Awaday is the hub of the huge foreign-currency earning khat market, which is personally dominated by the high-ranking officials, including the wife of the former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, of the Ethiopian government. For decades, these high-ranking officials have been evicting farmers and taking the land to grow the khat on mega-commercial farms for their own personal enrichment (from the sales of the khat). The implications of these mega-commercial farms are plenty: for starters, it was one of the reasons that led to the drying up of the once pristine Haromaya Lake (since khat requires an enormous amount of water for growth); and the allocation of the land for khat use (instead of using it to grow food crops) is one of the culprits behind the current famine in Hararghe, where millions are on the verge of dying, and tens of hundreds have already started to die due to the starvation, according to reports. It’s these long-term resentments against the Ethiopian Federal government, especially against the few high-ranking officials who have been wreaking havoc in Hararghe for their lucrative khat plantations – coupled with the ongoing resistance against the Addis Ababa Master Plan – that have boiled up to the surface and brought today’s Oromo protests to Awaday. The videos/photos below show Awaday is fighting back.
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