SUMMARY OSG PRESS RELEASE

August - September 1998 No. 24

Please act on the Urgent Action Campaign accompanying this Press Release. Thank you.

The government of Ethiopia is extending its persecution of the Oromo people to other countries.

Those who have fled from human rights violations in Ethiopia are being watched, harassed and persecuted in other countries by Ethiopian embassy staff and co-operating members of the host country security forces.

This persecution is not restricted to the Horn of Africa. Oromo refugees are also living in constant fear of refoulement to Ethiopia from across the Red Sea in Yemen and from further afield in Germany and Israel.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) was established to protect refugees fleeing from human rights abuses. Oromo refugees are questioning the impartiality of UNHCR. They are saying that many of its offices are staffed by apologists for the Ethiopian government and that the headquarters in Geneva are ignoring the suffering of Oromo refugees because of bias toward the Ethiopian government.

Yemen: In early 1997, over 400 Oromo voluntarily returned to Ethiopia from Yemen. Those who refused repatriation were detained under harsh conditions, with restricted food and medicines. Ten were reported to have died from malnutrition. Most of the 129 Oromo detainees in Ta’iz Police Station have been held since early 1997. Some at least of the 91 held in Sana’a Central Prison were detained in February 1998. Many more are reported to be detained in Hodeidah and Aden.

One detainee wrote, in August: We came to the Yemen as the UNHCR has an office in anticipation that we will get proper protection as provided by the 1951 UN convention on refugees. Unfortunately, we are confronted with the same problem we tried to avoid by coming here, i.e. imprisonment. We are imprisoned in 1997 at various towns. The Ethiopian embassy has sent somebody to take our photographs and we were beaten up when we refused to be photographed.

The Yemeni government responded to the appeal by saying that they would not deport those people who have been granted permission to stay in Yemen, only those living in the Yemen without a residence permit. This applies to those of us who came to Yemen by boat or ship. We therefore appeal to you to do everything you can to save our lives.

URGENT ACTION FOR REFUGEES IN IMMINENT DANGER

The Minster of the Interior in Yemen is reported to have begun implementing steps to deport ‘all illegal residents’ which includes the hundreds of Oromo currently detained. Al Hayat newspaper in London reported on August 7 that extradition of Oromo detainees was likely.

Djibouti: Since the refoulement of Oromo refugees, some with UNHCR ‘protection’, from Djibouti in January, the few communications which have come out of Djibouti all speak of great fear and insecurity. As well as the repatriations reported by Amnesty International, OSG received a report of 100 more forced repatriations in January 1998, by rail to Dire Dawa in East Hararge.

Help from UNHCR has been sought repeatedly by refugees in Djibouti and by OSG.

Sudan: Following a visit to Khartoum of an Ethiopian government delegation, in July, the Oromo Relief Association office was closed and its equipment confiscated. The thousands of Oromo refugees in camps in Sudan are left with no support and staff members are in great danger of repatriation.

Their activities are known to Ethiopian authorities, and the Oromo Relief Association is already targeted by the government. The ORA office in Addis Ababa was closed by the government and the Executive Director, Addisu Beyene, is currently held with 64 other Oromo on conspiracy charges and may face the death penalty if convicted.

Kenya: Oromo, Somali and, recently, Eritrean refugees are pouring in to Nairobi. Since the embassy bombing, all newcomers have to register with the Interior Ministry. The UNHCR office includes some sympathetic and informed members of staff, but these are often difficult to reach. Preliminary interviews take months to arrange. Meanwhile, the refugees face harassment and detention by Kenyan police, verbal and telephone threats from Ethiopian embassy staff and, for at least those in refugees camps away from the capital, the danger of attack from Ethiopian security forces. There have been reports of refoulement of large numbers of refugees from Kenya but these reports are yet to be confirmed.

Israel: According to correspondents in Israel, the government there is planning to repatriate all people from Ethiopia, except the Falasha Jews who were airlifted there by arrangement between the Israeli government and the Derg.

Tadesse Eberu, from Mocha, in the Kaficho sub-region of the Southern Peoples Region, is in his late 30s and had worked as an Agricultural Extension Worker for the Ministry of Agriculture for 16 years when he was sent on a course in Israel in the beginning of 1994. He received a letter while in Israel, in mid-1994, dismissing him from his post with no explanation, apart from ‘streamlining’ the ministry.

Friends of his from Mocha were killed in 1994/1995. In 1992-93, Tadesse was involved in organising the local Peasant Association and Youth Association. He has been warned by relatives not to return, ‘because he would be persecuted’.

UNHCR in Israel say that information provided by Tadesse, including a copy of the notification of his being wanted by Ethiopian security forces, is unreliable. UNHCR in London, say they cannot interfere and that he will therefore be deported.

Abdataa Homaa Bobe, 30 years old, was the chairman of the Macha-Tulama (an Oromo self-help organisation targeted by the government) Youth Association from 1991 to 1995 and Assistant Chairman of the OLF Youth Association from 1991 to 1992, when the OLF legally represented the Oromo in government.

He is also known to be on an official list of Oromo who are wanted by Ethiopian security forces. He escaped to Israel with an Ethiopian Orthodox Church delegation in 1995.

Abebe Gesessee, an Oromo international athlete who escaped to Israel in 1995 from a sports delegation, was on the Sports Committee of the OLF in 1991-92, and helped the Sports Committee of the Macha-Tulama Youth Association up to 1995. He had already received warnings and threats from Ethiopian government security men.

UNHCR in Israel have said that the evidence provided by the above three men is unreliable and that they will be deported. They will be at very high risk of imprisonment, torture or worse if they are returned to Ethiopia. Their deportation amounts to refoulement.

Another correspondent complained that there was harassment by Israeli police. ‘Large numbers’ of Oromo are in prison and the threat of forced repatriation is real, she said. UNHCR appears not to be opposing Israeli government plans.

Germany: The federal state of Bayen (Bavaria) has forcibly repatriated Oromo asylum seekers this year. One asylum seeker has seen his wife and child forcibly repatriated to Russia, while he lives in fear of refoulement to Ethiopia.

Solomon Abdissa is a mechanical engineer who studied for nine years in Russia. He married a Russian in 1993 and they have a young son. He was instrumental in organising Oromo students in Russia.

Because his wife’s relatives were unable to house his family he was ordered to leave the country in 1995. His passport was invalid and renewal was refused by the Ethiopian embassy in Russia.

He entered Germany illegally in 1995 and was placed in a camp, which he refers to as a concentration camp, in Zirndorf, near to Nürnberg, in the federal state of Bayen (Bavaria). His wife and son arrived legally seven months later and were similarly confined in Zirndorf. Being a member of the Oromo student movement, TBOA, he asked for asylum on political grounds. He became chairman of the Augsburg branch of TBOA.

His application for asylum was rejected in September 1997, because he ‘was not a prominent member of TBOA’ and his wife was ordered to return to Russia. After appeal, she was given leave to remain until 15 July 1998. As she has a valid Russian passport she could be forcibly returned to Russia by the Immigration Police at any time (see below).

He has a relative in Australia who has sponsored his application for immigration there. The Australian authorities have told him that the application by himself and his wife will take up to 12 months to process and that he should not attempt to correspond with the Australian High Commission in the meantime.

In desperation he sought guarantees of safety from the Ethiopian embassy in Germany and permission for his wife and son to go to Ethiopia. The embassy has refused to give an official answer to his request and have refused to write an official letter confirming their refusal to grant his wife permission to enter Ethiopia. He has been told after repeated telephone calls not to telephone again. The embassy has not replied to a letter from a local representative of Amnesty International.

The German Immigration Police claim that he has not tried to contact the embassy.

His wife could be returned to Russia immediately and, if his own appeal fails, he could be put on a plane to Ethiopia, because it would be a mere formality for the Immigration Police to obtain a travel document from the embassy.

Post script: Solomon’s wife and child were repatriated to Russia on August 12.

Dr Demanalash Arada Bifa, a veterinarian living in Augsburg, Bayen, was forcibly repatriated on 13 March 1998, after spending four days in a German prison. His application for asylum in Bayen had been refused. As far as is known he was not detained on arrival in Addis Ababa.

Asfaw Wadajo, a physicist who sought asylum in Nürnberg, was forced to leave Germany in February. His whereabouts are unknown.

Oromo asylum seekers in Germany are not allowed to work or travel. Depression, loss of appetite and poor sleep are universal among inmates of asylum camps. One correspondent from Augsburg complained of ‘suffering every month on the renewal of our white paper visa’ and the hostility of officials ‘as if we are not a creature of God’. He complained of not being allowed to speak English in the office, despite the presence of English-speaking officials, and being made to arrange a translator. In Augsburg, inmates have to beg for permission to seek medical help and pay for medication.

Legal advice is not free and lawyers in Bayen are not acquainted with the difficulties faced by Oromo in Ethiopia. Judges assessing asylum cases vary considerably. Some have not accepted that membership of the Oromo student association (TBOA) or even the Oromo Liberation Front, is a risk factor.

Second applications must be accompanied by new evidence. Therefore, even if a first application fails because of incompetent representation or a biased judge, perfectly good evidence once presented in the first application can no longer be used.

The German Ambassador in Addis Ababa, Frau Wiltrud Holik says that there are no problems for Oromo in Ethiopia, unless they are terrorists.

Comment: The US State Department report on human rights practices in Ethiopia concurs with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch/Africa in that the people in Ethiopia most at risk of mistreatment and arbitrary detention are those suspected of supporting opposition political movements, especially Oromo and Somali people. Hence, even by State Department standards, the above cases are at risk of abuses if returned to Ethiopia.

• It is vitally important to inform UNHCR about the dangers faced by Oromo activists in Ethiopia.
• UNHCR is the only organisation which can help Oromo refugees in danger of refoulement back to Ethiopia from Yemen, Israel, Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti. It can also bring pressure on the German government.
• Unless the headquarters of UNHCR in Geneva can instruct their offices abroad to acknowledge the risks faced by Oromo returnees, lives will be lost and many will suffer detention and torture.

Be polite and concise. Explain your background and present situation. Draw attention to human rights abuses documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch/Africa. If you have first hand knowledge of violations, report your experiences briefly. The whole letter should fit on one side of paper.

Please point out the imminent danger of repatriation for the Oromo held in Yemeni prisons, ORA staff in Sudan, and the Oromo and other peoples in Israel. Bring her attention to the chronic insecurity and need for resettlement in Djibouti and Kenya. Send a copy of your letter to Ms R. Idowu (Dear Ms Idowu), Senior Legal Advisor, African Bureau, UNHCR, at the same address. If you live in a European Union country, please send a copy to your MEP.

Mrs Sadako Ogata (Esteemed Commissioner)
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
94 Rue de Montbrillant
CH 1211 Geneva
Switzerland