Hundreds of Ethiopian-Americans marched together on Tuesday in protest against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) party in their home country — and the U.S.’s lack of response to political repression in Ethiopia.

“Please listen to our voice…Our blood counts,” chanted hundreds as they marched down Marion Street to the Federal Building Downtown in 82-degree weather.

Marchers wore everything from street clothes to Ethiopian traditional outfits, and some wrapped U.S, Oromo and Ethiopian flags around their shoulders like capes.

“My dad is Oromo, my mother is Amhara, so who I am is Ethiopia,” said Kebede Abate, Ethiopian-Canadian Human Rights Chairman in British Columbia, as he stood under the towering Federal Building. “We must show the Oromo and Amhara as one…for that reason I drove 200 km early this morning to get here.”

The TPLF is the Tigray party within Ethiopia’s ethnically-based federalist government. It officially shares power with other ethnic parties in the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), but has long dominated the government. The EPRDF won a landslide victory in elections last year that were condemned by democracy watchdog groups.
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