Reuters is reporting that a secret committee of senior officials has ordered vigilante killings and extra-judicial detentions aimed at quelling an insurrection in Oromiya, Ethiopia's largest and most populated region.
The news agency interviewed more than 30 local and federal officials, including judges, lawyers, and victims of the abuses, and also reviewed documents drafted by local officials.
In the interviews, as well as the documents, information can be gleaned that suggests that all this was done at the hands of the Koree Nageenyaa, which means Security Committee in the Oromo language.
The organization is said to have begun operating in the region months after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took power in 2018. However, knowledge of the existence of the committee has only recently come to light.
Current and former government officials who spoke under the condition of anonymity reportedly said the Koree Nageenyaa was essential to the Prime Minister's efforts to crush the insurgency led by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA).
The Oromo people have long believed they have been marginalized socially and politically. Protest erupted in 2019, leading to a harsh government crackdown in which the Koree Nageenyaa took the lead.
The ensuing violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of citizens. The central government of Ethiopia has accused the OLA of killing dozens of citizens since 2019, which the group denies.
Prime Minister Abiy's father is Oromo and youth protests played a hand in the ouster of his predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn. The Koree Nageenyaa has been accused by those willing to speak of dozens of killings and hold the Security Committee responsible for the arrests of hundreds of others.
The committee is also accused of killing 14 shepherds in Oromiya in 2021-a massacre the government had previously blamed on the OLA. Reuters presented the findings of their investigation to Daniel Bekele, the head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, which is a state-appointed post.
Bekele did confirm the existence of the committee and said it aimed to address the security concerns in Oromiya, but he did acknowledge they had "overreached its purpose by interfering in the justice system with widespread human rights violations."
"We documented multiple cases of extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detentions, torture, and extortion," Bekele said, without elaborating on specific incidents.
Reuters says the central and Oromiya regional governments did not respond to this inquiry. Prime Minister Abiy defended his human rights record as early as this month. On Feb. 6, he told parliament: "Since we think along democratic lines, it is hard for us to even arrest anyone, let alone execute them."
The unrest in Oromiya, in which the capital, Addis Ababa, lies, gives insight into the instability of the region. Ethiopia has weathered a two-year civil war in the Tigray region that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
Another region, Amhara, suffered paramilitary violence last year in July. The government and the OLA held peace talks for the first time last year, but violence persists.
The Ethiopian government has labeled the OLA as terrorists. Interestingly, the United States and the United Nations do not yet share this assessment. Reuters further reports that the Koree Nageenyaa is headed by the former chief of staff, Shimelis Abdisa-who is also president of the Oromiya region.
