ETHIOPIA: RECENT RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN OROMIYA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ADDIS ABABA 002911

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR AF/E
LONDON, PARIS, ROME FOR AFRICA WATCHER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/23/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV KISL ET
SUBJECT: ETHIOPIA: RECENT RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN OROMIYA
LIKELY HAS MANY ROOT CAUSES

REF: ADDIS ABABA 02352

Classified By: Charge D'Affaires Vicki Huddleston for reasons 1.4 (b)&(
d)


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Following reports of deadly religious
conflicts in the Oromiya region, Poloff was told in meetings
with religious leaders that the violence may in fact have
ethnic and political undertones. Though the clashes were
between Muslims and Orthodox Christians, there is evidence to
suggest that long-running ethnic conflict in the area is
perhaps being fueled by fundamentalist religious influences.
Both groups expressed concern and plan to address followers;
however, at this time the leadership of the Orthodox church
and the Muslim communities do not have plans for coordinated
local efforts to repair damage, as has occurred in the past.
Post, though USAID and a Public Diplomacy grant, is
developing a program of inter-faith dialogues and stakeholder
meetings to help foster reconciliation. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) During the week of October 16, Poloff met with Abuna
Gerima, the Director of Foreign Relations and second in
charge of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC),Sheikh Elias
Redman, the deputy chairman of the Ethiopian Islamic Supreme
Council (EIASC),and Brian Gilcrest, a missionary who worked
for several years in south western Oromiya, region where the
clashes took place. These meetings were intended to gain
insight into the source of the violence, as well as to
evaluate the possibility for continued conflicts.

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STRING OF VIOLENCE LEAVES MANY DEAD, CHURCHES BURNED
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3. (SBU) Several news agencies reported that eight people
were killed and over 100 houses and two churches were burned
in the first of a series of recent clashes between Muslims
and Orthodox Christians in Dembi, Oromiya region. The
conflict began on September 26, the eve of the Ethiopian
Orthodox holiday of Meskal, when Christians light a
traditional holiday bonfire. Local Muslims complained that
the resulting smoke was seeping into the nearby mosque and
asked the Christians to extinguish the fire. The Christians
refused and in an ensuing argument, an elderly Christian man
was hit by a rock allegedly thrown by a Muslim. Angered by
the act, the man's son retrieved an automatic weapon and
opened fire on Muslims, killing four and wounding five. The
following day at the burial ceremony, Muslim demonstrators
demanded that the shooter be put to death, to which police
responded that the suspect had been apprehended and that
justice would take its course. Dissatisfied, the Muslim
demonstrators went on a rampage and burned over 100 huts and
two churches. The violence continued until October 4, during
which an additional four people were killed and 1,500
displaced. Police arrested over 20 suspects involved in the
clash. Police are currently investigating and charges are
expected to be presented by October 20. According to police
reports, most of those detained are Muslims belonging to the
conservative Quaricha sect.


4. (SBU) Following the event in Dembi, Post received
information concerning two additional clashes in the same
region. The second reportedly took place the night of
October 14, which was also a traditional Orthodox religious
holiday, in the village of Beshasha, near Dembi. Indications
were that six churchgoers were killed and 19 others wounded
during an armed attack on an Orthodox church, in which the
attackers also burned the church. Separately, Post received
information that in the town of Begi (also western Oromiya
region),two EOC priests had their throats slashed in a
apparently religiously-motivated attack.

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QUIET RESPONSE FROM ORTHODOX CHURCH
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5. (SBU) In a meeting on October 17, Abuna Gerima of the EOC
acknowledged all three of the incidents and confirmed that
the number of dead and churches burned was accurate.
Additionally, he said that many Christians in the area have
been forcibly converted to Islam by Muslim radicals. He said
that EOC officials had been sent out to the area to evaluate
following this violence and that the Holy Senate of the EOC

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is now debating on how to resolve the residual animosity in
the area. In the meantime, the EOC has also released a
statement calling on Christians and Muslims to work together
to resolve this matter and reminding the public that the two
groups have peacefully lived side by side for many years.


6. (SBU) When pressed for further details of the events,
possible motives, and how the EOC plans to react, Abuna
Gerima was tight-lipped and referred to the EOC press
release. (Note: The EOC has long been suspicious of
outsiders and usually reveals very little information on the
inner-workings of the church. END NOTE) However, in
discussing the clash in Beshasha, Abuna Gerima was visibly
distressed. He revealed that those who attacked the church
were Muslims brandishing guns and machetes. He said they
indiscriminately attacked church goers and hacked six people
to death, while many of those injured remain in critical
condition. To support this, he showed Poloff extremely
graphic pictures from the scene, showing dead bodies with
faces and limbs with apparent machete wounds. (NOTE: Post has
subsequently received a copy of a videocassette which
captures many of these images. The video contains footage of
the church and surrounding area in Beshasha the morning after
the attack. It shows the victims of the attack, apparently
killed by machetes, as well as the still-smoldering church.
Several interviews given by witnesses report that Muslim
militants stormed the church, setting fire to it using
gasoline, then attacking the fleeing church-goers. The tape
is reportedly being circulated around Ethiopia by
ultra-orthodox Christians. END NOTE)

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EIASC CLAIMS MORE THAN JUST RELIGION INVOLVED
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7. (C) Sheikh Elias Redman, in a meeting on October 19, also
confirmed media reports, but had a great deal more to say on
the matter. As he has discussed in previous meetings
(reftel),Sheikh Elias said that extremists from Saudi Arabia
had an indirect part to play in these conflicts. He reported
that local NGOs Da-ewa and Knowledge, as well as the Oromiya
Islamic Call, are illegally financed and supported from Saudi
Arabia, and have been promoting an agenda of Wahhabism in the
area in which the conflicts took place. These organizations
have been holding meetings and training imams in hard-line
practices without the endorsement of the EIASC, Elias said.


8. (C) Addressing the events of September 26 in Dembi, Sheikh
Elias acknowledged that Meskal celebrations normally took
place without problems, but this year the local priest from
the EOC "received a vision" that the traditional bonfire must
take place 13 meters from the local mosque, rather than near
the church where it occurred in the past. He said the local
government officials knew of this plan, but did nothing to
stop it. He added that the subsequent retaliation by Muslims
reported in the press was not indiscriminate; rather they
burned only the houses and churches of Orthodox Christians
with Amhara roots. Those Orthodox of Oromo origins and all
Protestants were left alone. The Sheikh further said that
those Orthodox who lit the bonfire near the Mosque were
Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) supporters, while the
Muslims in the area overwhelmingly back the outlawed Oromo
Liberation Front (OLF). He portrayed the conflict as
"political, using religion as a cover." (NOTE: Post has not
received any reports in the past of conflicts between the OLF
and CUD, however the Amhara (CUD's base) and Oromo people are
traditional competitors with tensions to match. Recently,
elements of the OLF and CUD formed the Alliance for Freedom
and Democracy (AFD) in opposition to the ruling EPRDF, but
this alliance is suspect due to the very different goals of
the CUD and OLF. END NOTE.) The difficult local political
situation is further complicated from the fact that the zone
is administered by officials from the Oromo People Democratic
Organization (OPDO),a part of the ruling EPRDF, Elias added.


9. (C) The Sheikh reported that immediately following the
round-up by local police of the Muslims suspected of taking
part in the violence, a large number of Muslim peasant
farmers from the country-side marched into Dembi town in the
early hours of September 27 with the intention of storming
the local police station and demanding release of the Muslim
prisoners. Police stood their ground and the stand-off
escalated into violence, with the police firing into the

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crowd, killing four. Federal police were sent to the area in
the days following. Following investigation, many of the
Muslims were subsequently released, while the Orthodox
civilian who opened fire on Muslims turned himself in to
police. The Sheikh reported that the situation in Dembi town
has calmed, but said there remained a great deal of distrust
and anger in the community following these events.


10. (C) The Sheikh concurred with Abuna Gerima that the
subsequent events in Beshasha were related to those in Dembi,
resulting from residual anger among Muslims. However, the
Sheikh again pointed to politics in this event, accusing the
OLF of responsibility. He explained that, as there was a
large federal police presence in the area following the first
conflict, there is little chance that simple peasant Muslims
farmers would have the nerve to attack an Amhara Orthodox
church. Further, he said that the group was well-armed and
acted in a very organized fashion ) first setting fire to
the church, flushing out church goers, then methodically
attacking. He felt that such a bold and organized attack had
to be the work of the OLF.


11. (C) Conversely, the third event in the town of Begi,
which is near the Ethiopian-Sudanese border, the Sheikh
reported that the killing of the priests was entirely
religious-based and that there are no political undertones to
the conflict in this area. He explained that this zone near
the Sudanese border is a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism
even more severe than Wahhabism. A number of people in that
area have received religious training abroad, principally in
Sudan and Saudi Arabia. The Sheikh sa)Q(qi*ehWHdrusion. He also
confirmed that local Protestants had been left alone in the
clashes, and that the violence occurred between Muslim Oromos
and Amhara Orthodox. However, he doubted a political
undertone, focusing more on the ethnic tension between the
local indigenous population and the immigrant Amharas. He
concurred with the Sheikh on the matter of religious
fundamentalism in Begi, saying that before the killing of the
priests, a local Muslim leader publicly declared jihad on
local Christians. Gilcrest said that neither the EOC nor the
EIASC are adequately responding to these conflicts. He feels
that the sending of fact-finding missions, then issuing
separate statements (not joint) denouncing the violence is
not enough. He said that the only significant work being done
now is by the Ethiopian Inter Faith Dialogue, a local
organization of religious leaders from several faiths that
are developing a plan for a series of community workshops in
the affected areas. (NOTE: USAID, through its NGO partners,
is developing a program of inter-faith dialogues to include
the EOC and the Muslim community. Additionally, the Public
Diplomacy section has provided funding to a local NGO to
organize an inter-faith conference in Addis Ababa in
mid-November. Both of these efforts are focused on bringing
together leadership from both faiths to discuss and plan an
integrated strategy of reconciliation. END NOTE)

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COMMENT: FUTURE CONFLICTS STRONG POSSIBILITY
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13. (C) Though sporadic religious conflicts occasionally

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occur in Ethiopia, the recent string of clashes in a
predominately Oromo Muslim area is particularly concerning.
Though it is difficult to determine the root cause of this
violence ) whether religious, ethnic or political ) it is
possible that all three played some role in Dembi and
Beshasha. Sheikh Elias has on numerous occasions made the
accusation of Saudi support for local Muslim extremism, and
again said that groups spreading hard-line beliefs are active
in the area of the clashes, particularly nearer to the
Sudanese border. The GoE has not been effective in stemming
the tide of the reportedly foreign financed hard-liners in
spreading their message. In a region that has traditionally
had underlying ethnic differences, religious extremism
threatens to further push the two communities apart. Future
violent conflict is a strong possibility. Joint efforts by
the EOC and EIASC have quelled religious tensions in the
past, but at this time it does not appear that coordinated
efforts at reconciliation by the two religious groups are
likely.
HUDDLESTON