Today, December 13th, will mark the sixteenth year anniversary of the beginning of three days of killing and destruction in Gambella, Ethiopia.
The Anuak people were targeted, especially leaders and those who were against the political repression and opposed to the federal government plans to explore oil on their indigenous land without following the legal process as set up in the Ethiopian Constitution or as required in international law regarding indigenous peoples’ rights. There was also a long-term plan to exploit the abundant fertile land and untapped natural resources.
In less than three days, 424 Anuak were killed. The Anuak continued to be targeted for nearly three years. By that time, over two thousand had been killed and many more human rights atrocities committed, including being jailed, tortured and driven by the thousands to seek refuge in neighboring countries like South Sudan and Kenya.
The limited infrastructure in Gambella was largely destroyed, equipment and supplies were pilfered from clinics and schools, and homes, crops and granaries were burned.
Today, let’s take this opportunity to become an instrument of peace—to help bring light out of the darkness rather than to cover it; to give love and forgiveness—sometimes undeserved— rather than holding on to bitterness and hatred; to seek solutions to wrongs and injustice rather than putting ethnicity, greed and self-interest ahead of what is right; to speak the truth for it will set us free from the rotted strongholds where lies and deception have taken over; and to light a candle, wherever you are, so you can light someone else’s candle, and they another person’s candle until there is a greater and brighter light shining on our beloved land.
Light your candle and become part of the movement to re-humanize Ethiopians from the darkness of tribal hatred and ethnic-based politics that is based on greed, exclusion of others and which lacks a vision for an inclusive nation.
May God help us be people of change who can see the humanity in our neighbors, becoming ambassadors of reconciliation, peace, civility and prosperity.
May God bless Ethiopia!
