After nine weeks and an estimated 140 deaths, the Ethiopian government on Wednesday finally made a big concession to the Oromos who have been protesting against it: it agreed to suspend its plan to expand the city of Addis Ababa into Oromian land. Unfortunately its statement about the decision suggests that it has no real idea why the Oromos were protesting the plan in the first place:
In a televised statement on Wednesday, the Oromia branch of the ruling EPRDF party announced the plan had been “scrapped” after discussions with local residents.
In the statement, the government said it had “huge respect” for the Oromo people who opposed the master plan.
But the statement downplayed the reasons for the opposition, saying it was based on a simple misunderstanding created by a “lack of transparency”.
In fact, the opposition was rooted not in some trivial misunderstanding, but in the decades of real mistreatment that the Oromo people have suffered, as well as a general dissatisfaction with Ethiopia’s corrupt, single-party government (this list of grievances now includes the brutality with which these initial protests have been handled). The Addis Ababa expansion plan was the last straw, but it’s unlikely that the unrest is going to be contained now unless and until the other straws are dealt with.
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