YOHANNES GEDAMU, Lecturer of Political Science, Georgia Gwinnett College OROMIA, one of the regions in Ethiopia’s ethnically constituted federation and the country’s most populated one, also happens to be the political constituency of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Unfortunately, the region is the country’s biggest security challenge. Ahmed’s efforts to address simmering ethnic conflict across Ethiopia have been mostly successful. His government has managed to improve relations between the Oromo and Somali groups, which had previously clashed. And ethnic Gedeos, who had been displaced from Oromia have by and large returned to the region. The latest spurt of ethnic clashes was…

ERNEST WAMBA DIA WAMBA Ernest Wamba dia Wamba is an academic and political theorist. He was the leader of the Rally for Congolese Democracy during the second Congo War and is an expert on African democracy. He wrote this article shortly after being detained for a year for being in possession of “subversive” documents. This is an edited excerpt from Experiences of Democracy in Africa: Reflections on Practices of Communalist Palaver as a Method of Resolving Contradictions, which originally appeared in Philosophy and Social Action XI (3) in 1985. Democracy, from the point of view of the ruling class, is a project of…

A fitting tribute to a true son of Africa MATHATHA TSEDU Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara, speaking a few days before he was assassinated in a military coup, said: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas". It was as if he was being prophetic for in death Sankara has loomed even larger than when he was alive, becoming, with his boyish features, the true poster boy of African revolutionaries. T-shirts and the signature beret and caps bearing his image have become the must-have for young activists throughout Africa and the world. He is the African equivalent of…

IIANA WEBSTER-KOGEN, Senior lecturer, SOAS, University of London ANYONE who steps into the public sphere in Ethiopia is also a potential political leader. In this atmosphere, an outspoken musician runs a high risk of falling foul of the authorities. One such story unfolded last week – the inexplicable, and still unresolved, murder in Addis Ababa of Hachalu Hundessa, the 34-year-old singer from the southern region of Oromia. The Oromo make up Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and are frequently referred to as a ‘marginalised majority’ that has been locked out of power until the last election. The country is still stunned.…