A dirge for a genocide-surviving father

What this scribe is about to recount sprang to his mind
a month ago when his father, who he had spoken to by phone, only a day earlier,
was no more.

Of all his four living children scattered across the
globe, two managed to return to their beleaguered country for the funeral of
their beloved father and of course to also comfort their grieving mother.

 It was an
emotional moment for the two returning siblings to meet many of their relatives
who had also fled the sanctioned genocide in Harar
when Woyane/TPLF usurped power in Ethiopia 21 years
ago.

Their late father was a rare intellect not
withstanding his very humble background. 
The former share-cropper was a principled and pious man.  This man like all peasants Amharas ear-marked for massacre,  was officially disarmed prior to the
onslaught which impelled all able-bodied men and women including himself and
his family to run for their lives. They eventually made it to the capital. But like
so many traumatized souls, he neither recognized his new abode in Addis as his home
nor thanked his maker for sparing his life. It is seemingly difficult to
command one’s feelings.  

The genocide aimed at Amharas
has a long history

The ensuing displacement as well as the phased annihilation
of Amharas, like the one now raging in what is called
Southern region, is systematic and its history long.  Readers remember that Tamrat Layne took
it upon himself to initiate officially the ethnic-cleansing agenda at the
behest of his superiors.  It was in
October 1991, that he had openly declared war on Amharas
in Harar. That was before he discovered his Lord as a
born-again Christian.

For this scribe’s father who had a vivid
childhood recollection of what befell his parents in the late 1930s, his
expulsion was reminiscent of the heydays of fascist Italian occupation. Shortly
before he died last month, the sage retorted this: ‘’ If the
Italians killed many of my uncles and crippled my
father, it was because they fought the enemy in the trenches relentlessly. But
what have we done?’’.

 
‘’But what have we done’’?

Indeed, he could not comprehend what had befallen him
and other Amharas in 1991.  He saw no justification for anyone to
even raise a finger at those where were alleged to belong to Amhara community who had lived in harmony with their
neighbors for generations. The massacre of innocent and unarmed Amharas at the hands of people, who looked like him and
instigated by people he thought were Ethiopia’s new rulers, was hard for
him to reconcile.  There was a clear
disconnect between his expectations and the minds of his supposed rulers. 

The scars of bereavement are stubborn to heal

It transpired that he could not subdue the memory of
the 28 Amhara men, women and children who were
gruesomely killed in cold blood in and around the small Emmanuel abbey (Ammanuel Debir) where he and this
scribe son of his were born.  Like
the Amhara massacres elsewhere, not a single culprit
who was used as an instrument in the wanton assault was ever brought to
justice.  Not surprisingly, a doctor
who had attended to the deceased father confided at the funeral that even two
long decades could not heal the scars of his tragic bereavement.   This scribe has long realized how his
father’s violent expulsion from his ancestral land, his spiritual base, led
the otherwise stoic character to feel dejected. He had sensed that he was suddenly
rendered stateless. He never recovered from the denial of his cherished identity.

A willful detachment from his cherished memories 

For the entire duration of his painful exile in Addis,
he never set feet on the grounds of any church in the capital. For a man who
pulled his teeth studying the Ethiopian Tewahdo
Church’s ecclesiastical history, philosophy, traditions, customs and
rites, a church he served all his life, such a detachment is hard to
understand.  He would not go to any
of the churches his children in exile frequent either.

Indeed, the institution that was central to the essence
of his very existence had lost any meaning to his ostensibly bereaved
humanity.  That was not all. In all
the frequent visits his children made to see their motherland, he had never uttered
a word about his beloved home. Harar, that is.

 For a man
cognizant of the fact that his home, Harar was wrestled away from the jaws of
Egyptian imperialists by the might of valiant Ethiopians including his proud
ancestors who are now vilified as ‘Neftengas’,
death came to him as a welcome respite from the agony of living.  

The fate of the families of his wife who has venerable
pedigree was no different either. Her ancestors were consummate warrior Wolloye Borenas, whose ferocious
patriotism had resulted in the ignominious defeat of the Egyptians and the
Italians alike. Her grandfather and three of his sons had died in battle with
the Italians.  It is a sheer irony
of fate that the descendants of these fallen heroes were lynched in Harar province after surrendering their weapons in good
faith when ordered by the officials of the state.  

As expected, the poor mother was lamenting their
demise in the funeral dirge of her husband last month.  Despite his graying hair and his hardened
disposition, this scribe could not hold back his tears when he heard his mother
recite the names of her many fallen peasant brothers, cousins and nephews in
Ethiopia’s new political dispensation.  

Would the singular plight of Amharas,
their ransacking, dispossession,  violent displacement and massacre
etc, ever abate? Or would the seemingly shell-shocked survivors of this
maligned entity roll up their sleeves in self-defense?  Only time will tell.

Debru Negash
is a pilot-physician and a student of history.