Oromo Liberation Movements: where to from NOW???
Posted By Mesfin Tadese
August 9, 2013
In their bitter and long experience under Abyssinian colonization,
the Oromo’s and the Southern peoples of the Ethiopian empire have gone
through a lot. The marginalization, exploitation and abuse under
successive Abyssinian regimes targeted not only on their identity and
culture, but also dispossessing of their resources by evicting them from
their ancestral lands, and also levying hefty taxation to the central
government to keep them impoverished so that they can be restricted and
pre-occupied with worrying about where their next daily bread comes from
and have no capacity to demand their economic, political rights they
deserve according to their size and resources.
In order that power remains under the controls of the Amahara and
Tigre ethnic groups, successive Abyssinians regimes put on different
masks under different regimes and the degree to which each successive
Abyssinians regimes exploited and abused the Oromo’s and other people’s
in the South of the empire largely depended on the internal political
struggle among themselves and the world political outlook of the time.
All of them from the time of Menelik II to the current Tigre rule, they
were busy drawing strategies and tactics on how to impoverish the
Oromo’s so that the Oromo’s will not demand their fair share in the
empire.
As one Oromo elder puts it “they came, they killed our older and
young men, and then raped our women. And then we were told our ancestral
land belongs to the state, and we had to pay taxation on top of that.
But the abuse did not stop there; they forced us to pay taxes on how
many heads of cattle we own, how many coffee trees we planted and own.
They have stolen our coffee and other resources and sold them to foreign
markets. In return, they bought modern guns to their invading army, who
killed, arrested and evicted us from our possessions at their will.
This Oromo elder further tells the hellish experiences of the Oromo’s
under different Abyssinians rulers and conclude his remark in the
following. They (the Abyssinians), not only invaded, conquered our
country, but also imposed hefty taxation and bought modern guns by our
resources, they also started demanding taxation in the lives of our
younger men and women to fight their dirty war.” For example, in Emperor
Haile Selassie’s war with Somalia in the 1960s, the majority of his
army were conscripts from the Oromo population, and the majority of
those who perished in that war were the Oromo’s.
In my past few articles, I tried to point out the methods,
conspiracy, tactics employed by which each successive Abyssinian regime
used to hide the killings, rape, marginalization, and exploitation of
Oromo material and human resources. All these atrocities against the
Oromo’s can be further explained or viewed in the world political Order
of the day or years.
Emperor Menelik II exploited the then disagreement that existed among
the three European colonial powers, namely Italy, France and the
British, who were jostling for influence on the then Abyssinian
warlords, and cleverly manipulated this rivalry among those European
powers to acquire modern guns and out-gunned the Oromo resistance. By
the diplomatic and military advice of those European powers, Emperor
Menelik II managed to get away with the confiscation of Oromo land and
their properties, and the rape and the genocide he committed against our
people. Menelik’s invading army was led and aided in his colonial war
of expansion by internal Oromo collaborators headed by Gobena Dacci,
whom, past and present generations of Oromo’s blame for his role in
assisting the invading Menelik’s army and condemning the Oromo’s to
their current predicaments.
After the death of king Menelik and the temporary promotion of Lij
Iyasu to the empire throne, Oromo’s felt temporary relief, not because
the invading Menelik’s colonial army halted terrorising the Oromo
population, but Lij Iyasu being half Oromo might save them from the
savagery attack and displacements being carried out by the Abyssinian
army. However, the respites the hope the Oromo’s had wished from Lij
Iyasu was shot lived because the then Ras Teferi and later Emperor Haile
Selassie conspired with the Abyssinian clergy, who felt threatened by
Lij Iyasu being half Oromo, sent him to prison, and consequently killed
him and annotated Ras Teferi as the new king of the Ethiopian empire.
As soon as assuming the title of kings of kings, Emperor Haile
Selassie introduced the official language and religion of the empire to
be Amharic and Orthodox Christianity by decree. Oromo children were
forced to learn the Amharic language and the traditional Oromo religion
was replaced by the official Orthodox Christianity. Constructions of
Churches were implemented in full swing in the garrison towns
established to administer the colonies. Oromo students were told to
change and adapt the Amharic names. Those garrison towns and famous
Oromo landscapes were changed and replaced by Amharic names. Under
Emperor Haile Selassie, the Amaraiztion of the Oromo’s and other
southern nation’s people was implemented at higher speed. Oromo’s and
others were told to deny their identities and take on the Abyssinian
identity under the guise of the greater Ethiopia. Those Oromo’s who
served the empire during this time were kept at arm length from power,
except serving in the army. Those who started questioning the
marginalization’s of their people were secretly kidnapped and made
disappear. According to many historians and political observers of the
Ethiopian empire, it was King Haile Selassie, who fully employed and
practiced the French style of colonialism, where the indigenous rulers
under king Menelik were replaced by Amahric speaking alien warlords, the
local religion and languages were replaced by the king’s official
decrees.
The 1974 of the popular revolution that disposed emperor Haile
Selassie brought some hope in the eyes of the few Oromo intellectuals to
rid-off over half a Century old of Abyssinian colonization of the
Oromo’s and the south. Those hopes were quickly dashed when the Military
Junta or the Darg, under the pretexts of provisional Authority assumed
power. To gain the supports of the Oromo’s and the Southern nations, the
Darg proclaimed “Land to the tiller”, which was very popular in the
Oromo and southern nation’s areas. Due to this popular proclamation, the
Military Junta managed to garner popular support in the South,
including the Oromo areas. It also received support from the then Oromo
elites, who believed the empire’s nations and nationalities question
for self-rule, freedom and equality will be entertained by the new
rulers. These Oromo elites even went further by providing ideological
support to the Junta, which later came and haunted them. The Darg
quickly embraced Socialism as its ideology and started an all-out war in
the towns and cities of the empire against those it deemed enemies of
the state. There is still no official record on how many innocent lives
have been lost during the Military Junta’s urban warfare, commonly
known as “Red Terror.” But what is known as a fact was that many Oromo
intellectuals, farmers, students, who innocently believed in changing
the empire for good, were hunted down and killed. Like its predecessors,
the Military Junta once rested power under their control; started
acting under the guise of “defending the motherland slogans” terrorized
our people. There are millions of Oromo men who were kidnapped and
forcefully conscripted into the militia army in the Eritrean war and
before the Ethio-Somali war of early 1980s. To fight these two wars, the
Darg and its local cadres kidnapped peaceful Oromos from market places,
schools and from their homes. Millions of nameless and faceless young
Oromo men were used as canon fodders in successive Abyssinians wars and
were left without any traces and proper burial. The saddest and meanest
part of this story was that, any information and the names and the
whereabouts of those young Oromo men, who were forcefully kidnapped from
their village and perished in fighting Abyssinian wars, were not
revealed to their fathers, mothers, sisters and relatives. It was
estimated in the recent war, 1998-2000 between Eritrea and the wayyane
lead Ethiopian regime, and over one hundred thousand lives were lost.
Among those, the majorities of those wars were Oromo men, who were used
as canon fodders in clearing land mines.
The collapse of the Communist bloc in the late 1980s has accelerated
the collapse of many totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in Africa,
Asia and Eastern Europe. Of those authoritarian regimes that became the
first causalities in Africa, was the military Junta in the Ethiopian
empire. There are still many who would argue that had it not been for
the sudden collapse of the Communist bloc, the Military Junta in Addis
could not have lost its war with the Eritrean and the wayyane
rebellions. There are also who argue that, yes, the sudden collapse of
the Communist bloc accelerated the demise of the military Junta in
Finfinne, ultimately, it was only the internal wars in Eretria, Tigray
and Oromia that has brought down the military Junta in 1991.
The London Conference and the Rise of Minority TPLF regime as Successor’s of the Ethiopian Empire
Many, particularly the Oromo and the Southern people’s political
elites criticize the American government handling and influencing of the
outcome of the London Conference between the dying Military regime in
Finfinne, the EPLF, TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Front. According to
these elites, the American representative headed by Herman Cohen and the
Oromo Liberation Front representatives were at the conference to sign
off an already cooked document between TPLF and EPLF, the former one to
rule from Finnfinne and the later to rule a de-facto independent Eretria
from Asmara. Many still question what if any, the representatives of
the Oromo Liberation Front got from the conference. These elites even go
further by saying the participation of the Oromo Liberation Front and
the USA representatives at the conference were to accept and legitimize
the outcome that was already cooked in TPLF’s and EPLF’s kitchen.
About a year ago, just by sheer accident, I had a chance to watch a documentary called “
Apocalypse: The Rise of Hitler”,
which chronicles Hitler’s life as a failed painter and far-right
activist up to his elections Chancellor of Germany, leading to his
relentless rise to power, culminating in the beginning of WWII. I would
recommend this documentary to all Oromo’s, particularly to the Diaspora
to have an insight understanding of how TPLF operates in current
Ethiopian empire, in particular in Oromia.
According to this documentary, after his failed attempt to be elected
in the Munich municipality, and his one year imprisonment following
that, Adolf Hitler decided that the only way to overthrow the then
Weimar government and rise to power was through democratic election.
However, his ambition for political power was curtailed because the then
Germany was enjoying a period of political stability and economic
prosperity. Following the 1929 Wall Street crash and consequently the
rise of unemployment in Germany plus the Treaty of Versailles in 1919,
which punished Germany to pay compensation for its war crimes, propelled
Hitler to seize power by democratic means. After seizing power, Hitler
killed, jailed and sent all his political opponents, the Communist and
the National Democrats into different labour camps, where many of them
died due to the ill-treatments, mal-nutrition, and diseases they
developed at these concentration and labour camps . This horrible
practice of Adolf Hitler reminded me of the de-grading, in-humane,
torture, mal-nutrition our brave young and old suffered in the hands of
TPLF and EPLF soldieries in the barracks or concentration camps that was
designed by TPLF and EPLF but got final approval by some of our leaders
back in 1992. It also reminded me the millions of Oromos who were taken
to different concentration camps after OLF withdrew from TG, where
thousands of them died there, many thousands died due the diseases and
the torture they went under in the hands of wayyane and Shabia solders.
In this article, I am demonstrating how Adolf Hitler’s political
philosophy and thinking is exactly similar to with that of the current
TPLF leaders, who have done and will do anything to crash their
opponents, particularly TPLF’s current deliberated, detailed and
calculated genocide on the Oromos and warn all Oromos around the globe
to wake and defend, not only their people but they themselves as
individuals. Because the existence of Oromo’s as an individual is under a
real threat leave alone the Oromo people. Before I further go on and
show the severity and the real and imminent danger that is facing all
Oromos as individuals and as a nation, let me briefly say on factors
and pre-conditions that propelled the minority TPLF regime into the
empire’s throne following the London Conference of 1991. What are these
factors and pre-conditions?
1/during the periods of emperor Menilik II expansion to the Oromo and
the South areas, Tigres participated in that war as junior foot
soldiers. Prior to that, the Tigere king Yohannes lost the battle to
Menelik II and forced to submit his forces and power to Menelik.
Humilation No.1
2/ Following the coming to power of Haile Sealssie (again from
Amhara) infuriated the then Tigrian elites and war lords and they
decided to raise arms in the first wayyane uprising of the 1930s. In
that uprising, Haile sealssie managed to co-opt the then leaders of the
first wayyane leaders by rewarding them with local and regional leaders.
Humilation No.2
3/ after the fall of the imperial regime by the popular students’
movement in 1974, the current TPLF leaders had much hope to re-gain
their lost power to the Amhara’s. However, the sudden rise of the
Military Junta to grab power following the popular revolution dashed
once and for all their dreams and hopes of the Tigrian elites to ascend
to the imperial throne for the last time. These three factors
absolutely convinced the current TPLF leaders that there were no way the
Tigrian elite can defeat Amhara nationalism and seize powerin the
Ethiopian empire. For them, the Military Junta was the extension of
Amhara nationalism in military uniform. They also recognized that due to
the smaller population size of the Tigre region coupled with no
significant natural resources to bargain with, the current TPLF leaders
decided that the only way to defeat Amahara nationalism was to
liberateTigray and Eretria and ultimately establish Greater Tigray
Republic that can merge with Eretria on a confederation.
For example, in the 1980s, the Military Junta was much closer in
defeating the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front forces, and EPLF was
rescued from that looming defeat by TPLF fighters. This was a major
strategic victory over Amhara nationalism for the current TPLF leaders.
Therefore, rescuing EPLF from total defeat was a well deliberated,
organized decision by TPLF leaders for their long strategic ambitions.
After that major defeat in the hands of TPLF and EPLF, the Darg
soldiers lost their confidence and moral begun to crumble among its foot
soldiers. As a result, many of them were captured; many more deserted
the army and start surrendering to both EPLF and TPLF soldiers. On top
of that, after that humiliating defeat, dictator Mengistu went and
executed some of the military generals who he considered failed in their
leadership on that battle. This further demoralised the soldiers and
cracks within the army started to show up.
The sheer volume of captured or surrendered Darg soldiers gave a huge
opportunity for both EPLF and TPLF leaders, not only as a fighting unit
against the Darg, but also how they best they can use these captured
soldiers when they further move into the Amahara, Oromo and Southern
nations. With the full blessing of EPLF and after receiving a guarantee
for Eritrean independent, these captured soldiers were handed over to
the control of TPLF, which in turn made them into PDOS and saddled them
to Oromos and the Southern people’s areas. According to TPLF’s policy,
the only force that can withstand and ultimately curtail its ambitions
of looting and destroying the resources of the South and in the Oromo
areas is the Oromo’s. For this reason, TPLF leaders are bent on not only
defeating Oromo nationalism, but the only way they can stay in power is
by killing Oromo’s by any means they see fit. Those Oromos they cannot
kill, they have to make sure they remain impoverished and destitute. For
that measure, they have to create continuous conflicts between Oromos
and their neighbouring people at different occasions. For this evidence,
look at the TPLF instigated conflicts between the Sidam people and the
Oromos. The Sidama and the Oromo people, not only lived in peace for
centuries, but also share unbreakable culture. 2/ The conflicts between
the Gumuz and the Oromo in Western Oromia, 3/ The constant conflicts
between the Somalis and the Oromo in Eastern Oromo, 4/ The conflicts
between the Afar, Issa and the Oromo in Eastern and Central Oromia, 5/
The conflicts between the Kenyan Somalis and the Oromos in the South.
These conflicts will never stop. This is one method of TPLF using to
break the will of the Oromo and spray the seeds of division and
conflicts between the People we lived in peace for centuries.
Another tactic TPLF is using in Oromia to break the will of our
people is to harass and then kill educated and businessmen Oromos.
Second tactic, harass these educated Oromo’s and force them to flee
abroad. This tactic is in use to deny Oromos any future leaders. I can
go on and go on to expose the genocide TPLF is committing against the
Oromo nation and its people.
While committing these heinous crimes in Oromia, some of you might
ask how TPLF is getting away these crimes in this age of globalization.
As I indicated above in this article, TPLF leaders knew that they have
successfully defeated Amahara nationalism, and the only nationalism that
is in their way and threaten their hegemony will be Oromo nationalism,
and therefore it must be defeated by any means and at any cost.
In order to cover up their crime in Oromia, TPLF regimes has
recruited some power individuals like former Ambassadors and lobbyists
such as
Peter Pham-Michael S. Ansari Africa Center,
whom TPLF pay them millions of dollars to hide and defend their
atrocities on the Oromos and other nations without any challenges. All
of these former ambassadors and lobbyists will always one thing. The
TPLF regime is much better than the previous regime before it.
To my Oromo compatriots in the Diasporas and at home- I have a
message for you. If TPLF is allowed anymore time or given more years
because of our failure to rise up as one nation and defend our people
not tomorrow but now, the survival of each Oromo individual is in
immediate danger. TPLF has already passed the Darg, Haile Selassie
combined in the number of Oromos it killed, displaced, jailed, and its
race is with that of Menelik, who committed genocide on Oromos and other
nations and got away with it because he was then supported by powerful
three European powers. In turn, TPLF regime is supported by the most
powerful nation on earth, the USA and some European powers, who fund his
genocide on our people. Therefore, if we do not rise up as a nation
under attack now not tomorrow, TPLF will intensify its crime under any
pre-text and as it sees fit.
Peace and Glory for those Oromo men, women, young, old who died for the liberation of their Father land!!!
source. http://ayyaantuu.com
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Protests in Ethiopia have increased in recent months.
