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Ethiopia Continues to Deny Genocide in the Oromia Region

Ethiopia Continues to Deny Genocide in the Oromia Region but Pictures and Personal Testimonies Tell a Different Story

Girma Berhanu _ Ethiopia

Girma Berhanu
August 8, 2020

  1. Introduction

Reports estimate that as many as fifty thousand people have been displaced by ethno nationalist mobs, and hundreds killed. This is not the first time similar atrocities committed against, in particular non-Oromos[1], orthodox Christians[2] [3]and a number of minority groups. Why the terrorist group namely Queerro[4] has not been accused of genocide, and what actually qualifies under the title?  What exactly constitutes genocide, and why is it that hard for the Ethiopian government to admit that the atrocity crimes are in fact genocide? Well, genocide is officially defined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” [5]The United Nations adopted the Convention in 1948, following the Armenian Genocide during World War One and the Holocaust during World War Two. Here I am not going to detail conceptual differences, as outlined in the Convention, between Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes, and genocide. We cannot afford to play with words. After all, both of them involve systematically killing huge numbers of people Of course, a distinction is made in the focus and purpose of the massacres[6]. When a large number of people are killed in pursuit of a political goal, or something similar, it is considered a crime against humanity. The label also applies in cases of mass slavery, deportation, torture, rape, apartheid, and other crimes. But if the purpose of the killings is specifically to eliminate a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, then it can be called a genocide[7].

Continue to read the essay in PDF format – available here

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4 COMMENTS

  1. This id yet one mire important and well researched piece on genocide from from Prof Girma Birhanu of University of Gothenburg, Sweden. We thank you, Processor. The Government of Ethiopia should come clean rather than attempting to cover up the glaring truth.

  2. yes it is a genocide but not on non-Oromos it rather on orthodox Christians.More than 10,000 people are displaced and the government didn’t respond at all. like police and institution are saying we have been told not to act.

  3. It is clear genocide committed on Orthodox Christianity believers and Amhara race. There were several genocides for the last 2½ years but denied by government.

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