Former Oromo President reveals Key Truth for Oppressed Peoples

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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[ Posted On: 2007-09-05 ]

Colonial oppression of peoples is a multifaceted phenomenon that involves a great number of political tricks, malignant practices, mendacious and divisive policies; to perpetuate the illegal invasion and control of a foreign nation and an occupied country, as well as the ensuing benefits, colonial powers employ an old bias, namely the division of the political leadership of the invaded people. Promising promotion, position, money, wealth, fame and glory, the invaders attempt to seduce small part of the oppressed nation’s leadership.

The attempts may be many, and the rejection of the offer may be the prevailing answer, but this never stops the invaders’ insistence on seducement. The reason for the insistence is the general awareness of the weaknesses and the vanity of the Human Condition. Oppressive foreign regimes that control invaded countries, in the way Nazi Germany dominated Norway and Amhara Abyssinian tyranny controlled the vast lands of Oromo Ethiopia, do not need many collaborators, and they are usually contented with few renegades, who come up with supposedly innovative approaches as to how the oppressed people could ‘share political power’ with the representatives of the invaders’ establishment.

A vast political terminology and ideology are therefore created on this purpose, and the few renegades and traitors call on political realism, effective improvement, concern for the short term decision making, incessantly advancing all sorts of inconsistent and irrelevant arguments. With a small number of followers, these renegades and traitors of their nation’s Cause help decisively the foreign and culturally alien invaders perpetuate their control of the invaded country.

Yet, at times, these collaborators wake up and realize truly what they have done. Perhaps, in many cases of renegades, a back thought of good intentions is the reason for their decision. Some of them may have turned out to be sort of divided personality that promises allegiance to the invaders’ establishment while permanently planning (and readjusting the plan of) an unconventional change (that they would supposedly trigger in favour of their oppressed nation).

Although one should not be ready to immediately condemn these cases of benevolent collaborators and modest ‘realists’ – because precisely their eventual back thoughts would provide us with genuine surprises –, one should primarily advise against these efforts that, even if they emanate from good intentions, bear witness to political romanticism, immaturity, and individualism.

Many oppressed and dispossessed peoples experienced similar cases; in rare cases the collaborators reached a superior position only to understand that it was mostly nominal. In fact, even in cases like that, the collaborators did not exercise real power. In even rarer cases, they had the opportunity to survive, and after the termination of their tenure, to publicly admit the uselessness of their sociopolitical rise and the insignificance of their role.

An exceptional case is certainly that of the former president of Abyssinia, Dr. Negasso Gidada, an Oromo national who served as president for six years (1995 – 2001) without leaving the slightest Oromo impact in the Tigray-ruled tyranny. Today, he relaxes on his seat in the so-called ‘parliament’ of Addis Ababa that he cannot call parliament of Finfinne, as his compatriots fervently and passionately desire.

Certainly, in the early 90s, the political situation seemed possible to change in impoverished, tyrannized and multi-inflicted Abyssinia where after a century of Amhara monarchical cruelty, Amhara Communists ruled under Mengistu for 17 years, perpetrating a most appalling genocide against the pitilessly decimated Ethiopian Kushitic peoples, the Oromos, the Sidamas, the Ogadenis, the Shekachos, the Afars, the Gambellas and others. Many people had not anticipated that the Tigray leadership would turn out to be another monstrous and inhuman Abyssinian tyranny; the elaboration of a seemingly democratic constitution – the provisions of which have never been truly respected, let alone implemented – had generated hopes first, before frustration prevailed throughout the country.

Recently on a trip in the United States, Dr. Negasso Gidada spoke openly; invited to speak at the 2nd annual International Oromo Human Rights Conference, which was held at the University of Minnesota, Gidada recalled the period when the transitional government gave way to the Tigray Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF) in the mid-'90s, and said:

"We had party members in the countryside who were beating people, for example taking out the whole village, maybe about 5,000 people, and have them sit down in the sun for five days," adding "(They were) accusing them of hiding the (Oromo Liberation Front) people and they were violating the human rights of the whole village."

With the Oromo Liberation Front considered as illegal by the governing TPLF regime, Gidada said that while he was president there were approximately 25,000 Oromos held as political prisoners for five or six years. He added that he is prepared to accept personal and collective accountability for human rights violations. He concluded: "What I can only say at the moment is I am very sorry."

Jake Grovum published in The Minnesota Daily the comments and the expressions Oromo students in America used to describe their feelings about Gidada (http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/08/01/72151). We quote:

"When I saw him, what I feel, (he is) somebody who tried to kill me, who tried to hunt me back home, I escaped from that," said Yuya, an activist and Oromo Studies Association member. "My sisters, my brothers, my mom, my father, because of him, disappeared. Then, how can I tolerate (him) over here?". Remedan Yuya fled Ethiopia to escape the hardship and strife brought upon the Oromo people by the Ethiopian government.

Others rejected Gidada’s attitude and excuses whatsoever; Waliye, another Oromo student, said: "Him coming here and saying sorry and then criticizing the current government doesn't make any sense to me, because he's the one that put this government in place. I have more blame on him than any Ethiopian president that came after him because without him (they) wouldn't be able to stand on their feet today."

It is true that Dr. Gidada still commands some respect among Oromos because he stood up to Meles Zenawi, and left the EPRDF. The words he said to Melles just before he quit "Meles, you are beginning to look more and more like Mengstu Hailemariam" are quoted by many people in daily conversation. The question is why destroy one entire nation’s hope for independence, freedom and progress just because of perconal vanity or immature political ideas.

It is quite interesting that Gidada acknowledged his weakness; the president of the Oromo Studies Association Dr. Gobera Huluka is quoted to have said that Gidada raised this issue pointing out the following: "I am the most idealistic person who believes in the free flow of ideas. That is the only way we can understand our enemy; we can understand ourselves and we can understand our friends." When cruel Amharas and Tigrays intend to eradicate Oromo Culture, Religion, and Language and to uproot Gadaa, the Oromo democratic, traditional social organization system, its is comical and lethal to be ‘idealistic’. Someone should say to this irrelevant person:

- You, poor thing! Stay out of politics, then! Be what you have always been, an academic, a thinker, an unrealistic and idealist intellectual, but for God’s sake – sorry, for Waaqo’s sake – stay far from politics!

What remains even more questionable than Gidada’s failure to contribute to the Cause of Oromo Independence, Freedom and Democracy is the confusion other lower and younger activists may have in their mind; some of them uselessly deployed mental efforts for an impossible parallelism.

Abyssinia and South Africa

Imagining that a ‘reconciliation’ can possibly happen in Abyssinia in the way it happened in South Africa means you are both, blind and deaf. Studying the way South Africa reconciled following years of apartheid is just a reason for another disaster for the Oromos.

In South Africa, there was a typical colonial overseas expansion, whereas in the case of Abyssinia we have to deal with a typical territorial expansionism, sort of racist imperialism due to a fossilized religious Messianic nationalism, involving national name usurpation and absolute deprivation of the oppressed and tyrannized peoples from their national and cultural identity.

South Africa’s parallel is Algeria; the Amhara syndrome relates to Serb nationalism as expressed in Bosnia and Kosovo, or to Russian nationalism as manifested in Chechnya; it has actually been a unique model of cruel totalitarianism, unsurpassed thus far.

Oromo reconciliation with Amharas and Tigrays is absolutely impossible and genuinely immoral and un-Oromo.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 49, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

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