Alemu Hurissa:- Integrated Master Plan or Intended Marginalization Plan against Oromos?

By Alemu Hurissa*

“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, above all, to make you see. That – and no more, and it is everything.” Joseph Conrad

We have been told many times over by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) aboutdevelopment in Ethiopia without understanding its meaning and significant impacts on democracy, economy, and social and human rights. As we know, there are many different definitions of development, understanding the term “development” is crucial since it has changed throughout history. The easiest way to define development, in our case, is to describe it in terms of the improvement of the life of the society – which is not happening as TPLF, Inc., wants us to believe. Development is not just only about economic growth, but about the elevation of the living standards of the whole society, and it should aim to create economic, social and political improvements so that all people can live dignified lives. It is good to have development for poverty alleviation, without excluding other social aspects – such as human rights, good governance and treatments of citizens fairly and equally without favouring one group or any group over the other for any reason.

The question is, when the development that TPLF, Inc. often trumpets is accompanied by violent processes causing immeasurable sufferings to citizens, including losses of lives, and immense destruction to their economic base, how would one have the moral standing to call it development? If the development, as the government claims, is in favor of the local people, why does the government not consult Oromo farmers, who are victims of this false development – before implementing its Plan? The fact is that the Plan is not in the interest of the Oromo people as it is aimed to rob them of their land, and make them mere bystanders as members of the ruling junta use the land to enrich themselves at the expense of the dispossessed Oromo mass.

The Plan, which TPLF has called the “Integrated Master Plan/IMP” – which was the cause for the losses of the lives of many Oromo university students and the massive evictions of Oromo farmers from their farm and home lands, is aimed to reduce Oromos to poor day-laborers and street beggars as witnessed over the last two decades. As one of the Oromo activists, who was among those who protested the Master Plan around Finfinne said, “the development programs of the EPRDF are simply means of marginalizing the Oromo people to consolidate the political power within the circle of the ruling junta.” The development, that has been claimed by TPLF, is not sustainable because only very few members of the society have got richer as the vast majority has got poorer by day.

If what we have been told about the development is the truth, why is Ethiopia ranked among the poorest countries in the world and only better than just one country, namely Niger? Why is poverty scale for Ethiopia the highest on the global poverty scale in 2014? Why is nearly ninety percent of the total population of the country struggling for their daily basic needs? The answer is simple; there is no meaningful development as it is one of the usual TPLF’s fabricated lies. In the same way the TPLF/EPRDF is used to fabricating false documents whenever they want to punish whoever has disagreed with their repressive rule, they also seem to be doing the same in the case of the development they claim; even as their development has not at all reflected in the lives of the larger society, they have continued to lie anyways.

In spite of the country’s immense potential in manpower and natural resources, the marginalization of the majority from the development process, coupled with corruption that has become recklessly rampant at every level of the government structure, leaves any hope for meaningful development a pipe dream. Today, lack of food, poor health care, poor living standards and low quality education remain common problems in the country while the world stands shocked by the level and amount of capital flight out of the country, as often reported by the International Financial Integrity. I strongly believe that there is no positive thing to be expected for the Oromo people from TPLF and their lobby-boy outfits called OPDO. If anything, the recent moronic outburst by Abay Tsehaye threatening a rule by terror against the Oromo people, if the so called Oromo leadership fails to implement the Integrated Master Plan (or Intended Marginalization Plan of the Oromo people), is indicative of the best laid plan of uprooting and dispossessing the Oromo people from their ancestral lands; all with the intention and aim of making way for the expansion of TPLF cronies and family oligarchs at the expense of the Oromo people.

Abay Tsehaye was attributing the failure of the first-round attempt of the implementation of the evil Plan against the Oromo people about a year ago to failures by the OPDO leadership to be aggressive enough in its pursuit. By that, he was effectively mocking the blood of the Oromo martyrs who lost their lives, and those who have survived with physical disabilities and mental traumas sustained in the hands of the brutal TPLF-controlled Federal Police – for resisting the evil Plan.

Hawassa Burning
Immediately following the outburst of Abay Tsehaye came the footage of a section of the Hawassa city burning to ashes as did parts of Finfinne, Harar and Dire Dawa over the last five years, and that of the city of Bahir Dar just a few months back. The Hawassa fire came out as the most shocking due to the news of children perishing in it.

There is no magic fire that arises out of the blue to reduce parts of city after city to ashes without a human hand being behind it. And that devilish hand of arson belongs to none other than the agents of doom – the TPLF, Inc. – that much – all the peoples in Ethiopia know, and that the wider world has also learned enough about TPLF to know more than that this day. If anyone has doubts about that, it is self-evident when considering how the fire brigade turns up at the fire scenes after more than half the job of destruction was done by the fire; and in fact, that the fencing squad converges on the razed ground – almost before daybreak the next morning – to secure the land for TPLF members and cronies. The fact that all the fires, that broke out in the mentioned cities, had happened during nights also tells tales. TPLF, Inc. must be the only humanity in the world that happily self-aggrandizes and quenches greed by burning fellow citizens like insects as well as razing their livelihoods to ashes with impunity.

The Inglorious Abay Tsehaye
One can surely state that a single Oromo person can hardly be found to reside in any part of Tigry region as a layman, leave alone go there with authority to dictate what to do, or where or how to do anything in Mekele or any part of the Tigray region. But, here are Abay Tsehaye and gang – armed to the teeth and riding on the barrel of gun – wreaking havoc in Oromia region for nearly a quarter of century – seemingly unstoppable. Now, time has come to put a concerted and united front, with all oppressed peoples, to put these bigoted merchants of doom in their right place before it is too late as they seem to stop at nothing in their act of state terrorism and threat of committing genocide by irresponsibly mobilizing state power against the unarmed poor Oromos.

In conclusion, TPLF is fast self-defeating as they are busy killing their own image in the watching eyes of the world every time they kill and maim unarmed innocent poor people. By that, they have long promoted themselves to terrorist status even long before they have assumed state power. As they stand more recognised for their evil works and isolated than ever before, ours is to get our acts together and give them a little push to ensure that they will be consigned to the dust bin of history, and to be relieved of their sinister jobs against our country and its people.

Oromia shall be free!