Ex-minister claims late dictator denigrated Oromos as “narrow-minded”

                                                             Junedin Sado

ESAT News (October 13, 2016)

A former minister and President of the Oromo region of Ethiopia (2001 to 2005) said the late dictator Meles Zenawi had prejudicially labelled the Oromo people as “narrow-minded”.

Junedin Sado said in an exclusive interview with ESAT that Zenawi, the late Tigrian strongman, had come up with a document labeling Oromos as narrow-minded. He said the cadres of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), one of the satellite parties operating under the ruling EPRDF, were outraged and had demanded the document to be collected and destroyed.

Sado who defected four years ago and lives in exile in the US, said members of the coalition on several occasion confronted the late prime minister Meles Zenawi on Tigrian supremacy and the privilege given to the  TPLF businesses.

According to Sado, Zenawi was once asked why EFFORT, the business conglomerate of the TPLF, was given special privileges but the prime minister dismissed the issue as unfounded. “He told us that EFFORT was set up with money earned selling sacks,” he said.

Junedin said the 2005 elections in which the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy won in a landslide has been the most difficult time for the ruling TPLF. He confessed that he and other high ranking officials had lost fair and square in that election.

There has been a rise in defections of Oromo officials and army commanders in the last few years as the Oromos, the largest ethnic group in the country, have been subjected political and economic marginalization.

Sado also served as minister of four departments in the current regime before he went to exile four years ago. He was the minister of civil service, science and technology and transport and communications.