The Fascistic, Racist and Anti-Educational nature of Consecutive Ethiopian Governments

By Tokkicha Abbaamilki | June 20, 2014

THE 1ST BOKO HARAM

UNDER IMPERIAL REGIME OF H/SILASIE

In early 1960s Ethiopian Prime minister Mr. Aklilu H/Weld invited General Tadesse Biru the Commander of the Special Police Force(Fetno Darash) to have a dinner at his house. The purpose of the invitation was not simply to make him enjoy the dinner or the whiskey served after the dinner. The prime minister had “a very big” purpose to convey to the General. This purpose was to disclose the greatest secret of the empire to this honest General and give him an appropriate instruction and advice.

General Tadesse observing the societies severe illiteracy status established an organization called “Ye Fidel Serawit” literally means “the army of the alphabet” that works toward promoting basic education program – teaching the people how to read and write – a task ignored purposely by the government. Therefore this program launched by the General that aimed to educate the masses didn’t make the government happy. Because the government had a secret policy that forbade/prohibited the chance of education to the subject peoples in general and the Oromo people in particular.

Tadesse not knowing his government’s secret, started aggressively agitating the people to learn. Being Oromo by birth he mainly focused on this most ignored region where there was no school except in the garrison towns where the settler colonizers settled in mass.

The prime minister not knowing that Tadesse -the honest General to the government who foiled the attempted coup d’etat by Mengistu and Germame Neway in 1959 was an Oromo by birth rather thinking that Tadesse was an Amhara disclosed the secret policy of the government that aimed to rule the subject peoples like Oromo in holding them illiterate and backward with hundred years and warned Tadesse to stop his agitation and education anymore and abandon his “fedel serawit” program. The prime minister told Tadesse “if we don’t hold the Oromo in ignorance back by a century and let them be educated like you are doing now they (the Oromos) are like flood and overwhelm us with no time” The 1st “Boko Haram” school of thought may be begun there. (It is known that Boko Haram is a terrorist group operating in Naigeria and opposes/ forbids modern education). Was that policy different from what Boko Haram is doing today in Naigeria? Not at all. They are similar and the same, because they both are against modern education.

Tadesse was shocked hearing this weird and hostile to the people idea from the prime minister of the country in that era of the 20th century. He kept his secret pretending as if he accepted the instruction went to his home. He automatically decided to join the Macha Tulama Self Help Association which he was asked to join before and refused to do so, because he felt that the association was organized on “tribal” basis. Not only joining he became the leader of the association soon. He started mobilizing Oromo people from North to South and from East to West.

Observing the high turn out of the Oromo population to join the association the government was panicked and started to plot against the leaders of the association. They prepared a pretext plan to incriminate and arrest them. They blown a grenade in a cinema hall in the capital and arrested them. Out of the arrested was the founders of the association

1. H/Mariam Gamadaa was tortured inside the prison cell until his body was torn apart and infected and died in prison denied any medication.
2. Mamo Mezemer was hanged on the street. These were the 1st generation of Oromo graduates. They were eliminated as simple as that. Another Boko Haram action.
3. Many including General Tadesse were detained and stayed in detention up to the end of the era of the emperor.

The government had so many policies to keep the children of the subject peoples away from schools. One of them was language the medium of education. It was only Amharic the language of the colonizer elite. This language was not only the medium of education, it was also compulsory that a student could not pass from grade to the next grade if he didn’t score a pass 50% or above in Amharic. There fore more than 90% of the children living out side the Amhara region did not have the chance to go to school because they never understand Amharic. Another Boko Haram anti education policy.

The list goes on and on. Every body who went to school had to change his name to the christian Amhara name. If the student or his family were not willing to change the name the student was made humiliated by calling him with derogatory name “galla”and considered by the school society as aline and forced to leave the school out of frustration.

I want to show you the true nature of the system with example. During the beginning of the emperor’s reign students that completed their high school education and scored a good grade were granted a scholar ship to European colleges. Because college program didn’t start in the country. A certain Oromo student who didn’t change his name to Amhara name came among those students. The then minister of education a certain tsehafi tizaz found this name among the list of scholar ship students. This minister had to present these students to the emperor so that they were instructed what they would be doing where they go abroad. Before doing this the minister called this student and told him to change his Oromo name to Amhara name, swearing by the name of the king (“Teferi yimut bezih sim nigusu fit alakerbhim”) he told the student that he would not present him to the king with this name. The student changed his name over night and was granted the scholar ship.

The list is so long and one can make a book out of it. But let me mention one final event that changed the course of history and pass to the next regimes. The imperial regime proclaimed an education policy called “sector review” that hinders the majority of students to exceed 4th grade. After 4th grade the students would be assigned to study their parents professional line. That means a son of a farmer cannot be anything else except being a farmer, and so on. This allows the rulers children to be a ruler forever. Is this not very comfortable establishing a system where no body nags your children, grand children, and great grand children….for their being a ruler for ever?

Did the International community, and the friendly Nation’s administrations give advice or try to criticize such a barbaric act to be corrected? Not at all. Because the emperor was a strategic ally to this countries. No body cares about the people. They were busy praising the emperor of his achievements of civilizing, and developing the country, where about 93% of the country’s population was purposely left in the dark(with out any kind of education) and hundreds of thousands starved to death.

Anyhow every thing that regime planned turned out to be a futile dream. With the pretext of opposing the newly proclaimed “sector review” the opposition and demonstration started by teachers and students everywhere was followed by mass uprising in 1974 that ended the forty years reign of the emperor for good and history was changed.

THE 2ND BOKO HARAM FASCISM

UNDER THE DERG REGIM

The popular revolution was hijacked by the military junta and a coup d’etat took place that promised the people a peace full transition of power to democratic government with a motto called “Ethiopia tikdem yale minim deme”(literally “Ethiopia 1st with out any blood shed) and was supported by the people at the beginning.

After consolidating power the military junta became sensitive to any opposition and started killing the intellectuals and students indiscriminately and made clear the hatred it had for educated people. This junta killed almost a generation of intellectuals and students during the 17 years of communist rule. Out of a few educated Oromo intellectuals during the monarch’s reign 300 were detained, tortured and some were killed by the junta associating them to OLF. This Junta executed General Tadesse Biru, Colonel Hailu Raggaasaa, Muhe Abdo and other educated prominent Oromo elites. This regime ruled the country in reign of terror and the elimination of the country’s educated class. The same Boko Haram and fascist regime came to power. All police stations and kebels changed to detention and torture camps. Anybody armed by the government including the kebel guards were given the right to kill by declaring “netsa ermja” literally means “free step”

Like its predecessor this junta had a secret education policy managed by a party’s ideologue named Shimeles Mazengia. This policy was designed to minimize the number of non Amhara students particularly Oromo students joining the university and graduating. Denial of education to the subject peoples children.The same Boko Haram policy policy continued and impliminted.

After all this hurdles those who became lucky and graduated was also not given an equitable opportunity of employment. Specially if their names or parents names indicate those persons were Oromo they never be given an opportunity of employment or given an inferior job. This pushed Oromo not to come forward and learn in numbers.

With the change of government there were no major change of policy for Oromo except the derogatory name “galla” was forbidden by law. There was nothing that reflect any thing Oromo in any of the institutions. Even mentioning them was a crime punishable by death. All the effort was to make all Oromo to forget his identity and take that of the colonizers. It was preached by the church and the government and the colonial society at large, that anything reflecting Oromo culture was “devilish” and most of them were outlawed.

Like it was practiced during the emperor’s period it was not allowed for any government official to give speech in Afaan Oromo to the people even if he knows the language. He had to speak in Amharic and a translator translate it to Afaan Oromo. Therefore Oromo never find himself in any of the social interaction even in the country side where they are the great majority. All these added up to discourage Oromo to go to school and lose his identity.

TPLF REGIME

BOKO HARAM, INTERAHAMWE, FASCIST (NAZIST), RACIST AND TERRORIST

This regime has the character combination of all these.

TPLF ousted the fascist dictatorial DERG junta after 17 years of war and came to power in 1991 . The group that replaced one another on power by means of violence (at the point of a mere gun) had no fundamental difference. They emerged from the same Habasha root – the previous two came from the Amhara branch and the later one from Tigray branch. They have the same back ground – first and foremost they are colonizers. Second they are the minority having the same religion, psychological makeup, minority syndrome, back ward culture of dictatorial rule of kings and feudal domination of fraudulent policy, etc.

On their 1st year in power TPLF authorities were pretending to be democratic and establishing a participatory administrative system- pretending to address the question of nations and nationalities through forming federal states, invited most political parties and liberation fronts to participate in the transition process. They promised to establish democratically elected government too.

After consolidating power they started harassing, intimidating, detaining, torturing, and killing the cadres and members of the other parties in the coalition. Ignoring the transition Charter and the agreement made they encircled the camp of the Oromo Liberation Army and detained about 20,000 of them, tortured and killed most of them in the detention camps and proved the breach of the transition charter. This didn’t get international media coverage, and the western powers that gave the TPLF green light to usurp power with out the consent of the people of Ethiopia choose to be quiet in the face of this heinous massacre and continued to give economic, political, diplomatic, military, etc aid to TPLF to facilitate further the massacre and legitimize it. Since this crime against humanity was absolved by western super-powers it is taken as moral and just by the TPLF authorities and killing anybody who is suspected of opposing them was taken as a daily duty.

Starting from the day they detained the OLF forces, all educated Oromo nationals that did not work for TPLF as a mercenary was either detained or kidnapped and disappeared or killed in hidden and known prison cells and dark corners. Thousands of such extra judicial killings and tens of thousands of arbitrary detentions were reported by human right organizations for the last 22 years. Hundred thousands flee the country to face the life of refuges in neighboring countries and tens of thousands drowned in sea waters and became a prey for sea animals. Those who succeeded to arrive to their targeted destination were again followed up, kidnapped, taken back to Ethiopia tortured and killed in detention camps by TPLF killing squad.

For the last 22 years the number of Oromo detainees range from hundred thousand totwo hundred fifty thousand. All this are educated and students of Oromo nationals including women, men, young and old. Thousands of students were expelled from colleges and universities for no reason except the sole purpose of TPLF to reduce the number of educated Oromos and the Oromo people in general. Again another “Boko Haram” government that imposed it self on oromo people at gun point is on the throne. The experience which was never seen in two previous regimes.

This detaining, hiding the detainees, torturing, kidnapping, extra judicial killing, expelling from universities, evicting the Oromo farmers from their ancestral land, etc, went on for the last 22 years continuously with out getting any attention from the international community. In this process thousands lost their lives, thousands of Oromo students were expelled from Universities, more than 200,000 Oromo farmers were evicted from Finfinne (Addis Ababa) and the districts around Finfinne within the last ten years alone. While all these crimes were committed by the TPLF authorities the International community had no ear to listen to the victims cry and no eyes to see to these victims call for help. Since no power, no community, no international body except human right organizations , condemns these crimes it never stopped, rather it continued with a great momentum. That is what we are witnessing now.

Starting from the last week of April 2014 this fascist dictator aggravated its harassment and terror on Oromo students who demonstrated against what TPLF called “Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan” that is going to evict more than five million Oromo farmers from their ancestral land, killing Oromo students from elementary schools to Universities, teachers and residents of the region. University students were rounded up and taken to unknown prison centers cruelly tortured, and assassinated. High school and elementary students were also detained and severely tortured. Among these students there are significant number of girls. These girls are tortured and raped to the extent that they urinate blood. An eye witness said that they are purposely beating stepping upon their abdomen so that they will not be able to conceive in the future one of Nazi’s genocidal system. Hundreds were shot dead on the streets including an eight year child and a fourteen year girl with leave ammunition in Ambo last april. There were killings and tortures through out Oromia that parallels with what the Nazis (master race) did to the Jews, the Poles, Slavic people etc, during the Holocaust (a program of systematic state-sponsored murder by the Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and Nazi party through out the German Reich and German Occupied territories. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) The difference between TPLF and the Nazis is the difference of number of people they killed. Do we have to be patient until TPLF kills 6,000,000 Oromos?

“The integrated Addis Ababa master plan” is also the same as Nazis secret plan called Generalplan OST (English: Master Plan East). Generalplan OST (GPO) was a secret Nazi German plan for the colonization of Central and Eastern Europe. Implementation would have necessitated genocide and ethnic cleansing on vast scale to be undertaken in these European territories, occupied by Germany during W.W. 2. According to the Nazis plan these people were to be removed through expulsion, enslavement, starvation and extermination from East-Central Europe. Nazis eventually decided to exterminate the Poles and most other Slavic people who along with the Jews and Gypsies, were defined as Untermenschen (inferior people), and a danger to “Aryan” or Germanic Ubemenschen (super man, over man, over human….) master race. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

The TPLF “Integrated Addis Ababa Master Plan” has the same secret mission to remove Oromos from their ancestral land through genocide, and ethnic cleansing like the one we have witnessed silently for the last twenty years while more than 200,000 Oromo farmers removed from their land. In this Plan they are going to remove more than 5,000,000 farmers. And nothing is planned to resettle these farmers and their fate will be starvation and death like their predecessors, because they are going to be separated from their means of livelihood the land. Therefore TPLF’s IAAMP’s goal, and its implementation is the direct copy of Nazi’s GOP.

The genocide they are committing on the Oromo people today is similar to what the Interahamwe did in Rwanda on April 1994 too. Interahmwe means “those who stand/ work /fight/attack together” in the Rwandan language called Kinyarwanda,. This group was a Hutu para military organization, and enjoyed the backing of the Hutu-led government leading up to , during, and after the Rwandan Genocide (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

A Rwandan writer of a book titled “An Ordinary Man” Paul Rusesabagina expressed the incident like this “the radio was instructing all its listeners to murder their neighbors. “Do your work”, I heard the announcers say “clean your neighborhood of brush, cut the tall trees.”
“……The tall trees” was an unmistakable reference to the Tutsis. “clean your neighborhood of brush” meant that rebel army sympathizers might be hiding among Tutsi families and so the entire family should be “cleaned” to be on the safe side. But somehow the worst phrase of all to me was “do your work”. It made killing sound like a responsibility. Like it was the normal thing to do.(p.82)

Can anybody draw a difference between what Interahamwe did in Rwanda 20 years ago and what TPLF is doing today in Oromia? I don’t see any difference Hutu militias killed the Tutsis backed by the Hutu government. They killed the Tutsis indiscriminately because they were Tutsis. The same is true to the Agazis (TPLF’s killing squad) who is killing the Oromos, in schools, in their homes, in their back yards,on the street, on their farms,etc. They kill Oromos indiscriminately because they are Oromos. The only mass-media transmitted in the country-the government media- called these massacred, detained and tortured Oromos “terrorists”. “Adding an insult to injury”.

The world witnessed the Rwandan genocide silently. Because they were Africans. When Africans butcher other Africans it is like one wild beast kills another wild beast for food which is normal and natural. After every thing was completed and 800,000 people were butchered they started blaming each other. That didn’t benefit the victims or their families. The super-powers and the International community had a responsibility to interfere on time and save the victims. They failed to carry on their responsibility. History will never forget that.

I observe the same thing in Ethiopia today. TPLF started killing the Oromos on April 24/2014 and continued till this minute. Little is known who was killed and who is alive, how many were killed and how many are still being tortured, because the government is not willing to disclose how many people is under the custody of the government, who was killed when tortured,etc. But 50 days has passed since the genocide started. Everyday a dead body of our young generation is thrown out from the killing centers (Auschwitz). The nation shades its tears and buries its dead every day for the last 50 days. For how long shall we continue like this? For hundred days and eight hundred thousand to be butchered like Rwandans to be heard by the International community? I need an answer from the International community and the super-powers who give all round aid including military aid to this murderer government.

This fascist group who took power by the mere force of the gun and stick to power for the last quarter of a century with the same force behaving in 19th century fashion in 21st century killing bare-handed demonstrators with live ammunition, detaining and torturing the rest on completely trumped-up pretext continued in intensified manner.

While they were killing more than 50 university students and other residents in Ambo town last April US secretory of state Mr. John Kerry was in Finfinnee (Addis Ababa) praising the building erected by the corrupted TPLF generals and other authorities in the capital with looted money from the poor peoples of the country as development. He never mentioned about the genocidal murder taking place in Ambo and another parts of Oromia. He slightly mentioned about the three journalists and six bloggers arrested on the eve of his arrival in the country, which I consider that too was a lip-service, and not from the bottom of his heart. He never mentioned too about starved millions who cannot eat once a day in the same city he visited and praised its development. Is this not heart-breaking, sickening, etc?

We know this 21st century fascist dictator overtly an ally of the US government on anti terrorism war on Alshabab and a messenger to do what ever the White House ordered it to do as far as a pocket money is paid to it. But the same dictator covertly dealing with Beijing to make the country (Ethiopia) the “bread basket” of China. Not only Ethiopia they are brokering the whole Africa to be the dumping market of China’s inferior goods at the cost of their precious natural resources.

Regardless of all these crimes the world community in general , the main donors of aid US, UK, concerned International Organizations UN, EU, etc in particular gave a deaf ear and a blind eye to the current genocide going on in Oromia on the Oromo intellectuals, young University students and the people at large.

If to be obedient to the US means a license to kill as much people as one can kill because of their demand for democracy and the rule of law where is democracy the US claims to nurture all over the world? US slogan works only for those who are not obedient to US policy? If for one reason or another one pretends to be the allay of America and repeats what Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Sadam Hussen, Polpot, etc, did and get approval from the US, can we believe the US stands for democracy in the world? No, US is a Hypocrite, not a democrat. A liar, a deceiver not genuine, not serious, not honest, etc, to its words. Truly speaking these deeds are futile, absurd, and immoral in 21st century world.

If the world community and the main donors of the western super powers do not condemn the genocidal act of dictators and fascists in Ethiopia like they condemned the act of Syria’s Assad, this world is the world of Hypocrites not of democrats. “Assad’s army has dropped shrapnel-packed barrel bombs onto civilian targets from helicopters and has used starvation as a weapon of war. (The government maintains that it is not targeting civilians but battling “terrorists,” its term for anyone who opposes Assad.)(Time magazine June 9,2014)

Assad’s army is fighting armed opposition forces, and kills civilians suspected supporting these armed groups and call them “terrorists”. The Ethiopian government kills and calls any Oromo national suspected of having different view from that of the government and raise any question or demand good governance and basic rights a “terrorist”. Assad uses starvation as a weapon of war, in the same way TPLF uses food aid to feed its cadres while the rest of the people are starving to death. What is the difference between the government of Assad and the TPLF government in Ethiopia? It has to be tolerated until it butchers 160,000 and displaces millions? These questions has to be answered by the International community and the US who claims heading the world in supporting democracy and fostering international human rights.

To be clear, I am not asking the US to send a war ship to Rad Sea, or a Drone to Finffinne (Addis Abab) to bomb the dictators,the fascists,the Interahamwe ,the terrorists in Minilik’s palace, I am simply imploring by the name of democracy they swear to support and nurture in the world, to condemn this evil deeds and genocidal crime committed on Oromo people in general and Oromo students in particular and exert their presser on TPLF to stop its criminal genocidal act, and in the meantime stop their economic, political, military, diplomatic,etc, aid that is used by TPLF to kill the Oromo people further.

Oromia Shall be free!!!