Ethiopia’s Cycle of Violence Spins On In October 2023, in its final report, the UN's International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE) urged the international community to redouble its efforts to protect civilians and hold perpetrators "accountable" for the "staggering" human rights abuses that had been carried out in Ethiopia. Eighteen months later, these calls have gone entirely unheeded, while the Commission's warning that there is "no deterrence for future atrocity crimes" has borne fruit in a number of conflict-riddled regions of the country. It was a severe error to bow to pressure for the ICHREE to close prematurely-- leaving it unable to form a determination on the question of genocide in Tigray-- and one that has let down past and future victims of breaches of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Ethiopia
Between 19-22 February, several major Oromo opposition parties met in Addis to discuss Oromia's sustained upheaval, including the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) insurgency. For several years now, the region has been gripped by still-worsening humanitarian, political, and security crises, while the regional opposition has been essentially co-opted into the government or splintered and unable to mount a response to the deteriorating situation. In this light, the two principal Oromo opposition parties-- the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC)-- met in Addis alongside representatives from the ruling Prosperity Party and Oromo civil society actors.