Sharro: Sidama Crisis Monitor is watching Hawassa — and what they’re watching is a regional government that won its existence by referendum now being quietly dismantled from above.
Qeellete: This episode covers one central story: the Sidama regional state, how it was established, and the coordinated pressure now threatening its constitutional foundation.
Sharro: Let’s get into it.
The referendum mandate under siege
Qeellete: The core question here is whether a regional government created through a democratic vote can be undone by the administration that lost that argument — and how.
Sharro: The statement from the Sidama National Liberation Front and the Sidama Human Rights Council puts it directly: “ይህ ክልል የሚፈርሰው በሲዳማ ህዝብ ሌላ ረፈራንደም ሲካሂድ ካልሆነ በስተቀር በምንምና በማንም ሀይል አይፈርስም.”
Qeellete: So the upshot is this: the region cannot be dissolved by any force or authority other than another referendum held by the Sidama people themselves. That is the constitutional floor the statement is defending.
Sharro: And the statement argues that floor is being actively undermined — not through open legal process, but through installed loyalist cadres, manufactured inter-clan friction, and division among Sidama intellectuals.
Qeellete: The document is specific about the mechanics. It describes a pattern: spreading false narratives, pitting clan against clan, splitting Sidama scholars, all framed as anti-democratic movement designed to fracture public unity ahead of any future political contest.
Sharro: There is also a pointed economic dimension — development as displacement. The statement calls out demolitions of poor residents’ homes in Hawassa under the banner of development, describing it as inhumane. Land rights are being transferred under a “corridor” framework that the statement says is designed to shift resources to the federal level.
Qeellete: The statement names specific individuals it describes as collaborators — figures it calls “black bandas” and “white bandas” — and argues they are being used to restore a unitary order the Sidama people fought to leave behind.
Sharro: The self-determination question gets a direct reframe too — the statement pushes back on the framing that regional autonomy equals separatism, insisting the demand is for democracy, for choosing and removing leaders, and for cultural and linguistic recognition.
Qeellete: It closes with four specific calls to the Sidama public: know who undermined your region, understand that Hawassa development plans are displacing rather than serving you, watch the corridor land transfers, and document the conduct of those who have profited from selling public rights.
Sharro: The accountability demand is pointed — documentation now, trials later.
Qeellete: And that tension between constitutional mandate and executive pressure is exactly what the monitor is tracking.
Sharro: A referendum at ninety-eight percent, and the argument is still being relitigated from above.
Qeellete: The next episode will follow wherever the monitor points next — the pressure on Hawassa, the land question, the democratic deficit.
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