Activists in DC to protest October 12 against World Bank, IMF

The World Bank in Washington, DC

WASHINGTON, DC -- Activists who have been accusing the World Bank and IMF of financing tyranny in Ethiopia will protest here in front of the headquarters of the World Bank on Saturday.
Poor Ethiopian farmers as well as indigenous people are being uprooted from their ancestral lands so as to pave the way for corrupt tycoons and foreign corporations, the activists said in a press release sent to Ethiomedia. In Gambella more than 3 million hectares of Annuak land was sold to foreigners to produce food for their own people. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations claim securing land to feed their people for future. More than 70,000 Annuaks have already been removed from their land and another 150,000 will be displaced in the coming few years.

“All this eviction and ethnic cleansing is financed by World Bank. The Ethiopian dictatorial minority rule cannot do this eviction and ethnic cleansing without the support of the World Bank and IMF financing it at all levels including paying salary for those who are killing the poor people,” the press release said, adding Annuaks are now an endangered species so are the Mursi people who have been chased away from South Omo Valley hunting ground to clear the land for a sugar company run by the regime. Mursi’s who resisted are murdered in large numbers.”
We all know that the World Bank denied loan for Cambodia in summer of 2011 for the government displacing its farmers. Why should it be different for Ethiopia in 2013? We demand the World Bank to come clean by distancing itself from the crime committed by the tribal mafia and junta of TPLF. What was good for Cambodia is good for Ethiopia!! We endorsed the demand of the Human Rights Watch on its recent press release on Ethiopia for the World Bank to do its own internal investigation on the eviction issue in Ethiopia and make it public. Thousands of Ethiopians were and are evicted, many children, women and elders die during this terrifying time. The World Bank has either to condone or condemn this human rights violation and crime against humanity. “We will continue to protest until the Bank stops financing ethnic cleansing and forced eviction of indigenous people of Ethiopia,” said the activists, while demanding for an official response from the Bank immediately. We also call for the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations to give support for the thousands who were evicted, ethnically cleansed and dispersed various parts of Ethiopia.