We Oromos in the Diaspora, inside Oromia (Oromo home land) and other Oromo speakers wish to express our appreciation to DW-Radio for the last 50 yrs for its Endeavour.
DW-Radio helped in:
· promoting the values of free democracy and support for human rights.
· Getting access to comprehensive and reliable information on a pluralistic basis.
·Broadcasting balanced and unbiased information.
Deutsche Welle not only reports about Germany but of course, about events happening around the world particularly so in regions torn by crisis and conflict with no freedom of opinion and the press.
DW-Radios effort in broadcast in Amharic since 1965 has been restricted to the Amharic speaking only. As a result Afaan Oromo speaking listening majority were excluded, particularly those in the rural areas who have no alternative access to information are not Amharic speaker.
Afaan Oromo is a language largely spoken in East Africa including countries like Kenya, Djibouti, Sudan and Somalia. Afaan Oromo is the potential lingua franca in the horn of Africa. In addition Afaan Oromo is spoken by thousands of Oromos in Diaspora reside in Germany and other European countries, United States, Canada, Australia and the Middle East.
There is no freedom of expression and access to alternative media in Ethiopian empire at present. The citizens are forced to listen to government owned press and broadcast medias as they are left with no alternative. As a result of the political crisis that followed the disputed May election, the government has launched a large-scale crack down on the independent free press.
DW-radio as an independent source of information is accepted as providing access to reliable and comprehensive information particularly to the marginalized rural citizens like that of the Oromo. We the undersigned therefore humbly request the DW-Radio to broadcast in afaan Oromo to the estimated more than 40,000,000 Afaan Oromo speakers.
Sincerely yours
Oromo online family
