The following is a speech delivered by Ato Obang Metho in Minnesota at a conference organized by the Ogaden Youth Network:

Let us Break Down the Invisible Fences of Ethiopia!

August 11, 2007

It is an honor to be here in front of you to talk about human rights in Ethiopia. Human rights abuses are going on all over the country, but right now, the people of the Ogaden are paying the heaviest price. What is happening in the Ogaden is a silent Darfur. I am here with you today as a brother who knows what you are going through. I am here to grieve with you as part of your Ethiopian family. I am here as a fellow worker in a battle against the same injustice that is killing all of our people—the people of Gambella, the Ogaden and in all of Ethiopia!

I want to thank the Ogaden Youth Network for inviting me to first Annual International Ogaden Youth Committee and for all the excellent work you have done in organizing this conference. I thank the Ogaden Human Rights Committee, the University of St. Thomas who is hosting this conference and the many others who assisted in bringing this about.

I am glad to be in this great state of Minnesota. Minnesota has become my second home. Since 2004, I have been coming here many times to speak, starting with the Anuak. You may not know that most of the Anuak in the United States live in Minnesota, as do my family members, friends and some of my work colleagues. More recently, I have been here to speak at the University of Minnesota and just two weeks ago to speak to the Oromo.

More Oromo live in Minnesota than anywhere else in the country, but I have just learned from some of my hostesses that there are 15,000 to 18,000 Ogadenis here in Minnesota as well—again, more than in any other place in the country! I now feel all the more strongly that Minnesota is my second home because I feel so at home with not only the Anuak, but now also because it is the largest US home of Ogadenis and the Oromo. You all are my new brothers and sisters and we have much in common, but the Anuak and the Ogadenis have had little chance to meet in the past.

I first met some of you in January of this year when we were in Atlanta at a meeting about the human rights abuses in Ethiopia that was organized by African Americans. During our stay, some of us met informally in a hotel room and talked for hours. There were four Ogadenis, one Amhara, one Oromo and me, an Anuak. While we were there, Abdulhakim, an Ogadeni, commented that it was unbelievable that we were all there together in the same room. He went on to say that previously there had been an invisible fence that had blocked us from each other that had been set in place by the Dergue and now was reinforced by the Woyane government.