TIME || Police in Ethiopia say 67 people have died in several days of unrest that have led the army to deploy troops to restore calm.
The head of the Oromia Police Commission, Kefyalew Tefera, told the Oromia Broadcasting Network on Saturday that another 213 people have been wounded. He said several people were arrested after attempts to incite violence along religious and ethnic lines.
The crisis began when prominent activist Jawar Mohammed told supporters the government had removed his personal security detail. He has since urged calm.
The U.S. Embassy says the new Ethiopia that many want will not be built by those who choose violence and intimidation.
What the government should also investigate is the sources of revenue for these so-called media outfits be it those that advance ethnicity in its rawest and angering form or others with blurred line between news broadcasting and activism. They should be asked to provide the origins of their capital and on-going sources of revenue and that should be the requirement to obtain the required permit.
We should not be standing up just to blink at the facts that those 60 or 70 citizens dead(now 78 by official count) now were alive and kicking just a few hours before someone went on the social media and told everyone what happened that night. That is the source or the instigating factor for those savage mobs to go out and commit such barbaric acts on innocent citizens. Who knows how many are now just hanging on their last breath? Who knows how many of the wounded will be disabled needing caretakers the rest of their lives? Who guarantees in absolute terms that such barbaric acts will not happen tomorrow or will not be instigated once again at any time in the future? I hate to say this. The federal and regional governments have failed their citizens. This is going to be a defining moment for both. They have to prove that they don’t condone it or even they were NOT part of it by dragging the behind of everyone who is responsible for this shameful act. Those victims didn’t just drop dead from natural causes. Those who clubbed, stoned and hacked the victims didn’t decide to do that just on a whim. They must have been incited by someone. That young man, the president of the Oromia region should never move his poison spitting jaws ever again. He should know better that holding such highest office comes with responsibilities, protecting the safety of residents of the region at all time being the utmost priority. Every word that comes out of his mouth should be guarded and thought twice. He should know that thanks to the irresponsible social media warriors the atmosphere there is so charged up all its needs is a small spark to turn it into a raging fire. And stop making excuses that the carnage was beyond your ability to contain. That was just bovine scatology.
It also shows the very poor relationship the regional government has with community elders. Our fathers used to stop any fracas even before they erupted. And they did not have a ‘special force’ toting fully automatic rifles to make themselves heeded. They were not magicians either. They did not go to ivy colleges to learn how to stop mob actions. There could have been just 10 police officers armed with bolt action rifles for the entire large districts. They were the ones the local government counted on. It relied on them. That was true for Oromos, Issas ad Afars. And when they handed down their justice they did not discriminate. If the instigator was one of their own, he is gonna get it!!! They grabbed his rowdy behind and would hand him over to the government. I will wait and see if everyone over there in the regional government has the guts to do just that instead of defending someone who lit up this shameful barbaric act. Who knows? The real perpetrators of these killing may be able slip away to find refuge in the neighboring countries and show up somewhere in DC, Minnesota or some joints in Europe as political refugees still thumbing their noses at justice. That is because, according to the Facebook warriors of our days, the victims were the ones to blame for their own demise because they were the ones who instigated it or started the fight. It is just beyond disgusting. .