By Pal Deng Puor,
The Anyuak terrorist have killed significant number of people and are still determined to kill as many more Nuer as they could get in western Ethiopian region of Gambella for what they call war against the Nuer.
Most of the local Anyuak in the police force and Liyu Haile have abandoned their positions and are now in the bushes collaborating with terrorist who are adamant of terrorizing the Gambella National and regional State.
It has just become apparent that these terrorist have something the rest of the Ethiopian community do not know about.
While they are looking for more Nuer to kill, they ransacked the department of agriculture in Gambella town and took electronic materials, computers, printers and fax machines. They also shredded every document stored in the bureau of agriculture.
The Nuer who were based in Anyuak area as far as Jor were killed by Anyuak security forces.
It is widely believed that the Anyuak terrorists were armed by the South Sudanese government because of his hatred for the Nuer. Hence, weapons from neighboring South Sudan flow to the Anyuak area of Pochalle which is a border town between Ethiopia and South Sudan.
South Sudan government is represented in Gambella by an Anyuak Sudanese whose hand for the insecurity of the region has since far been greater. He has been supporting the Ethiopian rebels inside South Sudan who are predominantly Anyuak and Oromos orgins.
A source to one of the media outlet has confirmed that the Anyuaks of Openo are moving in great numbers to Pochalle area of South Sudan to acquire weapons from the South Sudan government to kill innocent Nuer and ultimately create chaos in Ethiopia.
This is not the first time one has seen terrorist Anyuak taking innocent lives in the region. It happened many times. Even when a physical fight by hand occurs between two people when the other one becomes to be an Anyuak and the opponent from another tribe, the Anyuak terrorists marches on a killing spree and randomly kill anyone they can get from the ethnicity their fellow had dispute with.
It seems that there may be something they are not happy about but can a random killing of anyone justify what their grievances could be about? Few years back, they have been killing foreigners who leased farms in Gambella on the virtue that their land was taken which their activists calls “Gambella Land Grab”.
In protest of that they have killed Abehsa, Indians and even some of their own Anyuaks who guarded those farms.
These killers are a bunch of thieves who do not have any clue of the Ethiopian constitution in land ownership. According to Ethiopian constitution, nobody really owns land even from the Derg era. The Ethiopian land belongs to all Ethiopians.
Nothing much has changed in the current government which has changed Ethiopia for the better. Contrary to the wishes and believes of these evils, what has it got to do with the blood of innocent Nuer who they are now killing every day? What has it got to the bloods of the Ethiopian Defense Force they killed in Jor and Ageng for trying to restore calmness? What has that got to do with a lot of people they ended their lives including the deputy minister for roads and construction, Ato Gatdet Gony Kuay who was murdered by members of the Liyu Haile from the Anyuak ethnic group.
The hatred of Anyuak terrorist against everyone in Gambella goes deeper than we think. The extermination of 14 refugees in Gok prison who are Sudanese Nuer had nothing to do whatsoever with the ongoing crisis in Gambella National Regional State between the Ethiopian Nuer and Anyuak. But with their view of thinking, a Nuer is a Nuer and an Oromo is an Amhara or a Woleyta part of the reason they kill every Abesha when an anyuak is accidentally injured or killed by an Abesha.
The situation is now under control although there is no day passes without Nuer death recorded. Yesterday three Nuer were killed in Itang who tried to go about their business. Despite these killings, the Gambella leadership under hard working Governor “Ato Gatluak Tut Khot and Engineer Olero Opiew are pressing for calmness.
Gambella, has a history of low-intensity conflict, is divided into administrative zones run by the Anuak, Nuer and Mazenger communities, whilst Itang is a separate, ethnically mixed area. The sparsely populated federal region has been the focus of foreign and domestic agricultural investments since 2010. Saudi Star Agricultural Development Plc, an Ethiopian company owned by billionaire Mohamed al-Amoudi, owns a rice farm in Gambella. That farm along with other farms such as Kuritiri are believed to have upset the Anuak tribe eventhough they employ a lot of local population and improving the regional economy.
Some Aynuak claims that their land has been taken away from them. The serious fighting that followed “petty quarrels” could be fueled by the representative of the South Sudanese government in Gambella who happens to be an Anyuak. He was recently deployed in the region however, with the blink of an eye, he mobilized his Anyuak tribe against Nuer and highlanders over the land influx and a perception that Nuer siding on federal government development project which dominate federal investigators of highlanders, said Okello Oman a federalism expert at Metu University.
The Anyuak population was recorded as around 99,000 at the last census in 2008, South Sudanese government involved in a power struggle in who should control Gambella region between Anyuak and Nuer could be stoking ethnic tensions in Gambella, he said by phone from Gok today.
The views of this article are solely of the author.
