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Showing posts from September, 2016

The Hawassa Industrial Park a Pretext for Land Grab in Sidama!

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Press Statement By Sidama National Liberation Front, 14 September 2016 Photo from ENA The Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC) of Ethiopia has been building parks in various parts of the country. Hawassa is one of the pilot corridors for this ambitious project which is headed by Arkebe Equbay. Nonetheless, the practices of the IPDC in the Sidama region remains anti developmental for several reasons: First, the plot for the park in Hawassa, the capital city of Sidama, is taken from the land legally owned by the Sidama Development Corporation (SDC) without consultation and any compensation. The land was used by the SDC for agribusiness developments.  Expropriation of land without compensation is not only illegal but also anti-developmental. The Sidama people will view the Hawassa Industrial park not as a development corridor but as a weapon to economically marginalise them. Secondly, many Sidama farmers are displaced to provide additional space for industrial par

The Sidama Nation Had Enough of Silence!

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By Denboba Natie, September 09, 2016   The current TPLF’s Ethiopian regime has denied the Sidama nation its constitutionally guaranteed rights time and again to relegate the nation to a second citizenship on its own soil. Although the Sidama nation has heroically resisted TPLF’s regime on several occasions, the current silence of the nation in the faces of unfolding tragedies is inconsistent with its deep seated values and determination. The nation remained the subject of deceits and manipulation during the entire tenure of TPLF’s quarter of a century. By this regime, the Sidama nation has been belittled, berated and ridiculed. In particular, the TPLF’s mastermind, late dictator PM Meles Zenawi has repeatedly travelled to Sidama-land (between 2004 and 2011) to deceive the nation stressing that ‘the nation can be an independent nation (the quest which isn’t in the nation’s priority list during the time), let alone regionally self-administrative’. His false promises however remaine