HORN OF AFRICA: Humanitarian Situation Deteriorates as New Year comes and goes
December 28, 2013
HRLHA’s 2014 New Year Message
Dear friends,
Time does seem to pass ever more quickly. Has it really been a year
since the HRLHA office last shared its thoughts on the occasion of the
2013 New Year? The fact is our attention is totally consumed by the job
we are doing. For those who are languishing in prisons simply because
they hold different political views from those of the ruling party of
Ethiopia, for those Ethiopians and others who escaped from fear of
persecution and are in refugee camps or live on the streets of the
countries they took asylum in looking for their daily slice of bread,
even a minute is too long. Soon we all will be joining together to
welcome a new year with another new hope to do better. We must recognize
the fact that doing better doesn’t happen simply because we wish it to
be true. Rather, first we need to take our time and assess this year’s
achievements or losses and compare them against the promises we made as
this year began. In short, it is a time for “self-analysis”.
We can safely say the outgoing year has been the most turbulent year for
defenders of human rights in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere. The
struggles of the people which have been inflamed for over two years in
North Africa didn’t come to an end and continued to reverberate in the
Middle East and in North Africa. The people were attempting to rid
themselves of dictatorial regimes and create a better democracy. Fearing
that unrest would spread into the sub-Saharan countries, the
governments of this region have been very busy in the past two or more
years to silence any type of civilian movements in their respective
countries. For example, in Ethiopia any individual or group who didn’t
support the policy of the governing party was/were automatically labeled
as terrorists. Muslim community members who opposed the involvement of
the government in their religious affairs, farmers who resisted eviction
from their ancestral lands, university students who demanded the
improvement of university teaching and learning environments on their
campuses were labeled as terrorists and imprisoned, tortured and
sometimes killed- thousands escaped to neighboring countries. In
general, the prolonged political unrests in, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan,
S. Sudan and others made these regions unsafe places for citizens to
live; they have produced the largest numbers of refugees ever seen in
the past decades. Thousands have fled their homelands to seek safety in
neighboring countries, including in Yemen, and Middle East Arab
Countries out of a fear of persecution and imprisonment.
The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa and other human rights
organizations have repeatedly reported on the humanitarian crises in the
Horn of Africa in the outgoing year.
Even though we faced human and financial challenges in the outgoing year
and much work remains to be done, I would like to take this opportunity
to recognize some significant human rights achievements recorded in
2013 by the HRLHA. Many violations of human rights were compiled and
disseminated- written and oral presentations on human rights violations
in Ethiopia included – were made at United Nations Human Rights Council
session of 2013. Another major accomplishment which I would like to
mention is we managed to open HRLHA’s Regional branch office in
Uganda/Kampala in October 2013, an event that we strongly believe will
help to strengthen the involvement of HRLHA in communities of the region
and enhance the efforts of the agency in getting effective results.
Finally, I wish a stable, peaceful, joyful and healthy New Year for all
of HRLHA’s members, supporters, staff, volunteers, and friends in the
Horn of Africa Countries and elsewhere. I hope the coming New Year will
bring democracy, and respect for all forms of freedoms and human rights.
Let all people be free from tyranny and suffering at the hands of their
dictator governments.
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