The Hachalu Hundesa shooting on Monday night in Addis Ababa has shocked the nation as millions of Ethiopians woke up to the news of the iconic murder of the songwriter for the singer song Oromo.
The shooting took place around 9:30 pm local time in the Kality area of the city. Addis Ababa police said several suspects have been detained and an investigation is underway. Thousands of outraged fans across the country have taken to the streets demanding justice. In an attempt to quell the unrest and avoid news coverage of it, the Ethiopian government has shut down internet services across the country.
Outraged fanatics have clashed with police in several Ethiopian cities and so far seven people have been killed in the chaos. The protests are confirmed to take place as far away as the city of Harar, 516 kilometers east of Addis Ababa.
Despite the fact that the Internet has played a decisive role in transforming the lives of millions of people in Ethiopia, current and former governments have regularly demanded that the state telecommunications monopoly shut down the Internet during security incidents, for example recently in the Wollega province of The Oromia region.
With the increasing use of Internet-based services, from banking to commodity exchanges, the closings have come at immense economic cost. Closing a month in 2016 under Prime Minister Desalegn is estimated to have cost the country $ 8 million. The two-week blackout in 2019 under current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is estimated to have cost the country $ 66.87 million.
Hachalu protesting
For those who took to the streets, Hachalu was more than a musician. He was an outspoken revolutionary who used his lyrics to echo the plight of the marginalized Oromo people in Ethiopia. As such, for the Oromo ethnic group, which makes up just over a third of Ethiopia’s population of 110 million, Hachalu was enshrined as a symbol of defiance and resistance.
Hachalu’s lyrics and voice, written in his native language Afaan Oromo, made him famous nationally and sold concerts in Ethiopia and North America every time he toured. But by far her most popular single is Maalan Jira which is loosely translated as “what existence is mine”. The song, which describes Oromos’ displacement, resonated at the time of its release in June 2015 when the Oromo were campaigning against the planned expansion of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
The relevance of Maalan JiraThe message resonated with protesters who just a few months later launched the 2015-16 uprisings that would eventually force Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to resign. It paved the way for Abiy, an Oromo himself, to ascend to the throne and implement the reform that protesters in Ethiopia had demanded.
For recognized rights defender Fatuma Bedhaso, who was a friend of Hachalu and is of Oromo descent, the loss of someone she refers to as the voice of her generation is particularly painful.
“Hachalu wove our sorrows and hopes together through his art and literally provided us with a road map,” he told Quartz Africa. “He did it with Maalan Jira, the soundtrack of the Oromo protest movement.”
Hachalu most endearing to the masses was their refusal to compromise their beliefs. He remained an outspoken activist and human rights defender to the end, despite his success as an artist. In his final interview before his death, he lashed out at Prime Minister Abiy, likely out of frustration at reports of killings of civilians by Ethiopian army forces fighting a separatist militia in south and west Oromia.
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