No, Afaan Oromo was not made the Working Language of Addis Ababa City Administration!

It is time for the Oromos in the OPDO, not the agents and the chameleons, to stand with their people and be counted by distancing themselves from the genocidal Addis Ababa Master Plan implementing legislation adopted by the Ethiopian Council of Ministers by mischievously naming it as the “Proclamation to Implement the Special Interests of Oromia Regional State on Addis Ababa.”

There is nothing about the Oromo in the said proclamation let alone "special interests." The Draft Proclamation is the Addis Ababa Master Plan Implementing Proclamation. Pure and simple!

By the way, the rumor that was intentionally disseminated by the Ethiopian government and the EPRDF media outlets to the Oromo and the larger Ethiopian public as if Afaan Oromo was adopted as the working language of the Addis Ababa City Administration on equal footing with Amharic by the said proclamation was a total and abhorrent lie!

The said draft Proclamation did not make Afaan Oromo the working language of the Addis Ababa City Administration on equal footing with Amharic nor anything close to that. What the said draft Proclamation contained is a promise by Addis Ababa City Administration to provide social services in Afaan Oromo for Afaan Oromo users in Addis Ababa.

The provision is similar to or directly copied from statutes and regulations in the United States which allows immigrant minorities in Urban areas such as Afaan Oromo or Amharic speakers in Minneapolis, Washington D.C., Silver Spring, New York, and many other U.S. cities to get Afaan Oromo and Amharic interpretation in the Hospitals, Immigration Courts and at some community organizations!

Let’s clarify what this means. The fact that Afaan Oromo or Amharic speaking Ethiopian immigrants in Washington D.C. or Minneapolis are provided social services in their respective languages through interpretive services does not make either Afaan Oromo or Amharic the working languages of the Washington D.C. and Minneapolis City Administrations. That is how the EPRDF is joking on the Oromo people through the so-called "Proclamation to Implement the Special Interests of Oromia Regional State on Addis Ababa.”

In fact, the fact that the EPRDF government of Ethiopia formally copied the practices and policies of foreign governments’ uses to help immigrant communities shows that the Oromo people in Ethiopia are either treated as immigrants or it is a tacit acknowledgment that the political, economic and social exclusion of the Oromo people in Ethiopia is premised on unwritten government policy of considering the Oromo as a second class citizens not worthy of any respect . The said draft proclamation is nothing more than the affirmation of this shocking fact!

To sum up, the EPRDF government appears determined not to answer any of the Oromo people’s demand to end political, economic and social exclusions and marginalization of the Oromo in Ethiopia. #OromoProtests

Now, the ball is back in the court of the Oromo people and the Oromo youth again. It is up to the Oromo people to stand for their land, language, and the survival of their children and the Oromo people as a whole beyond these evil days, and work tirelessly to end the political, economic and social exclusion and marginalization of the Oromo in Ethiopia on their own terms. Today, not tomorrow!