The oft quoted phrase “Freedom is not free” is true. No outside force is coming to give oppressed people the freedom they so much want. People will have to learn how to take that freedom themselves. Easy it cannot be. We should expect to face repression… [read more]
In light of the ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign in Ethiopia against the Amhara, Oromo, Ogaden, Gambella, Afar and other Ethiopians, several Ethiopian media will come together on Saturday, April 14, at 1 PM, to propose a worldwide economic boycott campaign against the Woyanne junta.
The discussion will take place live via teleconference, radio program, paltalk rooms, and audio stream.
Details of the proposal, such as what Woyanne institutions to target for boycott, will be announced on the conference.
The conference will be open for every one.
Attend one of the major Ethiopian paltalk rooms or call:
Tel: 712 432 0900
code: 506741#
Date/Time: Saturday, April 14, 2012, at 1 PM (Washington DC time)
For more info: [email protected]
By Clar Ni Chonghaile | The Guardian
BURAYU, ETHIOPIA — Alem Dechasa left Ethiopia in January to work as a maid in Lebanon, where she apparently killed herself. Her journey started in Burayu, a poor settlement outside Addis Ababa.
Lemesa Ejeta sniffed and cleared his throat but could not stop a tear from slipping down his cheek. His four-year-old daughter, Yabesira, had just run out of their mud-and-straw house to play, and it was as if he felt he could at last let go.
He struggled to describe the last time he saw his partner, Alem Dechasa Desisa, the 33-year-old mother of Yabesira and Tesfaye, 12. Alem left Ethiopia in January to work as a maid in Lebanon; she apparently hanged herself in a hospital room after she was beaten on a street in Beirut, allegedly by a man linked to the recruiting agency that took her there.
Alem’s journey to a lonely death started in this one-room hut in Burayu, a bereft settlement outside Addis Ababa where mothers like her and fathers like Lemesa face a Herculean struggle to survive each day.
Alem was one of many women who defied an Ethiopian government ban to work as housemaids in Lebanon, hoping to make life better for their children. It was a heartbreaking choice to have to make.
“She was in a queue at the airport but after she entered the terminal she was told it’s not time for her yet … and so she came back to see us,” said Lemesa, tears flowing down his cheeks, as he described the day she left.
“Our daughter, Yabesira, said, ‘If you’re leaving, who is going to dress me for school?’ and then she cried, and I cried and then Alem cried,” he said, speaking through a translator.
Two of Alem’s handbags hang from a nail on the wall. There are a few wooden chairs, a coffee table and two small mattresses leaning against another wall. In a corner is a straw basket made by Alem. Outside, the lean-to where she used to cook traditional, flat injera bread was cold and full of ashes.
Alem’s case has lifted the lid on the plight of migrant workers in Lebanon, where human-rights groups say they are regularly abused. Human Rights Watch says one migrant worker dies each week in Lebanon from suicide or other causes. They have no legal protection, and this is why three years ago Ethiopia banned its nationals from travelling there to work.
Alem’s beating, in late February, was broadcast by Lebanese TV in March and has been viewed by tens of thousands on YouTube. Newspapers and human-rights groups identified the man in the video as Ali Mahfouz, brother of the head of the recruiting agency. He has been charged with contributing to her suicide. He says the agency was trying to send her home because she had mental health problems.
The video showed Alem being dragged along the street outside the Ethiopian consulate. Her hair was pulled and she was bundled into a car. She was later admitted to a psychiatric hospital. A few days afterwards she apparently hanged herself.
In a statement , Human Rights Watch quoted a social worker with Caritas Lebanon Migrant Centre as saying that Alem first worked with a Lebanese family for a month but was returned to her agency because of communication problems. She did not get paid. Her second job only lasted a few days.
Alem allegedly told the social worker that a recruitment agent had beaten her and threatened to send her home. The statement also said she had previously tried to kill herself by drinking a cleaning product and by jumping from a car.
The mystery surrounding Alem’s life and death in Beirut hangs heavy over Burayu, where children in ripped clothes that are too thin for this rainy March day cluster around huts, as donkeys bray and hammers clank in a nearby quarry.
Lemesa has not yet told Yabesira – which means “work of God” – or Tesfaye that their mother is dead. “They are suspicious of something because people have been coming here, crying, but I am afraid to break the news to them,” the 31-year-old said. “Sometimes the children see her photo and ask when she is coming back to Ethiopia. If I tell [Yabesira] she is dead, I am afraid of the questions she will ask me.”
But when asked about reports that Alem killed herself, Lemesa, said: “I haven’t heard anything about her committing suicide.” Suicide is a taboo subject in Ethiopia, especially among Christians such as Lemesa.
Lemesa said he had heard only that before her death she was beaten. He later saw a newspaper article about the beating, but he has not seen the video, which prompted protests by Ethiopians.
A neighbour, Tadelu Negash, a 27-year-old mother of four with tight braids, was originally going to go to Lebanon with Alem but decided not to when she realised the process was illegal. But she has not dismissed the idea.
“We have no other option. We don’t want our children to suffer like we did … When we see what happened to [Alem], we feel very sad … But when you see the reality here, there are problems after problems, so much suffering, so we think it’s not such a bad idea,” she said.
Alem and Lemesa lived in Addis Ababa for nine years but eventually could not afford the rent there and moved to Burayu. Things got no better, and they decided that Alem would go to Lebanon. “We got the idea from our neighbours … Almost everyone is going to work abroad … So if everyone is doing it, we thought we should give it a try … She said she would work very hard and return,” said Lemesa.
It cost about 10,000 birr (£360) to send Alem to Beirut – about 4,500 of that went to the broker, a man who will only speak on condition of anonymity. He said a relative working in Beirut gave his number to an employment agency, which contacted him to ask if he could find workers.
He said he saw that Alem was struggling and suggested she go, claiming not to know about the government ban. “After what happened to Alem, I received information that it was banned … The agency hasn’t asked me again, but I have quit,” he said.
Ethiopia’s consul general in Beirut estimates that there are between 60,000 and 80,000 Ethiopians living in Lebanon, 43,000 of them legally. Tigist Mengistu is among them.
Tigist, who used to go to church with Alem, left in 2010. She has told her parents, Derebie Begi and Mengistu Birrie, that her job is easy but has not sent any money since repaying a loan from her father. “Since what happened to Alem, I worry the same may happen to my daughter,” said Derebie.
“Alem never got any rest when she lived here,” said Mengistu. “She was always cooking injera and trying to sell it on the streets. She went to the forest to collect wood and leaves for cooking.”
Human Rights Watch and other groups have urged Lebanon to reform restrictive visa regulations and adopt a labour law on domestic work. “[Alem’s] death is an outrage on two levels – the violent treatment she endured and the absence of safeguards that could have prevented this tragedy,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and north African director at Human Rights Watch.
Lemesa is now waiting for Alem’s body. But he has another problem: Alem’s parents say he was separated from Alem and that he has had a child with another woman. They say that is why she left. Lemesa has denied this, saying he and Alem were never legally married but had been together for 13 years.
Lemesa and Alem’s brother Leta both want to be put in charge of Alem’s estate, and any compensation. Lemesa has been to court to determine whether Alem’s children or parents are her legal heirs. The court cannot rule until the body is returned.
The legal wrangling is understandable: for people with so little, it is a matter of survival. It was almost impossible to unravel the allegations of infidelity: about the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that Alem never seemed depressed.
“She was perfectly healthy when she was here,” said Lemesa. Alem’s mother and father, who had come from the countryside to fill in forms at the foreign ministry in Addis, agreed. They were dressed for official business: 75-year-old Dechasa Desisa wore a faded, striped suit with a purple shirt while his wife, Kafany Atomesa, had a black headscarf and a traditional white netela shawl.
Alem was the fifth of 11 children. Her parents had come from Gindeberet in Oromia and they were accompanied by Leta, who works as a truck driver’s assistant. He translated from Oromiffa, the language spoken by his parents, to Amharic. When asked if Alem was ever depressed, Kafany shook her head – and at that moment the single bulb lighting Alem’s hut gave out. “[Alem] was always laughing. She was always giving advice to people,” she said into the dark.
By Alemayehu G Mariam
History Keeps Repeating Itself in Ethiopia
Last week, the Voice of America Amharic radio program reported on the forced official removal (“displacement”) of a large number of people e from the southern part of Ethiopia. According to the report, numerous Amhara farming families from the town of Gura Ferda were ordered by local officials to pack up and go back to their “kilil” ethnic homeland. A number of these displaced persons told the VOA that they were summoned by local officials and ordered to “leave their lands” and get out of town before sundown. Many of them were born in the area or had lived there for decades. Before leaving, the victims of official displacement were required to sign an official document which stated that they had “illegally acquired, held and farmed land in the area” and now are voluntarily returning it to the local administration. Hundreds of displaced families left town headed to the capital of Addis Ababa to petition Zenawi’s regime for redress of grievances. As they gathered outside the “Parliament”, they were rounded up by security officials and trucked out to parts unknown. A representative of Zenawi’s regime told the VOA she knows nothing about the situation and that an investigation is underway. In the recent past, tens of thousands of other citizens have reportedly been removed from Benji Maji Zone in the “Southern Nations” region.
Forced removal of populations (under different designations “resettlement”,”villagisation”, “displacement”, etc.) has a sinister and ugly history in Ethiopia. In the past few years, Zenawi’s regime has undertaken a massive program of “villagization” (permanent removal of local populations from ancestral lands) in the Gambella region in Western Ethiopia to make way for the Indian agrobuiness multinational Karuturi and other “investors”. Zenawi’s top agriculture official said “there is no movement of population” in Gambella. But that is contradicted by a UNICEF field study which concluded:
The deracination [uprooting from ancestral lands] of indigenous people that is evident in rural areas of Gambella is extreme. It is very likely that Anuak (and possibly other indigenous minorities) culture will completely disappear in the not-so-distant future. Cultural survival, autonomy, rights of self-determination and self-governance are all legitimate issues for these indigenous groups, and these are all enshrined by international covenants and United Nations bodies – but all are meaningless in Gambella today.
The military junta (Derg) that ruled Ethiopia from the mid-1970s until 1991 used “resettlement” as a political and tactical counter-insurgency weapon. The Derg “resettled” populations in rebel-controlled areas in the north of the country to create military buffer zones and to deny the insurgents local support. At the onset of the 1984 famine, the Derg initiated a resettlement program for 1.5 million people from insurgent-controlled and drought-affected northern regions to the south and southwest of the country. The Derg claimed the people were relocating voluntarily. Tens of thousands of people died in that resettlement program from illness and starvation. Families were separated as people fled the ill-equipped and ill-managed resettlement centers.
Ironically, the northern insurgents, who have now wielded power in Ethiopia for the past 21 years, condemned the Derg and characterized the “resettlement” centers as “concentration” camps. In 2012, the very leaders who fought against such inhuman practices have become the chief architects and engineers of a new and systematic program of forced resettlement and transfer of population in Ethiopia. It seems history repeats itself over and over again in Ethiopia. But for the record, “deportation or forcible transfer of population”, (defined as “forced displacement by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds without grounds permitted under international law”) is one of the specified crimes against humanity under the Article 7(d) of the Rome Statute.
Kililistans and Bantustans
For the past two decades, Zenawi has been repackaging an atavistic style of tribal politics in a fancy wrapper called “ethnic federalism.” He has managed to segregate the Ethiopian people by ethno-tribal classifications and corralled them like cattle into grotesque regional political units called “kilils” (literally means “reservation”; semantically, the word also suggests the notion of an exclusion zone, an enclave). “Kilil” is basically a kinder-and-gentler form of Apartheid-style Bantustans (“black African tribal homelands”). The ideology of “kililism” shares many of the attributes of Apartheid’s “Bantustanism”. Both ideologies aim to concentrate members of designated ethnic groups into “homelands” by creating ethnically homogenous territories which could ultimately morph into “autonomous” nation states. Zenawi made sure to insert Article 39 in the Ethiopian Constitution which provides: “Every nation, nationality or people in Ethiopia shall have the unrestricted right to self-determination up to secession.” In other words, the “kilils” could secede and become sovereign nations, which was precisely the ultimate aim of the Bantustans.
But there are many other similarities. One of the major policy aims of “Bantustanization” was to make South Africa’s blacks nationals of the homelands instead of the nation of South Africa. By politically disempowering them and diminishing their national citizenship and human rights to travel freely and establish residence in any part of the country, Bantustanization effectively atomized black African communities. The forced removal of disapproved ethnic groups from the southern part of Ethiopia accomplishes the same purpose. “Bantustanization” was based on forced relocation of the black African population from different parts of South Africa to the “homelands”. It aimed at eventually accommodating every black person in South Africa into one of the 10 “homelands”. Kililism has effectively achieved that objective by corralling Ethiopians in 11 “regional states” (kililistans) organized exclusively on the basis of ethnicity. “Bantustanization” was used strategically to prevent alliances between the various African ethnic groups. It was an effective tool of the Apartheid government’s policy of divide and rule to cling to power. “Kililism” serves the same purpose in Ethiopia today to the point where a handful of individuals exercise absolute power . According to the International Crises Group, (a research organization that gives advice to the United Nations, European Union and World Bank):
Once close to their rural Tigrayan constituency, the TPLF and the EPRDF top leaderships now largely operate in seclusion from the general public. This has led to a situation in which an increasingly smaller number of politicians – the TPLF executive committee and the prime minister’s immediate advisers – decide the political fate of the country.
Playing the Ethnic Card to Divide and Misrule
My basic belief is that tyranny, despotism and dictatorship thrive and flourish when the people are disunited and fragmented particularly along ethnic lines and the tyrants and their supporters maintain their ironclad unity. Ethnicity in Ethiopia, as in other parts of Africa, is a source of division, weakness, conflict and violence. Unity is a source of strength, harmony, peace and reconciliation. African dictators have used ethnicity as a powerful weapon to divide and rule.
In October 2011, I wrote a weekly commentary about the “ultimate weapon found in the arsenal of tyrants and despots– divide and misrule”:
For the past two decades, the maxim of those who have rivetedthemselves to the platform of power in Ethiopia has been: “We, the rulers of the people, in order to form a more perfect disunion…” They have put to use the ultimate weapon found in the arsenal of tyranny and despotism. They have divided and misruled, divided and subjugated, and divided and parceled away the land in bits, pieces and chunks. They have managed to systematically divide the people by region, city, town and even neighborhood. They have succeeded in dividing the people by corralling them into homelands (Bantustans) in the name of “ethnic federalism”. They have sought to divide the people by language and religion, and even rupture the bonds of affection between Ethiopians living in the country and those in the Diaspora.
This past January I wrote a commentary encouraging all Ethiopians to unite around a common purpose and destiny and celebrate the very idea of unity among peoples of a nation and warned of the dire consequences of failing to bridge the artificially manufactured ethnic divide: “A nation divided by race, tribe and ethnicity is doomed to poverty, ignorance and strife. I have always marveled at the majestic opening phrases in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a perfect Union…”
Overcoming Identity Politics in the Transition to Democracy
In the transition from dictatorship to democracy, one of the greatest challenges Ethiopians will face is the problem of identity politics at the ideological level and “kililism” at the structural and constitutional levels. One could surmise that the current political rationale for “kililism” could create a chaotic, if temporary, situation in the transition to democracy and potentially impair much needed efforts to create national unity, preserve the country’s territorial integrity and guarantee its political sovereignty. The challenge, in my view, is how to transform the politics of identity and ethnicity into a dialogue over strengthening national unity and furthering the common cause of our humanity through cooperation, accommodation and reconciliation (while avoiding the path to conflict and violence).
The threshold issue for me is whether it is productive to play Zenawi’s “ethnic card” game. He has used it as an effective tool to justify his one-man, one-party divide and misrule. He has used the “ethnic card” to anger and distract his opponents and divert public attention from the desperate economic situation in the country (“a recent report by the Addis Ababa-based research group Access Capital SC stated, ‘Ethiopia had the second-highest inflation rate in the world last year, when it peaked at 40.6 percent’”). It is best to leave the ethnic polarization game to Zenawi and focus on ethnic reconciliation, cooperation and collaboration.
There is much social scientific literature to suggest that “identities are constructed and can be deconstructed and reconstructed anew”. In other words, ethnic identity like other forms of identity is malleable. It can be transformed over time by processes of immigration, marriage, education, national integration, nation-building, economic development and other factors. (Zenawi’s antidote to this process is segregation of people in kililistans where there will be little opportunity for “ethnic fusion” or assimilation.) Often, ethnic identity trumps all other issues and leads to conflicts where there is an absence of social and legal justice, poor governance and denial of the equal protection of the laws and opportunities. The real challenge for Ethiopia’s opposition political leaders, scholars, elites and ordinary folks today is to re-conceptualize the politics of identity which for so long has been based on historical and current grievances to a politics based on promoting and implementing human rights values. I believe a paradigm shift in the way we understand and discuss the question of ethnic identity; and that necessitates first and foremost a change in the very language of communication we use to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct ethnicity and its associated social, economic and political problems.
Inventing a New Language for a New Identity
I have previously argued for and proposed a new “language” for dialogue on the question of ethnicity in Ethiopia. (I even “invented” words (neologisms) for the occasion, one of the privileges of an academician.) I find it necessary to re-articulate those ideas once again. I view ethnicity as the flip side of the coin of unity. The coalescence of ethnic groups is the fabric of unity in any nation. When subnational groups are fragmented, divided and are at odds with each other, a nation faces the threat of disintegration. Zenawi sees Ethiopia as a collection of 9 distinct and autonomous kilils. In other words, Ethiopia for Zenawi is a patchwork of “nations and nationalities” that have very little in common (a convenient cover for divide and rule) and with mutually exclusive interests. We believe Ethiopia is a variegated mosaic of multiculturalism where all citizens have the same rights, freedoms, opportunities and protections under the law. They can live, work, play and pray in any part of their country without any limitations or restrictions whatsoever!
In the transition from dictatorship to democracy, it will be necessary to build a new kind of unity based on our common humanity. This special unity is grounded in a fundamental belief that our common bonds of humanity are greater than the sum of our bonds of ethnicity, nationality and communality. Our common yearning for freedom, democracy and human rights is greater than our narrow ethnic interests. Our commitment to each other’s human dignity is nobler than the arrogant ethnic identity.
Unity that is based on our common humanity draws not only on universal ethical and moral values but also on the African ethic of “Ubuntu”, often used by Nelson Mandela to teach us about the essence of human existence: “A person is a person because of other people. You can do nothing if you don’t get the support of other people.” “Ubunity” is unity that requires us to see each other as brothers and sisters and relate to each other on the basis of the principles of sharing, caring, trust, tolerance, honesty and morality. We do not see each other with a colored ethnic lens that filters for Oromo, Amhara, Tigrean, Gurage and so on but with a clear lens that is calibrated to illuminate justice, equality and fairness. The special unity of which I speak is also grounded in an unshakeable belief that our individual liberty must be protected against those who commit crimes against humanity and acts of atrocity, sneer at public accountability and abuse their authority and act beyond the limits of constitutionality.
I ask all Ethiopians to strive for a special kind of unity which I call both “humunity” and “younity”. “Huminity” is unity based not on ethnicity or nationality but on a blend of core universal values of human dignity and the African ethic of “ubunity”. It requires individual moral commitment to respect and uphold human rights, an allegiance to the rule of law, a belief in the consent of the people as the only legitimate basis of power, and strict adherence to principles of constitutional governance, accountability and transparency. If we could develop wide and deep consensus on these values, we would have achieved unity of thought, purpose and consciousness, the prerequisites to all other forms of unity. More importantly, if f we put these values into action by defending the rights of victims of human rights abuses, working for improvements in the observance of human rights conventions, organizing, teaching and preparing the youth for a democratic society, exposing corruption and abuse of power, strengthening our interpersonal relations across ethnic, religious and class lines, we will have achieved unity in action and deeds. Is it not true that the things that divide us, sow discord and hatred amongst us are rooted in and fester because of the very absence of these universal values in our lives?
Tyrants divide the people by magnifying the smallest of differences. Often, the people fall prey to the schemes of tyrants and sing their songs of discord and division. But in my conception of “huminity”, it is possible to have diversity of opinion, views and approaches because I believe “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.” If we embrace and practice the universal principles of human rights, we will realize that it is not about our ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, region or anything else, but what we can do collectively and individually to remove the yoke of oppression and tyranny, institute democracy and the rule of law to uphold human dignity.
My conception of “younity” is a simple idea about you and I together standing up to tyranny, corruption and abuse of power. It is based on the notion that each one of us is a link in a long chain of both oppression and freedom. Our yearning for freedom welds the links in the chain of unity; tyranny melts the links. I believe we all have an individual civic and moral duty to strengthen the links and bonds of unity in the Ethiopian people by embracing and practicing the core values of human dignity and rights. Political leaders must adopt a new and more powerful language of “huminity” to bring the people of divergent views together. Religious leaders must speak of “huminity” in the language of divinity. They should preach and pray for unity. Civic leaders must speak up and advocate for “huminity”. Academics must teach the ways of “huminity” to the youth; and the youth must teach the older generation of the necessity of “huminity” for a new and enlightened Ethiopian community. Most importantly, ordinary people in the street must speak in the language of our common humanity (ubunity) to achieve ultimate unity.
Playing the ethnic card game with Zenawi is to fall victim to destructive identity politics that breeds division, hatred, conflict, and cynicism. We can choose to play Zenawi’s zero-sum ethnic card game (a game in which he always wins and we always lose) and express outrage over the spectacle he has created in Gura Ferda, Gambella, Benj Maji and wherever else. But we can also rise above ethnicity and the politics of identity and help build a national Ethiopian identity. But how…?
“Establish New Relationships, Devoid of any Resentment and Hostility”
The most direct way to build a new national identity is to establish new relationships and discard the old and tired ways of hatred and domination. We must look to a vision of Ethiopia that is not only free of dictatorship and tyranny but also united. On the occasion of the establishment of the permanent headquarters of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa on May 25, 1963, H.I.M. Haile Selassie made the most compelling case for African unity. One-half century later, that same message rings true for Ethiopia:
We look to the vision of an Africa not merely free but united. In facingthis new challenge, we can take comfort and encouragement from thelessons of the past. We know that there are differences among us.Africans enjoy different cultures, distinctive values, special attributes. But we also know that unity can be and has been attained among men of the most disparate origins, that differences of race, of religion, of culture, of tradition, are no insuperable obstacle to the coming together of peoples. History teaches us that unity is strength, and cautions us to submerge and overcome our differences in the quest for common goals, to strive, with all our combined strength, for the path to true African brotherhood and unity…. Our efforts as free men must be to establish new relationships, devoid of any resentment and hostility, restored to our belief and faith in ourselves as individuals, dealing on a basis of equality with other equally free peoples.
Close ranks regardless of ethnicity or regionality; reaffirm our basic humanity in our Ethiopianity; renounce our old enmity; openly declare our steadfast unity and trumpet our Ethiopian nationality at every opportunity. Let us strive to establish a new identity in Ethiopian unity!
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/amharic/?author=57
By Elia Kifle
The recent ethnic cleansing of 78,000 Ethiopians of the Amhara ethnic group from southern Ethiopia by the Woyanne junta is a horrible crime. Ethiopian Review has been reporting similar {www:ethnic cleansing} campaigns against other Ethiopian ethnic groups, particularly the Ogaden and Gambella over the past several years. How is it that Meles Zenawi and his Woyanne junta are able to commit such atrocities against millions of Ethiopians?
I’m not providing any new fact when I tell you that the main culprits of these horrors are other Amharas — those Amharas, Oromos, Ogadenis, Gembellas and other ethnic groups who obey the Woyanne rule, who socialize with Woyanne members, who pay tax to the Woyanne regime, who fly Ethiopian Airlines, who drink Al Amoudi’s Pepsi, who socialize with Woyanne members, who go to Ethiopia from the Diaspora and try to open businesses or buy properties… all these individuals are knowingly or unknowingly contributing to the crime of ethnic cleansing and genocide against their own ethnic groups.
One of the Woyanne junta cheerleaders, Mimi Sebhatu, who hosts a radio program in Addis Ababa, said in an interview yesterday that the Amharas who were expelled from the south are illegals. Mimi is half Amhara and her husband Zerihun Teshome, who is an adviser to Bereket Simon, is full Amhara, and yet she calls Amharas “illegals” in their own country. These anti-Amhara Woyanne collaborators must be condemned and ostracized until they are brought to justice for aiding and abetting the Woyanne ethnic cleansing campaigns.
We don’t necessarily need to shoot bullets at Woyanne to stop it from committing injustice against us. What we need is to STOP doing business with Woyanne-affiliated businesses that fuel its machinery of repression.
One of these businesses is Ethiopian Airlines, which has become a major cash cow for the Woyanne junta. If you have to travel to Ethiopia, pay a little extra money and take Lufthansa or any of the other airlines that fly to Ethiopia.
The other major sources of income for Woyannes are those Ethiopians in the Diaspora who go to Ethiopia for vacation or try to open businesses there. They are collaborators in Woyanne’s atrocities, including the recent ethnic cleansing campaigns against Amharas and Gambellas, as well as the ongoing war of genocide in Ogaden.
Saudi agent Al Amoudi is currently trying to hijack or split up and destroy the recently liberated Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America (ESFNA). Many of the players and business owners he is inviting to participate in the event are Amharas and Oromos who seem to be saying, “I don’t give a *** if Al Amoudi is looting Ethiopia and trafficking our sisters to the Middle East to work in slave-like conditions.
Let’s stop cursing Woyanne and take concrete steps to weaken and kill it. Start from the collaborators — hodam Amharas and Oromos who are cannibalizing their own people.
By Aklog Birara, PhD
“The people occupying the plateau of the Blue Nile are conscious of a glorious past and proudly call themselves Ethiopians.” – Elise Reclus, Philosopher
Ethiopian ethnic-based political elites, most prominently, the champion of ethnic politics and business, TPLF Inc., were always bent on shredding to pieces our commonalities, shared history and common identity as Ethiopians of all shades, colors, languages and faiths, from their {www:inception}. They embraced the {www:Apartheid} like formula of separation and legalized ethnic-federalism. They were determined to de-institutionalize and de-capitalize Ethiopian society by dismantling social relations among the population. This is the thesis of this analytical piece. As a result of their secret and coded arrangements intended solely to serve them financially and economically, they sowed the seeds of revenge and fear among the population. Youth are forced to belong to the governing party if they wish to secure a job, a home or further education. A network of spies has infested the entire society: one spy for 5 people. As a result, the country that stood as symbol of independence, honor, dignity and pride for people of color around the globe is now the center of the grossest human rights violations on this planet. TPLF Inc. is determined to obliterate the past, present and future of all people who call themselves “Ethiopians.” This is happening in front of our eyes. As far as I know, de-institutionalization and social de-capitalization of Ethiopian society started when TPLF Inc. took power 21 years ago, with a plan set ahead of political capture; and continues at a faster pace today. The champions of ethnic politics and business do not do this alone. They recruit other non-Tigreans to do their work for them. What we witness now is implementation of the sinister strategy using land and other economic resources to dispossess and expel.
Wherever one looks, {www:dispossession}, expulsions and human cruelty from government agents are widespread: the Afar, Beni-Shangul Gumuz, Gambella, Gondar, Lower Omo Valley, Oromia and SNNP regions and sub-regions are at the center. In this entire onslaught against the Ethiopian people, there is overwhelming documentary evidence that shows that the Amharic speaking population is singled out as ‘enemy’ number one. Why the differentiation? This group is identified by TPLF Inc. and the country’s traditional adversaries as nationalist, that is, as Ethiopian more than its label as Amhara. I documented this in my book, Waves, two years ago and forewarned that TPLF Inc. will continue its relentless campaign to dislodge this and other nationalist oriented members of society using ethnic-federalism and decentralized decision making as the driver. Using this mode of government arrangements, TPLF Inc. tries to camouflage its misdeeds by using surrogates. We know that, Amharic speaking or other surrogates have little or no power. They submit and follow orders. Authority comes from the top. The continued expulsion of Amharic speaking Ethiopians from the lands they use and from the neighbors with whom they coexist peacefully and amicably reflects this sinister arrangement. TPLF Inc. does this against its own constitution. Article 32 (1) says: “Every Ethiopian citizen or any other person legally in Ethiopia has the right to freedom of movement anywhere within the national territory, to choose freely his place of residence anywhere in the national territory, and to leave the country.” What a joke? People naively wonder why the outside world, especially donors and diplomats with stake in Ethiopia do not react to this façade?
Although this is not the purpose of this piece, I should like to share my take on the matter again. British and American policy makers, the two largest sources of bilateral aid to Ethiopia, know that the TPLF Corporate group is anathema to their own values of the rule of law, human freedom, free enterprise and a semblance of democracy, for example, checks and balances and political pluralism. Why do they support a repressive regime that portends insecurity and instability in the long-run? Why do they refuse a movement toward globally accepted norms of humane institutions, decency, fair play, openness and the like? In my view and the views of other prominent international experts on the subject, democratic reconstruction and reconfiguration are secondary to their national interests of security and stability in the Horn of Africa. In other words, they are willing and ready to sacrifice their core values to serve their own narrow and short-term national interests of averting terrorism and instability in the Horn of Africa as they have done in the rest of the world. This is why Ethiopian opposition groups cannot afford to operate in their own silos. They need to cooperate and show credibility that they stand for a bigger cause than narrow or parochial interests.
Like us, the world community looks at the faces of innocent children and women forcibly expelled from their farmlands and properties where their forefathers worked and lived for 100 years plus, in Benji Maji, Southern Ethiopia. Like us, those whose profession is to monitor the Horn know that theirs is a fresh and ugly testimony and reminder of how far ethnic politics and business in Ethiopia would go to bring havoc to this ancient land. They know that, with a stroke of an order–no doubt emanating from the highest levels of the governing party–children and women and poor farmers were herded like sheep in their own country by their own government and forcibly expelled from their homes. They know that neighbors were awed but could do nothing in the country of fear and revenge. The {www:bewilderment} in the faces of the children and women are graphic and speak louder than my capacity to write about them; and the cruelty and brutality of a regime that has literally gone wild and mad. These Ethiopians could be our children, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers and or relatives. It does not matter. They are, first and foremost human beings and Ethiopians who deserve treatment with honor and dignity. Their expulsion is ours too. Donors and diplomats in Addis Ababa know all of this; but cannot say much because it does not affect their interests. It is up to us to make them understand and to draw them to our side.
TPLF Inc.’s ethnic politics and business robbed these Ethiopians displaced from their homes, of their humanity, dignity and honor. Trust me. Regardless of ethnic, religious, ideological or demographic affiliation, it is our own common humanity, dignity and honor that are robbed and are being undone by tribal elite that have no decency or humanity to speak of. No doubt in my mind that the leaders of the regime would find excuses for this too. They will blame someone else for the mess. I am not entirely clear where this unprecedented assault on the Ethiopian people is heading and where it will lead and to what end? Some in the diplomatic and donor community are weary but are not speaking out. I am wearily reminded of the civil war in Liberia, the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, genocide in Rwanda and the collapse of Somalia. If you are not; you must be either naïve or believe in miracles or support the status quo or do not simply care. I and others witnessed the horrors in Liberia where people were hacked like wild animals or in Rwanda where nearly a million people lost their lives because of their ethnic affiliation should worry that the same could happen in our country. It is not an exaggeration to put the pieces together by connecting the dots of cruelty and inhumanity and by arriving at a larger and ominous picture that seems to emerge. When people’s very survival is at stake, patience is not perpetual. TPLF Inc. and its ethnic elite collaborators seem to be determined to push the entire country into the abyss. Donors and diplomats in Addis Ababa know this but do not see an alternative that gives them confidence and comfort. We need to rise up and show that we can offer an alternative by cooperating once and for all.
In my view, the plight of the Amhara is not a single ethnic dilemma. Amharic speaking people have been suffering ever since TPLF Inc. took power. I contend with full confidence that that the Amhara ‘problem’ is an Ethiopian dilemma. Depopulating areas where Amharic speakers live is a strategic way of weakening this ethnic group and Ethiopia. Why do you think the number of this nationality group shows a decrease from year to year? Some are forced to abandon their national origin and accept a new one. Review the data in the old Arusie region and you will find a decrease. Where did the Amharic speakers go? I like to proceed with the bigger picture though. The plight of the tribes in the Omo Valley being forced out of their ancestral homes is not solely their problem. It is an Ethiopian problem. The eviction of Anuak, Afar and Somali from their lands to make room for a narrow band of emerging ethnic capitalists and foreign governments and firms from 36 countries is not an Anuak or Afar or Somali problem. It is an Ethiopian problem. The rape of Somali girls and women and the destruction of villages and property is not a Somali problem. It is an Ethiopian problem. The transfer of lands in Waldiba on which monks depend, to TPLF Inc. firms and or the state within a state called MIDROC is not a Gondar problem. It is an Ethiopian one. No matter the location or the population, it is Ethiopia and Ethiopians who are under the gun. Thus, it behooves all Ethiopians to respond not as members of this or that ethnic or religious group but as Ethiopians. This is our only salvation as people. We either rise in unison as Ethiopians; or we will all perish together. We can never allow this to occur. It is not the legacy we would want to leave. Is it?
As I saw the video clips of innocent and frightened children, girls and women, I kept thinking that only an invading army would do this to Ethiopians. I am reminded that even invading armies from the colonial era were civilized and humane enough to differentiate the innocent from those who dissent. Children and women and poor farmers who work hard to earn a living are not a threat to the governing party. Their forcible expulsion is a form of ethnic cleansing and therefore a crime against humanity. Only Apartheid conducted an identical system of political and economic capture that expelled blacks and herded and concentrated them in their own “homelands or Bantustans.” This way, it is easier to monitor, subjugate and control them. TPLF Inc. does not have the moral courage or commitment to differentiate between those who dissent against it and those who live and work peacefully and legally in different parts of the country.
Ironically, Tigreans are free to live and work anywhere in Ethiopia. They are state sponsored and can own property anywhere in the country. A recent informal survey from a reliable group shows that in the city of Gondar, close to 50 percent of the population is now Tigrean as are more than 75 percent of major enterprises. Here is the difference. The Amharic speaking population of the city treats them as Ethiopians. No Tigrean national I am aware of has been expelled from the so-called Amhara region. This is the good news and Tigreans should condemn a ruling clique that abuses their name and expels people on the basis of ethnic and or linguistic affinity. For this reason alone, Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people do not deserve Apartheid like system that dispossesses and expels any or one group of people forcibly from any part of the country on the basis of linguistic and or tribal origin. Ethiopians must stand up and reject this regressive policy and the occurrences it triggers. They must recognize and appreciate the notion that inhumanity of man to man is not an Ethiopian popular tradition or value. It is not our heritage. It is the tradition of tyrants and dictators perfected by TPLF Inc. in other words; it is a governance and system’s issue.
Is our history as cruel as TPLF Inc. manifests it?
I should like to take the reader back to a snippet of history to strengthen my argument. TPLF Inc. rejects the evolution of the country it defines as a “prison of nations, nationalities and peoples,” for which it is the proclaimed liberator. These narrow-minded, clubby and family centered minority ethnic elite try to compel innocent and self-serving people alike to believe that our identity should be defined narrowly in tribal and linguistic terms. It uses emotions to drive its political and economic agenda on the rest of us. The reader knows that people enjoy different identities for different reasons. I will identify some of my own: am a professional in development, have a higher degree and was and or is a banker, professor, writer, belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, am a father, a husband and my linguistic affiliation is to Amharic and regional origin, Gondar. Of these, which one do you think is the identity that I cherish most and share or have in common with millions? It is this. I am an Ethiopian and have a great deal in common with Ethiopians than other people in the world. I presume most of us who hail from Ethiopia have numerous identities but believe in the notion that we are Ethiopians or people of Ethiopian origin. It is this core value that will save us.
The singular identity that binds us together regardless of different affiliations is that we belong to a country called Ethiopia. Hence, our commonality is expressed as Ethiopians and or as people of Ethiopian origin. TPLF Inc. wants us to sink to the bottom and think and organize ourselves as Amharic speakers or an Amhara ethnic group. I caution my compatriots that this is a tempting trap to which we should not sink. We need to be strategic and take the higher road of our historical and legitimate identity as Ethiopians. Let me elaborate within the context of today’s global community in which the TPLF Inc. formula is totally against the tide.
Who in the world would find it credible if I told (in official travels with the World Bank) a Chinese or a Brazilian or a Nigerian or a Norwegian at their respective airports that I am an Amharic speaking Gondarie? Wouldn’t the person find it incredible if I told him or her that I cannot live and or work in any part of Ethiopia because of my linguistic or ethnic affiliation? TPLF Inc. has reduced us to this low level. It is this emotionally driven and politically motivated identity that TPLF Inc. imposes on most of us. Some accept the new norm because of fear. Some accept it because of greed. Others accept it because of ignorance. Still others accept it because they believe in it. No matter the motive, TPLF Inc. wants us to believe that it is implementing Apartheid like formula on behalf of ‘oppressed nations, nationalities and people.’ The intent is to undermine Ethiopian unity and identity. The acid test of being an Ethiopian is the possibility of living and working in any part of Ethiopia. Otherwise, our commonality becomes meaningless regardless of the propaganda propagated by TPLF Inc. that we should all buy Renaissance Bonds and send our hard earned monies in support of a regime that does not allow us to fulfill our potential in our own country. Just think of this. The governing party that champions Ethiopian nationalism when it suits its interests still calls itself by its origin, Tigray People’s Liberation Front? Liberation from who is now a legitimate question. The reader knows the answer and the purpose.
The Greeks looked up to ancient Ethiopia and called it the common cradle of mankind. Among other things, they contended that ancient Egyptians “derived their civilization and religions from Ethiopia and Ethiopians. Ptolemaic (Greek) writers and philosophers felt and wrote that “Ethiopians were the first men that ever lived.” Martin Bernal’s “Black Athena: the Afro-Asiatic roots of classical civilization,” provides rich data and information on the richness of Ethiopian history; and, more important on the movement and on the interconnectedness of most Ethiopians for thousands of years. Interconnectedness of Ethiopians has now been validated through archaeological findings that confirm that Ethiopia is indeed the origin of humankind. In their highly acclaimed book, “Lucy (Dinknesh): The Beginnings of Humankind,” Donald Johansson and Maitland Edey, document the dramatic discovery of Lucy’s (Dinknesh’s) “completeness in the history of hominid fossil collection.” Dinknesh’s (Lucy’s) discovery did not happen by accident. It is a tribute to the farsightedness of Emperor Haile Selassie, who, in the 1950s–during a visit to Kenya–invited Western Anthropologists to explore fossils in Ethiopia and granted the requisite permits. The Omo valley expedition lasted from 1967 to 1977 and resulted in the finding of Dinknesh (Lucy). “There could no longer be any argument about that, or conjecture over whether a certain leg bone and a certain skull did or did not belong the same individual (Dinknesh). Here they were, together in one unbelievable skeleton.”
Dinknesh refers to a country known for thousands of years as Ethiopia, home of our common humanity as Ethiopians. If we are indeed the origin of mankind, possess an incontestable long history and have served as a home to different ethnic and religious groups for thousands of years, who is responsible for reducing us to identify one another as members of a tribe or a linguistic group rather than as Ethiopians? It is the EPLF, TPLF and other ethnic-based liberation fronts who wish us harm. It is also their foreign sponsors that continue to be inimical to a strong, unified and prosperous Ethiopia. As the champion of ethnic politics and business (the two are linked), TPLF Inc. is determined to obliterate this common humanity that the Ethiopian people have shared for thousands of years. This commonality has been strengthened generation after generation through marriages, economic and religious interactions, migration of people from South to North, from North to South, from East to West and from West to East and many in between. This is why I contend that Ethiopia and Ethiopians are the pace-setters of what is now commonly known as globalization. This phenomenon began as a result of human mobility from Ethiopia and the rest of Africa to the rest of the globe. Before Ethiopians moved across the globe, they spread within Ethiopia. Their linkages are thus incontestable.
Ethiopian identity and globalizing influence that TPLF Inc. wishes to undo by rewriting our entire history and reducing it to just 100 years to suit it, and by spreading the venom of ethnic revenge and hate are not confined to the story of Dinknesh, although hers is the foundation of our humanity. Herodotus, the Greek historian documented that Ethiopians reached out to the rest of the world through trade in spices and ivory far beyond Egypt and the Gulf. Ethiopians are said to have moved to and served in Persian armies. “The Eastern Ethiopians—for there were two sorts of Ethiopians in the army—served in the Indian army.” Here is the key though. “These were just like the Southern Ethiopians, except for their language and their hair; their hair is straight.” Threads that bind Ethiopians among one another through marriages, social and economic interactions, religious practices, localities and regions are rooted in our past. With its ups and downs and imperfections and manifestations of gross injustice, our past is the foundation of our present and future. In light of this, our diversity is nothing new. It has always been there. The trick is to harness it for the better.
Yet, our political leaders and institutions failed to use our diversity creatively and constructively in building an enduring, just and all inclusive society. Experts foreign and domestic recognize our history and diversity as sources of uniqueness and strength rather than as liabilities. Under TPLF Inc., both history and diversity are liabilities. These are used as political tools to create and deepen wedges to divide us, frighten us, exploit us and create animosities among us.
TPLF Inc. forces us to forget the assets and treasures that emanate from our roots and the uniqueness that our forefathers left for us. One additional example cements this point. In the 19th century, M. Le Jean, French, said this. “Ethiopia, even during its state of greatest decadence, offers to the unprejudiced traveler, the elements of an advanced social order. Feudality certainly exists there, but scarcely to a greater extent than in England…the administrative machinery is simple…is property well defined; individual rights are guaranteed by appeal to the Emperor; commerce is protected; and political vengeance and horrors of war in a great measure neutralized…” Can you say the same about the Meles Zenawi Government today? I cannot. The evidence is overwhelmingly oppressive and repressive. This is why revenge, fear and expulsion come naturally to the governing clique.
What can and should we do?
There is a great deal we can and should do. The starting point is for each of us and for our communities to believe and commit to preserving this ancient land and to frame an alternative that will accommodate the needs and interests of all its members. Our individual and collective responsibility is, first and foremost, to halt this frightening phenomenon of fear, ethnic divide and repression that–if not halted now–is likely to destroy all of us. We must determine that we do not wish to witness another Liberia, Rwanda or Somalia in Africa. TPLF Inc. and other surrogate ethnic-based parties use language and or other differences as a criterion to implant fear and revenge; to discriminate and expel as if we are not of the same diverse family; and to undo what has been built by all Ethiopians over thousands of years. Our ability and readiness to embrace one another and to stand for one another; and to reject ethnic divide is the starting point. We can do this wherever we are and in numerous ways.
This is the big picture I should like to implant in the reader’s mind. We need to reject the Apartheid like system that drives little children and mothers, old people and poor farmers from their homes and farms and from their neighbors. In part two of this commentary, I will provide a specific example of the horrors of ethnic cleansing and civil wars that entail irreparable damage regardless of the temporary strength of a ruling group.
4/4/2012
The second in this series will be posted next week