An Editorial
By
Apee Ojulu
gambelatoday.com Editor
It is well known now that the Government of Ethiopia continues to send its highlander supporters from their cities in the north Ethiopia to Gambela to gradually increase their population in Gambela and eventually have these highlanders become a majority ethnic group and take over the governance of state. This ill-conviced and ilegal plan by the Government of Ethiopia to take over Gambelan land this way is in violation of international recognized standard of a government embodying good governance. Ethiopia has historically pursued a deliberate policy seeking to exploit the Gambella region's oil and other natural resources. The strategy of eliminating Gambelans, mainly Anuaks, is part of this larger strategy of taking over the land and natural resources that the Gambelans, in particular Anuaks, occupy in Southwestern Ethiopia. The Gambelans are less than 5% of the Ethiopian population and the government thinks that they cannot effectively fight for their rights through the political process because they are underrepresented in the central government. The Ethiopian government has attempted before, under Mengistu Hail Mariam in the 1980s, to take away the Gambelan land, particular Anuaks, and natural resources. Mengistu's administration relocated a large number of Tigrayans and other groups from Northern Ethiopia to Gambela and settled them in the Anuaks' cities and villages. These settlers set up roadblocks and restricted movement by Anuaks in their own land. The aim was to instigate unrest among the Anuaks to use as a pretext of imprisoning or eliminating them from the region altogether.
USA, November 14, 2005 – The attacks the Gambella People Liberation Movement/Force (GPLF/M) had carried out on Ethiopian military installations on October 30, 2005 in Gambella town to free Anuak political prisoners have given more opportunities to some organizations such Anuak Justice Council (AJC) and the Gambella People United Democratic Party (GPUDP) to make clear their intentions to obstruct the GPLF/M mission of freeing Gambellans from ashes of Ethiopia.
USA, September 27, 2005 - The gambelatoday.com is returning to its normal work after serious technical problems disabled the website for a couple of weeks and were fixed by the gambelatoday.com technical team. One of those serious malpractices the website faced was that it freezes for a couple of weeks, and the gambelatoday.com technical team did not find out the central problem that freezes the website for many more weeks.
USA, September 02, 2005 -Procedurally, the intermediate steps of editing by Parliament and the AG after debate and drafting by the people at Bomas is procedurally irregular and raises grounds for objection. Another procedural irregularity is the differential treatment of parts of the document through the possibility of amendment of some parts by referendum, other parts by Parliament and others by Parliament and the People.
USA, March 16, 2005 - An old political organization committed to Ethiopian goals in Gambella of killing off the regional population to gain a regional political domination in return is making itself felt under the new label of a political liberalism. Political liberalism ideology, in short, is a term describes politicians, or individuals, who believe in a tolerant society. Accordingly, the objectives of this old-turned-new Anuaks created a Highlanders and Nuers affiliated political organization are to repatriate the Anuaks Ethiopia chased away following its genocide on December 13, 2003 to Gambella and create a new multi-ethnic Gambella.To this end, these self-described Anuak liberals have contacted Ethiopia and sent some of their members to Ethiopia to start participating in the Highlander politics there, in a hope one day to take all displaced Anuaks back to Gambella. One question come to one mind immediate after learning about this is are these Anuaks really liberals or they are still old Anuaks we have known who would do anything for political positions? Certainly, the latter characterization is truer than the former characterization for the motives driving these self-described Anuak liberals.
USA, December 02, 2004 - As of today, it’s close to a year since the killing of innocent Anuak people by the government of Ethiopia. The killing was an evil act with the intention of eradicating all Anuak in which the international communities were aware of and have done nothing about. In our part it is clear that we [Anuak] took the responsibilities facing our enemy alone and we vigorously talked among ourselves about the incident more than anyone could have imagined. Yet, our effort and strength to shows the unity against the common enemy is missing. To do that, we have to think critically, sort out ourselves and determined who we really are and where we stand. One might know that the impossibility of making something out of someone that he is really not! If it is impossible to make a dog out of a sheep then, how will it be possible to make leader out of a follower? Now, I am going to step aside and offer my opinion to all of you, let’s assume there are leaders, followers, and the indecision makers, if you don’t get yourselves out of the current mess that you are in, you will be shattered again by the same government that killed your people in the past, then you will realize that history is repeating itself. Impressively you have talked the talk and oh boy, you are good at it! Now is the right time to face the enemy and walk the walk and you better be good at it too.
A Ugandan MP is raising funds to send virgins to university for free.