Stop Financing Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia By Tedla Asfaw

We Ethiopians in front of the World Bank Head Quarter in Washington DC on April 20, 2013 are bringing the voice of poor farmers, pastoralists and indigenous people of Ethiopia who are forcefully evicted from their land by Tigrean land lords and foreign land buyers to enrich themselves.This month alone thousands of Amharas from Ben Shanguel Gumez are removed from their farms to give away the land to Tigrean land lords.

  In Gambella more than 3 million hectares of Annuak land was sold to foreigners to produce food for their own people. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Nations claim securing land to feed their people for future. More than 70,000 Annuaks have already been forced from their land and another 150,000 will be displaced in the coming few years.

All this eviction and ethnic cleansing is financed by World Bank. The Ethiopian tribal junta can not do this eviction and ethnic cleansing without the support of USA/UK financing it at all levels including paying salary for those who are chasing the people. Annuaks are now an endangered species so does the Mursi people who are chased away from the South Omo Valley hunting ground to clear the land for the regime sugar company. Mursi’s who resisted are murdered in large numbers.

The Amharas who lived for years dispersed throughout Ethiopia have been targeted by the regime since it came to power in 1991. The regime killed and chased Amharas by using its ethnic collaborators in Oromia in the past and at present using the Southern and Western regions ethnic warlords.

We all know that the World Bank denied loan for Cambodia in Summer of 2011 for the government displacing its farmers. Why should it be different for Ethiopia in 2013 ? We demand the World Bank to come clean by distancing itself from the crime committed by the tribal mafia and junta of TPLF. What was good for Cambodia is good for Ethiopia !!

We endorsed the demand of the The Human Rights Watch on its recent press release on Ethiopia for the World Bank to do its own internal investigation on the land eviction issue in Ethiopia and make it public. Thousands of Ethiopians were and are evicted, many children, women and elderly are dying during this terror. The World Bank has either to condone or condemn this human rights violation and crime against humanity.

We will continue to protest until the bank stop financing ethnic cleansing of the Amharas and forced eviction of indigenous people of Ethiopia. We demand official response from the bank immediately. We also call for the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations to give support for the thousands who were evicted, ethnically
cleansed and dispersed in that part of Ethiopia.