Ms. Urji Dhaba will speak at the thirtieth annual meeting of Oromo Studies Association at Howard University in Washington D.C. on July 30, 2016. She will describe an ordeal that can only be called genocide against the Oromo people of East Africa. Broken in body and robbed of children, her strong Oromo spirit remains unbroken.
She will name her attackers and accuse them of genocide, the Crime of Crimes.
Raphael Lemkin described genocide as," a coordinated plan aimed at destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups..." Genocide studies pioneer Lemkin says that although genocide is meant to destroy the nation as a whole, attacks are often directed at individuals who belong to the group. The attack may be as quick as a bullet, or as slow as starvation or tactics to prevent births.
The difficulty lies in the wording of the UN Genocide Convention, the international law that governs whether genocide, rather than human rights abuses, has occurred. This law requires that the criminal act must be performed with the intent to wipe out the group. Successful destruction of the group is not required; it is the hateful desire, the single-minded wish to destroy the group by destroying the person.
Miss Dhaba will testify to the fact that the acts of her torturers in Missile Camp prison was accompanied by hate speech against the Oromo nation. She was told that she would never bear Oromo children and she can describe torture to other women and forceddosing with medications, which they were told, were designed to prevent future pregnancies.
She recalls the names and ranks of her torturers, including General Abraha and would be able to name them and identify them in a court of law. She recalls that the General said that it was the decision of Tigrean leaders to wipe out Oromo people.
Sadly, members of her family were by the Ethiopian regime military recently. But the strong spirit of this Oromo woman urges her to stand firmly on the podium in order to embarrass and expose the Tigrean leadership back in Ethiopia so that the entire globe will know and will harshly judge the perpetrators of genocide and those who silently watched the attempted destruction of a people.
OSA tickets/registration can be purchased at the door. Visit OSA's website for more on OSA events from July 29 through 31st in Washington DC.