Support the Ethiopian World Federation

Ethiopian World Federation shall establish its Headquarters in Shashamane, in the Oromo Region, Ethiopia. We demand that the governments of FDRE, Oromia, and the city of Addis Ababa enforce the special interest of Shashamane in accordance with Ethiopian World Federation constitution, established in Addis Ababa since 1937, and SEFAA constitution and Bylaws.

We, the Oromo and Shashamane people in Ethiopia, the Oromo and Shashamane diaspora across the globe, friends of the Oromo and Shashamane people in and outside of Ethiopia, all other progressive forces in Ethiopia and beyond, and all forces dedicated to the ideas and ideals of justice and democracy, and those of us committed to the principles of liberty and equality of all peoples everywhere, stand together in protest to the proposed Addis Ababa Integrated Regional Development Plan (otherwise known as the Master Plan).

Therefore, we, the undersigned, seek to draw the regime's attention to the flaws of the Master Plan from 2014 that lead to the denial of rights, deprivation of Identity, systematic acts of mass displacement, and unfair eviction of poor farmers from their land, just to name a few.

The 2014 Master Plan process was not consultative, transparent, nor participatory. Its content violates the rights of Oromia and Shashamane to self-governance, to socio-economic rights, language, education and other social services rights; its content illegally excises the towns and Woredas of the Special Zone out of the jurisdiction of Oromia and unconstitutionally unites them with the city of Addis Ababa.

It is a forced incorporation of the Shashamane and Oromo territory, and people, into a city administration that was illegally already made outside of the administrative jurisdiction of Shashamane and Oromia - an administration to which the hosts, i.e., the Oromo and Shashamane, are made the guests. Sadly, it dissolves the constitutionally recognized special interest of Shashamane and Oromia in the city and imposes a forced cultural assimilation of the Oromo mass, by marginalizing their language, invisibilizing their culture, and misrecognizing their identity; it is a major threat to peace by intensifying conflict between investors, and the local inhabitants, and it poses a major threat of pollution caused by liquid waste and other acts of environmental degradation, which too, is against the constitutional right to a clean and pure environment. In short, it expands the territorial and jurisdictional extent of the city to Oromia. In its consequence, it is neither legally defensible nor morally justifiable.

We urge the government to stop causing an imminent disaster even as it disguises the issue in the new Urban Development Bill. We stand united as a voice of the underprivileged and silenced poor. We stand as a voice of conscience, and a voice for justice.