It’s a scorching hot afternoon in a recording studio on the outskirts of the southern French city of Toulouse, and the talk is of music and Ethiopia. Inspired by the Ethiopiques albums compiled by French music producer Francis Falceto, local experimental jazz quartet Le Tigre Des Platanes have invited Ethiopian traditional singer Etenesh Wassie to work with them, and Falceto to oversee the project. Wassie can’t speak French and the band can’t speak Amharic, but the results are dramatic. Furious free-form brass and percussion are interspersed with declamatory, harsh-edged vocals, and there’s an extraordinary passage in which she duets with a wild solo saxophone. “That,” explains Falceto, “was a traditional Ethiopian greeting song.”
Mali may still dominate the African music scene, but the African sound that has built up the biggest following among musicians outside the continent in recent years is Ethiopian dance music – especially that from the “golden age” of the 1960s and early 70s, when, as Falceto puts it, Addis Ababa was “the African answer to swinging London” and boasted a famously wild nightlife. That era ended when Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by a military junta in 1974; regular curfews meant that clubs could no longer operate, and many musicians fled abroad.
This is the music that has been released on Falceto’s comprehensive Ethiopiques archive series (which will reach Volume 23 in the next few weeks, following the release of the new Very Best of Ethiopiques compilation) – Robert Plant, Elvis Costello and Temple of Sound are among its enthusiastic fans. Earlier this year, the most famous survivor from the era, Mahmoud Ahmed, was honoured at the BBC Radio 3 awards for world music, where the grey-haired singer gave a rousing performance and an impressive display of African pogo dancing.
Ethiopian music is very different from other African styles, perhaps because the country itself, with its long embrace of Christianity and no experience of western colonialism (though the Italians did invade the country in the second world war), has had such a different history. Musically, it has never been influenced by Cuban or other Latin styles, unlike west Africa. Instead, Ethiopian musicians looked to their own traditional music and to black America – a combination that came together in the extraordinary experiments of the 60s, when they created their gloriously distinctive fusion of local styles with American R&B, funk and free-form jazz.
Falceto has been rediscovering and reissuing that music, and transforming the world’s view of Ethiopia, since 1986, but it all started quite by chance. Back in 1984, he was working as a promoter, specialising in experimental music, free jazz and new music, when at a party a friend played an album by Mahmoud Ahmed that he’d bought in Ethiopia. Falceto was amazed: “I made cassettes and sent them to friends who knew about Africa, but they didn’t know about him.” He started travelling to Ethiopia (where the military was still in control), searched out Ahmed, who was then running a music store, and began to revive the singer’s career by arranging a European release for his now-celebrated Ere Mela Mela, originally recorded 11 years earlier. Then, realising there was “a music mine that had to be explored”, he started researching songs by other musicians from the era, and began the often-painstaking task of hunting down the original reel-to-reel masters of the vinyl recordings that he had heard.
In the process, he has become an expert in a remarkable period of African musical history, when politics dictated the rise and the fall of an experimental movement that in many ways echoed the 1960s musical revolution in the west. Emperor Haile Selassie played a key, if indirect role, because it was during his long rule that Ethiopia’s love affair with brass took off. Despite all those Rasta anthems about him, the Emperor’s musical taste veered less to reggae than to military brass bands, “because he realised that brass music was a symbol of power. It was music that impressed, but there had been no such tradition in Ethiopia,” Falceto explains.
Western brass instruments had been introduced to Ethiopia at the end of the 19th century as a gift from Tsar Nicholas. By the 1950s and early 60s, brass instruments played a key role in Ethiopian pop though, for much of this era, all bands were controlled by Selassie’s authorities, and no private orchestras were allowed. The best singers and players worked with such state-controlled outfits as the Police Band, the Haile Selassie Theatre Band, or (most importantly) the Imperial Bodyguard Band, which in the early 1960s included Mahmoud Ahmed. They received regular monthly salaries, like civil servants and played at state occasions and hotel dances.
Yet, as the Ethiopiques compilations show, there was nothing staid about these state bands, for they made sure that they checked out all the latest American hits, and then mixed them with local styles. It wasn’t just Mahmoud Ahmed who pioneered the new fusion. Other extraordinary singers of the era included Alemayehu Eshete, who started out with the Police Band and became known as the Ethiopian James Brown for his frantic funk workouts that retained an eastern-sounding, Ethiopian edge. There was also Tewelde Redda, who played an amplified version of the Ethiopian lyre, the krar, and was one of the first “electric guitarists” in Africa. And then there was the extraordinary Getatchew Mekurya, who played in the Haile Selassie Theatre Band and Police Band, and developed his unique style by listening to shellela, furious war cries used by armies before battle. When played on Mekurya’s saxophone, the result was like free-form jazz. “He was like Albert Ayler or Ornette Coleman,” says Falceto, “but he didn’t have any jazz records. He just did it!”
At the same time, a brave 26-year-old musician, Amba Eshete, dared to challenge the authority of the state by starting his own record label. His now-legendary vinyl releases, recorded in Ethiopia but manufactured in India, now make up much of the Ethiopiques collection.
Now thanks to Falceto, the music of the golden age has a new audience in the west, and though he has no plans to bring the survivors together for a Buena Vista Social Club-style show, he’s not ruling it out: “I’m ready to cooperate. I’d like to help other veterans the way I helped Mahmoud Ahmed.” He also notes that while Tewelde Redda and Alemayehu Eshete are still in good form, many musicians from the era are “living in misery when they should have a nice life because of their work”.
Lately, Falceto has been amazed by how contemporary western bands have responded to his Ethiopiques series by creating their own treatment of Ethiopian 60s styles, and has started taking those bands to Ethiopia. Boston’s Either Orchestra and the French Badoun Band have both made the trip: “People were shouting and crying even – they hadn’t seen a big band for 35 years!” he says. For his next project, there’s the fusion of French jazz and Ethiopian traditional styles that’s emerging from the Toulouse recording studio, to appear on his new contemporary music series, Ethiosonic. His obsession with the country has lasted for over two decades now, and he is still helping to transform Ethiopia’s image in the eyes of the world.
_________ The Very Best of Ethiopiques is released by Union Square on Monday.
It’s a scorching hot afternoon in a recording studio on the outskirts of the southern French city of Toulouse, and the talk is of music and Ethiopia. Inspired by the Ethiopiques albums compiled by French music producer Francis Falceto, local experimental jazz quartet Le Tigre Des Platanes have invited Ethiopian traditional singer Etenesh Wassie to work with them, and Falceto to oversee the project. Wassie can’t speak French and the band can’t speak Amharic, but the results are dramatic. Furious free-form brass and percussion are interspersed with declamatory, harsh-edged vocals, and there’s an extraordinary passage in which she duets with a wild solo saxophone. “That,” explains Falceto, “was a traditional Ethiopian greeting song.”
Mali may still dominate the African music scene, but the African sound that has built up the biggest following among musicians outside the continent in recent years is Ethiopian dance music – especially that from the “golden age” of the 1960s and early 70s, when, as Falceto puts it, Addis Ababa was “the African answer to swinging London” and boasted a famously wild nightlife. That era ended when Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by a military junta in 1974; regular curfews meant that clubs could no longer operate, and many musicians fled abroad.
This is the music that has been released on Falceto’s comprehensive Ethiopiques archive series (which will reach Volume 23 in the next few weeks, following the release of the new Very Best of Ethiopiques compilation) – Robert Plant, Elvis Costello and Temple of Sound are among its enthusiastic fans. Earlier this year, the most famous survivor from the era, Mahmoud Ahmed, was honoured at the BBC Radio 3 awards for world music, where the grey-haired singer gave a rousing performance and an impressive display of African pogo dancing.
Ethiopian music is very different from other African styles, perhaps because the country itself, with its long embrace of Christianity and no experience of western colonialism (though the Italians did invade the country in the second world war), has had such a different history. Musically, it has never been influenced by Cuban or other Latin styles, unlike west Africa. Instead, Ethiopian musicians looked to their own traditional music and to black America – a combination that came together in the extraordinary experiments of the 60s, when they created their gloriously distinctive fusion of local styles with American R&B, funk and free-form jazz.
Falceto has been rediscovering and reissuing that music, and transforming the world’s view of Ethiopia, since 1986, but it all started quite by chance. Back in 1984, he was working as a promoter, specialising in experimental music, free jazz and new music, when at a party a friend played an album by Mahmoud Ahmed that he’d bought in Ethiopia. Falceto was amazed: “I made cassettes and sent them to friends who knew about Africa, but they didn’t know about him.” He started travelling to Ethiopia (where the military was still in control), searched out Ahmed, who was then running a music store, and began to revive the singer’s career by arranging a European release for his now-celebrated Ere Mela Mela, originally recorded 11 years earlier. Then, realising there was “a music mine that had to be explored”, he started researching songs by other musicians from the era, and began the often-painstaking task of hunting down the original reel-to-reel masters of the vinyl recordings that he had heard.
In the process, he has become an expert in a remarkable period of African musical history, when politics dictated the rise and the fall of an experimental movement that in many ways echoed the 1960s musical revolution in the west. Emperor Haile Selassie played a key, if indirect role, because it was during his long rule that Ethiopia’s love affair with brass took off. Despite all those Rasta anthems about him, the Emperor’s musical taste veered less to reggae than to military brass bands, “because he realised that brass music was a symbol of power. It was music that impressed, but there had been no such tradition in Ethiopia,” Falceto explains.
Western brass instruments had been introduced to Ethiopia at the end of the 19th century as a gift from Tsar Nicholas. By the 1950s and early 60s, brass instruments played a key role in Ethiopian pop though, for much of this era, all bands were controlled by Selassie’s authorities, and no private orchestras were allowed. The best singers and players worked with such state-controlled outfits as the Police Band, the Haile Selassie Theatre Band, or (most importantly) the Imperial Bodyguard Band, which in the early 1960s included Mahmoud Ahmed. They received regular monthly salaries, like civil servants and played at state occasions and hotel dances.
Yet, as the Ethiopiques compilations show, there was nothing staid about these state bands, for they made sure that they checked out all the latest American hits, and then mixed them with local styles. It wasn’t just Mahmoud Ahmed who pioneered the new fusion. Other extraordinary singers of the era included Alemayehu Eshete, who started out with the Police Band and became known as the Ethiopian James Brown for his frantic funk workouts that retained an eastern-sounding, Ethiopian edge. There was also Tewelde Redda, who played an amplified version of the Ethiopian lyre, the krar, and was one of the first “electric guitarists” in Africa. And then there was the extraordinary Getatchew Mekurya, who played in the Haile Selassie Theatre Band and Police Band, and developed his unique style by listening to shellela, furious war cries used by armies before battle. When played on Mekurya’s saxophone, the result was like free-form jazz. “He was like Albert Ayler or Ornette Coleman,” says Falceto, “but he didn’t have any jazz records. He just did it!”
At the same time, a brave 26-year-old musician, Amba Eshete, dared to challenge the authority of the state by starting his own record label. His now-legendary vinyl releases, recorded in Ethiopia but manufactured in India, now make up much of the Ethiopiques collection.
Now thanks to Falceto, the music of the golden age has a new audience in the west, and though he has no plans to bring the survivors together for a Buena Vista Social Club-style show, he’s not ruling it out: “I’m ready to cooperate. I’d like to help other veterans the way I helped Mahmoud Ahmed.” He also notes that while Tewelde Redda and Alemayehu Eshete are still in good form, many musicians from the era are “living in misery when they should have a nice life because of their work”.
Lately, Falceto has been amazed by how contemporary western bands have responded to his Ethiopiques series by creating their own treatment of Ethiopian 60s styles, and has started taking those bands to Ethiopia. Boston’s Either Orchestra and the French Badoun Band have both made the trip: “People were shouting and crying even – they hadn’t seen a big band for 35 years!” he says. For his next project, there’s the fusion of French jazz and Ethiopian traditional styles that’s emerging from the Toulouse recording studio, to appear on his new contemporary music series, Ethiosonic. His obsession with the country has lasted for over two decades now, and he is still helping to transform Ethiopia’s image in the eyes of the world.
_________ The Very Best of Ethiopiques is released by Union Square on Monday.
It’s a scorching hot afternoon in a recording studio on the outskirts of the southern French city of Toulouse, and the talk is of music and Ethiopia. Inspired by the Ethiopiques albums compiled by French music producer Francis Falceto, local experimental jazz quartet Le Tigre Des Platanes have invited Ethiopian traditional singer Etenesh Wassie to work with them, and Falceto to oversee the project. Wassie can’t speak French and the band can’t speak Amharic, but the results are dramatic. Furious free-form brass and percussion are interspersed with declamatory, harsh-edged vocals, and there’s an extraordinary passage in which she duets with a wild solo saxophone. “That,” explains Falceto, “was a traditional Ethiopian greeting song.”
Mali may still dominate the African music scene, but the African sound that has built up the biggest following among musicians outside the continent in recent years is Ethiopian dance music – especially that from the “golden age” of the 1960s and early 70s, when, as Falceto puts it, Addis Ababa was “the African answer to swinging London” and boasted a famously wild nightlife. That era ended when Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by a military junta in 1974; regular curfews meant that clubs could no longer operate, and many musicians fled abroad.
This is the music that has been released on Falceto’s comprehensive Ethiopiques archive series (which will reach Volume 23 in the next few weeks, following the release of the new Very Best of Ethiopiques compilation) – Robert Plant, Elvis Costello and Temple of Sound are among its enthusiastic fans. Earlier this year, the most famous survivor from the era, Mahmoud Ahmed, was honoured at the BBC Radio 3 awards for world music, where the grey-haired singer gave a rousing performance and an impressive display of African pogo dancing.
Ethiopian music is very different from other African styles, perhaps because the country itself, with its long embrace of Christianity and no experience of western colonialism (though the Italians did invade the country in the second world war), has had such a different history. Musically, it has never been influenced by Cuban or other Latin styles, unlike west Africa. Instead, Ethiopian musicians looked to their own traditional music and to black America – a combination that came together in the extraordinary experiments of the 60s, when they created their gloriously distinctive fusion of local styles with American R&B, funk and free-form jazz.
Falceto has been rediscovering and reissuing that music, and transforming the world’s view of Ethiopia, since 1986, but it all started quite by chance. Back in 1984, he was working as a promoter, specialising in experimental music, free jazz and new music, when at a party a friend played an album by Mahmoud Ahmed that he’d bought in Ethiopia. Falceto was amazed: “I made cassettes and sent them to friends who knew about Africa, but they didn’t know about him.” He started travelling to Ethiopia (where the military was still in control), searched out Ahmed, who was then running a music store, and began to revive the singer’s career by arranging a European release for his now-celebrated Ere Mela Mela, originally recorded 11 years earlier. Then, realising there was “a music mine that had to be explored”, he started researching songs by other musicians from the era, and began the often-painstaking task of hunting down the original reel-to-reel masters of the vinyl recordings that he had heard.
In the process, he has become an expert in a remarkable period of African musical history, when politics dictated the rise and the fall of an experimental movement that in many ways echoed the 1960s musical revolution in the west. Emperor Haile Selassie played a key, if indirect role, because it was during his long rule that Ethiopia’s love affair with brass took off. Despite all those Rasta anthems about him, the Emperor’s musical taste veered less to reggae than to military brass bands, “because he realised that brass music was a symbol of power. It was music that impressed, but there had been no such tradition in Ethiopia,” Falceto explains.
Western brass instruments had been introduced to Ethiopia at the end of the 19th century as a gift from Tsar Nicholas. By the 1950s and early 60s, brass instruments played a key role in Ethiopian pop though, for much of this era, all bands were controlled by Selassie’s authorities, and no private orchestras were allowed. The best singers and players worked with such state-controlled outfits as the Police Band, the Haile Selassie Theatre Band, or (most importantly) the Imperial Bodyguard Band, which in the early 1960s included Mahmoud Ahmed. They received regular monthly salaries, like civil servants and played at state occasions and hotel dances.
Yet, as the Ethiopiques compilations show, there was nothing staid about these state bands, for they made sure that they checked out all the latest American hits, and then mixed them with local styles. It wasn’t just Mahmoud Ahmed who pioneered the new fusion. Other extraordinary singers of the era included Alemayehu Eshete, who started out with the Police Band and became known as the Ethiopian James Brown for his frantic funk workouts that retained an eastern-sounding, Ethiopian edge. There was also Tewelde Redda, who played an amplified version of the Ethiopian lyre, the krar, and was one of the first “electric guitarists” in Africa. And then there was the extraordinary Getatchew Mekurya, who played in the Haile Selassie Theatre Band and Police Band, and developed his unique style by listening to shellela, furious war cries used by armies before battle. When played on Mekurya’s saxophone, the result was like free-form jazz. “He was like Albert Ayler or Ornette Coleman,” says Falceto, “but he didn’t have any jazz records. He just did it!”
At the same time, a brave 26-year-old musician, Amba Eshete, dared to challenge the authority of the state by starting his own record label. His now-legendary vinyl releases, recorded in Ethiopia but manufactured in India, now make up much of the Ethiopiques collection.
Now thanks to Falceto, the music of the golden age has a new audience in the west, and though he has no plans to bring the survivors together for a Buena Vista Social Club-style show, he’s not ruling it out: “I’m ready to cooperate. I’d like to help other veterans the way I helped Mahmoud Ahmed.” He also notes that while Tewelde Redda and Alemayehu Eshete are still in good form, many musicians from the era are “living in misery when they should have a nice life because of their work”.
Lately, Falceto has been amazed by how contemporary western bands have responded to his Ethiopiques series by creating their own treatment of Ethiopian 60s styles, and has started taking those bands to Ethiopia. Boston’s Either Orchestra and the French Badoun Band have both made the trip: “People were shouting and crying even – they hadn’t seen a big band for 35 years!” he says. For his next project, there’s the fusion of French jazz and Ethiopian traditional styles that’s emerging from the Toulouse recording studio, to appear on his new contemporary music series, Ethiosonic. His obsession with the country has lasted for over two decades now, and he is still helping to transform Ethiopia’s image in the eyes of the world.
_________ The Very Best of Ethiopiques is released by Union Square on Monday.
NAIROBI, Kenya: Ethiopia’s dispatching of the Lucy skeleton on a six-year-tour of the United States is akin to prostituting the fragile, 3.2 million year-old fossil, paleontologist Richard Leakey said Friday.
The Lucy skeleton — one of the world’s most famous fossils — was quietly flown out of Ethiopia earlier this week for the U.S. tour. Leakey, one of the world’s best-known fossil hunters, is not the first to criticize what some see as a gamble with an irreplaceable relic. The U.S. Smithsonian Institution also has objected to the tour, and the secretive manner in which the remains were sent abroad has raised eyebrows in Ethiopia, where the public has seen the real Lucy fossil only twice.
“It’s a form of prostitution, it’s gross exploitation of the ancestors of humanity and it should not be permitted,” Leakey told The Associated Press in an interview at his Nairobi office.
Ethiopian officials were not immediately available for comment, but have said in the past that proceeds from the tour would be used to upgrade museums in one of the world’s poorest countries. Dirk Van Tuerenhout, the curator of anthropology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, where Lucy will be on display from Aug. 31 to April 20, said this week his museum will use “the utmost care.”
Lucy, the fossilized partial skeleton of what was once a 3 1/2-foot-tall adult of an ape-man species, was discovered in 1974 in the remote, desert-like Afar region in northeastern Ethiopia. Lucy is classified as an Australopithecus afarensis, which lived in Africa between about 3 million to 4 million years ago, and is the earliest known hominid.
The U.S. State Department approved the exhibit for temporary importation into the U.S., saying that display of Lucy and the other artifacts is in the national interest because of their “cultural significance.”
Stops beyond Houston have yet to be finalized, but Ethiopian officials have said they include New York, Denver and Chicago.
Leakey said the skeleton will almost certainly get damaged.
“These specimens will get damaged no matter how careful you are and every time she is moved there is a risk,” he said. “A specimen that is that precious and unique shouldn’t be exposed to the threats of damage by travel.”
He also said keeping Lucy in Ethiopia would lure tourists to the country.
“The point is, what is the benefit of taking one of the most iconic examples of the human story from Africa to parade it around in second-level museums in the United States?” he said.
Leakey is one of the world’s most renowned paleontologists. His team unearthed the bones of Turkana Boy — the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found — in the desolate, far northern reaches of Kenya in 1984.
He is also a conservationist credited with helping end the slaughter of elephants in Kenya during the 1980s.
NAIROBI, Kenya: Ethiopia’s dispatching of the Lucy skeleton on a six-year-tour of the United States is akin to prostituting the fragile, 3.2 million year-old fossil, paleontologist Richard Leakey said Friday.
The Lucy skeleton — one of the world’s most famous fossils — was quietly flown out of Ethiopia earlier this week for the U.S. tour. Leakey, one of the world’s best-known fossil hunters, is not the first to criticize what some see as a gamble with an irreplaceable relic. The U.S. Smithsonian Institution also has objected to the tour, and the secretive manner in which the remains were sent abroad has raised eyebrows in Ethiopia, where the public has seen the real Lucy fossil only twice.
“It’s a form of prostitution, it’s gross exploitation of the ancestors of humanity and it should not be permitted,” Leakey told The Associated Press in an interview at his Nairobi office.
Ethiopian officials were not immediately available for comment, but have said in the past that proceeds from the tour would be used to upgrade museums in one of the world’s poorest countries. Dirk Van Tuerenhout, the curator of anthropology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, where Lucy will be on display from Aug. 31 to April 20, said this week his museum will use “the utmost care.”
Lucy, the fossilized partial skeleton of what was once a 3 1/2-foot-tall adult of an ape-man species, was discovered in 1974 in the remote, desert-like Afar region in northeastern Ethiopia. Lucy is classified as an Australopithecus afarensis, which lived in Africa between about 3 million to 4 million years ago, and is the earliest known hominid.
The U.S. State Department approved the exhibit for temporary importation into the U.S., saying that display of Lucy and the other artifacts is in the national interest because of their “cultural significance.”
Stops beyond Houston have yet to be finalized, but Ethiopian officials have said they include New York, Denver and Chicago.
Leakey said the skeleton will almost certainly get damaged.
“These specimens will get damaged no matter how careful you are and every time she is moved there is a risk,” he said. “A specimen that is that precious and unique shouldn’t be exposed to the threats of damage by travel.”
He also said keeping Lucy in Ethiopia would lure tourists to the country.
“The point is, what is the benefit of taking one of the most iconic examples of the human story from Africa to parade it around in second-level museums in the United States?” he said.
Leakey is one of the world’s most renowned paleontologists. His team unearthed the bones of Turkana Boy — the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found — in the desolate, far northern reaches of Kenya in 1984.
He is also a conservationist credited with helping end the slaughter of elephants in Kenya during the 1980s.
Our indifference towards Ethiopia Somalis in Ogaden who suffer from the barbaric acts of genocide perpetrated by the TPLF regime is likely to have a long-term impact on freedom, democracy and Ethiopia’s unity
It is a sad and regrettable fact that Eritrean independence is the result of lack of freedom and democracy in Ethiopia. Are we repeating the same historical mistakes in the Ogaden? One of the historical mistakes that led to the secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia is the lack of statesmanship and political maturity of the then Ethiopian leaders. It seems that we have not yet taken the lessons of the past. What is currently unfolding in the Somali region of Ethiopia is indicative of this fact.
What is currently happening to Ethiopia Somali’s in the Ogaden is totally catastrophic. It is really shocking when one imagines living in Somali region at this time. People are being killed, houses are being burned, women and girls are being raped, young people are routed, kidnapped and killed and the list goes on and on. Oh my God! It is really shocking! The people of Ogaden are paying a high price alone due to the divisive political arrangements of the incumbent regime in Ethiopia.
The issue has now made headlines in the New York Times thanks to the brave work of its journalists. Thank God, the hidden dark work of the Woyanne forces has now come out into the open. It has also entered into the minds of some concerned U.S. officials such as Senator Patrick Leahy. Shouldn’t we be even more concerned about it as Ethiopians?
TPLF is using a combination of war and starvation strategies to force the Somali people to abandon supporting ONLF fighters. TPLF is causing immense damage to the people of Somali region as well as to the unity of Ethiopia in general.
What is even disconcerting is our indifference to the cause of the impoverished Somali people in Ethiopia. Our indifference is due to the wrong perception we have towards the just cause of the people of Ogaden resulting in poor response that do not go beyond mere lip service so far. If our indifference continues, the current crises will escalate to form the basis of another war of independence that is difficult to reverse in its advanced stages. This reminds me of an Ethiopian joke. A hyena came to a group of donkeys lying and sleeping in the dark night. As the hyena starts eating one of them, the victim whispers to others: you guys be quiet, the hyena starts eating me from my legs, not knowing that the hyena would not rest until he sees each one of them devoured one at a time.
The enemy we face is an angry hyena that will pursue each one of us one at a time. The divide and rule tactic is working closely with the divide and hit tactic. TPLF will not rest until it finishes its job of making Ethiopia the then Soviet Union. Meles Zenawi is the Gorbachev of Ethiopia. His Revolutionary democracy is the perestroika that is on its way to complete its job if a regime change does not happen in the short term.
The TPLF would like us to believe that the Ogaden problem is an issue of secession and as such it should be condemned and fought. Surprisingly, many Ethiopians who even oppose the current tyranny fell into this trap. The best way to avoid session is to tackle it at its root. Think of what happened to Eritrea because of the same old war policy of Mengistu Haile-Mariam. The TPLF policy is in fact aimed at fueling the conflict and exacerbating the struggle for session. What is being done has happened and will definitely happen in Oromia, Amhara, the Southern Region, Gambella and other regions of the country. Woyanne is an evil force and anti-Ethiopian in its nature. Its control of governmental powers in Ethiopia makes it even more dangerous not only to Ethiopia but also to east Africa in general.
What we need is a proactive approach to counter the divisive propaganda and action of the Meles regime. We should stand alongside the peace loving people of Ogaden, as they are Ethiopians as we are. We need to identify with them and cry for them before the international community to get attention and support. We need to coordinate our struggle with them for freedom and democracy.
We need to change our perception towards the Somali region of Ethiopia. Let us see the cause of freedom and democracy behind their secessionist movement. Let us not grossly condemn them like we did to Eritrea. The problem in the Ogaden region is part of a larger problem in Ethiopia. It is the lack of democracy and rule of law in Ethiopia.
Let us make it clear to the people of Somali region of Ethiopia and to the international community that what is being perpetrated in Ogaden is the work of TPLF regime. It does not represent the wishes of the Ethiopian people who sees the people of Ogaden as Ethiopian equally subjugated to tyrannical rule in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Somalis urgently need our help in this critical moment. The barbaric acts of TPLF in Ogaden should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. As such, condemning, not supporting, the terrorist acts of TPLF in Ogaden is standing up for human rights, democracy and Ethiopia’s unity.
