Your Pain is our Gain: Ethiopia’s Minority Regime Physical Master Plan without Human Face

December 13, 2015 Oromia

By Iddoosaa Ejjetaa*

Following the Scramble for Africa by European powers (1881-1914), the Empire of Ethiopia had formed in the image of Western Colonial Empire. The name Ethiopia was derived from European language (Greek) and the form of government as well. As political entity, Ethiopia is European subsidiary institution or institution of indirect colonization. Hence, the government of Ethiopia is a political agency of the Western powers who experiment and maintain strategic interest of the Western power.
As history shows, since the conquest of Menlik II (1889-1913) using fire arms that supplied by European powers and military advice, the Oromo people and other people in the Empire of Ethiopia had left without the opportunity or power to make an informed choices or decisions as citizen until present time. As a result, the people in Ethiopia see government as an exogenous entity that produces corruption, exploitation, social and economic injustice, inequality, discrimination, war, conflict, misery and manmade poverty. No government in Ethiopia had formed through fair and free election.

For more than a century, the people in Ethiopia ruled by Absolut Authority, monarchy, military dictators, the communist, fascist dictators, winner-take –all minority rule, the TPLF and often in a cruel and brutal ways. These human devils had always used government institution or state machinery to inflict sufferings on their subjects, the population. In the long history of the empire, there was no single government or regime existed that earned legitimacy form the Oromo people and other oppressed people in Ethiopia. Consequently, government institutions are used to control resources mainly land and the population through divide-and –rule method using the cultural and linguistic diversity of the population.
The present ruling party in Ethiopia that lead by Tigray people liberation front (TPLF) is a minority. This regime has not earned legitimacy from the people of the country. TPLF exploited the opportunity of Cold War and the nationality questions in Ethiopia to their advantage using ethnicity as means to divide-and-rule the population and to control the resources primarily the land by creating a very odd political arrangement, ‘unitary federal system’ that allow the minority to have a power over the majority rule.

For the last two decades, the TPLF regime has enjoyed the acceptance and support from the Western powers who helped installing the regime. At the same time, the TPLF minority regime operators have learned the theory of democracy and hypocrisy from their mentors. The regime military and police forces have been trained and armed with modern equipment to control the population and to maintain the strategic interest of their mentors, Western powers, in the region. Like all previous Ethiopia’s regimes, the TPLF regime has been serving as political subsidiary or agency of the Western power.

Ethiopia and other African countries are far from sovereign states, because the structure of government and political system is a carbon copy of the Western. Ethiopian government and other African states are not African, they are political subsidiaries of the Western mother institutions where the state men subordinate to foreign institutions and representing the interest of the parent institution than the people they rule often in cruel and brutal ways like the current regime of Ethiopia. To understand what I
mean here, one can just take a look into the government structures in Africa: the military, police force, economic, financial system and the legal system including the recent terrorist law that was adopted as is by TPLF lead regime of Ethiopia.

The Western powers consider and use the TPLF regime of Ethiopia as proxy institution that can do the dirty job when they need it. For example, the Cold War effort; TPLF’s armed struggle against the military regime in Ethiopia has been credited by the Western powers as positive contribution to their sphere of political influence that they had lost to the Soviet Union in 1970s and regained it in 1991. As a result, the Western powers have been very generous in every aspects including legitimacy and diplomatic relationship and financial aid to the minority TPLF regime as reciprocation for sacrifices they made during the struggle. At the same time, they ignored the suffering the Oromo people and other Ethiopian people under heavy handed fascist dictatorship.

The TPLF leaders have no capacity and willingness to bring justice and democracy to the people of Ethiopia. Their capacity to think and see the big picture has been jammed by obsession for wealth and political power. The TPLF leaders’ motivation is always esteemed from the politics of envy or jealousy. They have been jealous of the Amhara political power because they had had a lion share of political power in Ethiopia. They are also very jealous of the Oromo people and the southern people of Ethiopia because the Oromo land, Oromiyaa is fertile and rich in natural resources as compare to TPLF dictators’ homeland, which has been depleted and rocky land of Tigray.

The Addis Ababa Master Plan is the result of TPLF’s political envy and obsession for wealth accumulation using the government apparatus to meet their end goals. They attempted to use the state machinery to deprive the livelihood of the Oromo people by evicting them from their ancestral land under the name integrated development, transformation, economic liberalization, etc. borrowing a failed development theories or the fantasy of Western Academia. According to these experimental institutions, Ethiopia is considered as one of the fastest growing economies in world. However, the Ethiopia’s double digit economic growth in the last decade is very far from helping the tens of millions of people in Ethiopia who are suffering from hunger because of food shortage. The news has turned ugly for both TPLF and Western advocators. Launching economic transformation from agriculture to industrialization would not serve much purpose for the population. Granting the land to foreign investors who export whatever they produce. This shows how much the TPLF regime is short-sighed and less care for the people they rule in brutal ways.
For example, Finfinnee, the capital of Oromiyaa and Ethiopia, is used as an experimental site chosen where TPLF regime is serving as proxy institution to manage the lab work whiles the Oromo people and households the farmers are subject to the experiment without their consent. That means the government can evict them from their home and land any time and sell their land to wealthy investors who are willing to establish partnership or corrupt the government officials or the regime in general. The Oromo students and people strongly oppose for such archaic government action.

Regarding Finfinnee, the Oromo students’ and people’s question is NOT about the right to receive benefits such as tax revenue sharing from Finfinnee and unidentified other benefits as stated in the
TPLF’s/EPRDF’s constitution. Clearly the Oromo students’ question is the Oromo people legitimate right of ownership over Finfinnee and to incorporate the Addis Ababa/Finfinnee administration and map into the State of Oromiyaa. From the beginning, it was a wrong and logical mistake to designate Finfinnee as special administration zone by excluding from the state of Oromiyaa.

Therefore, no one has the right to evict the Oromo farmers, households from their ancestral land and use it for any purposes without their consent. Finfinnee as capital city of Ethiopia is part and parcel of Oromiyaa. A free from alien influence and independent government of Oromiyaa must restore the Oromo ownership and its legitimacy over Finfinnee. The Oromo people must continue and show a solid resistance against Alien Master Plan without human face. Finfinnee’s development plan shall be determined by the Oromo people and by its peaceful residents who recognize the Oromo people legitimate right over Finfinnee. TPLF Agents and French City planning agency have no a mandate over Finfinnee’s future plan; both of agents shall be held accountable for their physical master plan without human face that cost many Oromo lives including the youngest and brightest Oromo students’ lives, the displaced farmers, tens of thousands Oromo farming households. It must be clear to the friends and foes that the Addis Ababa Master Plan is a physical pan without human face and it must be opposed and stopped by all means necessary. Its implementation means the total distraction of the Oromo cultural identity and legitimate right to life. The Oromo students’ and other progressive Ethiopians revolution shall end the political subsidiary agency system of governance of the Western power and lead to the revitalization of an indigenous democratic institutions such as Oromoo Gadaa System, a genuine and proven system of government for the people by the people.
The Western power should know that he Oromo people demanding for self-government, self-determination, self-development, using their land resources and improving their standard of living with their culture and identity. Historically, the Oromo people and other oppressed people in Ethiopia’s empire never had their own government who taking care of the individual and group interests. They have been ruled by alien forces who are highly dependent on Western political legitimacy, financial and technical support and never regret for the sufferings they inflicted on the people they rule brutally.

Finally, the Oromo students’ and people’s question is NOT about the right to receive benefits such as tax revenue sharing and other unidentified benefits from Finfinnee as stated in the TPLF’s/EPRDF’s constitution. Instead, the Oromo question is just and legitimate which is the right of ownership over Finfinnee! The current Oromo students’ and people’ revolutionary action shall not be limited to stop the Addis Ababa Physical Master Plan without human face. Instead, it must restore the right of Oromo people ownership and self-governance at every local districts that hopefully culminate with regime change in Ethiopia.

The Gadaa Republic of Oromiyaa Shall be Free by United Oromoo Forces and Resources!

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* About the author: Iddoosaa Ejjetaa, Ph.D., native to Oromiyaa, Ethiopia. Independent and Naturalist Thinker; An activist and advocator for the revitalization of Authentic Oromummaa, Oromoo Indigenous knowledge and institutions, and for the formation of Biyyaa Abbaa Gadaa-The Gadaa Republic of Oromiyaa.