank you for the recent initiatives you have taken to help avert the crisis.  We believe that the present regime has again failed to report the existence of a serious famine to the world community until it was quite late in its progression.  The regime was giving its utmost priority to waging war with Eritrea and other oppressed nationalities such as the Oromo, Ogaden Somalis, and Sidama and its lavish celebrations of TPLF's 25th anniversary in the past months.   The regime did neither earnestly help nor ask in a timely manner for international assistance to avert the crippling famine in the southern and southeastern Ethiopia.  In fact, several months ago, it detained two officials who tried to alert the world by taking BBC reporters to the Gamu Gofa region where famine was already hitting.  The current Tigray-led regime in Ethiopia has failed to provide for the security of the people of the south: Oromos, Somalis, Sidamas and others.  It has failed to respond promptly when they are threatened with death and destruction by famine and when their resources are burned down into ashes.

On the other hand, the government has been pursuing discriminatory policies in its regional development in Ethiopia.  First, while Oromia has around thirty million inhabitants, Tigray has less than five million people.  Yet, for the past nine years the annual budget of Tigray has been twice that of Oromia.  Secondly, Oromia produces more than 65% percent of Ethiopian government revenues, yet its share of budget allocation is the smallest compared to the size of its population.  Thirdly, billions of dollars raised from the international community through loans and aid grants for the whole country have been diverted for the development of the Tigray state in the last ten years; southern states and Oromia are deliberately neglected.  An impressive number of schools, colleges, highways, airports, factories, telecommunication networks and introductions of computers into schools, and electrification of towns and districts are some of  the development projects carried out in the Tigray state.  Meanwhile Oromia and  the south are given only lip service, thereby exposing the people to famine and hardship.  Such discriminatory and unequal treatments have frustrated our people who have been losing not only their resources, but also their lives, by the misguided policies of these minority rulers from the north.

Since it seized power in 1991, the current Ethiopian government has consistently waged war on the Oromo and other southern Ethiopian peoples in violating their human rights and depriving them of personal security.  As reported by several human rights organizations including Amnesty International ( Attachment VII), Human rights Watch/Africa (Attachment VIII), the US State Department, Survival International, The Committee to Protect Journalists (Attachment IX), the International Commission of Jurors (X), the Ethiopia Human Rights Council ( Attachment XI) and the Oromia Support Group ( Attachment XII), the regime has consistently muzzled any opposition and denied them their democratic right to compete freely in the political process.  This is in spite of its claim, in order to win international support and legitimacy, of establishing a working democracy.

In their own land, our people are denied the right to organize freely and express their political opinion.  Today, it is a serious crime in Ethiopia to support independent Oromo organizations such as the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and others.  Supporters of the OLF are constantly harassed, imprisoned, and killed.  Ironically, the TPLF leaders do not trust even their own puppet creation, the Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO) in whose name they have eliminated all independent Oromo organizations.  For instance, the TPLF expelled thousands of its peasant members while detaining hundreds of its cadres in 1997 (Attachment I).  Just last month, all members of the supreme court of Oromia were unceremoniously expelled.

Mr. Secretary-General,

We do not know of any country in the world where the majority of the population are terrorized by a tiny minority to the extent that it is happening to the Oromo today in Ethiopia.  There is massive evidence which demonstrates beyond any doubt that the TPLF regime is intensifying the persecution of the Oromo (Attachment II). Even those Oromo nationals who manage to escape from persecution in Ethiopia are killed by the agents of the Ethiopian regime in the neighboring states of Djibouti (Attachment III), Kenya (Attachment III), Somalia, and more recently even in South Africa  Attachment IV). Those who are not killed in the neighboring states face the danger of forced repatriation and cross-border raids by Ethiopian government forces ( Attachment V).  There is no doubt in our minds that the Ethiopian regime is engaged in systematic destruction of Oromo intellectuals, business and cultural leaders, and above all, Oromo nationalist elements and supporters of independent Oromo organizations.  We believe there was not such a time of oppression since the conquest and colonization of Oromia during and after the 1880s, when the best elements of the Oromo society were singled out for destruction.

IV.  On Ethio-Eritrean war

Our people have been suffering from the current war with Eritrea as they are forced to send their children, in disproportionate number, to fight this senseless war in the last two years.  Oromo youths have been callously sacrificed in tens of thousands as mine sweepers (Attachment VI).  Thousands of our youth have been forced to lose their lives for the purpose of creating Greater Tigray.  Our people have been forced to give contributions in cash and other goods from their meager resources which they desperately need to buy food for their own survival at this critical time of famine.

For at least three decades before 1991, the Oromo political organizations and Oromo intellectuals have been using Qubee, an Oromo writing system, adopted from the Latin alphabet based on scientific studies which indicate it contributes more suitably than the Ethiopian Sabean based alphabet to the development of the Oromo language.  After a special Oromo convention endorsed it in 1991, Qubee became legally recognized as a practical alphabet for writing in the Oromo language.  Within a few years it revolutionized the production of literature in the Oromo language.  More books, newspapers, and magazines were produced in the Oromo language from 1991 to 1997 than from the 1880s to 1991.  Sadly, however, all Oromo newspapers and magazines have since 1997 been closed down.  In March 2000, the Ethiopian government banned the use of Qubee in Oromia.  This is a tremendous setback for the development of literature and official business applications in the Oromo language and is thus a great loss for all the Oromo people.  By banning the use of Qubee in Oromia, the TPLF leaders have destroyed the prospect for educational development for more than thirty million people and they are thus playing with the lives of Oromo children.   We believe banning Qubee is a prelude to the unacceptable banning of the Oromo children's learning in their own language in Oromia.

Mr. Secretary-General,

In the light of the above, we, members of Oromo communities in North America, call on the United Nations, and the international community to listen to the woes of our people and take action on their behalf before it is too late.  We implore you, and through you the United Nations, not to ignore the sufferings of our people.