Oromia upport S Group 60 Westminster Rd Malvern, Worcs WR14 4ES UK Tel +44 (0)1684 573722 Email:Oromiasg@waitrose.com UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Forum on Minority Issues, Third Session Room XX Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland 14-15th of December 2010 Statement of Mr. Hunde Dhugassa, from Oromia Support Group (OSG) Agenda Item: Sustainable Livelihoods Dear Chair and distinguished delegates, I am honoured to get this opportunity to air the unparalleled suffering of indigenous peoples like Oromo, Gambella and other nationalities in Ethiopia as a result of inequitable land acquisitions, better called by many researchers as “neo-colonial land grabbing”, by foreign investors in the name of lease by the Ethiopian regime. This act is worsening the already broken food security situation as the peasants are losing their farming and grazing land, in a matter of months. This new form of agrarian neo-colonialism is launched under the pretext of utilizing “Wastelands”. The Ethiopian government officials already acknowledged that 8420 foreign investors have received licence for commercial farms. Contemporary Ethiopia assumed its current territorial definition at the end of the nineteenth century by conquest. The conquest of the peoples of the south, namely, the Oromo, Sidama, Walayita, Kambata, Hadiya, Somali, Benishangul-Gumuz, Anuak, Nuer, and others undoubtedly resulted, among other things, in the confiscation of their lands. The confiscated lands were given new name so as to reflect the new system. Oromo people are the third largest nationality in Africa. They have inhabited a separate and well defined territory in the Horn of Africa for many centuries. Their country is called Oromia. The Oromo predominately follow three major religions: Islam, Christianity and Indigenous Oromo religion: Waaqefanna. The Oromo are a fiercely egalitarian people that have lived under a remarkable and complex indigenous democratic system of Gadaa: in which political, military and other leaders including legal experts are elected for non-renewable eight-year term. Dear delegates The federal government of Ethiopia has taken over millions of hectares of farmland from the States of Benishangul, Gambella and Oromia to distribute it to the so-called investors. By an interview on December 1, 2009, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia claimed that his government‟s land grab policy 1