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Ethiopia's speaker
seeks US asylum
15/08/2001 18:41 - (SA)
Washington - The speaker of Ethiopia's upper house of parliament has applied for political asylum in the United States, claiming persecution of her ethnic Oromo people, an official with the armed rebel group that she joined confirmed here.
Almaz Mako announced in a letter released on Monday that she was resigning from her job, seeking political asylum in the United States, and joining the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), an armed group fighting for the rights of Ethiopia's ethnic Oromo people.
Mako's defection "will signal the end of the chapter of Oromos
collaborating with the regime, which ... violates the rights of the Oromo people," said Lencho Bati, spokesperson at the OLF's
Washington office.
About one-third of Ethiopia's population - the country's single largest ethnic group - is of Oromo background. They live largely in the southern part of the country.
However the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is dominated by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and according to Almaz, routinely violates the rights of Oromo people.
"We welcome (Mako), and are happy that she left the government," Bati said.
No comment from the US
A spokesperson with the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) said that they do not comment on cases of political asylum.
In her letter Almaz claimed that her efforts to improve the
situation for the Oromo led her to be placed on a black list of
separatist sympathisers.
Federal Ethiopian officials in Addis Ababa had no comment on Mako's departure on Tuesday.
Mako held the country's fourth most important public office,
heading a chamber responsible for preserving the rights of each of the states, nationalities and peoples that make up Ethiopia. - AFP
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