Ethiopia: victim of geopolitics & tribal feud

June 24, 2013

Ethiopia
is located in the Horn of Africa in a hostile environment surrounded by Eretria,
Djibouti,  Somalia, Sudan and the only
friendly Kenya. The Blue Nile River is a strong link between Egypt and Ethiopia.
The Middle East is a stone throw away where conservative Arab leaders plot to
annex Ethiopia and become the masters of her strategic location, temperate
climate, fertile land, and abundant rivers suitable for irrigation to produce
food.  

Addis
Ababa is host to one of the largest diplomatic missions in the world. Big and
intermediate powers including the members of the UN Security Council, G8 and
G20 are present in pursuit of their political or economic interests.  

The USA is
a global power that puts its national interests first, and rightly so in the
sense that alliance with the Ethiopian regime is paramount to its national
security. The same goes for European powers threatened by Al Qaeda. The
powerful Communist China is competing with the USA not to mention India and
Saudi Arabia to get foothold in Ethiopia. Little superpower Israel will not
relinquish its historical relations with Ethiopia. Russia will not be a silent
observer.

Pro-Ethiopia
visionary leaders of the future have to carefully craft a strategic balancing
policy to safeguard vital national security and economic interests, a Herculean
task that the puppet TPLF warlord dudes behaving like foreign occupiers cannot
be trusted to perform. 

Hurdles to
unified action to evict the brutal regime from power are briefly presented in
the following sections under the captions: “The Adam Pedigree Chart; “Inter-racial
marriages”;  “Religion
and freedom of conscience”;  and “Letters
between  the Titans: Drs. Fikre and Beyan”

The Adam Pedigree Chart

The grand
question being asked to this day is “Given that it was only Adam and Eve on
Earth how did the human race multiply? This difficult question is better
answered by the clerics and the producers of “The Adam Pedigree Chart”
-published in Google – from which I would llike to glean a few points for the
purpose of this piece.

Adam
begat three sons – Abel, Cain and Seth. Cain killed Abel and was banished in exile from his
birth place to another land where he settled, married and produced children.
This is probably the reason that the Chart starts with Seth as the son of Adam
and Eve in the genealogy of European Monarchs for example of up to Queen
Elizabeth II.

Ethiopians
might ask is there a pedigree for Ethiopian Monarchs? The answer is yes.
Berihun Kebede has produced a strikingly similar pedigree in tabular format in
the Amharic text tracing the lineage of Emperor Haile Selassie to Adam and Eve
in his voluminous book titled “Ye Atsie Haile Selassie Tarik” (History of
Emperor Haile Selassie), vide pp. 129 – 135. He shows that the mother of the
Monarch is called Yeshimebeit Gamicho (an Oromo) of royal descent. This
reference is extremely helpful to the debate of the origin of Cushitic Kingdom
of Ethiopia in that it lives no doubt that Oromos were part and parcel of the
Kingdom in influential positions of power in Ethiopia, which is universally
acknowledged as the origin of the human species.

 I should add that Emperor Iyoas whose mother
hailed from Yeju ruled from his palace in Gondar; Oromiffa was the official
language and his bodyguards were Oromos from Yeju.

I got this
from Google to reinforce my argument: “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses
because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married
an Ethiopian woman” (Num. 12.1). Every now and
again someone asks how it could be that Moses, the champion of the Lord for the
chosen people, could have married an Ethiopian who was therefore of the
descendants of Ham, youngest son of Noah. There was strong objection in Israel
to such marriages although the assumption that Moses had married before he left
Egypt only raises the second question how he later came to marry Zipporah the
Midianite when he apparently had left one wife back in Egypt. The word
“Ethiopian” is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “Cush” who in Genesis 10.8
is recorded as one of the sons of Ham, father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and
Canaan.” My emphasis

Inter-racial marriages:

Inter-racial
marriages had occurred in the distant past, continue to take place to the
present, and will continue increasingly at a rapid rate in the future in my
opinion. Take Mosses and his Ethiopian wife as an example and ask the unanswerable
question whether his Ethiopian spouse was an Amhara, Oromo, Guraghe, Kembata, Sidama,
Hadia, Welaita et al. At what point in time in the Adam and Eve genecology did
the first Amhara couple arose and propagated in racial purity to this date
without intermarriage with other ethnic groups? The same question applies to
the first couples of Oromo, Guraghe, Kembata, Sidama, Hadia, Welaita et al. This
cardinal question is especially directed to hypocrites like the late tyrant
Meles Zenawi of the ‘Golden Race’ of which he was bragging.

Religion, freedom of conscience and
freedom of worship

At this juncture I would like to recall an event that stole
my heart at which my esteemed hero Tamagne Beyene performed in Frankfurt at a
fund raising for ESAT.  A tall and
handsome young Ethiopian took the floor and remarked among other things that
Ethiopia was there before the advent of Christianity and Islam faiths. This the
conviction to maintain and  carry
forward  the 1434 years old bond between
the two ancient major faiths comprising 77% of the Ethiopian people. The TPLF
regime must stop its unconstitutional meddling in religious affairs and
muzzling freedom of expression.

Letters
between the Titans: Drs. Fikre Tolossa and Beyan Asoba

I have never met Dr. Fikre Tolossa but have enjoyed reading
his writings and listening to his beautiful poems about the country he loves,
Ethiopia. His poems were read on the German Radio, Amharic program and were a
voice of hope to many of my colleagues while I was in Ethiopia at the height of
intensified war with TPLF thugs. The first exchange of messages with the
scholar was when I wrote my piece about the distinguished patriot Abdissa Aga
who was taken prisoner to Italy and broke out from a high security prison and
joined guerrilla Yugoslavian fighters loyal to Marshall Tito operating on
Italian soil in a mountain hide out. Abdissa proved a nightmare to the enemy on
its turf. We made several exchanges with Dr. Fikre in one of which he told me
of his plan to come to Kampala to show his movie. I encouraged him to do so but
the project did not materialize.  I read
his Open Letter to Dr. Beyan and sent him my comment on his Letter, thanking
him for his brilliant findings indispensable to combat the destructive
ethnic-based policy of the brutal TPLF/EPRDF regime.    

On the other hand I have not met Dr. Beyan or read any of
his writings. Nevertheless I hold him with high respect while I disagree with
his stance on the Oromo question.

The overwhelming people of Ethiopia today trace their birth
to a mixed race parentage. For this majority it is like going through some kind
of ritual ablution to cleanse the
unwanted genes or impurities in their blood/body to qualify as a member of a self-proclaimed
pure ethnic group – an impossible task. From my history lesson in
elementary school Ethiopia got her name from the leader Ethiopis, which Dr.
Fikre calls ETHIOP.

Ras Gugssa the Great and his descendants in Debre Tabor,
Gobena Datche in North Shoa, General Jagama Kello of Western Shoa, Haptegiogis
Dinegde,Balcha Abanebso, Geresu Duki, Bekele Weya et al did not have to change
their names to ascend to their respective position of power. The names given to
children of mixed marriages by consent of their parents had nothing to do with
the policy of the government of the day because there was no such policy. Given
that according to Dr. Fikre’s findings that the Oromos were predominant in the
history of Ethiopia, where is the justification for Dr. Beyan to rather angrily
complain in the following words?

Quote:
Unfortunately, for us, the sons and daughters of the Oromo nation, suffering
the indignity of being re-named by Chauvinists has been a very common and
bitter experience.

It
is this practice of demanding that individuals need to first die as Oromos,
Sidamas, Walayitas, Kambatas, Hadiyas, etc. in order to be reborn as Ethiopians
that sits at the heart of the political contestation in that country. And so
long as being an Oromo and an Ethiopian are made incompatible, we have no
choice but to either reject your Itophiyawinnet or suffer the imposed
self-abnegation.

The
days when Oromos had to endure self-abnegation are over and shall never return.
We have rejected the Itophiyawinnet that is the antithesis of being an Oromo
and shall continue to do so as long as this antithetical relationship is
maintained. You either accept us with our
identity and other rights fully respected or you kiss goodbye to your much
vaunted Itophiyawinnet and Ethiopian unity. Can
you not see that there is something immoral in trying to build Ethiopian unity
on graves of Oromos, Sidamas, Walayitas, Kambatas, Hadiyas, etc. .? Unquote

I ask who in Ethiopia of today is in power to grant
acceptance of the ‘identity’ and ‘rights’ of others? If there has been denial
other identity and other rights the Oromo aristocracy of the past is as much to
blame as the Amharas et al.

Now, I was privy to top secret files of the former Imperial
Ethiopian Air Force (IEAF). Merit was the only criterion to ascend to top
positions. I recall my senior officers superiors like Colonels Gadissa Guma,
Mitiku Muleta, and Dibaba Biratu among others. The famous rebel Waquo Gutu was
surprised when he was introduced to these officers and many others on his arrival
at the IEAF and touring the facilities following his reconciliation with the
Imperial regime mediated by General Jagama Kello. I was among those who
welcomed at the tarmac where the IEAF airplane carrying him arrived.

Recruitment to the IEAF covered the entire country as a
matter of strict policy. One would find names like Zewge Sello, Manjura Selleo
(descendants of King Tona), Asgedom, Fitwi, Bahlbi.The Monarch and His elegant
Oromo wife Empress Mennen made sure that gender should not be a factor to bar
females from joining the IEAF in any field of their choice including flying
training to become pilots.   

The 8000 thousand horse-mounted Oromo (Galla) fierce fighters
mainly from north Shoa made a significant contribution to the crushing victory
over the Italians at the famous Battle of Adwa, which became a beacon of hope
for all the black people in Africa and elsewhere in the Diaspora. It would be
fool hardy for this generation of Oromos not to be proud of the accolade that
history has bestowed on their ancestors for their gallantry in fighting the
enemy as Ethiopians.

Top patriot Abichu from Sellale and his four compatriots
Haptom from Hamassein;
Tesfatsion from Tigray (Mekele); Gashu from Gojjam (Damot); and Workqu from
Selalle organized a formidable guerrilla force operating in Tigrai that became
a nightmare to the enemy, which by his own admission became
excruciating thorn in the flesh of Marshal Badoglio – supreme commander
of the invading Italian Fascist Army. These illustrious
patriots for the independence of Ethiopia as Ethiopians and two of them
sacrificed their lives.

Those from the south including the 15,000 peasant
militia army from Kembatta are reported to have closely coordinated with Abichu
in their armed encounter with the enemy, vowing affectionately in the name of
Immye Menilik II to fight the Fascists to the last drop of their blood.

My
submission in conclusion

Written records and anecdotes confirm that Oromos
have been in positions of power as Monarchs, kings, aristocrats and dignitaries
since the advent of the Cushite Kingdom of Ethiopia

The
intention to change the acronym ODF to EDF is most welcome! TPLF/EPRDF is
buckling under the weight of its heinous crimes. Unity scares the brutal regime
to death. Sustained public wrath will expedite the date of its downfall. The
success of the massive strike in Brazil is inspiring.

I was
sincerely elated by the outstanding  performance  of Dr. Birhanu Nega and Mr. Obang Metho at the
hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa of the US Congress. I hope that the ensuing
promised Bill on human rights in Ethiopia will not suffer the same fate as
HR2003. I regard the Honorable Congressman in the highest esteem and true
friend of Africa. 

Demand the
immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience including Andualem Aragie, Eskinder Nega, Bekele
Gerba, Reeyot Alemu, Leaders of the Ethiopian Muslims et al!

Long live Ethiopia!
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