In Ethiopia, a secret committee orders killings and arrests to crush rebels

[Che -Guevara]

A secretive committee of senior officials in Ethiopia’s largest and most populous region, Oromiya, has ordered extra-judicial killings and illegal detentions to crush an insurgency there, a Reuters investigation has found.

Reuters interviewed more than 30 federal and local officials, judges, lawyers and victims of abuses by authorities. The agency also reviewed documents drafted by local political and judicial authorities. These interviews and documents for the first time shed light on the workings of the Koree Nageenyaa – Security Committee in the Oromo language - which began operating in the months after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018. The committee’s existence has not been previously reported.

Five current and former government officials told Reuters that the committee is at the heart of Abiy’s efforts to end a years-old insurgency by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which wants self-determination for the Oromo people and greater language and cultural rights. Oromos have long complained of political and social marginalisation. When new protests broke out in 2019, the government cracked down hard. The Koree Nageenyaa took the lead, the five officials said.

The violence in Oromiya has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Ethiopia’s government and human rights officials accuse the OLA of killing scores of civilians since 2019, a charge the group denies.

One of the five sources was willing to be identified: Milkessa Gemechu, a former member of the governing Prosperity Party’s central committee. The others, including two people who have attended meetings of the Koree Nageenyaa, spoke on condition of anonymity.

The people familiar with Koree Nageenyaa's activities attributed dozens of killings to the committee's orders and hundreds of arrests. Among the killings, they said, was a massacre of 14 shepherds in Oromiya in 2021 that the government has previously blamed on OLA fighters.

Full article below

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ethiopia-violence-committee/

[Che -Guevara]

Ethiopia never changes. I was amazed by people who thought Abiy would be any different. He is a product of the oppressive system. 

 

"The enemy within

Ethiopia has a long history of using a clandestine security apparatus to quell dissent, Ezekiel Gebissa, professor of history and African studies at Kettering University in the United States, told Reuters.

During Haile Selassie’s four-decade rule last century, the emperor created a network of spies known colloquially as the “joro tabi,” or listeners, to hunt his opponents. The communist Derg military junta that toppled Selassie in 1974 set up a vast new security system to eliminate threats to the regime.

At the turn of the century, Ethiopia got a new constitution and parliament. But this government, too, led by Meles Zenawi, grew increasingly repressive and fashioned a top-down structure of surveillance that extended to every level of society. The system was commonly known as “Amist Le And” – one-to-five – because spies were typically assigned five people to monitor.

Abiy became prime minister in 2018. According to the current and former government officials, the Koree Nageenyaa security committee was formed soon afterwards in response to youth protests in Oromiya over inequality and economic mismanagement."

 

[maakhiri1]

yeah different groups, different names, but same tactics, very brutal.

Onlf made a big mistake, they time restart their movement, and free Somali people

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

4 hours ago, maakhiri1 said:

yeah different groups, different names, but same tactics, very brutal.

Onlf made a big mistake, they time restart their movement, and free Somali people

onlf became  a sub clan organisation it now is almost non existed in the somali galbeed region

 

since now the president of the kilil 5 region is one of the main subclans of the onlf 

all onlf symptathisers are now on the side of ethiopia