The beautiful game loved and followed by more than 190 countries world wide should never be a place for violence. It should be a place of love, happiness and spirit where talented players in all Gambella’s Woredas show their kills and amaze their fans with ball dribblings and tactics without it getting into a ugly sort of thing.
This is how it should be and how it is played in Europe. Fans get behind their team and yell and scream louder than the sound of jet engine but it never get into phsical confrontation because when it does, the spirit they barrack for gets destroyed and the atmosphere of the game, such as what happened yesterday, becomes destroyed as well.
That is exactly what happened yesterday in the stadium. The important game which supposed to bring about a lasting peace for all the people of Gambella and put bad feelings about one another behind is already tainted. Now, only the stupid people will think violence criminals won’t flock to the game to cause more suffering because their intention won’t be to watch or support their teams but to fuel more violence.
With this weak leadership which the people ogf Gambella has never seen, a leadership that does not apprehend criminals, a leadership that is tribal condoning killing of others, a leadership that finance and harbour terrorists, a leadership that is freind to violent criminals, anyone who will insist on going to watch the game would be fool enough to think that he or she will be safe and return home alive.
The best thing Thankuey and Omot can do is to cancel this game all together and save lives because it is now obvious that the game has turned into a breeding ground for violence. The yesterday fight was about slapping but some reports also indicated that stones were thrown at each other. With that a young boy from Nyinenyang Woreda in Nuer zone who came to support his team was stoned on the head. He is now fighting for his life. He was in the ambulance last night and en route to Jimma Hospital for advance medical help.
This does not need to occur but with the level of hatred in Gambella society and corrupt policing, there is no shortage of such tragic news even in times when all people of Gambella needs to come together. To prevent further issues like that, people need to stay in doors. If you underestimate this level of threat, ask yourself. How would they be able to keep me safe at the game? If they had such capacity in keeping the spectators safe, how did the stones got smuggled into the game? How did that happen?
All these happened because it appears that the National and Regional State Goverment lost control of governing Because of that people now must take the initiate to look after themselves and never cross into harms way.
Not just the Nuer only. Even Anyuak too . There are so many innocent innocent Anyuaks who do not need violence but can pay ultimate price just because of ethnicity as Gambella violence is shaped by this barbaric way of vegeance. We all need to do the right thing and that is to boycott further matches for the benefit of innocents who would otherwise be victims should the tournament continue.
They must stay in doors until the goverment come up with the plans to keep people safe. For now, goverment does not even meet with the locals but send messages through their corrupt system. This goverment is out of touch and people have to take the resposibility to look after themselves. Not the 15th Century Goverment that will only comsume beer and dance when violence criminals take innocent lives. It should never have the chance to be called goverment and the policing system in Gambella should never be allowed to exist the way it is. If they cannot do their job in protecting the public, why keep them in a pay roll? .
