LATEST News UPDATE from Central & Western Gharri Region jUNE 04, 2007 by Gur Gharri GSG  News Contributor  

Central Gharri Region  

Kenyan CID has arrested Mr. Abdirahaman Adan Abdula Balla on June 02, 2007. He spent 3 days in Garressa jail but he was ordered to be transferred to Nairobi and now he is on his way to Nairobi. Mr. Balla who is a Mandera County Counsel clerk was charged with several counts of bank Fraud, money laundering, and unauthorized sales of public land. Also, there is speculation that Mr. Balla is accused of transferring a Mandera district owned guest house to himself as the sole owner, and many more charges related to sales of public land and transferring money to his own personal bank accounts.  

Western Gharri Region

The Gharri’s efforts and perseverance has paid off. On may 30, 2007, the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization along with unidentified red hat militias attacked unarmed Gharri civilians and injuring 35 including an 80 year old man. According to one of the injured men, they were beaten simply because they refused to give their personal information to the OPDO’s agents for the census counts. They refused because, they are not Oromo and they should not be included in the Oromo census count. OPDO’s militia known as the “red hat militias” arrested 7 Gharri civilians, as a form of intimidation, as well as to discourage others from participating in the struggle. However, it backfired.

More people took to the streets denouncing the OPDO’s actions. They worked over time in different shifts with the exception of the hours of six pm to twelve Am to safeguard themselves from red hooded anti peace elements internal terrorist and to make sure that their land would not fall into the wrong hands. However, the Gharri’s relentless fight and sleepless weeks standoff, has produced a decision that favors the Gharri people and the Ethiopian government has stopped the census count in Moyale and its three sub locations indefinitely until a later date. So, the Gharri people came out victoriously.

The trouble started when the Oromo administrators transferred one of the criminals who masterminded the Arero massacre of September 2000, in which 83 women and children were slaughtered in his office.

The Gharri people so, vividly remembered those victims that they were not willing to let this criminal commit a similar crime and get away with it. They would not let him robs their identity in achieving his land grubbing goals in their expenses. Therefore, they have succeeded.

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