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One of the main opponents of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Bekele Gerba, has applied for political asylum in the United States. He said that he feared for his life due to the deteriorating political situation in Ethiopia.
One of the main opponents of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Bekele Gerba, has applied for political asylum in the United States. He said that he feared for his life due to the deteriorating political situation in Ethiopia. Bekele Gerba was released in January 2022 after 18 months in prison. He had resigned from his post as vice-president of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), the main opposition party representing an ethnic group.
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The Oromo are the most numerous people in Ethiopia. The East African country is divided into regional states along ethno-linguistic lines. Presently, he is in the US and conveyed through an email his decision not to return to Ethiopia. He has already submitted his request for asylum to the US government, where he has been since June 2022. According to him, the political situation in Ethiopia was constantly deteriorating with intimidation, mass murders, and arrests. Bekele has spent a total of more than seven years in prison since 2011, imprisoned twice by the coalition dominated by the Tigrayan minority that governed Ethiopia for nearly 30 years, and then by the government of Mr Abiy that succeeded it.
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He was first imprisoned for almost 4 years between 2011 and 2015. Later, for almost three years between late 2015 and early 2018, he was jailed during the crackdown on the opposition protests that would bring Abiy, the current president to power. Finally, he returned to prison in mid-2020 after the violence triggered in the Oromia region and in Addis Ababa by the murder of the singer Hachalu Hundessa. He was released in January 2022 under an amnesty, along with several Ethiopian opposition figures.
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There was speculation that Bekele Gerba was released on the assurance that he would leave the country, which he scotched and said there was no deal with the government. If that was so, he would not have criticized the government, he asserted, while adding that he was pessimistic about the future of Ethiopia.
