The following is a letter from the Oromo Studies Association (OSA).
Oromo Studies Association
P.O Box 32391, Fridley, MN 55432
OromoStudies.org
May 07, 2013
Secretary of State John Kerry
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
RE: OSA’s Appeal Letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry in Advance of his Trip to Ethiopia
Dear Honorable Mr. Kerry,
I am writing this letter on behalf of the Oromo Studies Association (OSA), a scholarly organization established by Oromo and non-Oromo scholars to promote studies on and relevant to the Oromo people, the largest ethno-national group in the Horn of Africa constituting about 40% of the Ethiopian population. We have learned from the media outlets about your planned trip to Ethiopia to attend the AU summit in Addis Ababa (Finfinnee) from May 19 to 27, 2013. While we welcome your trip to Africa and appreciate the desire of the United States to actively engage in the continent, we are gravely concerned that your trip to Ethiopia and your contact with the Ethiopian authorities might be construed as your government’s endorsement of the minority TPLF-led Ethiopian government’s crimes against humanity and its continuous human rights violations against the Oromo and other peoples of the country. These crimes have been consistently and repeatedly well documented, among several other reliable sources, by the US State Department annual reports on Ethiopia.