Ethnocentrism Masqueraded as “Intellectual Inquiry”

Transcription

Ethnocentrism Masqueraded as “Intellectual Inquiry”
By Girma Bekele
“The empire Menelik and Haile Selassie constructed was built on sand, without a
solid foundation; hence it was always in a trend of progressive decomposition. Is a
Shewan-Amhara Ethiopian Empire viable? History answers this in the negative.
The Ankoberite insanity will be tempered by the solidarity of the oppressed masses
in New Ethiopia and the working unity of New Ethiopia and independent Eritrea 1.”
Jordan Gebre-Medhin, “On the 1993 Referendum in Eritrea”, Ethiopian Review,
April 1993.
“These (Mahal Sefaris) are a group of individuals easily identifiable coming mostly
from one small area in central Ethiopia along with opportunists from other parts of
Ethiopia. They are our greatest obstacles to us all from achieving political and
economic advancement. We are far more powerful and numerous than the mehal
safaris. We can excise them from power, or bottle them up in their own area of
kingdom and see to it that they do not any more use us to promote their hold on
economic and political power in Ethiopia 2.”
Tecola Hagos, “Paradigm of Poverty and Humanism: Understanding Ethiopian
Modernity”, July 24, 2003 Washington DC, USA.
The first quotation is from EPLF activist (Eritrean national) and one time Editor of
Ethiopian Commentator, a magazine devoted to Amhara bashing. His solution to the
“Ankoberite insanity” was the solidarity of EPLF/TPLF to eliminate the ShewanAmhara. By “New Ethiopia” he meant the ethnically divided and fractured county,
according to EPLF/TPLF political program, whereas “independent Eritrea” remains a
unified country where there is no room for ethnic or linguistic division. Tecola Hagos,
the subject of this article, picks up where Jordan left off and prescribes “The Final
Solution” to the Shoan-Amhara problem. The targets of both individuals are Menelik,
Shoan Amharas, by extension King Sahle-Selassie, Emperors Tewodros, Haile Selassie
and the ethnic group they are allegedly identified with.
The purpose of this article is to underscore the real motives for the verbal assault on
emperors, Tewodros, Menelik, Haile Selassie and others in a website devoted to Amhara1
Jordan Gebre-Medhin, “On the 1993 Referendum in Eritrea”, Ethiopian Review,
April 1993.
2
- Tecola Hagos, “Paradigm of Poverty and Humanism: Understanding Ethiopian
1
bashing. It is not an attempt at comprehensive discussion of Menelik, who is the main
target of defamation and relentless attack, or his legacy and why he “abandoned” Eritrea,
as his critics puts it. Those aspects of Menelik’s achievements and shortcomings have
been addressed and put to rest by critical thinking and sober scholars such as professors
Getatchew Haile, Harold Marcus, Shumet Sishagne, Theodore Vestal, Sven Rubenson,
Donald Levin, Bahru Zewde and Drs. Paulos Milikias, Mesfin Araya, Daniel Kendie,
Tsegaye Tegenu, etc. These individuals and the historians Aleqa Atsme Giorgis, Tsehafe
Tezaz Gebre Selassie, Tekle-Tsadik Mekuria, and lately Prof. Messay Kebede, Dr.
Tseggai Mebrahtu, most of whom lived at different times, have demonstrated Menelik’s
challenge to external aggression, his resounding victory at Adwa and the reasons for not
ejecting Italians out of Eritrea at the conclusion of the war.
In order to acquaint the reader with the reason that prompted this long article, we would
reproduce some of Tecola’s outlandish and vulgar statements filled with hatred hereafter.
We start with Sahle-Selassie of Shoa whom Tecola refers to as “The Slave Master”.
Quoting from the diaries of British missionaries, Isenberg and Krapf, Tecola states,
“Shale Selassie was the first and only full-fledged slave trader king in Ethiopian
history.” As the Ethiopian saying goes, ‘Ye ayit miskir dimbit.” The reference points,
Isenberg and Krapf, according to Tecola, “were well educated Europeans not given to
exaggerations.” They were in fact racists who despised everything about Ethiopia –
including the Orthodox religious practices, religious books and way of life. They were
confined to a small area of Ethiopia and had limited knowledge of the country and the
leaders in various parts of Ethiopia. The two missionaries had scant understanding of
Ethiopian society of the early 1800 and were in no position to make a conclusive
statement about Sahle Selassie and the institution of slavery in Ethiopia which was not
only unique to Shewa as has been implied by Tecola. In fact, the main preoccupation of
Isenberg and Krapf was the teaching of Protestant doctrine and converting Ethiopians
into their religion. Furthermore, what they identified as “slaves” were prisoners of war
and captives brought to the Sahle Selassie’s court after one of his expedition against
Oromos who failed to pay tribute.
No one can be sure but only Tecola knows whether he has read Journals of the Rev.
Messers. Isenberg and Krapf and understood the contents or simply relied on a specific
paragraph that mentioned about slavery to discredit and distort Sahle Selassie’s record. If
indeed Tecola read the Journals, one wonders about his intention for not mentioning the
following observation of Isenberg about King Sahle Selassie:
“ I must make some remarks respecting the behavior of the King when he
is marching. He is as active in the field as at home. Sitting on his mule, he
speaks with his officers and other persons, and receives the Governor arriving
from Shoa or the Galla tribes, who, on seeing the King, fall down on their faces,
as well as their troops. He asks in a friendly way, ‘How do you do?’ after which
the chieftain comes near, walks by the side of the King’s mule, and speaks
with him apart for about half an hour. The King having rode on his mule for
a considerable time descends and walks on foot like his people. He speaks
the Galla language pretty well. When he intends to encamp, he goes apart
2
on a hill with a select number of troops to reconnoiter, till his tents are put up.
Indeed, he is a respectable prince, and has intelligence and experience 3 .”
To Tecola Shale Selassie was a corrupt slave owner and was responsible for the birth of
Menelik, the “bastard son” of Hailemelekot Sahle Selassie. Ad hominem and sadistic
attack is the hallmarks of ethnonationalists who are long on hate mongering and short on
substance and seasoned arguments in the political debate they conduct. The ethnonationalist bemoaned the agreements King Sahle Selassie made with the British as if
signing a commercial treaty with foreign powers was a crime whereas the collaboration,
if unpatriotic act, of Yohannes with the British colonialists who violated the territorial
integrity of Ethiopia and marched into the interior of Ethiopia (Mekdela) to capture the
Ethiopian emperor Tewodros is seen as a salutary deed. This is typical of the ethnicist
psyche of individuals like Tecola for whom truth is dictated by the whims of ethnic
affiliation. Contrary to Tecola’s false allegations about King Shale Selassie’s reign,
documentary accounts by other Birtish visitors to his court reveal the following facts:
“We find that in 1813 Sahela (or Sella) Selassie, younger son of the preceding
ras, Wassen Seged, had proclaimed himself negus or king. His reign was long
and beneficent. He restored the towns of Debra-Berhan and Angolala, and
founded Entotto, the strong stone-built town whose ruins overlook the modern
capital, Adis Ababa. In the terrible " famine of St Luke "in 1835, Selassie still
further won the hearts of his subjects by his wise measures and personal
generosity; and by extending his hospitality to Europeans, he brought his
country within the closer ken of civilized European powers. During his reign he
received the missions of Major W. Cornwallis Harris, sent by the governorgeneral of India (1841), and M. Rochet d'Hericourt, sent by Louis Philippe
(1843), with both of whom he concluded friendly treaties on behalf of their
respective governments. He also wrote to Pope Pius IX asking that a Roman
Catholic bishop should be sent to him. This request was acceded to; and. the
pope dispatched Monsignor Massaja to Shoa. But before the prelate could
reach the country, Selassie was dead (1847), leaving his eldest son, Haeli
Melicoth, to succeed him 4.”
Tecola’s acceptance of the accounts of the two Missionaries and swift conclusion that
slavery was unique to a Shoan King is due to his lack of understanding of the practice of
slavery in Europe, North America, South America and Africa itself at the time of Sahle
Selassie and long before him. Almost everything recorded in the diary of the two
Missionaries was related to the events of each day, the priests they met and discussed
religious affairs with, people who came to beg for medicine and the few places they saw
during their travel within their confinement in Shewa. Why did Tecola choose
3
- Journals of the Rev. Messers. Isenberg and Krapf, pp. 199
4
- "ABYSSINIA." LoveTo Know 1911 Online Encyclopedia. © 2003, 2004
3
Sahle-Selassie and singled him out as the only leader who practiced slavery in the 1800?
The reason is none other than his hatred of Shoan Amhara. Tecola proves that point:
“It seems the Shoan society of that period was losing its moral grasp, and
more so the leadership more than any other group.” Tecola concludes,
“Because of Sahle Selassie’s slaving activities brought attention and risk to
Ethiopia. After the death of Yohannes IV, those secretive and conspiratorial
groups of royal household retainers mostly descendants of Sahle Selassie’s
“slaves” and domestics became the king makers, and shakers of Ethiopian
politics with devastating results for over one hundred years until they were
temporarily replaced by another breed of conspirators from the same stock of
people: Mengistu Hailemariam and group. They are now engaged in a life and
death struggle with Meles Zenawi’s version of conspiratorial group“5 .
Tecola Hagos, “Paradigm of Poverty And Humanism:Understanding Ethiopian
The translation of such statement may escape a casual observer but to Amharas,
particularly Shoan Amharas, it is crystal clear that all those who ruled Ethiopia after
Yohannes were slaves and descedants of slaves. Therefore one can safely conclude from
the foregoing statement that the pure breed of Tigayran leadership was usurped by Shoan
Amhara slaves and their descedants.
It passes beleif that an „educated Tigrean professor“ living in the USA in the 21st century
has the effrontery to speak in terms of dichtomizing fellow Ethiopians into slaves and
non-slaves. Tecola’s uneducated ancestors could have been forgiven for making such
archaic and derogatory remarks. What is ironic such a primitive-minded person has to
masquerades as a champion of democracy and equality. Hate speech does not have to be
flagged and labeled. It speaks for itself. Tecola’s condescending attitude born out of the
drive to compensate for the deeply felt inferiority complex vis a vis the Shoan Amhara is
very close to Meles’s assertion about the Tigrean people. For Meles Tigreans are like a
gold that has been tested by fire (Werq) whereas non Tigreans are like a mere piece of
cloth (Cherque). Any one who reads Tecola’s passionate denunciation of Shoan natural
provlivity to enslave others is forced to ask the following. How come that Tecola has not
uttered a word about the institution of slavery which was an integral part of Tigrean
society of that time? How come that Tecola who is ostensibly so concerned with the
institution of slavery failed to mention about the Oromo king Aba Jiffar (Menelik’s
contemporary) of Jimma who was the greatest slave trader in the whole empire of
Ethiopia who was on the Ethiopian historical scene many decades after Sahle Selassie?
Or is the institution of slavery the exclusive trade of Amharas?
By the way for any one sensible person, conspiracy and secretiveness are not vices that
are unique to a particular people or ethnic group. Let alone in those distance days of
Sahle Selassie, even nearly more than 150 years after the death of Sahle Selassie these
5
- Tecola Hagos, PART III, “King Sahle Selassie, Emperor Menelik II, and the Betrayal of Ethiopia”,
October 31, 2004
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vices continue to haunt the Ethiopian society like a specter. Conspiracy and secretiveness
are vices that are product of a certain social and political institution which is anathema to
democracy. Unfortunately Ethiopia to this day has not got rid of this archaic political
culture and which is studded with and shot through by vice and evil. The government of
which Tecola was the highest cadre was shot through and through by the pervasive air of
secretiveness and conspiracy. The TPLF, of whose exploits and contribution Tecola has
been proud of, got to where it is today thanks to the decietfulness, secrecy, divisiveness
and conspiratorial characters it has promoted as arsenal in its anti-Ethiopian crusade.
What should we make of emperor Yohanne’s cynical ploy in promoting Ras Adal (later
named king Teklehaimanot) of Gojjam to a hitherto non-existent title of Negus of
Gojjam as a means of promoting deadly rivalry between Menelik and Teklehaimanot in
order to check and frsutrate the ambitions of the apsiring Menelik who was then king of
Shoa? Had not this polciy led to the bloody war which ensued at Embabo with
considerable loss to both the troops of king Tekle Haimanot and king Menelik and the
people living in the area? Why have we not heard Tigrean nationalists denouncing such
divisive methods of Tigrean rulers like Yohannes while pointing fingers at others as if
vice, deceitfulness, double dealing, conspiracy, etc are the biological attributes of a
particular ethnic group by the name of Amhara ?. This says a lot about the ethnicist
psyche of the Tigrean nationalist elite for whom truth is the exclusive virtue of Tigreans
and vice and conspiracry are the exclusive attriubutes of Amharas. Tigrean nationalists
attribute all that is evil and bad to Amharas.
Every undemocratic power structure necessarily engenders a system whose edifice
happens to be conspiracy, secretiveness and repression. Tecola’s attempt to cast aspersion
on Sahle Selassie and by extension on Shoan Amharas as being inherently conspiratorial
or secretive only confirms his obsessive ruminations about the Amharas he dreads like
ghosts. We assume that hatred, the dire diet Tecola has been fed upon (by his Tigrean
ancestors) as a child growing up in the otherwise liberal Wello (a predominantly Amhara
region where christians and moslems marry each other and exclusive ethnic sentiments
are unknown) has prevented him to think as a rational human being capable of passing
good judgement on the records of Amharas he sees as the bete noirs of Ethiopia. He no
doubt grew up listening to the stories of his Tigrean parents about the allegedly
“conspiratorial Shoan Amharas“. If anything all this hatred of Tecola says a lot about the
psyche of a Tigrean nationalist who feels so inferior vis a vis the Amharas. An inferior
creature person projects the hated aspect of his own self (that part of himself which he
unconsciously hates) on the Amharas that serve him as repositories of all that he hates
about himself. This in a nut shell encapsulates the dynamics of ethnic hatred being
exuded by all pathetic, if pitiful, ethnonationalists like Tecola.
Tecola minced no words in his anti-Amhara crusade of demonizing emperor Tewodros.
As always, his criticism of Tewodros is motivated by ethnic hatred than principled
opposition to the exesses of emperor Tewodros. If he was a princpled person, his
criticisim would not have bee limited to heaping abusive pillorying Tewodros and
Menelik while extolling the virtues of Yohannes to whom he feels ethnically affiliated.
Let us follow Tecola’s judgement on Tewodros:
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“I regret to report that I do not hold emperor Tewodros II in high regard at all. In
fact, I consider him as one of the worst leaders Ethiopia ever had, even worse than
Mengistu Hailemariam in his cruelty, brutality, corruption, and violence. If Tewodros
were alive today, he would have been tried for genocide and crime against humanity
under the Genocide Convention. Tewodros was truly a very destructive man; he
committed some of the worst crimes against tens of thousands of innocent Ethiopians.
When I consider some of Tewodros’s punishments inflicted on helpless prisoners, I
even wonder about his sanity.“ 6
We have never seen Tecola passing such harsh judgements on emperor Yohannes who is
painted by Tecola as a spotlessly blamless and is packaged as a genuine and pious
emperor since he hails from Tigrai. Has Tecola for example said anything about the
deliberate pillage and devastation wrought to Gojjam by Yohannes’s army as a
punishment for the alleged conspiracy of Tekelehaimanot and Menelik against him? Is
the traditional concept of “Ethiopian Yilugenta“ known to Tecola and other Tigrean
ethnonationalist like himself who have no scruples what so ever? When one passes a
judgment on the merits or demerits of a ruler like Tewodros, one has to take into account
the political conditions obtaining in Ethiopia at that particular period and the realities
informing the polices of emperor Tewodros. The Ethiopia, which emperor Tewodros had
inherited, was a country that has been wallowing in a chronic political and social turmoil
into which it has been plunged by the deep anarchy of the Zemene Mesafent (Era of the
Princes) 7. The tasks of Tewodros in uniting a deeply fractured nation pockmarked by
chronic chaos and anarchy were of mammoth proportion compared with the challenges
his successors like Yohannes and Menelik had faced. As such it would be unfair to
compare the records of emperor Tewodros with that of Yohannes or all others who came
after him as the various rulers were catapulted on the historical stage at different times
and were faced by different challenges under different circumstances. But such rational
considerations are alien to an ethnicist like Tecola and Co. for whom ethnic affiliation
count as the only viable yardstick of truth.
Emperor Tewodros was the first ruler who attempted to put an end to slavery and slave
trade. His reign witnessed a time of literary renaissance, distribution of land to farmers,
and justice to the disposed. His effort for far-reaching reforms of the empire has no
parallel. What made him imprison foreigners was not insanity, as Tecola would like us to
believe but his unrelenting quest for technical know-how of the civilized world. He
repeatedly contrasted the ‘darkness of Ethiopia with the ‘light’ of Europe 8. Let’s not
forget that the Emperor whom Tecola called a “drunkard” was a visionary. His plan for
restoring Ethiopia’s greatness was short cut by the collaboration of Kassa Mircha of
Tigre (who was later crowned as emperor Yohannes) with the British. Tecola could not
6
- Tecola Hagos, PART TWO. “Emperor Tewodros II, Yohannes IV, Menelik II and Myth of
Colonialism”, October 17, 2004.
7
- For a detailed account of this period, the reader is referred to Abir, Mordechai’s book entitled : Ethiopia:
the Era of the Princes. London, 1968
8
- Bahiru Zewde, History of Modern Ethiopia
6
find anything good to write about the great emperor Tewodros except his usual veiled
hate for anything done by an Amhara. Tecola’s goal of rubbishing Tewodros is related to
his effort to justify Yohannes’s role as a collaborator with the British. This collaboration
and foreign intervention brought about the downfall of emperor Tewodros. This is not to
say that Tewodros was a blameless or spotless leader who did not commit mistakes. Nor
do we deny the fact that the frustration Tewodros felt at not being able to realize his
grand goal of radically changing his country had not translated into severe and repressive
measures against the Ethiopian people. But all that said, nothing would have justified the
collaborationist role of an Ethiopian like Kassa Mirtcha (Yohannes) who was only too
eager in serving as a guide to the British colonialist forces that pillaged priceless
historical and cultural treasures of Ethiopia which, the British, have to this day refused to
return to Ethiopia. One should not forget the burning of Mekdella on the fourth day after
the fall of Magdala to the British forces during which time “the Royal engineers torched
and destroyed Magdala. Fanned by the wind, three thousand houses with their content
perished in the flame 9. Stanley stated the following : “The intense heat created from the
loaded guns, pistols, projectiles and shell thrown in by the British batteries exploded with
a deafening reports and projectiles whistled ominously near us. Not one house could have
escaped destruction in the mighty ebb and flow of that deluge of fire10”.
By way of summarizing Emperor Tewodros’s merits the following observations are in
order:
1 – Emperor Tewodros pulled Ethiopia out of the fragmentation and inter regional strife
that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Unlike all those regional warlords before
him, he tried to see Ethiopians as one people and Ethiopia as one country that need to be
united for the benefit of all its people. Such visionary was lacking in the Ethiopia of
Tewodros. Hence our admiration for him as a pioneer of modern united Ethiopia.
2 – He tried to do away with the destructive effects of billeting whereby peasant
households were required to support soldiers. He tried to create a national army with a
central command and less dependence on the rural population. He has tried to do away
with the rapacious behavior of armies of regional lords and tyrants who could everything
by way of exploiting the rural population. This was a revolutionary and novel move.
3 – He tried to do away with the onerous burden that weighed heavily on the peasants by
the obligatory demands of the land owners, the church and the state. In fact he is believed
to be the first Ethiopian monarch who tried to change the relationship of the peasants and
land owners.
4 – Realizing the dangers Ethiopia had been exposed due to lack of modern knowledge
and technological progress, emperor Tewodros tried to introduce modern technology into
9
- Kidane Alemayehu & Konjit Meshesha, The Last Days of Emperor Tewodros II’s Life and the Loot of
Magdala, Addis Tribune newspaper, March 28, 2003
10
- As quoted by Kidane et Konjit from Henry M. Stanley’s account in his book entitled “Coomassie and
Magdala”, 1874. Stanley traveled with general Napier’s forces as a correspondent for New York Herald.
7
his country. Partly the frustration he was met with in his attempt to get support for this
attempt and the consequent retaliatory measure he took against the British who he felt
slighted him, proved his undoing at Magdala.
5 – He tried to do away with the excessive dependency of Ethiopian priests on the rural
population. This earned him the wrath of the powerful Ethiopian Orthodox church which
was at loggerheads with him and his project.
All that said about the positive legacy of emperor Tewodros, the violent methods he
chose to deal with the problems he faced at the end of his reign were unacceptable and
very harsh to say the least. It is reasonable to assume that a series of personal tragedies
such as the death of his dear wife W/o Tewabetch, the death of his best ally and confident
Gebriye, the death of his trusted British advisor Yohannes Bell, etc might have the added
effect of pushing him into harsh and irrational acts that hastened the downfall of his
regime.
In fact one negative consequence of Yohannes’s collaboration with the British colonialist
forces is the precedent such violation of Ethiopian territorial integrity by a foreign
colonialist power had set thereby encouraging Ethiopia’s historical enemies like Egypt to
subsequently violate Ethiopian territorial integrity. This collaborationist role of Yohannes
has strengthened the impression among Egyptian rulers that Ethiopia is an easy target,
which, by recruiting local collaborationists, can be overrun without much resistance. The
other negative consequence of Yohannes’s collaboration with the British and the
subsequent reward he received in terms of modern weaponry is the fact that it
strengthened his unwarranted trust in the British thereby eluding him (years later) into
signing the Hewett Treaty at Adwa by which Ethiopia was forced to fight unnecessary
and unjustified war against the Mahidists on behalf of the British and their Egyptian
surrogates stationed in the Sudan. This has forced Ethiopia to incur the enmity of the
Sudanese Mahdists who, before the Hewett Treaty, had no reason to consider Ethiopia as
their enemy and violate its territorial integrity. Another untoward effect of the Hewett
Treaty was that the British, who had tricked Yohannes into signing that Treaty, reneged
on their promise and encouraged the Italians to occupy and carve the Eritrean colony out
of the northern part of Ethiopia that was hitherto known as the Mereb Mellash . Thus due
to the close relationship that was forged between the collaborationist Yohannes and the
British colonialists and the subsequent trust Yohannes has put in the British (who helped
him to power), Yohannes’s Ethiopia was forced to eventually face two enemies i.e. the
Italians in Eritrea and the Mahidists in north western Ethiopia. This was how the historic
city of Gonder was ransacked and pillaged by the Mahidist. It was also as a consequence
of this incursion by the Mahidist forces, who felt provoked by Yohannes’s uncalled-for
declaration of war on them (in support of the British colonialists & Egyptian forces which
occupied Sudan), that the tragic death of emperor Yohannes had come about at Metema.
Today Tigrean ethnonationalists unjustly blame Menelik for the death of Yohannes at
Metema.
Ethnic nationalists of all shades and colors (i.e. Tigreans, Eritreans, Oromos, Somalis,
Southerners, etc) thrive on hate and have to constantly hark back on the past and
8
obsessively ruminate about the alleged suffering their people went through in order to
justify their claim to ethnic representation in contemporary Ethiopia. They hate individual
right, which is an inherent aspect of democracy and cling to the very obfuscating concept
of group right in their desire to determine the fate of the ethnic group they claim to
represent. They hate the very idea of the individual who thinks outside his ethnic
enclosure and deny the individual his/her inalienable right to fashion his life in a way,
which suits him/herself. While ethnonationalists uphold the right of self-determination
for what they call nations and nationalities, they dread the very inalienable natural right
of the individual to determine his/her political destiny in a manner that he sees it fit.
Ethnonationalists are anathema to the very idea of the individual who can and should take
his/her own destiny into his/her hand. They cannot accept the fact that every human being
is free to organize his/her life outside his ethnic enclosure.
Ethnonationalists always invoke their alleged victimization to justify a group right or
ethnic entitlement. They fear competition based on individual merit as they feel inferior
in a political system which promotes the individuals on the basis of their merits than on
the basis of ethnic quotas. Apparently they champion democracy but in practice they hate
the very essence of democracy i.e. the right of the individual to determine his destiny in a
free and democratic environment where one is not dictated by ethnic warlords or
nationalists to vote for this or that group according to the dictates of one’s biology or
ethnicity. For the ethnicists anything pan Ethiopian is Amhara as can be gleaned from the
public utterances and publications of ethnicists like Beyene Petros of Southern Coalition,
Merrera Gudina11 of ONC. That is why ethnicists of all hues and cries have recently
unleashed a hate campaign against the newly emerging Rainbow Coalition which upholds
the banner of democracy based on the primacy of the individual rights over group rights.
The Obsession of Ethnicists with Menelik & Character Assassination:
Consider the following toxic smear against Emperor Menelik by Tecola Hagos:
“At any rate, Menelik had several defects that would not have allowed him to be
consecrated and anointed as “King” or “King of Kings” of Ethiopia at the great
Cathedral of Mariam Tsion, the Mother-Church where all Ethiopian Emperors sought
at some point the legitimizing acceptance through the anointment ritual. Menilik
might not have been acceptable to be Ethiopia’s anointed Emperor because of three
important reasons: 1) he was a “leper” (lemtsam), 2) he was “unclean” with a life of
debauchery, and 3) he was born outside of marriage, i.e., illegitimate. And to a lesser
extent an additional challenge to his anointment would have revolved around his claim
to the Solomonic Line, which was questionable 12.“
11
- for a detailed account of this see Merrera Gudina’s PhD thesis entitled : Ethiopia Competing Ethnic
Nationalisms and the Quests for Democracy, 1960-2000
12
- Tecola Hagos, PART THREE. “King Sahle Selassie, Emeror Menelik II, and the Betrayal of Ethiopia”,
October 31, 2004.
9
The nauseating sentences written by Tecola have four factual errors:
1 – Menelik was not a leper and even if we were to assume that Menelik was Lemtsam (a
condition called vitiligio in English, vitiligio is not the same as leprosy). The self –styled
“professor“ cannot even discern the distinction between a leper (a disease caused by a
bacteria) and a person who is suffering from vitiligo (a pathological dermatological or
skin condition that is caused by the depigmentation of the skin due to inadequate pigment
production).
2 – Tecola could not tell us evidence which substantiates Menelik’s uncleanliness or
debauchery. We can only assume that this is a mere figment of a hate-mongering Tigrean
ethnonationalist like Tecola whose anti-Amhara passion is fired by hatred for giant
historical figures like emperor Menelik whose achievements have proven an eye sore to
him and his likes.
3 – Only Tecola and Tigrean ethnicists like him can tell us by what criteria they were
able to establish the illegitmacy of emperor Menelik. Such arguments say a lot about the
extent to which Tigrean ethnicists go in bad-mouthing great historical figures and their
achievement. They ooze hatred that is born out of the inferiority complex they harbour
vis a vis the Amhara ethinic group with whom they identify Menelik.
4 – The myth of the Solomonic dynasty is something which does not have any historical
basis and has been declared by erudite historians as being no more than a myth.
The nauseating piece quoted above and coming from a Tigrean ethnicist says a lot about
the psyche of the Tigrean nationalists who, egged on by such moribund and outdated
thought, have started their struggle of “national liberation“ from alleged Shoan Amhara
national domination at Dedibit in February 1975. It is all the more depressing to come
across individuals like Tecola who, in the 21st century (the age of the internet and
unheard of knowledge) harbour such abhorrent views that are anachronistic to say the
least.
Sober Ethiopian scholars and historians like professor Tadesse Tamirat reject the very
myth woven around the queen of Sheba and the Jewish king Solomon to which erstwhile
Ethiopian rulers, including Haile Selassie, were clinging to by claiming descent from
king Solomon. Any one who has a rudimentary or smattering knowledge of Ethiopian
history understands that in Ethiopia once some one has forced his way into a position of
power by subduing his rivals, the next step is to just call the priests who were ready to
create a genealogical map tracing the new rule’s alleged ancestors to king Solomon of
Jerusalem. This, it was hoped, could confer on the new Ethiopian king a God-given
legitmacy that whould establish his undisputed suzerainity over his subjects. Does Tecola
believe that blameless Yohannes IV of Ethiopia, who was no more than a self-made
Shifta or rebel and made his way to the throne by the barrel of a gun, had any legal or
even genetical claim to the Ethiopian throne than say Menelik or Tewodros? Is it not the
case that any disgruntled person roses up, took up the gun and capitalized on the then
existing social dissatisfaction among the Ethiopian people to ensconce himslef in power
10
and subsequently legitmatize his power by claiming descent from the line of king
Solomon? How can some one like Tecola, who claims to have a modicum of modern
education fails to shade such philistine and anachronistic views (handed over to him by
his Tigreian ancestors who unlike him can be forgiven for the their ignorant and
uniformed views) as to dismiss Meneilik’s claim to the Ethiopian throne? What does this
say about the general psyche of the Tigrean ethnonaitionalists who have not smarted
from the alleged wound they have sustained by the alleged transfer of power from Tigrai
to the south (Shoa) which has been brought about by a new socio-economic reality which
was dictated by the inability of the northern part of Ethiopia to sustain the growing needs
of the Ethiopian state?13. This socio-economic reality and not the conspiracy of Shewan
Amharas as is alleged by Tigrean ethnonationalists necessitated a new political economy
that made the shift of power further south to what is now Shewa.
Today we are not opposing the TPLF beacuse political power has been assumed by
people who hailed from Tigrai. We oppose the TPLF on account of its divisive and
ethnicist anti-Ethiopian policies it has been promoting as a government by way of
benefiting the Tigrean ethnic group at the expense of 95% of the non-Tigrean population
of Ethiopia. It is not the ethnic origin of Ethiopia’s rulers (Meles or who ever that may
be) that should matter as the policies they promote and the differential effects of those
policies on the people of Ethiopia. A democratic minded person would judge a
government not by the ethnic origin of those who are at the helm of power but by the
kind of policies this government promotes and the effect thereof on the population at
large. In fact unlike TPLF’s Ethiopia, in Menelik’s or Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia, the
major actors were not promoted to key government positions on account of their ethnic
origin (as TPLF has been doing during the last 13 years) but on the basis of their merit or
personal loyality to the king. The most poweful personalities in Menelik’s Ethiopia such
as Fitawrari Habte Giorgis, Dejazmatch Baltcha Aba Nefso, Ras Gobena, etc were not
promoted to higher positions by virtue of their ethnic origin but on the basis of their
merit. This is not to say that in Menelik’s Ethiopia every Ethiopian ethnic group was
equally respresented in the central government nor to deny the fact that those who
initially failed to submit to Menelik’s rule were not harshly punished. But these possible
blemishes and warts of Menelik’s policies have to be analyzed within the context of the
then prevailing conditions which were alien to the very ethos of democray and rule of
law. The same kind of caution need to be taken when passing judgement on Tewodros,
Yohannes, or their predecessors.
Even notwithstanding the above blemishes and warts of Menelik’s regime, what in fact
distinguishes the Ethiopian polity of that time from many in other African societies is the
fact that people in the power position were promoted on the basis of their merit 14 . That
13
-Christopher Clapham, Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia, 1988
- Haggai Erlich, Ethiopia and the Challenge of Independence (Haggai is a historian who cannot be
accused by Tigreans as being sympathetic to Menelik. But that has not prevented him from pronouncing
Menelik’s Ethiopia as a country where those in the higher echelons of power in Menelik’s Ethiopia were
recruited on the basis of their individual merits than on the merits of their ethnic origin. This is also the
most unique aspect in Africa that distinguishes the Ethiopian polity from those of other pre-colonial
African nations who have succumbed to the traumatic blow of colonialism.
14
11
is also what explains the cohesion of Ethiopia as a nation in spite of the many
disintegrative socio-economic factors and the concomittant centrifugal forces which such
factors have engendered. The fact that today more than any other time in Ethiopia’s long
history, the very existence of Ethiopia as a united country is under threat is explained by
the great sense of alienation felt by millions of Ethiopians (save for TPLF and its ethnic
constitutency) who have come to believe that they have hardly any stake in a united
Ethiopia. And this is one of the greatest and unforgetable historical wound that has been
inflicted on the body politic of Ethiopia and on the psyche of Ethiopians. Not only the
TPLF but also its fanatic ethnic constituency and all those who have happily embraced
TPLF’s ethnicist and anti-Ethiopian policies of divide et empera (Bantustanization on
ethnic lines) would bear responsibility for the consequnces of these divisive policies.
Tecola’s Judgment on Meles and Menelik in regard to Eritrea
In his book which was published in 1995 and is studded with mumbo-jumbo anecdotes
and genealogical anecdotes related to the TPLF leaders, Tecola writes the following
astonishing piece:
“There has been some attempt to draw a parallel between Menelik’s signing away
of Eritrea in 1896 and Meles Zenawi’s agreement to the independence of Eritrea in
1994. The focus of this argument is the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia rather
than the effect on the people of Eritrea because of such an occurrence. The
comparison between Menelik’s action and what happened in 1994 is inappropriate
since Menilik’s action sent people into bondage and slavery while Meles’s
recognition of Eritrea had quite the opposite result”15.
Tecola adds the following:
“There is not point in crying over spilt milk. A number of Ethiopians are
preoccupied and are still fuming over the unfairness of the procedure adopted by
the EPLF and the UN in the referendum leading to the independence of Eriterea 16”.
I ask readers to compare these statements of Tecola quoted above with the shrill noise he
currently makes (about the loss of Assab, Ethiopia’s lack of access to the sea etc) in his
effort to beguile and misguide Ethiopians by posturing as a super-patriot and political
activist in Diaspora. How many of Tecola’s current admirers have delved into the
background of Tecola or ventured to probe into his checkered political past or
background?
As any one sensible person may judge, the perception of Eritreans having been sold into
slavery by Menelik is something which is a figment of the imagination of Tigrean and
15
- Tecola Hagos, - Tecola Hagos, Democratization? Ethiopia 1991-1994, a personal view, 1995
16
- Tecola Hagos, Democratization? Ethiopia 1991-1994, a personal view, 1995
12
Eritrean ethnonationalists as represented by the TPLF, ELF and EPLF cadres and their
leaders. The attempt to blame Menelik for Eritrea’s sad fate as a colony of Italy is
baseless to say the least. The status of Eritrea was sealed long before Menelik was on the
scene as emperor of Ethiopia. A cursory look at Haggai Erlich’s book “Ras Alula and the
Scramble for Africa17” clearly illustrates the internal struggle that was conducted between
Alula and the Eritrean dignitaries like Ras Wolde Mikael Solomon (a traditional ruler
from Hamassien). As far back as 1869, this Hamassien chief has been justifiably
suspected of conspiring against the future emperor Yohannes and encouraging foreigners
to invade the country 18. This chief of what was then Mereb Melash had been (now
Eritrea) was “encouraging foreign powers to invade Mereb Melash19” which was later
carved out by Italy as its colony with a new name i.e. Eritrea. The subservient, if
mercenary, activity of Dejazmatch Bahta Hagos of Segeneyti (Akele Guzay), who was
collaborating with Egyptians and Italians, was not any different either. Bahata Hagos was
a person who served Egyptians and Italians for most of his life until he was later forced to
make the following famous pronouncement for which he is now remembered. The
following sentence was uttered only long after he and his Eritrean followers have tasted
the bitterness of Italian colonialism and the Italians had expropriated the best lands of the
Eritrean highland for their Italian colonialist settlers.
Bahta Hagos then said: “There is no medicine for the bite of a white snake 20”. The
despicable collaboration of Bhata Hagos and his followers with the Italians and their
subsequent disillusionment is best captured by the Amharic adage: “Ye wededeshiw kita
setet bilo weta”. How about Dejazmatch Gebre Selassie’s letter to Commandatore
Martin, Italian colonial minister in Eritrea, in which the former expressed and swore his
undivided loyalty to Italy and his willingness to assist Italy against Ethiopia? It is one of
the most damaging pieces of document that any Tigrian aristocrat wrote to serve Italian
interest against his own country. How come, Tecola who was able to dig dirt about
Menelik, overlook Dejazmatch Gebre-Selassie’s letter21 (father of Dejazmatch Zewde
Gebre Selassie former vice prime minster and foreign minster of Ethiopia till the end of
1974)? Copies are available with me should Tecola doubts the authenticity of such a
letter.
17
- Haggai Erlich, Ras Alula and the Scramble for Africa, a Political Biography: Ethiopia & Eritrea, 18751897
18
- A.B. Wylde – In the Soudan, London 1885, Vol I, pp 324-326
19
- Haggai Erlich, Ras Alula and the Scramble for Africa, a Political Biography: Ethiopia & Eritrea, 18751897
20
- Tekeste Negash, No Medicine for the bite of a white snake: notes on nationalism and resistance in
Eritrea, 1890-1940
21
- Letter of Dejazmatch Zewde Gebre Selassie to --------
13
It is not unusual for Tigrean and Eritreans to blame Menelik for the colonization of
Eritrea by Italians. Surprisingly among those who criticized Menelik and condemned him
for allowing Eritrea to fall into the hands of Italian colonialists are Tigregna speakers
such as Blatta Gebre Egziabeher. This was an Ethiopian from the Eritrean highlands who
loyally served as official of the colonial Italian government in Eritrea and was only
disillusioned by Italian colonial rule at a later date (after he tasted the bitterness of
colonialism) and subsequently tried to blame Menelik for Eritrea’s fate as a colony of
Italy. Although Blatta Gebre Egziabeher’s Ethiopian nationalist fervor was unmistakable
as could be judged from his letter to Menelik, it was too late to be of any good in saving
Eritrea from the scourge of colonialism. The colonialisation of Eritirea was partly selfinflicted given the predisposition of its local elites in collaborating with Ethiopia’s sworn
enemies of that period such as the Turks, Egyptians, Italians and the British. One thing
that Tigrean and Eritrean ethnonationalists have failed to do is to be introspective and
learn to accept responsibility for their own role in what had come to pass as the
colonization of Eritrea.
Externalization of one’s failures and blaming every failure on others are things that
psychologically belong to the realm of a child’s experiential world that is replete with
existential threats as opposed to the world of a mature individual. A mature person can
resort to introspection to look in wards and recognize his own mistakes and assume the
corresponding responsibility deriving thereof. A child on the other hand misses the
faculty of introspection and locates all the causes of his problems outside himself. A child
needs external actors whom he can blame for his own failures. In this respect
ethnonationalists are like the immature child who lacks the faculty of introspection that
enables one to engage him/herself in a soul-searching self-reflection by way of
understanding his/her own contribution to his/her problems. Introspection allows one to
look into oneself and understand one’s own problems and responsibilities deriving from
such introspection. Unfortunately Eritrean and Tigrean ethnonationalists have not learned
to act as responsible adults in admitting the mistakes committed by their ancestors in the
process that led to the colonization of Eritrea that they falsely ascribe to Menelik. To
illustrate such a faulty thought process of an ethnonationalist, we quote the following
account of Aregawi Berhe – the current European bureau chief of the Ethiopian
Democratic Coalition) who has scribbled down the following nauseating and baseless
statement about Menelik he and his Tigrean lot loathe so much.
We reproduce Aregawi’s baseless accusation hereafter:
“Menelik’s idea to divide and weaken the north was accomplished by giving half of
Tigrai proper to be colonized by Italy. The defeat of the Italians at Adua gave
Menelik immense power over his potential rivals, particularly the Tigraian nobility
under Mengesha Yohannes and Alula Aba Nega. Menelik had the opportunity to
divide and weaken Tigrai. His army was let loose to devastate as much as the
colonial army did. The people remember this period as Zebene Shoa which means
the era under Shoa 22”.
22
- Aregawi Berhe, Origins and Development of the National Movement in Tigrai, 1993
14
Such a statement can only be a figment of a hateful ethnonationaist who oozes a
sentiment of hatred against Menelik and all Ethiopian rulers that hail from the Amhara
ethnic group. Such allegations of Tigrean ethnonationalists and myth spinners like
Aregawi fail to take into account the collaborationist role highland Tigrigna speakers
have played in the process that turned Mereb Mellash into the Eritrean colony as we
knew it later.
Tecola, the other Tigrean ethnicist has the following to say:
“Contrary to what some modern historians and politicians have attempted to tell us,
Menelik II was not a nation builder but an opportunistic predatory empire builder.
With his insatiable appetite for political intrigue and his desire to subjugate and
oppress weak communities and people, Menilik did more harm against the building
of Ethiopia into a modern “nation” than any Ethiopian emperor before or after
him”23.
Let us see what Ras Alula the ruler of Mereb Mellash (present day Eritrea) who was a
contemporary of Menelik was doing in what is now Eritrea in January 1882. We quote
from Haggai Erlich’s book, which contains the following account about the predatory
campaigns of Ras Alula in what is now called Eritrea.
“Around 15 February, Alula pillaged for two days in the Ad-Tamaryam and Bedjuk
countries and returned to Addi Taklay with 7000 to 8000 sheep and goats, almost as
many cattle, and some 15000 Thalers (Maria Theresa dollars) “24.
Not surprisingly such predatory campaigns of Tigreans escape the notice of Tigrean
ethnonationalists like Tecola for whom only Amharas happen to be the sole repositories
of vice and evil in the whole of Ethiopia. While calling Menelik a predator, Tecola shies
away from applying this word to describe what Alula did to the lowlanders of Mereb
Melash.
Tecola describes Menelik’s mischief in the following way:
“Menilik’s scheme was brilliant but immoral, by stalling and not bringing troops to
the aid of the warring emperor Yohannes, Menilik was hoping Yohannes would be
either killed in battle or irrecoverably weakened. Either way, Meneilik was
deceitfully positioning himself and his co-conspirators from Gojjam to a political
and military strategy which would allow them, at an appropriate time, the chance to
pounce upon the war weary army of emperor Yohannes and ultimately control
23
24
- Haggai Erlich, Ras Alula and the Scramble for Africa, a Political Biography: Ethiopia & Eritrea,
1875-1897
15
Ethiopia. After the death of Yohannes IV and a number of Tigrean generals and
warlords at Metema, Menilik was able to manipulate and exploit the weakened
Tigrean warlords and the leaderless army, and succeeded in snatching the crown
from the heirs of emperor Yohannes25”.
I think the above statement requires no further commentary as it is ethnically bent
perspective on history is so evident.
Does Tecola Oppose TPLF’s Ethnicist Policy or is he just a Disgruntled Ethnicist?
Tecola writes the following in his book: “People like Kassu Illala, Dawit Yohannes
and a few others are consummate opportunists whose contribution to the struggle is
too sparse to warrant the kinds of responsibility and privilege heaped on them,
bypassing deserving veterans (read Tigreans like Tecola Hagos) of the struggle26”.
If you remember colonel Goshu Wolde’s letter 27 of resignation when he took leave of the
Dergue government, his problem with the Dergue was not so much related to his
opposition to Dergue’s destructive policies as his frustration by Mengistu’s more trusted
cronies such as captain Legesse Asfaw. Drawing a parallel between Goshu’s
disenchantment with Mengistu’s regime and Tecola’s frustration with the TPLF becomes
irresistible. This is borne by the fact that Tecola’s resentment of TPLF emanates from the
fact that non-Tigrean such as Kassu Ilala and Dawit Yohannes (Tecola’s relative), whom
Tecola castigates as opportunists of the 11th hour, have come to assume political positions
which they do not deserve. For Tecola TPLF’s hard won victory is something which was
won with the sweat and blood of Tigreans and accordingly should not be abused by nonTigreans like Dawit and Kassu who joined TPLF at the 11th hour. Tecola has nowhere
questioned the very ethnicist policies of the TPLF regime that have:
1 – Bantustanized Ethiopia on ethnic lines in a manner which the noted Ethiopian human
rights activist professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam28 has dubbed worse than the Italian fascist
policy of divide et empera (divide and rule policy) that was promoted between 1935-1941
2 – benefited and economically and socially empowered Tigreans 29 at the expense of
95% of the non-Tigrean population of Ethiopia by transferring resources from areas south
of Tigrai into Tigrai.
25
26
27
- Goshu Wolde’s resignation letter, Ethiopia Profile, Vol. VI, No. 2, London, 1987
28
- Mesfin Wolde Mariam, Ye Kihidet Kulkulet (written in Amharic and published in 2004
29
- Assefa Negash, Pillage of Ethiopia, 1996
16
3 - unleashed inter-ethnic animosities and conflicts that have claimed tens of thousands of
lives in southern Ethiopia (Guji-Deressa, Afar-Oromo, Oromo-Amhara, Oromo-Somali,
the Gambella conflict, etc).
4 – led to ethnic cleansings that have taken place in the name of structural readjustment
program by dismissing more than 120,000 non-Tigreans who have been working in
various government-owned farms, factories (most of which have been bought by TPLF
owned business organizations like TDA, the Tigrean Endowment Fund, etc).
5 – Tecola has not questioned the illegality of TPLF’s territorial redefinition of Ethiopia
which has resulted in the forceful annexation of a third of the fertile lands of Gondar and
parts of Wello to Tigrai and its subsequent effort to populate these annexed lands with
Tigrean settlers from Tigrai in what amounts to a forced demographic change with far
reaching effects for the future coexistence of the Amhara and Tigrean people.
Until and unless Tigrean ethnonationalists like Tecola, Aregawi, Gebru Asrat, Seye
Abraha and all of their followers who currently cry foul about TPLF on such mediums
like Tigrai net, Deki Alula, etc admit that that the ethnicist policies of TPLF have
fragmented Ethiopia and unjustifiably benefited minority Tigreans (5%) at the expense of
non-Tigreans (95% of the Ethiopian population) and oppose the ethnic politics which
launched Ethiopia on the current process of fragmentation and mutual hostility, the very
future coexistence of Tigreans and non-Tigreans in a country called Ethiopia becomes
doubtful. However judging by the content of the draft program publicized in December
2004 by the anti-Meles faction representing former TPLF leaders such as Gebru Asrat,
there is no sign of any shift from ethnic politics in spite of the rhetorical claim by Gebru
Asrat (and other Tigrean ethnicists) that Ethiopia should have a sea outlet through the
Red sea. Such posturing would fool no one. Isn’t it true that the sweat and blood of
Tigryans were spilled to liberate Eritrea by fighting a proxy war on the side of EPLF and
against Ethiopia? Does Tecola think Ethiopians will ever forget and forgive the treachery
of TPLF and its supporters in undermining Ethiopia in their proxy war on behalf of
Eritreans? Fighting a dictatorial regime like Mengistu to replace it by a deomocratic
political and legal order that empowers all Ethiopians is one thing, but fighting to destroy
the very foundations of the Ethiopian identity by fragmenting Ethiopia into mutually
exclusive ethnic enclosures in the name of ethnic democracy is an act of treasonable
proportion which no self respecting nation and people can live with for long.
Tecola’s double standards & disingenuous attempt to rubbish AAPO & Professor
Asrat Woldeyes
In his effort to cast aspersion on Professor Asrat whom he could not accuse as being of
feudal background, the Tigrean ethnicist Tecola has the following to say:
17
“He (Professor Asrat) is accused of acquiescence or at worst, collaboration for not
disclosing or questioning the mysterious death of the emperor in 1975 at the hands
of the military junta 30 ”.
Had Tecola whose knowledge of things like all ethnonationalist is based on hearsay and
fabrication read Professor John H. Spencer’s book, he could have taken note of the
following truth. The following words by professor John H. Spencer attest to professor
Asrat’s courageous and unflinching stand when it comes to telling the truth even when
faced by a brutal military regime like that of the Dergue. Professor John H. Spencer’s
account on the brave conduct of professor Asrat reads as follows:
“The circumstances of his death are a mystery as is the disposition of his final
remains, effected without an autopsy. The Derge announced that Haile Selassie had
been found dead in bed and that it had immediately summoned the former
Emperor’s physician, Dr. Asrat Woldeyes. With considerable courage, the doctor
publicly denied any such summons. He had been at home all day and no such call
had ever reached him 31”
Speaking about the AAPO, the Tigrean ethnonationalist Tecola Hagos was preaching the
following sermon to the APPO leaders:
“The problem with the All Amhara People’s Organization (AAPO) is not its lack of
support but rather the narrowness and limited ambition of its program. The
organization can pose a challenge and possibly win it if expands its program to a
national program, and drops the term Amhara from its name 32”.
It is rather ironic to hear such lectures from a Tigrean ethnicist like Tecola who served as
TPLF’s senior advisor while his cherished ethnicist organization TPLF was demonizing
Amharas and exhorting non-Amharas to rise up against Amharas. The continuous
demonization process to which Amharas have been subjected during and after the July 1,
1991 conference, prepared the ground for the mayhem and massacre that was later
perpetrated by the OLF and OPDO forces, which were armed by the TPLF regime. These
destructive fascistic forces were given carte blanche by TPLF to uproot Amharas,
desecrate their churches, massacre monks and priests as had happened in Arba Gugu33,
Assebot monastery 34, etc. Has Tecola any regrets about what the government led by his
30
- Tecola Hagos, Tecola Hagos, Democratization? Ethiopia 1991-1994, a personal view, 1995
31
- Ethiopia at Bay”: A Personal Account of Haile Selassie Years, 1987
32
33
- For a detailed account of this account, I refer readers to SHINE’s document entitled “ The Hidden
Massacre of Amharas and Christians in Arba Gugu, Arsi – December 1991.
18
beloved organization the TPLF did to these people? Does he realize what these atrocities
would mean for the future co-existence of followers of TPLF and the Amhara people who
were allowed to be massacred by fascistic forces encouraged and armed by the TPLF?
Time will tell this.
One only needs to refer to the incessant media barrage against Amharas that culminated
in the mayhem of thousands of Amharas and displacement of tens of thousands others in
areas like Bedeno, Wellega, Arsi Neghele, etc. Tecola Hagos, who was admonishing
Professor Asrat to drop the name Amhara from AAPO, has always been proud of what
his ethnic comrade-in-arms of TPLF have done in organizing themselves as liberators of
the Tigrean people. But Professor Asrat’s AAPO which has never accepted group right
and fragmentation of the country on ethnic lines nor agreed to the territorial redefinition
of Ethiopian map on ethnic or linguistic lines, was being lectured by Tecola on the virtues
of broadening the ethnic constituency of AAPO. Tecola should be reminded that he may
act as a pious person but cannot preach a sermon with his pen while harboring evil
against others.
One cannot help but be surprised by Tecola’s assertion that his grandfather and cousins
were killed by Italian fascists while resisting Italian invaders (1936-1941). Ethiopian
patriots fought against fragmentation and ethnicization policy which fascist Italy tried to
impose on Ethiopia in order to facilitate its colonial rule. How does Tecola reconcile the
patriotic role of his relatives with his own role as a fanatic former senior TPLF cadre of
an ethnocentric Tigrean regime which, since May 1991, has embarked on a process of
Bantustanization or fragmentation of Ethiopia a la Mussolini by breaking up Ethiopia into
ethnic enclosures and fanning ethnic hatred 35 as can be gleaned from what transpired in
areas south of Ethiopia (Gambella, Amhara/Oromo, Guji/Derassa, Somali/Oromo,
Afar/Oromo, etc? Was that not exactly what Mussolini did in his effort to impose Pax
Italiana by fanning ethnic and religious hatred to ensconce itself in power? Is the Pax
Tigrigna (the policy of fragmenting Ethiopia on ethnic lines), which TPLF imposed in
May 1991 and was legalized by the July 1, 1991 Charter and of which Tecola was an
enthusiastic supporter while he was working as a senior foreign ministry advisor in
TPLF’s government any different from Pax Italiana? As one of the top TPLF cadres in
TPLF’s government, Tecola presided over an ethnicist government which fanned ethnic
cleansing in areas like Bedeno, Arba Gugu, Wellega, Limmu, Arsi Negehle, etc. Does he
or all other disgruntled former TPLF cadres like Tecola, Gebru Asrat, Seye, etc take
responsibility for what transpired in these places?
Actually what Tecola is resenting most, like many other disgruntled former TPLF cadres
who currently oppose Meles but not any of TPLF’s ethnicist and pro-Tigrean policies in
34
- Not surprisingly, the Tigrean patriarch who heads the Ethiopian Orthodox church has not said anything
when churches were desecrated and priests and monks were slain.
35
- For a historical parallel between TPLF’s ethnic politics and fascist Italy’s policy in Ethiopia between
1935-1941, I refer the reader to Alberto Sbacchi’s book entitled : Ethiopia Under Mussolini – Fascism and
the Colonial Experience, 1985
19
Ethiopia, is the fact that non-Tigrean “individuals like Dawit Yohannes are allegedly
using “the blood and sweat of young Tigrean freedom fighters, to fulfill their political
ambitions36.
The Anti-Amhara Campaign – TPLF vs. Fascist Mussolini of Italy
Oromo’s oppression under Amhara domination became the central theme of Italian
propaganda and of de-Amharanization campaign. In Oromo-Sidama a number of Amhara
place names were replaced by Oromos and Italian names37. Drawing a historical parallel
between the policies of the TPLF and Italian fascist policies is irresistible as can be
gleaned from TPLF’s effort to efface anything connected with Amharic names. One has
to just mention how the names of patriots like Haile Mariam Mamo38- a fiery patriotic
figure who lost his life fighting Italian fascists in central Ethiopia (Shoa). The name of
Haile Mariam Mamo39 was deliberately obliterated after the name of the hospital bearing
his name was changed in Nazareth on the order of the incumbent Tigrean government.
How many of us know how the Tigrean regime and the Somali ethnonationalists it
encouraged demolished the monument of the great Ethiopian patriot Dejazmatch
Afework Wolde Seymayat, hero of Korahe in the Ogaden? Dejjazmatch Afework’s
monument in Jijiga town was demolished by Somali ethnonationalist with the tacit
encouragement of the incumbent Tigrean regime. Should one forget for a second the
attempt by TPLF and the OLF thugs who tried to demolish Menelik’s monument in
Addis Abeba in 1992? Fortunately they could not realize that for fear of a great backlash
that such an effort would have caused.
36
- Tecola Hagos, “Democratization? Ethiopia 1991-1994, a personal view, 1995”
37
- Alberto Sbacchi, Ethiopia Under Mussolini – Fascism and the Colonial Experience, 1985
38
- Haile Mariam Mammo was a selfless patriot from northern Shoa about whom the following song was
sung by Ethiopians:
39
- For a well documented account of Halie Mariam Mamo’s patriotic exploits in central Ethiopia (Shoa), I
refer readers to Anthony Mockler’s book entitled: Haile Selassies’s War, first published in 1984
20
“To facilitate the conquest of Ethiopia the Italians were concerned to foment
internal discord and warfare and counted especially on the revolt of the nonAmhara populations such as the Oromo and the Muslims 40”.
Compare this with the incessant inflammatory campaigns, which have been waged
against the Amhara people by TPLF in order to drum up anti-Amhara hysteria among the
non-Amhara population of Ethiopia. TPLF’s monopolistically controlled media within
Ethiopia and the media its supporters have been controlling outside Ethiopia such as the
now defunct “Ethiopia Commentator”, “Ethiopian Times” and currently the various
electronic mediums owned by TPLF supporters (including those who now support the
discredited TPLF leaders) media continue to misrepresent the Amharas in a manner
which is reminiscent of fascist Italy’s anti-Amhara campaign between 1935-1941.
Mussolini’s fascist general Graziani said the following about the Amharas in 1937:
“Although they (Amharas) might seem submissive, they in reality lay in ambush
ready to act at a favorable moment”.
Similar warnings were given about the Amhara by the now discredited former TPLF
strong man Seye Abraham who in 1992 was warning his fanatic Tigraean followers to be
vigilant about the allegedly grave danger Professor Asrat Woldeyes was posing to
Tigreans. Seye did not stop at just warning about the danger being posed by Professor
Asrat to the apartheid system TPLF has established with the sole aim of promoting the
exclusive interest of Tigreans at the expense of non-Tigreans. He and his beloved
organization TPLF threw professor Asrat in prison on the basis of concocted charges.
Professor Asrat was a courageous man who was not given to hemming and hawing. He
was finally made to suffer and die in prison on the orders of Tigrean hate-mongers such
as Seye (Tecola’s hero) in a manner, which is reminiscent of the death of professor
Asrat’s patriotic father by Italian fascists and their Tigrean and Eritrean askaris.
Although the main thrust of TPLF’s ethnicist policy is directed against the Amharas,
other non-Tigrean ethnic groups (save for Tigreans and Adares) have not been spared the
scourge of TPLF’s divisive and ethnic cleansing policy as can be gleaned from the deaths
of tens of thousands of people in consequence of the ethnic conflicts that were fanned by
the Tigrean government in areas south of Tigrai.
The Pillage of Gojjam by the Rapacious Army of Emperor Yohannes ( August 1888
to February 1889)
Let us give you an example of the devastation wrought by emperor Yohannes’s army,
which deliberately ravaged and laid waste to Gojjam in the 1880’s as a revenge for the
alleged conspiracy (against emperor Yohannes) of king Teklehaimanot of Gojjam
(whom Tecola dubs co-conspirator) with king Menelik of Shoa. In what follows we quote
folk songs, which were composed 117 years ago to give expression to this deliberate
40
- Alberto Sbacchi, Fascism and the Colonial Experience, 1985
21
destruction, which has escaped the attention of hateful Tigrean ethnonationalists like
Tecola Hagos, Aregawi Berhe and others. These hatemongering ethnonationalists, who
were brought up by their parents being fed on the dire diet of anti-Amhara anecdotes,
have closed their eyes to what their own ancestors have done to the Amharas they dub
perpetrators of national oppression.
English version of the above couplets read as follows:
The oxen are taken and slaughtered by the soldier
The cow is taken and slaughtered by the soldier
The grain is looted and eaten by the hungry
The clothes are looted and worn by the rugged (the unclad)
Just a word is left now your majesty !!!!
Plunder our stomach so that we can sleep in peace!!!! 41
Precisely a year after emperor Yohannes’s army had ravaged Gojjam, most people had
nothing to give their children, not even a piece of bread (qurash injera). The intensity of
the famine is expressed by the following tragic poem which shows “parents” inability to
provide food for their children”. Here follows the Amharic couplet and the English
translation which the people of Gojjam coined to express their anguish at the invading
Tigrean army of emperor Yohannes.
“July and August have passed by my gate
Just like my enemy, so unlike my friend
And I have nothing to offer my child
Though he begged me for food42”
Emperor Yohannes’s soldiers ate up almost everything they lay their hand on. The
following couplet, which has been coined by the people of Goojjam express, the pain felt
by them during that critical period in their history.
41
- Abdussamed H. Mohammed, Emperor Yohannes’s campaigns in Gojjam August 1888 to February
1889
42
1889
22
We mourned the death of our cattle
We mourned the plunder of our crops
Yet we still have another mourning
To worry about our children and the emptiness of our dough pots 43.
In spite of the above atrocities they have endured, the people of Gojjam have neither
considered Yohannes an alien enemy nor have they said that the descendents of
Yohannes should be held responsible for his misdeeds.Unlike the ancestors of Tigrean
ethnonationalists, the people of Gojjame have not cultivated anti-Tigrean feelings by
feeding their children on the dire diet of hatred (for Amharas). The Amharas, unlike the
Tigrean ancestors of the likes of Tecola, Meles, Aregawi and all those Tigrean ethnicists
who subscribe to TPLF’s ideology of hate have not instructed their children about the
alleged “historical wounds” they sustained under emperor Yohannes. The people of
Gojjam have not taught their children to hate Tigreans for the mistakes Yohannes has
committed more than 100 years ago. Amharas have not taught their children to remember
the atrocities which were perpetrated by tens of thousands of Eritrean, and Tigrean
mercenaries who chose to ally themselves with Mussoloni’s fascist army. Mussolini’s
fascist forces particularly targeted Amharas during their 5-year long occupation of
Ethiopia between 1935-1941during. At this time at least 730,00044 Ethiopians lost their
lives as a result of Italian bombings and massacres. Many of the present day
ethnonationalists would have been embarrassed if one was to get into the business of
calculating what percentage of these 730000 (seven hundred thirty thousands) Ethiopians
belonged to the Amhara ethnic group (which bore a disproportionate burden in terms of
the Italian fascist assault directed against patriots and civilians) which is today pilloried
by Tigrean, Oromo, Eritrean, Somali, Southern ethnonationalists for all the ills of
Ethiopia.
43
1889
44
- Sylvia Pankhurst, Italy’s War Crimes in Ethiopia, Evidence for the War Crimes Commission
23
Tigrean Ethnonationalists and Historical Revisionism
The TPLF which began its anti-Amhara struggle by revising the history of Ethiopia and
misrepresenting its mortal enemies the Amharas has this to say in its political program
which was adopted at its second congress in 1983. This program was adopted by the time
Aregawi Berhe, who currently masquerades as an opposition leader (European bureau
chief of the United Ethiopian Democratic Coalition), was one of the top bosses of the
organization.
“Heavy taxation was levied on the people and hundreds of thousands of Menelik’s
army deliberately sent without food provisions plundered the villages of Tigray.
Within a short period the economic and social conditions of Tigrai deteriorated
sharply45”.
Aregawi, Tecola and all those Tigreans who subscribe to TPLF’s ethnicist historical
reading and interpretation accuse Menelik for having sold out Eritrea in order to weaken
Tigreans living in Tigrai and those across the Mereb Mellash (Eritrea since 1890). At he
same time they all accuse Menelik for sending “hundreds of thousands of his army to
Tigrai without any food provisions in order to plunder the villages of Tigray”. Is this not
a contradiction in terms? Even if one was to accept the allegations of Tigreans
ethnonationalists about the evil machinations of emperor Menelik against the people of
Tigrai, did this army of Menelik which was recruited and mobilized from almost all
nooks and corners of Ethiopia spare other regions of Ethiopia through which it had
traveled on its long journey from southern Ethiopia, Shoa to northern Ethiopia (Wello,
Gojjam, Gondar)? Or should we assume that Menelik’s army was transported by air from
Shoa and dropped on Tigrai so that it could pillage the villages of Tigrai? What would
45
- TPLF’s political program adopted at the second congress: 1983
24
Tigrean ethnonationalists say about this? Far from being deliberately pillaged by
Menelik’s army, by the time of the Adwa campaign, Tigrai and all of north Ethiopia had
not even smarted from the great famine of 1888-1892 which had devastated northern
Ethiopia following the cattle disease which was introduced into Ethiopia by the Italians.
As such there was nothing to be pillaged in Tigrai. In fact it was thanks to the strategic
thinking and military genius of emperor Menelik who put in place granaries and food
supplies all along the route leading to north Ethiopia including Tigrai that the food needs
of Menelik’s army could be met and the victory at Adwa became a reality.
Months ahead of the war, Menelik had moved food supplies from the newly incorporated
southern Ethiopian provinces to the north in order to support the massive force that was
to defend northern Ethiopia. The expansion of Menelik’s territory in the south, south west
and south east for which the TPLF and those gathered at the July 1, 1991 conference had
demonized Menelik and the Amhara people, was the single most important factor in
guaranteeing the success of Ethiopia’s victory over Italian colonialist assault. Without the
human and logistical support of the newly incorporated southern provinces which
“provided the resources to establish granaries in many provinces, including Tigre”, the
Adwa victory would have been unthinkable46. Writing on this very subject, Richard
Pankhurst has the following to say about Menelik’s effort in securing the necessary war
provisions ahead of time.
“These reserves were to prove of great value to Menelik’s forces during the
subsequent fighting with the Italians in 1895 and 1896, and thus played their part in
overcoming the legacy of famine47”.
This is a fact, which is lost on Tigrean ethnonationalists of all hues and cries. In fact it
was the material (food provisions) resource from the newly incorporated southern
territories (for which Menelik is pilloried by Tigrean nationalists) which helped
Menelik’s army in carrying out the Herculean task of defending the independence of
Ethiopia by defeating the Italians at Adwa. Had Menelik not been able to expand his
territory by incorporating southern, western and eastern Ethiopia at that time, the victory
of Adwa would have been unthinkable. This is because at that time the resource base of
northern Ethiopia, which had been weakened by the great famine of 1888-1892, was not
such as to sustain the huge Ethiopian fighting forces for months. That is why we call the
great patriotic exploits of Ethiopian patriots at Adwa the victory of people from all nooks
and corners of Ethiopia, whose sweat and blood had gone into making that glorious
victory over European colonialism a shining chapter in the annals of Ethiopia’s long
history. The shrill noise Tigrean ethnonationalist hate-mongers are making about the
heavy price Tigreans paid by supporting the hundreds of thousands of Menelik’s army,
46
- Harold Marcus, The Life and Times of Emperor Menelik II – 1844 – 1913
47
- Richard Pankhurst, The Great Ethiopian Famine of 1888-1892
25
which were allegedly sent without food provisions sounds hollow in the face of such
stark historical truths.
The following is what Harold Marcus wrote in summing up Menelik’s effort in forging
the unity and the independence of Ethiopia:
:
“As king of Shoa, Menelik had exploited the south and south west to purchase
weapons; as emperor he used its wealth to bolster the north’s sagging economy. This
done he turned his attention to the dignified survival of the empire’s independence
48
”.
What is contradictory, if paracoxal, about the Tigrean ethnonationalists is the fact that
while they cry foul about Menelik’s alleged refusal to liberate Eritrea, they
simultaneously accuse this same Menelik for having sent hundreds of thousands of his
troops into Tigrai to pillage the people of Tigrai. For any sane person it is not difficult to
conclude the added burden Menelik’s army could have meant to the population of Tigrai
had Menelik decided to stay there longer than he did in his effort to drive the Italians
from Eritrea. It is not difficult to imagine what Tigrean nationalists may have to say if
Menelik’s army had stayed even longer than it did. The moral of all this is the following.
Tigrean ethnonationalists grew up being fed upon the dire diet of hatred for anything
Amharas have done. They feel very inferior to the Amharas with regard to the role some
of their ancestors have played in Ethiopian history and during the Italian colonization of
Eritrea. Their inability to see Menelik as a fellow Ethiopian has prevented them in
appreciating what Ethiopians have collectively achieved in Adwa as a source of
collective national pride. It is this sense of feeling inferior vis a vis the Amhara which
forced TPLF leaders and their Tigrean intellectuals to shamelessly claim in 1996 that the
Adwa victory 49 was an exclusive Tigrean victory. This has only made Tigrean
ethnonationalists a laughing stock.
Amharas, unlike Tigrean ethnonationalists, have never been brought up believing that
Alula or Yohannes were their enemies. Amharas have always learned to take pride in
what all great Ethiopian leaders have done as Ethiopians irrespective of the particular
ethnic group or region they came from. One can easily glean this from the various
patriotic songs and poems Amharas have composed in memory of Ethiopian giants by
way of immortalizing these Ethiopian heroes irrespective of their ethnic origins. The
following poem50, which was written in 1935 by the famous Ethiopian artist Agegnheu
Engida, attests to this fact.
48
49
- One such Tigrean ethnicist is Kinfe Abraham (a Tigrean who grew up in Godnar city) and had the
effrontery to claim the Adwa victory as a being an exclusive Tigrean victory during his speech presented at
the Adwa centenary in 1996. Here we see how Tigrean nationalists not only claim the lion’s share of
Ethiopia’s wealth today, but also try to appropriate for themselves all the glorious aspect of Ethiopian
history (such as the Adwa victory) that is a product of a collective sacrifice of all Ethiopians.
50
- Quoted from the monumental book Zikre Neger written by Bilaten Geta Mahteme Selassie Wolde
Meskel, 1970
26
Here follows the English translation of the Amharic couplet coined in honor of Ras
Alula, one of Ethiopia’s best military strategists from Tigrai.
How are you Alula the door of Tedali
The one who kills five thousand (enemy force) in a day
The problem of Tigrean ethnonationalists is their failure to reconcile themselves with a
pan Ethiopian identity they can rightly belong to like any one Ethiopian. For them pan
Ethiopian identity represents the Amharas they very much resent and hate. It makes them
feel they have no part in it. The Amharas have never claimed for themselves alone the
struggle waged to liberate Ethiopia from the clutches of Italian fascists during Ethiopia’s
occupation (1936-1941) although they paid disproportionate price in the fascist Italian
onslaught that particularly targeted the Amharas during the 1936-1941 periods 51. In fact
the government of emperor Haile Selassie, who has been dubbed Amhara by Tigrean and
other ethnonationalist, was generous enough not to execute the greatest Ethiopian traitor
Dejazmatch Haile Selassie Gugsa of Tigrai who was kept in house arrest in southwestern
Ethiopia whereas the defiantly patriotic and fiery luminaries such as Belatta Takele
Wolde Hawaryat and Dejazmatch Belai Zeleke (both Amharas) were sentenced to death.
Does this not say something about the ethnic-blind nature of Haile Selassie’s regime
where loyalty to the personal authority of the emperor counted more than anything else
contrary to the allegation of Tigrean ethnonationalists who hold the view that Haile
Selassie’s regime served the Amharas?
,
51
- According to Alberto Sbacchi, “During the Duke of Aosta’s administration, poison gas bombs were
employed mostly in the Amhara and Shoa governorates, by General Ugo Cavallero, chie of the Armed
Forces in the Italian East Africa who supported Graziani’s actions to wipe out the patriots”. For a detailed
account of such atrocities, the reader is advised to refer to Sbachhi’s book entitled “Legacy of Bitterness,
Ethiopia and Fascist Italy, 1935-1941
27
THE JUSTIFICATION FOR NOT EJECTING ITALIANS FROM ERITREA
Time and again foreign observers and Ethiopian historians, who wrote eyewitness
accounts of the situation that led Emperor Menelik and his military leaders to settle for
peace over continuation of the war, gave convincing reasons. Notwithstanding all such
eye account witnesses, some elements within the Tigryan and Eritrean elites have
continued to perpetuate the myth that Menelik sold Eritrea to Italians. True, the decision
to cede part of Ethiopian territory remains a scar on Ethiopian history. However, there
were plausible reasons and factors that compelled Menelik to agree to the border
demarcation, which was a culmination of the process of loss of control over Eritrea that
has begun to unfold during the reign of Yohannes. From Menelik’s point of view, it was a
strategy of protecting larger parts of Ethiopia by giving up some. “It was necessary to
amputate the part for safety of the larger body 52.”
For the record, almost all historians and observers agree on the combination of the
following accounts for Menelik’s decision not to go all the way into Eritrea following his
victory at Adwa:
52
- Solomon Gashaw, Adowa Victory Centenary Conference Proceedings.
28
1
- Before and after the conclusion of the Adowa campaign, the problems of
supplying provisions to a large army became acute to the extent of dictating the
movement of soldiers. The decision not to march to Hamasein was influenced
more by the problem of provision than by the preference for a favorable terrain
for combat.
2
- Four days later after the Italian defeat, the remnant of Italian soldiers were
regrouping inside Eritrea. The Italian government committed four million lire and
General Balderisa and his 15,000 soldiers were unloading at Massaawa. It was
widely believed that the local population would have supported the 15,000 fresh
troops and 5,000 Italians inside Eritrea against Menelik’s army.
3
- The Ethiopian voluntary army was on the road for eight months. The army was
exhausted, hungry, and suffering from all sorts of ailments. Its ability to fight on
under the circumstances was questionable.
4
- The large Ethiopian armies of that time used to rely on the rural folk and that
lean northern country, whose resource base was depleted by the 1888-1892 Great
Ethiopian Famine, was not able to support such a huge army. Towards the end of
the month, Menelik was forced to send a third of his army away to provision for
themselves elsewhere.
5
- Cholera epidemic swept the country and killed many people and there was wide
spread famine.
6
- Had Menelik decided for an all out war, Britain and other European nations
could not have remained indifferent to Italy’s humiliation. In order to safeguard
its colonial interest in the Sudan and strategic design, Britain had signed a treaty
with Italy to which it was committed. This could have given Britain a pretext to
assist Italian forces in resisting and defeating Menelik’s army in side Eritrea
thereby guaranteeing the colonalization of Ethiopia by the British and Italy.
7
- Encroachment by the British, the French and Egyptians in the East and South
East and security risk they posed on whole country was another factor, which had
to be considered by Menelik.
8
- Menelik was aware of the strategic and logistic problems emperor Yohannes and
Ras Alulua faced. In spite of their victory and concentration of troops, Yohannes
and Alula could not dislodge the Egyptian forces, and then the Italians which they
defeated at Dogali, and which they threatened at Sahati. The same reason that
prevented Yohannes and Alula to dislodge Italy from Eritrea was taken into
consideration. That reason was an assessment of Ethiopia’s ability to fight on and
preserve its independence while surrounded by imperialist forces.
29
“It is erroneous, thus, to judge the past with the influence of the present day
military strategic thinking and concept53.”
In the views of Paul Henze:
“Emperor Menelik’s defeat of the Italian invaders at Adwa gave him an opportunity
to regain Eritrea. He chose instead to compromise – let Italy retain its colony in
return for a peaceful stance toward Ethiopia, securing a stable northern frontier
while he concentrated on rounding out Ethiopia’s borders in the South. Menelik
thus confirmed Eritrea’s “loss” to Ethiopia. Some Tigrayans have never forgiven
him. The if’s of history are incalculable, but Menelik’s decision was not casual or
irrational. He was a pragmatist. If he had devoted his energies to expanding
Ethiopia’s ill-defined frontiers in the north, he might never have been able to
stabilize the south and consolidate control over the empire. Ethiopia might then
have fallen victim to European colonialism from all sides 54”.
“The large Ethiopian armies living on the country, and that lean northern country,
were in almost desperate case. Towards the end of the month Menelik was forced to
send a third of his army away to provision for themselves elsewhere55”.
The British military historian Berkley said the following about the war:
“If Barateieri had waited another week, perhaps even another day, Menelik’s army
might have been broken up and Ethiopia might have fallen piecemeal before Italian
penetration 56”.
Professor Bahru Zewde echoed similar sentiments: “Yet, in the immediate aftermath, the
Gundet and Gura victories were to remain hollow. Yohannes persisted in policy of
restraint. He followed up his victory not with a march to Massawa, but with letters to
Victoria and Ismail once again suing for peace. He renounced the military option either
because his army was in no condition to continue the fighting, or because he feared
further military action would antagonize the European governments. Thus began
Yohannes’s diplomatic efforts to crown his victory with a peace treaty – something that
was to elude him for almost a decade57”. Yet, Tecola Hagos and the other hypocrites
expected Menelik to perform a miracle with the limitations he encountered. A hypocrite
53
- Solomon Gashaw, Adwa Victory Centenary Conference Proceedings, 1996, p. 138]
54
- - Paul Henze, Eritrea’s War, p.215
55
- - Margery Perham, The Government of Ethiopia. P.57.
56
- Berkeley, G.H., The Campaign of Adowa and the Rise of Menelik, 1902
57
- Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia
30
at least appreciates goodness enough to imitate it. Tecola sees no goodness in anything
Sahle-Selassie, Tewodros, Menelik, Haile-Selassie and Amharas did because he
considers them the enemies of Tigrayans. If Tecola was presiding in a court of laws to
render justice, Emperor Yohannes would be forgiven for seeking diplomatic solution but
Menelik-the Amhara king should be tried as “common criminal” for using the same
method.
Professor Rubenson writes the following:
“In a conversation with one of the survivors at Adowa 25 years ago, I asked what
they had done after the battle, if they had celebrated, and his reply was: “We had
no food ”. My own assessment is that “the great famine” was a contributing factor
if not one of the main reasons why the Italians succeeded in establishing their colony
of Eritrea58”. Therefore, Menelik’s predicament cannot be objectively appreciated by a
Tigrean ethnonationalist sitting in an Ivory Tower and consuming American hamburgers.
It is not easy for an idea to squeeze itself into a head that is filled with prejudice and
hatred.
58
- Sven Rubenson, The Survival of Ethiopian Independence
31
As the foregoing accounts show, none other than Tigrayan ethno-nationalists
characterized Menelik as a “common criminal” for not pursuing the remaining Italians
beyond Tigray proper. Even the racist British military historians Berkeley and Augusts
Wylde, who called the gallant Ethiopian heroes of Adowa “barbarians hordes and half
savages”, had better things to write about Menelik than the Tigrayan ethnonationalists.
At the very least Berkeley, sympathetic to the Italian cause, was an eyewitness to the
battle, and documented the event. He was also in a better position to be a good character
witness than the ethno-nationalists who rely on hearsay and word of mouth accounts of
Adowa which for the most part have been contaminated with prejudice and ethnic hatred.
Unlike the homegrown hatemonger ethno-nationalists, the racist Berkely was more
gracious in complimenting Menelik’s leadership and his achievements at the battlefield:
“From the broader standpoint of politics and history, it seems possible that is [the
Battle of Adowa] heralds the rise of a new power in Africa – we are reminded that the
natives of that continent may yet become a military factor worthy of our closest
attention. The suggestion has ever been made – absurd as it appears at present – that
this is the first revolt of the Dark Continent against domineering Europe ”59.
In the words of Bahru Zewede:
“Thus, eight months after the war, Menelik had been able to achieve more than
Yohannes had been able to do in eight years after the Battles of Gundat and Gura.
Moreover, viewed in the African context, the Ethiopians had won recognition of their
independence by force of arms. They had stemmed the tide of colonialism. The future
of Ethiopia became different from that of the rest of Africa. This had its impact not
only on the political economy of the country, but also on the psychology of its people
”60.
What Bahru Zewde is alluding to are the successes of Menelik both on the war and
diplomatic fronts. Margery Perham corroborated this when she wrote:
“Ethiopia, instead of being surrounded as she always had been by the wilderness of
Islam, or of savagery, suddenly found European governments on all sides of her. She
had Italian Eritrea on the North, Italian, British, and French Somaliland took firm
shape on the east with British East Africa on the south, the Ugandan protectorate to
the Southwest. The result of Adowa was that Menelik’s new neighbors and other
European powers were obliged to take him very seriously 61”.
59
- Berkely, The Battle of Adowa
60
- Bahru Zewede, A Modern History of Ethiopia.
61
- Margery Perham, The Government of Ethiopia. P.59
32
When viewed from the factual historical record of Emperor Menilik, what appears to be
criticism of Menelik is actually an attack on his ethnicity and the ethnicity of his alleged
political base. As stated before the purpose of this article therefore is not to revise and
regurgitate what has been debated and documented or provide defense for the hate
messages against Menelik. The glorious legacy of Menilik does not lack defenders.
Moreover, when compared with many Ethiopian and foreign-born historians and
scholars, Menelik’s critics are insignificant and inconsequential both in the arguments
they marshal and their understanding of Ethiopian history. Since the reading and
understanding of Ethiopian history by ethno-nationalists are distorted and out of place,
one need not dignify ethnic ideologues by providing rebuttal to their utter ignorance.
Nonetheless, the real motives behind the distortion and fabricated lies they spread have to
be addressed. Furthermore, narrow ethnic ideologues that preach the virtues of ethnic
division and dismemberment of Ethiopia have neither credibility nor moral authority to
accuse Menilik as “common criminal.” People who preach the virtues of differences and
fragmentation instead of unity and social harmony do not have moral authority to accuse
leaders who united Ethiopians for a common cause.
In a twisted and misplaced logic of Amhara-phobic ideologue, Meles, the traitor and the
number one enemy of the Ethiopian people (save for his Tigrean supporters), is
considered a “world figure” whereas Menelik is referred to “common criminal”.
Ethnic loyalty is one thing. Trying to cover up the criminal acts of a known traitor like
Meles (out of blind ethnic loyalty), while trying to discredit a giant historical figure like
Menelik with the help of lies is disgusting, to say the least. The aim of this paper is,
therefore, to speak about the mind-set of hate mongers and Amhara bashers than provide
rebuttal to their distortion of Menelik’s record. When arguments are premised on lies and
fabrication, there is no foundation for debate. “Lies, no matter how often repeated, cannot
obliterate the truth.”
In contrast to what they say about Menelik, the ethno-nationalist support for ethnic
ideology and bigotry is pungent and nauseating. Unfortunately, the empty lives of
ethnonationalists need to be supported with fabricated lies and false sense of superiority,
which cannot be achieved through their accomplishments. Hence, their tendencies to seek
resort to verbal assault of all those vis a vis whom they feel so inferior and diminutive.
The only reason for their preoccupation with Menelik is to find an outlet for their
repressed ethnic hatred born of a deeply entrenched inferiority complex, which I will
come to later. The claim that Menelik betrayed Yohannes and sold a part of Ethiopia is
even more misleading than some of the outlandish assertions of ethno-nationalists that no
country with the name Ethiopia was known in the world before Yohannes.
According to Hezbawi Democratic Program, adopted at its second Congress in May
1983, TPLF and the ethno-nationalists stated:
“The Dogali victory, unlike the distortions of the Amhara historians, is not the victory
of all Ethiopian peoples. It is the victory of peoples of Tigray and Eritrea .At the time,
Yohannes subdued and collected taxes and tributes from Gondar, Gojjam, Shoa and
Wello. But no country with the name Ethiopia was known in the world map and
33
history. Even the Shoan King Menelik was collaborating with Italy, which was making
preparations to invade Eritrea and Tigray. In an attempt to weaken Tigray he was
secretly dealing with the Italians. Italy was then giving Menelik money and arms”62 .
From the foregoing, it becomes clear that contrary to the baseless assertion of ethnonationalists, Menelik did not sell Eritrea, which was then part of Ethiopia. If Tigray and
Eritrea were not part of a country known as Ethiopia, how could Menelik sell what was
not part of Ethiopia? This contradiction is another proof of the grand delusion that the
ethno-nationalists suffer from. “Although Menelik appeared highly accommodating in
their [Italian] interests, the Italians found to their dismay that Negusa Nagast Menelik
scarcely differed from Negusa Negast Yohannes on the vital question of Ethiopian
independence63.
Contrary to TPLF’s assertions that Yohannes’ victory over Italians and Egyptians was not
the victory of all Ethiopian people, a French traveler and business man by the name
Pierre Arnoux, who was in Shewa, at the time of Egyptian defeat at Gundet, said,
“Shewan army had celebrated Yohanni’s victory over the Egyptians for three days. It
was at this point that he (Menelik) sent his congratulations to be accompanied by a
cavalry force for the continuation of the war 64”.
What do these Tigrean ethnicists say about the collaboration of Yohannes with the British
force that violated the territorial integrity of Ethiopia and marched up to Mekdela in its
attempt to capture the defiant Ethiopian emperor Tewodros who chose to keep the dignity
of his country by committing suicide than surrendering to a colonialist force? A visit to
the British museum in London corroborates the extent of the cultural pillage that
collaboration of Yohannes has resulted in when he chose to ally himself with British
colonialist forces. The unruly British soldiers65, whom Yohannes enthusiastically helped
in penetrating deep into the Ethiopian territory, had no qualms whatsoever when they
even violated the dead corpse of the brave emperor Tewodros as can be gleaned from the
following historical record that was penned down by Henry M. Stanley who was at
Makdela:
“I strolled to where the dead body of the late Master of Magdala lay on his canvas
stretcher. I found a mob of officers (British) and men rudely jostling each other in the
endeavour to get possession of a small piece of Theodore’s bloodstained shirt. No
62
- Hezbawi Democratic Program, adopted at its second Congress in May 1983, TPLF
and the ethno-nationalists stated:
63
- Modern History of Ethiopia, Bahru Zewde,
64
- Sven Rubenson, The Survival of Ethiopian Independence, P. 336
65
- The unruly British colonialist force which was aided and guided by Yohannes not only destroyed
Mekedela, but raped Ethiopian women such that the wife of emperor Tewodros, queen Tirunesh had from a
secluded position witnessing the rude behavior of the so-called civilized European army which turned
proud Ethiopian women into sexual objects. For detail see Fekade Habte’s article in the Tobia monthly
magazine Vol. 7, No. 12 (pp. 17-22) entitled the “Baytewaru Mesfin – a story about Alemayehu
Tewodros”.
34
guard was placed over the body until it was naked. Extended on its hammock, it lay
subjected to the taunts and the jests of the brutal-minded66”.
We assume that the followers of Yohannes were also around and rubbing their hands in
glee when all this was happening. Do the Tigrean admirers of emperor Yohannes like
Tecola Hagos who are quick to castigate emperor Tewodros as brutal tyrant understand
the pain suffered by those Ethiopians like Dejazmatch Alemayehu Tewodros (a small
child who was estimated to be 9 years of age when he lost his father and mother in a
matter of 5 weeks) who was forcibly taken away by the British and finally died in Britain
at the age of 19 as a deeply depressed and unhappy orphan on alien British soil of the
Victorian age? Alemayheu Tewodros was always unhappy and depressed after having
been thrust into an alien society at that prime age. He had no one family member who
could care for him and had been tossed like a ball between multiple care takers with
whom he could not form any abiding emotional bond which any child needs. Do the
Tigrean ethnonationalists know about some of the Ethiopians who were ostensibly taken
to Britain to accompany Alemayehu Tewodros (son of emperor Tewodros) and were later
transferred to what was then the British colony of New Zealand67 and have not returned
to Ethiopia ever since? What would Tigrean nationalists of today have said if Yohannes’s
role of collaboration in accompanying and guiding a colonial British army into the heart
of Ethiopia was played by an Amhara collaborator? How would Tigreans have reacted
towards an aspiring Amhara who would have gone to the extent of collaborating with
British colonial forces to the extent of precipitating the death of an emperor from Tigrai
and the forceful displacement of his beloved child to Europe and the subsequent death of
this child as a depressed orphan?
In passing, I wish to briefly touch upon a couple of points. Dr. Tseggai Mebrahatu wrote
and posted a critical analysis of Menelik’s reasons for not pushing the Italians out of
Eritrea and the consequences to the rest of Ethiopia had emperor Menelik chose to
massacre the remaining Italian forces inside Eritrea. He also wrote why Menelik chose
diplomacy in order to buy time. He provided a different perspective from the
hallucinatory accounts of Menilik’s detractors. Dr. Tseggai was viciously attacked and
insulted for his remarks and for thinking “outside the ethnic box.” In stead of debating
the crucial points at hand, Tecola, who has no qualms in railing and ranting against any
one who opposes his ethnicist views, tried to belittle the former as “a boy wanting to
grow up fast”.This attitude reflects dismally on Tecola’s poor intellectual acumen in
arguing a case. And the ability to argue one’s case is something that all ethnonationslaists
woefully lack.
A keen observer of the current political system commented as follows:
66
- Henry M. Stanley, Coomassie and Magdala, 1874
67
- In 1987 a group of Ethiopians who went to New Zealand on a scholarship were invited by and
subsequently met with New Zealanders who claim to be descendents of a certain Ethiopian Dejazmatch
who was taken to Britain during the Napier expedition to allegedly accompany the Dejazmatch Alemayehu
Tewodros who was brought to Britain by the British expeditionary force.
35
“TPLF and supporters appear to have lost their sense of humility and resorted into a
simplistic propaganda mills. While they are forefront on ethnic politics, however,
when it comes to others they apply different rules, and castigate others as narrow and
separatists elements. “TPLFites,” said the observer, “try to outsmart others but fail to
understand the simple logic: once you advocate and practice ethnic politics, then there
is no way you can prevent others to do so. In other words, it becomes a right not a
privilege”68.
TIGRAYAN ENNOCENTRISM AND THE AMHARA FACTOR:
Ethnocentrism is the bonding of people around their imagined ethnic group. When people
bond around their nation and ethnic group, it is easier to project evils onto scapegoated
enemies in times of war. In the annals of world history, we have witnessed the
emergence of leaders who have drummed up prejudice and xenophobia as a means of
putting themselves in the saddle of power. When looked at from these perspectives, the
rational for Tigrayan ethno-nationalists’ verbal assault and terrorism on Amharas is not
surprising. A regime had come to power determined to undertake a task – the elimination
not only of Amharas from all aspects of social life in Ethiopia but also their capacity to
fight back and defend their inalienable rights as citizens of Ethiopia. Like Hitler who
targeted the Jews, Meles and his trusted cronies used slogans to identify their perceived
enemies. In an interview with Paul Henze, Meles said, “Shoan Amhara is our enemy.”
TPLF’s policies toward Amharas share two important features and objectives with that of
Hitler to the extent that both TPLF and Hitler have tried to misrepresent, demonize and
target what they call their enemies i.e. Amharas and Jews respectively as the source of
evil for what went wrong in their respective countries (Ethiopia and Germany).
The TPLF and its supporters have tried:
1 - To criminalize and demonize the Amhara in such a way that the Amharas are made to
continuously feel responsible for all the ills of Ethiopia. The incessant propaganda
campaign to which Amharas are subjected force them in the long run to internalize a
sense of culpability thereby making them passive onlookers as their ranks are persecuted
and physically wiped out. The experience of the Amharas during the last 13 years of
TPLF rule attests to this fact.
2 – To criminalize and demonize all historical symbols with which Amharas are proudly
identified with. The destruction of historical monuments, the changes of names of
institutions bearing Amhara names, etc belong to this category of the anti-Amhara
campaign waged by the TPLF government.
3- To socially isolate, discriminate at and keep the Amharas in a state of darkness and
backwardness.
68
- Wasadan’s commentary, (EEDN 8/24/04.)
36
4- To punctuate the rightful place and role of Amharas as citizens of Ethiopia in a scheme
which has reduced Amharas to the status of passive victims who should not raise any
opposition to defend their inalienable rights. In this regard it is instructive to say what one
U.S. State Department official have reportedly said, “Amharas are now boxed.”
In accordance with these objectives, since 1991 the following types of wars continue to
be waged on Amharas as can be evident from the following facts:
1 - Physical elimination of leaders of organizations identified with the Amharas: a case in
point is the deliberate killing of Professor Asrat Woldeyes, leader of the AAPO.
2 - Use of terrorist organizations as proxies to eliminate Amhars. Cases in point are the
mayhems and murder carried out in Bedno, Arba Gugu, Assebot, and Wollega by
fascistic organizations such as the OPDO who have perpetrated massacres of Amharas
under the supervision and watchful eyes of TPLF. We can also not forget what the
fascistic Oromo organization OLF had perpetrated in Bedeno, Wellega, etc and what
IFLO had perpetrated at the historic Assebot monastery where it massacred 18 monks in
1992 when it was part of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia under the TPLF. In
1999 some 16000 Amharas who have lived in eastern Wellega for generations were
ethnically cleansed and uprooted from Wellega and sent to Gojjam across the Abay river.
This process of ethnic cleansing had caused the brutal death of at least 1000 Amharas, the
burning of their villages, the confisification destruction of their properties, etc. The
Tigrean government and its Oromo ethnonationalist hirelings that it has organized under
the OPDO were responsible for this brutal act.
3 - Uprooting Amharas from the political, economic, and social life of Ethiopia through
systematic deprivation of land, jobs, education, and business opportunities. Amhara
business owners in so-called “Oromia” regional state are heavily taxed and then forced to
abandon businesses on which their livelihood depend. Land is used as political tool.
Amharas are openly and routinely discriminated at when it comes to getting permits to
erect a fence much less a building a home in the apartheid system created by TPLF.
4 - Use of psychological war on the Amhara psyche. This last form of psychological war
is the most vicious and panders to the passion of Tigrayan public Amhara-phobia
embraced by all Tigrean followers of TPLF. Amharas and leaders such as Menilik and
Haile Selassie are assailed as the enemies of the Tigrayans and all non-Amharas in
Ethiopia and Amharas are held responsible for Ethiopia’s backwardness. Their legacies
are painted as the worst possible episodes in the annals of Ethiopian history. Through
these physical and psychological wars, the TPLF and its ethno-nationalist supporters
want Amharas to be ashamed of their culture, language, leaders, and their contribution to
the Ethiopian state.
At the beginning of the anti-Amhara campaign the medium used to denigrate and bash
Amharas was the now defunct “Ethiopian Commentator”. In one of their publications the
editors, all of whom were Eritreans and Tigrayans (including yester years’s TPLF
37
ideologues and the current “super-patriot” the Tigrean Ghelawdewos Araya who
currently makes shrill noise about Assab port and Ethiopian territorial integrity) inserted
a picture of Professor Asrat Woldeyes while he was accepting an award for his
contribution in the medical field in an article submitted by a professor at The American
University in Washington, DC. The text below the picture falsely states: “the professor
was awarded for his contribution for the war effort against the Ethiopian people.”
This was done by the editors of Ethiopian Commentator without the knowledge and
approval of the author of who submitted the article.
The same Ethiopian Commentator inserted another picture of the former Patriarch of
Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In that picture the Patriarch is seen giving financial
contribution to help famine victims. The text inserted under the picture states,” the
contribution by the Patriarch was to help in Mengistu’s war effort.” In the
background of the same picture Ato Shimeles Adugna, the former Commissioner of
Famine Relief is shown. However, the caption reads: “the other dog in the picture is
unidentified”. Others gleefully replayed the scurrilous attack by the Ethiopian
Commentator and its editors on the internet.
Having created a mythical enemy, “the Amhara”, and trained the Tigrayan public to
reflexively hate it, the myth is later deployed to discredit anyone by saying he or she is a
member of Shoan Amhara and Mengistu’s supporter. Thus instinctively, the entire
talking-head cabals knew just what to say about Professor Asrat and Amharas.
Hate message by emotional speakers can sway audiences. For ethnocentric Tigrayans,
Mengistu, who crushed the Ethiopian people, became an Amhara boogieman for scaring
Tigrayans and silencing TPLF’s critics. In the views of ethnocentric, all Amharas are
now Mengistu’s supporters. In all honesty, TPLF nationalists should be grateful to
Mengistu not the other way round. By crushing many Ethiopian patriots and silencing
the rest Mengistu did a great favor to TPLF and the ethnocentrics. It should be noted
that history details how often friendliness of the native people is betrayed by treachery
and ethnocentrism on the part of their conquerors. If it was not for the hated Mengistu,
Amharas could not have assisted TPLF to seize power and later to be victimized.
On a televised debate Meles admitted that TPLF got the support of Amharas while
advancing to the center of the country to oust Mengistu. But later he turned against the
same people with impunity. In lambasting the Shoan Amhara as unpatriotic and coward
to fight back, Meles said: We know Shoan Amharas. We saw Shoan Amharas. We
stepped over them while they were using cow dung for fire wood and were being
suffocated by the smoke.” Ye Shoan Amarotch ayitenatchewal. Kubet cia’chesu
regitenatchew new yalefinew.”
In Debre Berhan hundreds of Amharas were picked up and put in prison for no reason.
After being told they were free to leave the prison gates, TPLF combatants opened fire
and killed the unsuspecting Amharas. Although the local people knew the truth, TPLF
38
attributed the killings to an attempt by criminals to break out from prison. Gebru Asrat,
former TPLF administrator in Tigray, has been quoted as boasting,
“we have cut off the Amhara head. Soon we will uproot him from the ground.”
Another one of TPLF’s slogan and moral boost to its combatants was,
Be’Amhara me’Qabirr Tigray Tabibalech” which translates into, “Tigray will blossom
on the grave of Amhara”. According to former EPDM combatant who now lives in
California TPLF’s slogan was, “Amara Gedai”, Amhara killer. It is not hard to imagine
what the fate of Amharas would have been had some of the hard-core anti-Amhara
elements in the exiled group of TPLF central committee members were sharing power
with Meles today.
One of the reasons for the current anti-Amhara campaign is to scapegoat the Amharas for
the crisis TPLF finds itself in. As the resistance of the Ethiopian people to the fascistic, if
divisive, ethnic policies of TPLF grow, the TPLF and its supporters resort to name calling
which amounts to the pillorying of Amharas. The anti-Amhara propaganda crusaders
accuse Shoan-Amharas under a subtle code name “Mahal-Sefaris. And such accusations
become all the more acute as the disarray and split in the ranks of TPLF increases. There
is no difference between the fanatical ravings of a foaming-at-the mouth Meles Zenawi
and the utterances of his one time confidant and advisor Tecola Hagos. They make no
deeper point than “I hate you”. Tigrayan ethnic supremacists are neurotically obsessed
with ethnicity in spite of the well-established negative impact which ethnic politics has
plunged Ethiopia in during the last 13 years of deadly experimentation with ethnic
politics. Their obsession with ethnicity and hate for the Amhara has to do with the
inferiority they feel vis a vis the Amhara. This has impelled them to blame all socioeconomic problems (which were not unique to Tigrai) on an alleged Amhara enemy as
though the Dergue government represented the interest of the Amhara ethnic group69.
Tecola’s fabricated stories include that the Derg regime targeted Tigrians on the basis of
their ethnicity and disproportionate number of Tigreans were victims of the Red Terror.
This is unforgettable insult to the tens of thousands of Amharas whose lives were claimed
by the Red Terror on the streets of Ethiopia. If one was to indulge in the distasteful
business of making head count of Red Terror victims on the basis of ethnic origin, neither
Tigreans nor other ethnic groups may have been able to point their fingers at Amharas as
69
- Every sane and rational thinking Ethiopian knows that the so-called “oppressor or dominant Amharas”
have not performed any better than the Tigreans. In fact by 1974, Tigrai, an Ethiopian province with less
population than each one of the predominantly Amhara-inhabited regions of Gondar, Wello or Gojjam had
5 high schools while these three predominantly Amhara areas had just two high schools. These are facts
which were lost on the Tigrean ethnonatioanlists and the luminaries of the Ethiopian Student Movement
which were generating the Amhara national domination and “national oppression” theory without
providing any substantive facts to support how the millions of Amharas have performed better than say the
Eritreans, Adares, Tigreans, Gurages, etc. We have to add that before 1974, Tigrai sent more students to the
university than Gojjam and Gonder provinces did together. The picture for northern Shoa was even more
depressing than the other Amahra regions.
39
the latter were disproportionately over represented in terms of the number of human lives
claimed by Dergue’s violent repression across the various parts of Ethiopia.
Among the discoveries of Freud is the psychological process of creating enemies – which
requires that for their own ego survival and sanity, people deflect their own aggression or
self-hatred outward onto others. According to Freud, self-hatred is at the root of race or
ethnic hatred and projection is the means of depositing unacceptable parts of oneself
onto, what one perceives, as an external enemy. Communal neuroses will always be
much harder to detect because they define an entire group, not an individual distinct from
the group. Freud’s discovery is a clear manifestation of Tigrayan ethnic supremacists’
obsession with hatred for everyone but Tigregna speakers.
THE MAHAL-SEFARI MASK
The latest assault on Amhara, especially Shoan Amhara, comes from a website owned
and operated by Tecola Hagos. At first glance, Tecola’s webpage looks like any one of
the thousands of personal home pages but visitors who scroll down soon discover that the
website is devoted to hate speech. Just like the neo-Nazi rant, it contains articles that
support ethnic ideology and Amhara bashing. The code name used for Amhara bashing
this time is “Mahal-Sefari”. The reason why the owner of the webpage chooses to use
this code name is to mask the truth about the intended targets of his verbal assault.
What does Mahal Sefari mean? When used in its geographic context the term “Mahal
Sefari” refers to central Ethiopia. However, Tecola proves his shallow understanding of
the meaning of Mahal-Sefari when he uses it in a pejorative context. In ancient times the
term “Mahal-Sefari” meant a specialized units of the Imperial army attached to the
palace. The army had multi-national dimension as opposed to being exclusive Amhara as
to Tecola would like us to believe. As a political term, the correct meaning of MahalSefari is “Liberal” as opposed to extremism. Since those specialized units attached to the
Imperial army are long gone, Tecola’s reason for raising the “Mahal-Sefari” issue cannot
be any other than for the purpose of validating his well-known hatred for Amharas. On
all accounts of the term “Mahal-Sefari’, the self-appointed “professor” showed utter
ignorance about the “what” and the “who” of the subject matter he repeats ad nauseam.
In geographic terms, Mahal-Sefari refers to Shoan Amharas districts of Ankober,
Anstokia, Efrata, Gidim, Gishe, Insaro, Menz, Merha-Bete, Moret, Tegulet, Qewet, Yifat,
Washa, Wogda, plus Shoan Oromo regions of Ada’a, Ambo, Jeldu, Gindeberet, Guder,
Meacha-Tulama in Selale.(see Getatachew Haile, Adwa Victory Centenary Conference
Proceedings, 1996]
The code name Mahal-Sefari is used as a cover and to hide the intended targets – Shoan
Amharas in particular and Amharas in general. No one, least of all, Amharas should have
any doubt about Tecola’s aim and intended targets of this vilification campaign. As
Winston Churchill said, “appeasement reflects hope that the crocodile will eat you last.”
Since we are dealing with a species of primitives, like crocodiles in the prowl,
40
ethnocentric are dangerous predators that need to be checked. As someone once said, “to
be hoodwinked once is human, but to be taken for a second time is inexcusable.”
The leading anti Shoan-Amhara and anti-Menelik campaigner Tecola Hagos falsely
accuses and demonizes the Mehal-Sefaris (all of the people from the aforementioned
regions) as the enemies of the Ethiopian people, the reasons for its backwardness and
accuses these Shoan Amharas as collaborating with Meles. Let us assume for a moment
that what Tecola says is true and Meles’ advisors and political cadres are Mehal -Sefaris.
Why is it then the entire economy of the country, the major private businesses, public
agencies, the military, the security apparatus and other aspects of Ethiopia are under the
control of Tigrayans? Why is it that there are no developments in the so-called MehalSefari regions which have practically been excluded from any development process while
Tigray has continued to absorb the lion’s share of Ethiopia’s national budget? Why are
the pharmaceutical, chemical, textile, clinics, institutions of higher education, and road
constructions concentrated and limited to Tigray if the Mehal Sefaris are in the position
of power to influence policy decision that favors their region? It is doubtful that Tecola
can provide convincing evidence to these pointed questions and show that the Tigrayan
regime under the leadership of Meles and Sebhat Nega is influenced and advised by
Shoan Amharas. The anti Shoan Amhara campaign is a continuation of the agenda
doctored and rehearsed at Dedebit during TPLF’s bush dwelling years.
In the early days of TPLF, any Tigrayan national who dared to speak out against what he
or she perceived to be wrong had to be labeled as “sell out” or in the language of TPLF,
“Shoawaweyan Tegaru,” Shoan Tigrayans. Gidey Bahirishum is a Tigrayan national who
witnessed the fate of ordinary Tigrayans in the hands of TPLF when the latter controlled
part of Tigray during the war for the liberation of Eritrea and Tigray. In his book,
“AMORA 70” Mr. Gidey tells very disturbing stories about Tigrayan victims in the hands
of TPLF cadres. Their own sons and daughters executed Tigrayan parents who
questioned the motives behind the Woyane slogan, “Tigre and Amharas “or” Ethiopia
and Tigray. The executions were carried out on the order of Tigrayan cadres like Meles
and others. After Tigray came under EPLF/TPLF control, untold numbers of Tigrayans
were accused as supporters of EDU and shot point blank. The victims were denied
proper burial and their remains were left in the open for wild animals. The executed
victims were castigated as “anti-Tigre”, “kora huru Amharu”, (Amhara dogs), and
“Shoawaweyan tegaru” (Shoan-Tigrayans). Mr. Gidey’s story is a clear example of the
continuation of the previous anti-Amhara campaign to the present time by the ethnonationalists. This episode testifies to the ease with which ethnocentric can punctuate the
lives of people who oppose their ideas and even take joy in the death of their own kind.
WHO GAVE UP ERITREA TO THE ITALIANS - THE HEWETT TREATY OF
1875 – 1876 and ‘POLITICA TIGRIGNA’
The second, perhaps the most important, point I wish to raise is the failure of the ethnonationalist to place side by side the events that lead the Italians to occupy Eritrea and
Emperor Yoahnnes’ role in the occupation when finger pointing at the alleged crimes of
70
- Gidey Bahirishum, Amora
41
Menelik. The important factor for Italian occupation of Eritrea that the ethno-nationalists
mask and hide from public discussion and scrutiny is what is known as “Hewett treaty of
1875 –1876” with the British, signed and ratified by emperor Yohannes.
The treaty is important for two reasons. First, the British deceived the emperor and never
carried out their part of the agreement when Italy occupied Eritrea. Second, the treaty
became the single reason for the Mahdist to attack Ethiopia, the death of the Emperor
himself, and for Italy to move at will and take over Eritrea. According to the foremost
Ethiopianist, Professor Sven Rubenson, by signing the Hewett treaty, Yohannes has
“traded one weak enemy for two strong ones, the Mahdist state and Italy71.”
Article III of the Hewett treaty reads:
“His Majesty the Negoosa Negust engages to facilitate the withdrawal of the troops of
His Highness the Khedive, from Kassala, Amedib and Sanhit through Ethiopia to
Massawah 72.”
The primary interest of the British and Egyptionias was the rescue of their garrisons from
the Mahdist attack. The Emperor and Ras Alula gave their full cooperation in accordance
with the terms agreed in the treaty. Following this unequal treaty between Yohannes and
the British, in June 1885 Ethiopian forces under the command of Wagshum Gebru and
Bejirond Lewte lost 600 fighters and finally relieved the Egyptian troops at Qallabat from
the Mahadist siege 73. In September 1885 Ethiopian force numbering 10,000 fighters
under the command of Ras Alula marched to Kufit and relieved the Anglo-Egyptian
forces that were under siege of the Sudanese Mahidists. The defeat of the Mahidists was
possible at the cost of 1550 Ethiopian lives74. In January 1887 king Tekle Haimanot of
Gojjam had to march with his100,000 army to Tabarek, Qallabat where he defeated the
Mahidist army 75. According to Rubenson, when it was discovered that Metemma and
Girra had not fallen to the Mahdists, Yohannes accepted additional obligations, and these
two garrisons were saved together with Amideb and Keren.This lead Mahdists to attack
Ethiopia. The emperor ordered Ras Alula and the entire Ethiopian army to abandon
71
72
- Teklesadik Mekuria, Atse Yohannes enna Ye Ethiopia Andinet, pp 273
73
- Tsegaye Tegenu, The Evolution of Ethiopian Absolutism, the Genesis and the Making of the Fiscal
Military State 1696-1913, Uppsala-Sweden, 1996.
74
75
42
Eritrea and move to the Metemma front. He replaced the experienced and master
tactician military leader Ras Alula by Ras Haile Mariam. The replacement of Ras Alula
was one of the reasons for the Mahdist force to gain the upper hand in the battle.
Meanwhile, the Italians with the tacit support of the British found an opportune moment
to move from their fortified bases in Massawa to Eritrean highlands and occupy Asmara
and Karen, albeit with the full cooperation of Eritreans. The cooperation of Eritreans with
foreign invaders was not new as could be gleaned from the documented records of
Eritrean local elites such as Ras Walda-Mikael Solomon of Hamasen who played a major
role by defecting to the Egyptian side after the Battle of Gundat in 1875.
In accordance with the Italian “politics of Tigrigna and the Convention of Mereb”, on
December 6, 1891 on the banks of Mereb, in a solemn convention between General
Gandolfi and Ras Mengesha, in the presence of many officials among others Ras Alula,
Mengesha recognized for Italy the border Mareb-Belesa-Muna. Tigrayan princes, headed
by Ras Mengesha Yohannes, swore an oath of solidarity with the Italians. The ethnonationalists who made Amhara bashing their lifetime occupation never mention the
crimes and duplicities of some highland Eritreans and Tigryans. It was the cooperation
of some highland Eritreans aristocrats first with Egypt and later with the British and
Italians that led to the occupation of Massawa. The occupation of Masswas was a
prelude to Adwa. Unfortunately those who believe they have monopoly over the truth
are ignorant of their own history while defaming Menelik.
Solomon Gashaw writes:
“The Hewett Treaty was very costly to Ethiopia. It infuriated the Mahdist, who
retaliated by invading Begemder and burning down the city of Gonder. It is not clear
why Emperor Yohannes IV, who never abandoned his claim of Massawa settled for a
mere free transit of goods 76”.
One of the bandits who collaborated both with Egyptians and the Italians against
Yohannes and Alula was Dejazmatch Debebb Araya. Debebb Araya and Dejazmatch
Sebhat of Tigrai who happens to be a descendent of Dejazmatch Sebagedes of Agame
were in the service of the Italian colonialists as spies, guides and suppliers of weapons
and other military provisions until one week before the Adwa war when they changed
side and joined the Ethiopian forces under emperor Menelik. They were instrumental in
the occupation of Eritrea by Italy. The aspiring historian and ethnic ideologue never
mention their crimes. The allegation that Menelik gave active support to Italians and
Egyptians against Yohannes is bogus. According to Prof. Sven Ruben son, “all available
evidence, in fact, points to Cairo and not Liche or Wereylu (Menelik’s two main
residences) as the place where the ‘conspiracy’ originated77”.
76
77
- Solomon Gashaw, Adowa Victory Centenary Conference Proceeding, 1996 P. 102.]
- Sven Rubenson, The Survival of Ethiopia
43
Italians showed no interest in abiding by the terms of the Hewett treaty. Rubenson
writes, “On the contrary, they had come to inherit the estate of the Egyptian, Bogos
and all78”. In spite of his misgivings to save his former enemies the Egyptians,
Yohannes trusted the British as an ally but was betrayed by them.
The following was what Yohannes regretfully intimated about the mistake he had made
in signing the Hewett Treaty that amounted to a political alliance79 with the British
colonialist forces. “Yohannes stated, however, that he had been greatly wronged by
both Italians and English in spite of the fact that he had come to their aid against the
Mahdi 80”
“On April 20, 1888 Emperor Yohannes IV mobilized 80,000 peasant army to stop
Italian incursion and dislodge them from Sa’ati. But after parading his force for
weeks the emperor abandoned the idea of ousting the Italians. Instead he decided to
march south and push out the Mahdists out of Ethiopian territory. Besides his
decision to quit fighting Italians, he also removed Ras Alula from his post of
governorship of Mereb Melash. The decision of the emperor Yohannes signaled a
weakness in the Ethiopian defense. It encouraged Italy to occupy more territory. Had
the emperor with his superior force fought Italy at Sa’ati his victory could have made
Adowa unlikely 81.”
At the 1996 Adowa Victory Centenary Conference Professor Getatchew Haile had this to
say about British betrayal. “The tragic story of British treachery is probably well
known to most of you. When ‘poor Egypt had no army worthy of the name, no officers
deserving of confidence, no money, no credit and no men,’ its protectors, the British,
turned to Ethiopia, who had everything Egypt lacked, and used her. Signing a treaty at
Adowa in 1884, they asked the Emperor to use his army to facilitate the withdrawal
through Ethiopia of the Egyptian colonialist troops besieged by the Sudanese. In
return, Ethiopia was promised by the treaty the return of the territories annexed to
Sudan and access to the port of Massawa.82”. He further stated, “Once the Italians took
the port, they started inching into the hinterland. This angered Ras Alula, the
governor of the region, so he destroyed all whom came as far as Dogali (Jan 1887).
78
79
- Hertslet, Map of Africa by Treaty, third edition, Vol. II, pp 422
80
- Documeti Diplomatici, as quoted by Ernst Work in his book entitled, “Ethiopia a Pawn in European
Diplomacy”, published 1935
81
- Ibid
82
- Getachew Haile, Adowa Victory Conference Proceedings, 1996
44
But the Emperor, who believed that the Italians would leave his country, reprimanded
Ras Alula through peaceful negotiations83”.
Call it a blunder or what you may, nonetheless it was the grave mistake made by
Yohannes that handed Eritrea over to the Italians. Menilik therefore inherited the
problems left by Yohannes. The motive of the ethno-nationalists for accusing Menilik as
“common criminal” is not based on the facts but based on his ethnicity.
THE PUNISHMENT OF TRAITORS
One of Tecola’s pre-occupation with Menelik is the amputation of Eritrean askaris at the
end of the Adowa campaign. There are written accounts of the amputation by
eyewitnesses. They all say the same thing. Emperor Menelik wanted the askaris to be
punished by prison terms. The Bishop Abune Mathewos, Rases Mengesha, Alula,
Empress Taitu and other Ethiopian officials rejected Menelik’s proposal and wanted the
traitors to be amputated. Understanding the prevailing sentiment of the wounded and
Dead and accordance with the recommendations of the officials, it was decided that the
traitors should be amputated. Therefore, it was not Menelik who suggested and decided
their fate. The Tigrian Rases were the ones who were in the forefront calling for the
punishment of the traitors. Sadly today Menelik is held as the person responsible for this.
Tecola should know that the punishment of traitors in the “civilized Europe of Menelik’s
time was public execution. In today’s Saudi Arabia, petty thieves are routinely
amputated and put in prison. Traitors are not given a chance to speak before their fate is
sealed by firing squad. The Askaris lost limbs but their lives were spared due to
Menelik’s interventions. This is a fact Tecola and his likes find it hard to accept.
After the Ethiopian army was asked to lay its arm and peacefully surrender, EPLF
executed about 4,000 Ethiopian war prisoners inside Asmara prison. Tecola was with
TPLF when this happened. I don’t believe he raised any objection when Ethiopian war
prisoners were executed in violations of the Geneva Convention. Yet, he shades
crocodile tears about the askaris who fought against Yohannes, Alulua, Menelik and
Ethiopia. Considering their treachery in supporting of the enemy to kill thousands of
Ethiopians who at Adowa, the traitors deserved worse.
ETHNICITY AS A FACTOR IN ETHIOPIAN POLITY
The tradition of ethnic identification and clannishness in Ethiopian history is more
pronounced among Tigregna speakers and Adares(currently known as the Eastern
Weyeanes) than Amharas, Oromos, southerners or any other ethnic group. Under the
regime of Meles Zenawi, almost all high profile government position appointees are
either Tigrayans or Eritreans. Every public organization has at least three layers of
Tigrayan directors and managers. From top to bottom Tigregna speakers serve as
political cadres, security agents and spies. Oromos, southerners, Amharas, etc are
83
- Getatchew Haile, 1996 Adowa Victory Centenary Conference Proceedings.
45
marginalized and relegated to token and lower level positions. In recent military
promotions 11 out of 18 generals were Tigrayans. The list goes on.
In contrast to TPLF’s hegemony, the political system under both Menelik and Haile
Selassie provided social mobility. Teshale Tibebu writes the following: “A slave
captured in war could become a general if, in subsequent service, he proved himself
courageous and resourceful, and personally loyal to the sovereign. For example,
during the latter part of Emperor Menelik’s reign and in the period after his death,
Fitawrary Habte Giorgis (an Oromo) was one of the most powerful men in Ethiopia.
Yet not only was he from a humble non-Amhara background; he was brought to
Menelik’s court as a young war captive84”. Teshale further explains, “Haile selassie used
to a great political advantage this ethnic-blind system of recruitment. His appointments
to high office hardly showed any ethnic preference. He was as comfortable (even more
so), with Oromos from Wallaga as he was with Amharas from Gondar 85”. The
propaganda “Amhara oppressive rule” is therefore hogwash. The ethno-nationalists have
not and could not prove with certainty how Shoan-Amharas in particular and Amharas in
general benefited from the “Amhara hegemony”. Another observer noted:
“In Ethiopia, proponents of ethnic domination can not provide evidence of state
sponsored policies of ethnic domination. The cause of ethnic polarization is rooted in
the frustration of ethnic elite over limited resources both in economic and political
realms. Unlike the masses, it is the elite who feel the brunt of competition in urban
areas. The elite are the most significant social segments of the society that nurture and
develop the feeling of ethnonationalism. They, however, succeed in this project where
there are administrative abuses, lopsided development. Such abuses could be the work
of any social segment that controls the state and its political machinery. In Ethiopia
the state had never been under the exclusive control of a single ethnic group until
199186”.
The architects of the apartheid system in contemporary Ethiopia and ethnic ideologues
like Tecola pride themselves on their fight for their tribe and at the same time claim
allegiance to Ethiopian nationalism. The ethno-nationalists believe they can overcome
their inferiority complex by insulting and degrading Menilik and Shoan-Amharas.
Inferiority complex is a disease that has no cure. I don’t believe if the ashes from
Menelik’s and Haile Selassie’s remains were mixed with water and used as cure for the
malady affecting the ethno-nationalists, would help them overcome the affliction.
Among the discoveries of Freud is the psychological process of creating enemies - which
requires that for their survival and sanity, people project their own self-hatred outward
onto others. According to Freud, self-hatred is at the root of race or ethnic hatred and
84
85
86
- Teshale Tibebeu , The Making of Modern Ethiopia, 1896- 1974.
- Teshale Tibebu, The Making of Modern Ethiopia
- Solomon Gashaw, Adowa Victory Conference Proceedings, 1996. p. 98
46
projection is the means with which this hatred is externalized and blamed on others. It is
no wonder then in the ethnicist Tigrean regime and its apologists and ideological gurus
like Tecola Hagos try to trash Menilik, his legacies and the people of Shoa and by
extension all Amharas whom they consider as the bete noirs of Ethiopia. By attacking
what they believe is the symbol of “Amhara hegemony”, they hope Amharas would be
forced to give up their cultural identity and succumb to their design.
It was suggested that the “Maha-Sefaris” do not fight and depend on others for their
freedom. If the ethno-nationalist did not have a shaky knowledge of history, he should
have been mindful of how the Mahal-Sefaris at Amba Alagie, under the leadership of
Fitawrari Gebeyehu, dealt a deadly blow to the askaris and their Italian masters at the
battle of Adowa. It was Gebeyehu and Mahal-Sefaris who annihilated Major Toselli and
his Eritrean askaris.
While Makonnen Walda-Mikael, now Ras Makonnen, was negotiating with Italians for
their peaceful evacuation [from Tigrai], Fitawrari Gebeyehu, undeterred by his own
illness, led his men in a literally uphill struggle against the well-entrenched Italians. The
Italians were routed; their commander was among the casualties 87”. After the Ethiopian
victory at Adowa, Tigrayans immortalized Gebeyehu as follows:
The above couplet approximately translates into the following lines:
The Adwa Selassie (church) has been desecrated by the enemy (Italy)
Gebeyehu, please enter the church premise and restore its holiness!!
One of Tecola’s admirers reminded us that Tigrayans shared whatever food they had
available with Menelik’s army during the Adowa campaign. What he forgot to mention
was that over seven thousand Ethiopians paid the ultimate price with their lives in
defending Tigray and equal number were wounded and disabled. Unlike TPLF, Menelik
did not demand compensation from Tigrayans or erected a monument for the dead at a
cost of $2 million. Yet, ethno-nationalists keep reminding us to be grateful for alleged
food provided to Menelik’s army as if food is more important than human life.
The leading anti-Menelik and anti-Shoan Amhara campaigner operates in contradiction.
On the one hand he condemns all Shoans using the code name “Mahal-Sefaris”. On the
other he writes and praises individuals he previously accused as the enemies of the
Ethiopian people. A case in point is an article Tecola wrote and posted on his webpage to
pay tribute to the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Tsehafe Tezaz Aklilu Habtewold. The
posting of eulogizing article about Ato Aklilu Habtewold in his website is self-serving
87
- Bahiru Zewdie, Modern History of Ethiopia, 1991
47
and deceptive for a Tigrean hatemonger who grew up hating Ethiopians of Amhara origin
such as Ato Akililu Habtewold. It is also a dishonor to Ato Akililu to be flattered by a
Tigrean ethnonationalist like Tecola who stood for the ethnicization of Ethiopian politics
(fragmentation) something which the patriotic Aklilu Habtewold fought against
diplomatically during the first experimentation with ethnic politics between 1936-1941)
(the second being the one we have witnessed from 1991 till today under TPLF). Bees
can’t make honey and sting at the same time. Only gullible Ethiopians, particularly those
Amharas who are easily carried away by the rhetorical exclamations of Tigrean
nationalists like Tecola about the current violation of Ethiopian territorial integrity, can
fall victim of their ignorance. As the English say, “not all that glitters is gold”. And let
me say that not all ethnonationalists like Tecola and Co. who currently pander to the
patriotic passions of Ethiopians have the best of intentions about Ethiopia while
simultaneously failing to denounce the very policies of ethnic politics which
Bantustanized Ethiopia and facilitated the bullying of Ethiopia by the diminutive Eritrea
which used to import 2/3 of its food from Ethiopia. The recent invitation of an ethnicist
like Tecola to address an Ethiopian audience which seems to be against the ethnic
fragmentation of Ethiopia is a sad commentary on the level of consciousness of the
Ethiopian Diaspora regarding the checkered track-records of ethnicists like Tecola and
Co88. Equally, the effort of the likes of Amhara-phobic individuals who shower words of
flattery on the late Ethiopian prime Minster Akiliu Habtewold while denouncing the
entire Shoan Amharas as being responsible for the problems Ethiopia has been through
(from the time of Sahle Selassie till today), is self serving at best and deceptive at its
worst.
TPLF and its ethno-nationalist foot soldiers are refractory or impervious to any logic
beyond Meles’ mantra, “the enemy is Shoan Amhara.” Previously the ethno-nationalist
patriarch claimed that the term “Amhara” is a linguistic concept but does not relate to
people living in a geographically defined area. Ludicrous! If that is the case for the
Amhara then the concept “Tigrayan” refers to language but not ethnic identity. The
suggestion that term Amhara is a linguistic concept is another attempt to deconstruct the
Amhara ethnic identity and culture. Ironically the process of uprooting Amharas is partly
supported by misguided Amhara intellectuals. Some Amhara intellectuals have given
moral and material support to ethno-nationalists, i.e., TPLF, EPLF and OLF. They have
yet to wake up and see the reality of their misdeeds.
Besides the obvious reasons stated above, the paramount reason for war on Amharas is to
divert public attention from the rampant nepotism and unjustifiably disproportionate
economic, social and cultural development of their welfare state – Tigray 89. They want
88
- We urge Ethiopians in the diaspora to check the records of individuals like Tecola before inviting them
as guest speakers to address “burning Ethiopian issues of national significance”.
89
- For those who doubt the strong feelings of the ordinary Ethiopian about the unjustified pillage of
Ethiopia’s resources for the benefit of Tigreans, one has to only look back at the reaction of the
spontaneous actions and outburst of anger expressed in the streets of Addis Abeba during the 1998 student
protest. At the time, marginalized sections of the Ethiopian society who have been forced out on the streets
of Addis Abeba targeted Tigrean businesses in their violent attack that lasted several hours. Understandably
and not surprisingly that spontaneous action has sent a shudder down the spine of Tigrean ethnicists who
48
non-Tigrayan Ethiopians to focus their attention on the imaginary enemy – the Amhara
while they rob the rest of Ethiopia blind. The rest of Ethiopia is to be used for their goal
of making Tigray self-sufficient. They use all means of deception and fake history to
justify the looting and carting of public property to their Tigrean welfare state. Hence the
acronym, TPLF has become synonymous with “Tigrayan Peoples Looters Front”.
Tecola and cheerleaders arrogantly and unabashedly say there is nothing wrong if Tigray
shared the national wealth. But sharing the national wealth does not mean using every
conceivable reason to develop one region at the expense of all others. As things stand
now, the ruling clique is using the lion’s share of the country’s internal resources and
external foreign aid for the development of Tigray.
“ETHIOPIA IS BETTER UNDER MELES”
By sugar coating the evil work of their altar ego, Meles Zenawi, as the right path to
democratization of the Ethiopian society, the Ethno-nationalist provide false alibi to the
Ethiopian reality. In a bizarre twist of the truth, the self-righteous ethno-nationalist and
former Woyane high priest tells us that Ethiopia is better under Meles than all of his
predecessors. The facts on the ground tell different stories. A glimpse of the Ethiopian
reality today paints the following pictures:
1. During the last 13 years malaria infestation was resurrected and is killing
thousands of Ethiopians after the Tigrean regime deliberately dismantled the
Ethiopian Malaria Control Service in 1995, laying off more than 90 senior lab
technicians, epidemiologists, medical microbiologists, etc from the head office in
Addis Abeba and hundreds of others all across the country thereby exposing
millions of people in areas south of Tigrai to the scourge of Malaria epidemics 90.
Meanwhile the Malaria Control program in Tigrai has been strengthened with
manpower, logistical support and network of early warning system that has been
put in place down to the village level. Today more people die of malaria
epidemics than at any one time in the annals of Ethiopian history including the
periods under Menelik or Haile Selassie.
2. On the continent of Africa, Ethiopia is the country with the second largest
population (only second to South Africa) in terms of the number of people
affected by HIV/AIDS. For the most part the HIV/AIDS pandemic is the result of
neglect and indifference by the TPLF regime and the destruction of the basic unit
thought all was calm in the “democratic Ethiopia” of “nations, nationalities and peoples” where Tigreans
claimed that they have guaranteed the equality of all Ethiopians. As the spontaneous actions of the street
demonstrators have shown, Tigreans have not convinced Ethiopians of non-Tigrean origin (save Tigreans
and Adares) that they have indeed brought about this equality. If the insensitivity of the Tigrean ethnicists
continues unabated, we are sure that we will witness even more horrendous things that will leave behind
deep scars on our minds. Have the Tecola’s and Co. who continue to spew their venom against the
“alleged” Shoan and Amhara enslavers awoken to the reality of their own making which is engulfing them
like a whirlwind?
90
- Assefa Negash, Ethnic Regionalization & its Ramification On Health: A Study of Malaria Epidemics in
Ethiopia, Ethiopian Register magazine, August 1997, pp 22-28
49
of a society i.e a family by the ethnic politics which has led to the displacement of
millions of Ethiopians internally (demobilization of the Ethiopian national army,
ethnic conflicts fuelled by the TPLF, massive lay-offs motivated by ethnic
cleansing, etc). .
3. In spite of the fact that 11 billion dollars have been injected or poured into the
country in the form of foreign aid and debt relief, hunger still stalks 14 million
citizens.
4. Ethnic violence and genocide have been galvanized by the deliberate policy of the
ethnic balkanization of the Ethiopian society. What transpired in Bedeno, Arba
Gugu, Arsi Neghele, Wellega, Gedeo and only recently in Gambella have bear
witness to the destructive consequences of TPLF’s ethnic politcs. .
5. The ideological apparatus of the state is staffed by Tigreans who control not only
the highest political offices of the country but also control the scaling heights of
the economy. Tigreans have effectively excluded and marginalized other political
and ethnic groups from any commensurate role in the economic, social and
political life of the country.
6. Trafficking of young Ethiopian girls to the Middle East as domestic workers
forced many of them to engage in prostitution and commit suicide because of the
humiliation they suffered in the hands of their Arab hosts. In January 200,
Lebanese authorities returned the bodies of 67 Ethiopian women to Ethiopia. The
women had been trafficked into protstitution and had been sexually abused;
suicide was the registered cause of death for all of them91”. The trafficking of
young women is one form of profit making enterprise of the regime and its
Tigrean supporters. The regime receives hundreds of thousands of dollars for
issuance of visas and passports.
7. According to a survey released on October 12, 2004 by the UN Economic
Commission for Africa, Ethiopia ranked last for the way its government runs
public affairs. Ethiopia fell short on corruption, political representation, economic
management and respect for human rights, says the UN report. The survey added
that in Ethiopia and four African countries there were doubts about the
commitment of government agencies to respect and implement the rule of law.
8. Inside and out side the country innocent Tigrayans are castigated and shunned by
the vast majority of Ethiopians because of TPLF’s misrule and its ethnic policies.
Most often than not, Tigrayans who frequent Ethiopian restaurants are shunned,
ostracized and treated with contempt. Throughout the U.S. a handful of Tigreans
attend the same churches with other Ethiopians. The majorities of them either
attend their own separate churches or stay home due to resentment by other
Ethiopians for their support to TPLF.
91
- International Organization for Migration, “Ethiopian Women Trafficked to the Arab Countries,
“Trafficking in Migrants, No. 20 (December 1999/January 2000)
50
9. Grinding poverty and political oppression is forcing thousands of Ethiopians to
leave their country for life in exile and humiliation in refugee camps.
10. Hatred and discrimination on the basis of one’s ethnic origin are common
practices under TPLF apartheid system. A good example of this is the
discriminatory educational system in the so-called “Killils” or ethnic enclosures
south of Tigrai like the so-called Amhara, Oromo, Southern, Afar and Somali
Killils (or ethnic enclosures a la Bantustan). In order to deny equal educational
opportunity to non-Tigreans (ethnic Amharas, Oromos, Somalis, Afars,
southerners, etc) in favor Tigrayans, the language of instruction (for all subjects
except Tigrigna) from grade four onwards up to the completion of high school is
English in Tigray regional state. Children from areas outside Tigrai region are
given instructions in English beginning only at grade nine and as such forced to
eventually drop out massively out of high school as they, unlike their Tigrean
counterparts, have not picked up the English language (the medium of instruction
in high schools in Ethiopia) early on in life (i.e. beginning at grade 4).
The massive attrition or drop-out rate witnessed among non-Tigreans from the high
school system comes about on account of the fact that non-Tigreans have been
deliberately made to be drilled in their own local vernacular languages during the first 8
years of their schooling to the exclusion of English wich becomes a medicum of
instruction n high schools92. The self-righteous Tigrean ethnonationalists like Tecola
92
- It is instructive at this point to share with readers what Seye Abraham, the now disgraced former TPLF
luminary, who is currently in prison, instructed Tigrean students at a public rally held in the town of
Aksum. Seye said to his Tigreans audience “You should learn Amharic. Your future is not in Tigrai but
elsewhere in the rest of Ethiopia south of Tigrai. As such you need to master the Amharic language
which allows you to move about anywhere in Ethiopia and earn your living”. At the same time, in
central, southern, western and eastern Ethiopia i.e. in all areas outside the predominantly Amhara areas,
parents have been denied the opportunity of sending their children to schools where Amharic language is
taught. This policy would tie non-Tigreans to their respective ethnic enclosures while allowing Tigreans to
thrive and build their lives by moving about freely across the whole length and width of the country. By
making use of the unwritten laws that favor them in the Ethiopia of today, whose resources they
monopolistically control, the mastery of Amharic facilitates Ethiopia’s “golden” people the advantages that
accrue to rulers. After all ethnic entitlement and not democracy was that for which the “golden people”
(Melles’s description of Tigreans) from Tigrai have fought for during their 17 years struggle against the
“Amhara regime of the Dergue” to use Aregawi Berhe’s apt expression . Aregawi Berhe uttered these
words at a public meeting held in the Hague, Holland on July 7, 1991. Aregawi stated at that meeting
saying, “For us the Dergue regime was an Amhara regime as its support base was formed by the
Amhara people”. The late TPLF leader Assefa Mammo, who addressed a public meeting organized by
TPLF supporters in Amsterdam, Holland on October 5, 1991 uttered the following insensitive and ethnicist
remarks. “ There is nothing wrong about the transfer of resources to Tigrai and Eritrea. This is
because whereas the people of Ethiopia south of Tigrai were contributing money to the Dergue
military government for the purchase of bombs, bullets and ammunition which were used to kill and
maim the peoples of Tigrai and Eritrea, the people of these two regions were fighting on their own
the fascist military government of the Dergue”. Assefa Mammo, a notorious ethnicist, who is better
known for not mincing his words when it comes to stating his obnoxious ethnicist views, uttered these
insensitive remarks when he was asked the reasons for the disproportionate transfer of resources to Tigrai
and the transfer of 500 million Birr (in one go) from the Ethiopian Commercial Bank to the Eritrean
government shortly after TPLF’s seizure of power in May 1991. This was the time when the likes of Tecola
51
cannot tell us with absolute certainty that these kinds of naked and blatant discrimination
in public education were the norm under Menelik or Haile Selassie or Dergue regimes
that they dub Amhara. The end result of this practice will have unintended consequences
for the future relationship between Ethiopians favored by the regime (Tigreans) and those
discriminated and marginalized by this same Tigrean regime. If the foregoing facts are
something the ethno-nationalists are proud of today, they live to regret it later when the
collapse of the apartheid system Tigreans have built would definitely crumble into pieces.
And that time is not long in coming or is not far off. Tecola’s statement that Ethiopia is
better off under Meles than Menelik or Haile Selassie is a clear manifestation of his
undivided support for the apartheid system created by TPLF.
Tecola asks if a single high-rise building would have been built if Meles were not in
power. This is another classic example of how ethno-nationalists cannot think outside the
box. Self-interest or ethnic-interest is equated with national interest. In sharp contrast to
his make-believe story of standing for the welfare of ordinary Ethiopians, Tecola reveals
the truth that when he says ordinary Ethiopians he means Tigrayans only.
THE LEGACY OF EMPEROR YOHANNES
While discrediting and viciously attacking emperors Tewodros, Menelik, and Haile
Selassie and by extension the Amharas, the self-acclaimed erudite Mr. Hagos reminded
us that the Tigrayan emperor Yohannes did no harm to Ethiopia adding that Yohannes
was pious and fair in all his public conducts. The Amharic proverb “Le Ras Sikorsu
Ayasnsu” captures Tecola’s insensitivity and lack of objective judgment when it comes to
passing verdict on the merits or demerits of Yohannes who hails from Tigrai. Tecola
topped his bigotry with a tribute to Emperor Yohannes by stating his partisan admiration
when he stated that Yohannes was the most intelligent leader that Ethiopia had seen since
eons.
Let me state at the outset that it is not my intention to write and discredit emperor
Yohannes in the same manner as Tecola or other ethnicist Tigreans like Aregawi and Co.
have done by demonizing and dehumanizing emperors Tewodros, Menelik, Haile
Selassie and lately Negus Sahle-Selassie. I acknowledge the sacrifices and the ultimate
price emperor Yohannees paid with his life in defense of Ethiopia. Nothing said here is
meant to imply that Emperor Yohannes was less patriotic or should be treated harshly.
His was emperor of all Ethiopians even though most Tigrayans attribute value to his
leadership on the basis of his ethnic identity. Ethiopians of his time and the present time
immortalize emperor Yohannes as a leader who fought to preserve the independence and
the territorial integrity of Ethiopia. As he had many good qualities as a leader, emperor
were serving the TPLF government as advisors and ideological luminaries of the regime they now condemn
of being pro-Eritrean. In fact the unscrupulous Tigrean ethnicist Assefa Mammo added, “had the
Eritreans asked for a ransom or compensation for all the human and material destruction wrought
by Ethiopians, then Ethiopia would not have been able to pay for the wanton destruction it has
precipitated in Eritrea”.
52
Yohannes’s legacy like all other emperors of Ethiopia before or after him, was not
without blame and criticism. Therefore, the truth must be told in order to balance
Tecola’s one-sided admiration and excuses for any shortcomings of emperor Yohannes.
We should be mindful of the adage, “It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a
thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before.”
Unlike the present day ethno-nationalists, Ethiopians in general show greatest respect for
their leaders irrespective of the ethnic origin of the leaders. Ordinary Ethiopians
immortalize leaders in their songs. Others swear by their names. Parents name their
children after leaders. The same is not true about Tigrayan ethno-nationalists. Any
leader, who is not of Tigrayan origin must be discredited, vilified, and condemned as the
enemy of the Tigrayan people. The defacing of streets in Addis Ababa named after
Ethiopian leaders and patriotsof Amhara origin is a testimony to hidden motives. The real
motive of renaming the streets is to remove any symbol of Amhara leaders and patriots.
But the destruction of any symbol of Ethiopia must take precedence before everything
else so that anti-Ethiopian agenda of the Tigrayan regime can be enforced.
In fairness to Ethiopians who may be mislead by the false accusations of Tewodros,
Menelik, and Haile Selassie, the personality and excesses of Yohannes’reign must not be
glossed-over, to borrow from Tecola’s language. Since Tecola has no monopoly over the
truth, his hollow rhetoric should not be accepted as fact. The power of brainwashing by
repetition is illustrated in the case of Tecola Hagos’ vicious personal smear. He believes
his savagely cruel insinuation of Menelik as a common criminal and immoral; his
characterization of Tewodros as drunkard, irrational, insane, etc would constitute a clever
counter argument against Yohannes’s collaborationist role and Meles’ treason.
Tigrayan ethnocentric never fail to blame Menelik endlessly for real or imagined
mistakes and his dealings with Italy for the purchase of arms to defend himself and his
kingdom. But their memory betrays them when it comes to Yohannes’ collaboration with
the British in the overthrow of emperor Tewodros. Those errors are buried, forgotten,
ignored and lied about. They want us to forget that part of Yohannes’ duplicity while
they perpetually talk about “Menelik’s alleged “treason”. The motives of Yohannes for
enthusiastically putting himself at the service of British colonialist forces under Napier
were both financial as well as material rewards. Professor Bahru explains: “The British
thus obtained most valuable support from Kassa Mercha of Tigre (the future emperor
Yohannes IV), who ensured that the expeditionary force would be supplied with the
provisions and the means to transport essential for its march, indeed, the expedition
proved to be the first army in Ethiopian history which was prepared to pay for its
food”93.
Tecola provided a lame excuse that Yohannes was young (as if 35 years old man is
considered young) when he betrayed Tewodros. Nonetheless Kassa received his reward
of six howitzers, six mortars and 850 muskets and rifles with ammunition, for the
93
53
assistance he had provided, but his request for two or three British officers on loan for
three months to train his people in the use of the guns was not granted94.
Yohannes’s collaboration with the British was costly to Ethiopia in terms of human lives
lost during the battle and looted treasures. In an article dated Tuesday October 19, 2004
Terry Kirby, Chief Reporter for The Independent News Paper in U.K. wrote the
following story about Ethiopian looted treasures found hidden in a British Museum
basement.
“On a shelf in locked basement room underneath the British Museum, are kept 11
wooden tablets; they are covered in purple velvet. And no one among the museum’s
staff - including Neil MacGregor; the director - is permitted to enter the room. In
1867, a British force was sent to Ethiopia to free hostages taken by Emperor Tewodros;
after the defeat at the Battle of Magdala, he committed suicide. Extensive looting of
the imperial treasures ensued and Richard Holmes, a museum curator sent specifically
to locate items, obtained 80 objects taken by British soldiers; others found their way to
the museum through bequests. As well as the tabots, the haul included ceremonial
crosses, chalices, processional umbrella tops, textiles and jewelry. The Victoria &
Albert Museum holds more than 50 items, including a gold crown, a chalice, a shield, a
silver cross and the dress worn by the emperor’s widow, queen Terunesh. The British
Library holds 350 manuscripts from Magdala. Other artifacts are held in the Royal
Library at Windsor Castle and by the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, many
remain in private hands”95.
The historical record in the British archive reveals the following undisputable facts about
Yohannes’s collaboration.
“Robert Napier, the commander, paid money and weapons to Kassa Mercha, a
Dejazmatch* of Tigray, in order to secure passage inland. On April 9 or 10, 1868, on the
plateau of Argoi below Magdala (or Mek'dela, Magdela, Amba Maryam), British troops
defeated the main imperial force. British and Indian battle losses are estimated at 29
wounded while the Abyssinians are believed to have suffered at least 500 killed and
thousands wounded in the battle of Arogi. Soon afterwards, the British burned Magdala
and left the country. Total Anglo-India losses are estimated in one source to number 400;
total Abyssinian losses are estimated to be 100096” .
“The British and Dajazmach Kassa came to an agreement in which Kassa would let the
British pass through Tigray (the British were going to Magdala which Tewodros had made
his capital) in exchange for money and weapons. Surely enough, when the British
completed their mission and were leaving the country, they rewarded Kassa for his
94
- Holland and Hozier, Expedition, Vol. II, pp.94-6].
95
- Terry Kirby, The Independent – Tuesday October 19, 2004
96
- How to Stop a War; Ethiopia; Robert Napier; Tewodros II; Abyssinia 1868.
54
cooperation with artillery, muskets, rifles, and munitions, all in all worth approximately
£500,000 97”. This formidable gift came in handy when in July 1871 the current emperor,
Emperor Tekle Giyorgis II, attacked Kassa at his capital in Adwa, for Kassa had refused to
be named a ras or pay tribute 98. Although Kassa’s army was outnumbered 12,000 to the
emperor’s 60,000, Kassa’s army was equipped with more modern weapons and better
trained. At battle’s end, forty percent of the emperor’s men had been captured. The
emperor was imprisoned and would die a year later. Six months later, on 21 January 1872,
Kassa became the new emperor under the name Yohannes IV 99 “
Margery Perham, in her book The Government of Ethiopia, gives the following accounts
of Yohannes’s personality :
“Kassa/Yohannis as ‘the monk and soldier’, weak in everything but ‘his
fanatical hatred of Muslims and aversion from Roman Catholics’, representing ‘the
old, aristocratic and religious Ethiopia’, and therefore by definition a reactionary or at
least a conservative 100”.
Members of the British expedition had the following to say about Yohannes.
“The weak-minded Kassa went about with a sort of crown on his head, which was
always coming down over his eyes, and gazed with stupid wonder at the rocket practice
of the Naval Brigade. He is evidently a tool of the more powerful chiefs, whom
accident has pitch forked into supreme power, and who may or may not be allowed to
retain it; but in any case little good can be expected from so poor a creature 101”.
In one of his dispatches to France and England, Muzinger, the vice-consul and acting
consul at Massawa of both France and Britain, expressed a negative impression regarding
Yohannes:
“Kassa was suspicious towards foreigners, unpopular among his own people in spite of
his noble birth, inferior as a ruler to both Minilk and Gobeze. Whatever real power he
held in 1868 had come to him as the result of lucky circumstances. Kassa’s success
over Tekle Giorgis in July 1871 was a victory ‘by sheer accident 102”.
By far the crulest act of Yohannes was against his own brother-in-law Negus TaklaGiorgis. After the death of Emperor Tewodros, Tekle Giorgirs of Lasta succeeded him
97
- Marcus 2002, 71-72)
98
99
- Bahiru Zewde, History of Modern Ethiopia, 2001
100
- Margery Perham, The Government of Ethiopia, P. 52.
101
- Markham, Abyssinia Expedition, p.381
102
- Munzinger’s dispatches, 29 Feb. August 1868
55
and assumed the throne. Yohannes, armed with British weapon and military advisor
challenged Tekle Girogris. At the battle of Asam in 1871 Yohannes defeated Tekla
Girorgis. After defeating and capturing Takla-Girogris of Lasta, the pious chrisitan
emperor. Yohannes gauged his brother-in-laws’s eyes with hot iron and made him blind.
In expressing her sorrow and grief, Yohannes’s sister lamented:
The rough English translation of which is:
The killer is my brother and the victim my husband
My sorrow is deep and within my household.
While bad mouthing Menelik for not chasing Italians out of Eritrea, there is another
episode that Tecola and cheerleaders never read or understood. That episode was
Yohannes’ failure to attack and dislodge Italians after he marched to Se’ati. Prof. Sven
Rubenson writes, “Yohannis first marched to Se’ati and then failed to attack and
dislodge the Italians seriously compromised his leadership position. He lost the
allegiance of Tekle Haymanot who was humiliated by his defeat and blamed the
Emperor for having left him to face an overwhelming enemy alone 103”.
In order to weaken the position of Menelik, Yohannes began to support Adal (later
known as king Teclehaimanot) as a counterweight to Menelik. Yohannes ordered Adal to
go to Shoa and attack Menelik. Adal refused to attack Menelik unless he got help from
Yohannes. When this policy failed and Adal decided to side with Menelik, Yohannes
reacted by marching on Gojjam to punish Adal. Adal escaped and took refuge at Mutera
Amba. “The emperor reacted by devastating Gojjam, the land of his relatively more
favored vassal with a fury which he himself found hard to explain: “I do not know
whether it is through my sin or that of the peasant, but I went on devastating the
country104”.
A grieving Gojjame woman who saw the devastation expressed her sorrow and at the
same time begged Yohannes to have mercy on Gojjam in the following manner:
103
104
- Sven Rubenson, Suvival of Ethiopian Independence
- Bahru Zewde, p.45 and Belatan Geta Hiruy. P 83.
56
The English translation of the above couplets here given hereafter:
In the name of the heavenly Lord your friend
In the name of Saint Michael your guardian angel
In the name of the Ark of Moses the giver of your white bread
Oh have mercy on Gojjam and we shall not call you coward 105
During the rampage by Yohannes’s army, women were raped, crops were destroyed,
cattle and other domestic animals were looted and churches desecrated. The result was
widespread famine in the otherwise self-sufficient Gojjam. A starving woman who
allegedly killed her cat for meat and feared death from the animal’s flesh asked people
who traveled through her village to tell the cause of her death as follows”
Yohannes’s policy of unification had also religious dimension as can be inferred from the
following passages scribbled down by the Ethiopian historian Bahiru Zewde.
“The Muslims of Wallo were told to renounce their faith and embrace Christianity or
face confiscation of their land and property. The reactions were varied. The political
leaders generally acquiesced. Thus, two prominent converts were Muhammad Ali,
baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as Mikael, and Abba Wataw, who
became Hayla-Maryam. Others confirmed outwardly, praying to the Christian God in
the daytime and to the Muslim Allah at night – thereby reinforcing the unique
juxtaposition of Islam and Christianity that we find to this day in Wallo106.”
“The harsher aspects of Boru Meda in any case soon paled into insignificance in
comparison with the intolerance, verging on fanaticism, that Yohannes showed
towards Islam: it emerged that he was aiming not only at unity of doctrine, but also at
unity of faith. There was no room for Islam in his ideological world. The thrust of his
repression was directed against Wallo107.” The harsh treatment of Muslims in Wallo
105
- Abdusasamad H. Ahmed, Northeast Africa Studies, 1991
106
- Bahru Zewdie – Modern History of Ethiopia
107
57
forced some of them to flee to other areas of Ethiopia. Those who fled to Gurageland and
Arsi were instrumental in spreading Islam. After resisting Yohannes’s forced conversion
of Muslims into the Christian faith, an Argobba Muslim leader by the name Sheik Talha
fled to the Sudan with his followers. Later Talha and other Muslims from the districts of
Azebo and Wolkait served as guides and foot soldiers to the Mahdists against Yohannes.
By the way what should we say about the atrocities committed against Ethiopian
Muslims from Wello when they were forced by emperor Yohannes to renounce their
religion and embrace Christianity on the pain of death? Why does Tecola or other
Tigrean nationalists fail to mention the atrocities committed by Yohannes in the name of
national unity whereas they are so vocal in cataloguing the alleged crimes of emperor
Menelik who in fact had a liberal religious policy? Was it not on the order of emperor
Yohannes that Ethiopian Moslems were beheaded? The following couplet encapsulates
the pain of the Welloyes who were forced to convert their religion under duress. During
one of the forced conversions to Christianity at a place called Kerka, a Wallo Muslim
posed the following question to emperor Yohannes by the coining the following couplet
which encapsulate the sense of loss and anguish felt by the Wello Moslims who were
forced to change their religion on the pain of death.
Tanash talak bellan Kerka Adeebabay
Kiristian hoy al leb siga yitafetal wey ?
Translations of the Amharic couplet coined by the people of Wello (who were adherents
of Islam) and were forced to change their religion into Christianity on the order of
emperor Yohannes :
We have eaten the best of the oxen meat at Kerka square
Oh Christians is flesh tasty whereas the heart is missing108?
We are not writing about the facts cited above with a view to demonize Yohannes who,
in his view, was strengthening Ethiopian unity by promoting Ethiopian nationalism based
on the Orthodox Christian faith at that time. Yohannes, unlike those of us who live today
and reflect on his records deeds with a different lens and the benefit of hindsight, could
not have appreciated the pain he was inflicting on Ethiopian Moslems. Equally, we
cannot today endlessly condemn Menelik or Tewodros or their predecessors for things
they have done more than 100 years ago. Unlike those of us who live in a modern era
blessed with the virtues of knowledge, all our past rulers did not have the opportunity of
benefiting from the progressives insight and knowledge we have at our disposal today.
What we those of us in this generation can and should do is to learn from the mistakes of
our past rulers and avoid the repetition of past mistakes so that our generation and
posterity may be spared the scourge of hatred and the ravages of wars. Mutual
108
- Desta Tekle Weld – Addis Ye Amarigna Mezgebe Kalaat, pp 126
58
recriminations would not bring us anywhere nor help us in cultivating a sense of harmony
that we need to forge unity and build a new future for our people who are at the bottom
end of the world in terms of human development.
ARE WOYANNES VISIONARIES?
Tecola Hagos, like all other Tigrean ethnicists, believes it required visionaries like the
Woyannes for brining fundamental changes in Ethiopia. I tend to agree with him on one
aspect. To the extent Woaynnes have resuscitated fascist Italy’s divide and rule policy,
they are visionaries for spreading hate and divisiveness. The problem is that their vision
is not original. It is a borrowed vision from the days of Mussolini and his fascist regime.
Deeply ingrained in the psyche of “the hate Menelik” campaigners, is their love for
Mussolini and their cherished hope that Meles would succeed in crystallizing the ethnic
division of Ethiopian as the only means of guaranteeing the exclusive empowerment of
the Tigrean ethnic group. A mere comparison between the socio-economic development
of Tigrai and other parts of Ethiopia during the last 13 years abundantly corroborates this
fact.
The very essence of democracy is at loggerheads with the so-called “ethnic democracy”
the stock-in-trade of the Tigrean regime that has been promoted by the TPLF during the
last 13 years. Ethnic democracy which promotes group right (ethnic right) over individual
right calls for a system of government whereby ethnic elites assume power on behalf of
the imagined ethnic group they claim to represent. The very idea of the supremacy of
individual right which forms the basis of any genuine democratic system is anathema to
the entrepreneurs of ethnic nationalism such as the TPLF, OLF, ONC, Southern
Coalitition, TAND, etc who clamor for a political system which is based on group right
(self-determination of a particular ethnic group) as opposed to individual right (a system
of government where the individual determines his individual destiny freely and without
being dictated by the whims of ethnic warlords or elites). The so-called “ethnic
democracy” only succeeds in fragmenting a nation and encouraging different ethnic
groups in a country to make exclusivist claims to a territory housing various ethnic
groups and which otherwise belongs to all Ethiopians. The recent ethnic cleansing that
took place in the Gambella area is one such consequence of the “ethnic democracy and
ethnic federalism” which TPLF has been promoting in Ethiopia during the last 13 years.
What transpired in Hararghe (Bedeno), Arsi (Arba Gugu), Sidamo (Guji versus Gedeo),
Ogaden (Somai versus Oromos), Shewa (Afars versus Oromos), etc, Gojjam (Gumuz
versus Amharas), etc eloquently corroborates the destructive and divisive aspect of ethnic
politics. Which ethnic group benefited from the mayhem, destruction and instability by
the divisive policy TPLF has promoted in the name of ethnic democracy and which
ethnic groups became victims of this destructive ethnicization policy is a question which
all of us have to pose and find answer for. The majority of Ethiopians, who have to bear
the brunt of the pain caused by TPLF’s ethnic policy, can give an answer to this question.
While seemingly a new method to resolve the so called “nationalities question”, its origin
has deeper roots in the colonial policies of Italy. To call the proponents of this backward
divide and rule politics visionaries is nothing but closing one’s eyes to the tragic realities
59
which have been unfolding in Ethiopia before our own eyes. TPLF’s vision in
resuscitating Mussolini’s fascist policy implies that there is a great confusion in our
country. It is not ethnic and divisive politics that will solve the contradictions but
popular-democratic struggles. What Ethiopians inside and outside the country demand for
now is the general elections of 2005 must be free, fair and democratic. The election law
that favors TPLF must make room for political parties with new ideas. Ethnic politics is
dead on arrival.
“An Eternal Seeker of Truth” and The Hidden Truth
In order to deceive critical observers, Tecola implies that his essays are intended to seek
the truth, but there is one important truth that Tecola is hiding from the public. At the
beginning of his verbal assault on Amharas and Menelik, Tecola received and published
letters to the editor on his website. Most of the letters he received were from people who
shared his hatred of the Amhara and congratulated him for standing up against the
enemies of Tigrayans (read Amharas). One of the letters reads:
“You are a kin person we (Tigrean) are lacking at this moment, telling them like it is.
We are being pushed aside by this Neftegnas who will never see a good thing of us, no
matter how we bend backwards. They have spread their poison since 100 years ago
which is haunting us to this day.”
The above paragraph is taken from a letter of support sent to Tecola for his effort that
went into dehumanizing and pillorying Amharas and Menelik as the cancers in the body
politics of Ethiopia. The writer signed his name as “Yoseph Giday.”
While letters of gratitude are kept on Tecola’s website where readers have easy access to
see the support he receives from his admirers (ethnicists), letters which are very critical
of his anti-Amhara campaign are posted in a section of Tecola’s webpage where a casual
observer cannot see them. Mindful of the damage the critical letters can do to his image,
Tecola keeps the critical letters in section dubbed as “Book Review” hidden from public
view. For the record here is one of critical letters NOT found in “Letter to The Editor”
section of the website.
Dear Dr. Tecola,
“I initially wanted to post this brief message on Ethioforum (where an excerpt of
your book review was posted), but I finally abandon the idea and decided to send
the message to you. I am not a Shoa Amhara, not even an Amhara by ethnicity.
Nor do I support Meles or EPLF. I have opposed all the three regimes that have
ruled (misruled) Ethiopia during my lifetime. Obviously, I should belong to the
group of Ethiopians who you consider genuine compatriots. However, I was
honestly dismayed by both the content and tenor of your book review. I had had
high regard for you for quite some time because I consider you a courageous
Ethiopian, and your love for your country is inspiring. You also are a very smart
man with a sharp intellect. Your potential to contribute to your bleeding country’s
60
salvation is enormous. There are very few Ethiopians who have been blessed with
the good fortune to amass so much knowledge or to nurture passion and
commitment to causes larger than themselves.
But I am beginning to harbor serious doubt whether Ethiopia will ever be fortunate
enough to see the potential of yours translated into reality. I used to regret that a
person like you had wasted so much of his life with a petty obsession with ethnicity.
I was hopping that after you left Meles’ government, you would gradually escape
your ethnicist entrapment. However it seems to me that both your mental frame
and structure of feeling is seriously damaged by parochial ethnicist outlooks. Your
ability to perceive social processes in any meaningful depth and to formulate visions
that are grounded in humanistic values is seriously constrained by the primary
frame of reference from which you seem to draw your ethics and politics, namely
ethnicity. You often sound like a sect leader who must make all events of the
universe fit into narrow religious scheme of interpretation and judgment.
Just read your book review again – it is morbid. The single organizing notion of
your narrative of Ethiopian evens going all the way to Menelik is an anti-Amhara
and pro-Tigrean bias. You even go to the extent of claiming that the reason why
people in DC were hostile to Ambassador Berhane was because they didn’t want to
see a Tigrean in a position of power/honor (as if you don’t know who one of
Ethiopia’s powerful Foreign Minister was long before TPLF came to power!). And
you really want us to hold Shoan Amharas (that is how you label the people whom
TPLF brought together to fake Amhara ethnic representation) responsible for
Meles’ victory over the Dissenters today? The only people who end up being the
bright lights of your narrative are Tigreans at home and abroad (save Meles
Zenawi), Negasso Gidada, and of course you. Really, you live in a very small
cognitive and emotional universe.
I think this is sick. It diminishes you as a person, let alone as a public intellectual
and political leader who aspires to elevate a people. I hope you realize some day
that purging yourself of the dehumanizing and deforming grips of ethnicism would
be a truly liberating experience to you both as an Ethiopian and as a thinker. Only
when we cease to overvalue ethnicity and develop social perspectives that go beyond
ethnicity can we, as intellectuals and civic leaders, help take our Ethiopian
compatriots to the heights of their humanity – a place where their goodness can be
nurtured, and whether their human weaknesses can be mitigated or at least less
exploited by fanatic tyrants and rank political crooks. Forgive me for the harsh
words – I simply was disgusted by the ethnicist excesses of your book review. I
honestly hope that you will escape the entrapment that has victimized so many, you
simply are too good for that.”
Signed:
Best, Afework.
61
The letter is a crucial for two reasons. First, the writer knows Tecola’s past obsession
with ethnicity, and second it validates my argument that what Tecolas disguises as
“Mahal-Sefari” is a cover up for his hatred of Shoan Amhara. If there is any doubt in
people’s mind, Afework’s letter clearly demonstrates Tecola’s reason for dwelling on
Ethiopian leaders he identifies with Amharas is NOT to seek the truth but to manifest his
deeply held views that Amharas are impediment to Tigrayan progress and should be dealt
with. I am obliged to ask: if Shoan Amharas are such monsters how is it possible for
Tigregna speakers living in Shoa to prosper and attain a high standard of living than
Shoans?
Dishes Out But Cannot Take It Back
When cornered with his insensitive and ethnocentric argument Tecola resorts to vulgarity
and uses street language to deflect his critics. He has no problem hurling insult against his
critics but not equipped to take back when reciprocated. He believes he is a person
deserving respect and adulation for his dubious academic credential while he does not
reciprocate respect to our leaders and his critics. Respect is earned by the manner one
displays in his private and public life but not demanded while insulting others. He insults
the humanity of Menelik as “no ordinary criminal, the wrong symbol, common
treasonous, divisive, immoral, and corrupt leader who remains to this day the very cause
of our present economic and political problems. In the same vein the high priest of
morality contradicts himself and writes, “Hate is an emotional degenerating handicap; I
have no such deformity.” When I read Tecola’s contradictions I am reminded of what
Malcom X once said. Malcom X who saw some of the American society as irredeemably
racist, reminded the hatemongers, “You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches
and then pull it out six inches and say you’re making a progress.” Tecola cannot lecture
others about hate when in fact almost everything he writes is full of hate and a stab to the
chest with a dagger.
In a private email to an Ethiopian colleague Tecola wrote slander and complained about
Professor Getatchew Haile and myself. I sent email message to Professor Getatchew and
asked him the reasons for Tecola’s outburst and disrespectful behavior. Here is Professor
Getatchew’s response:
“Dear Girma,
You have asked me what occurred between me and Professor Tecola Hagos to provoke
him to insult me as he has.
I am not sure; but let me begin at the beginning. It was I who first initiated contact with
Mr. Tecola (I was not aware at that time that he had the academic title of professor),
because I had read about his book "Democracy in Ethiopia?" and was curious to speak to
him, just as I am curious to speak to all writers who write about Ethiopia. We had several
long telephone conversations, and in all of those exchanges I found Professor Tecola
engaging and polite. Nothing he ever said would lead me to think him capable of using
62
the vulgar street language attributed to him. Indeed, are you sure the words are his?
Anything is possible with the Internet.
In fact, the only thing that I ever found unusual in our exchanges was a strange letter he
once wrote me. In that letter, he all of a sudden asked me to stop writing on the political
situation in Ethiopia. I could not figure out who he thought I was hurting. In any event,
he changed his mind when I asked him why I should not write about my country when
others, including him, continue to do so.
Our exchanges were warm and productive enough that Professor Tecola proposed that I
meet him and others in Washington, D.C. to discuss some important matters. I could not
make the trip from Minneapolis to Washington on the date he proposed, but rather than
turn down the invitation I informed him that I would be in Washington at another time on
other business and proposed that we meet then. As his other colleagues could not make
my date, Professor Tecola and I agreed that he and I would meet so that he could brief me
on his discussions with the others. I made arrangements to come to Washington one day
earlier than I needed to for my other business and informed Professor Tecola of the date
and time of my arrival and the name of the hotel where I would be staying. We agreed
that we should call each other as soon as I arrived.
The gentleman never showed up, nor called. I called him several times, only to meet an
answering machine on which I left at least two messages. When everything was silent, I
remembered Emperor Haile Sellassie’s words, "Silence is also a form of response—
"zimmitamm mels new."
After all this rude and un-Ethiopian behavior, I received from Professor Tecola, several
months later, an e-mail inviting me to write for his website, without any reference to,
much less apology for, what occurred in Washington. As you know, there are many,
many websites. I am honored when I am invited to contribute to these venues, but I
cannot possibly respond to every invitation I receive. Moreover, in this particular case I
was not persuaded that a new website was necessary as opposed to enhancing an existing
site such as the Deqi Alula website (to which, incidentally, Professor Tecola had also
invited me to contribute).
So did I respond to Professor Tecola’s invitation? To use His Excellency’s adage again,
"Silence is also a form of response—"zimmitam mels new". As is my right, that was the
response I chose.
Selam
Getatchew Haile “
As any keen observer can see from Professor Getatchew’s response that the main reason
why Tecola approached the Professor was to convince him to stop writing about TPLF
(Tecola’s darling organization) and expose its divisive and destructive politics. Tecola,
no doubt, felt that the Professor’s argument against TPLF had inflicted a deep wound in
63
his psyche and wanted him to stop writing about TPLF. By all accounts of his public
pronouncements, Tecola is “Their Man Amongst Us” posturing as a great patriot while
espousing TPLF and its ethnic agenda.
“The Final Solution” to the Amhara problem as suggested by Tecola Hagos
As I was finishing this article I watched a TV documentary about the extermination of
Jews in Auschwitz and other Nazi camps. One of the S.S. guards was asked if the killing
that took place in the camp was justified. His response was, “Based on the propaganda
we read, we all believed all Jews were criminals.” The propaganda against the Jews was
Hitler’s assertion that there were International conspiracy by the Jews against Germany
and that the defeat of Germany in the First World War was due to Jews. In Rwanda the
Tutsi were considered as snakes and cockroaches to be exterminated.
A careful examination of EPLF, TPLF, OLF campaigns, mayhem and the writings of
ethnonationalist such as Tecola and others are clear reminders of the prelude to the
extermination of Jews in Germany and Tutsis in Rwanda. There is a similar tone in
Tecola’s discourses. Just like the Jews were assumed conspirators against the German
people, there is a belief that Amharas, especially Shoan-Amharas, are conspiring against
the Tigrian regime. Tecola’s writings are clear examples of Shewan-Amhara conspiracy
theory. One cannot help but draw a parallel between Nazi propaganda against Jews and
the anti-Amhara campaign by ethnonationalists. What should be done to solve the
problem – i.e. Amhara? Tecola gives a hint on how to solve that problem. His
prescription reads:
economic advancement. They have set us back from being united, productive, and
socially responsible citizens for at least a century since the time of Menilik II. They
are the cancerous growth in our polis. We must entertain the possibility of moving
ahead with our destiny without the mehal safaris. We can excise them from power,
or bottle them up in their own area of kingdom and see to it that they do not any
more use us to promote their hold on economic and political power in Ethiopia. Our
decision must take into account how we can achieve the greatest good109”.
Tecola Hagos, “PARADIGM OF POVERTY AND HUMANISM: UNDOING
ETHIOPIA’S MODERNITY”, July 24, 2003 Washington DC USA.
As readers can judge from the foregoing, Nazi and Hutu extremists could not have used a
better propaganda tool than this to eliminate what they considered their enemies. Some
- Tecola Hagos, “PARADIGM OF POVERTY AND HUMANISM:
UNDOING ETHIOPIA’S MODERNITY”, July 24, 2003 Washington DC USA.
109
64
people may dismiss Tecola’s ideas as mere rhetoric and nuisance that should be ignored.
I submit that the writer is expressing a deeply held belief in his heart that Amharas are the
enemies of Tigrayans and should be dealt with while TPLF is in power, an opportune
moment to implement “The Final Solution.” This is a sadistic prophecy that Amhara
Ethiopians should not ignore. It is also a clear reminder of the Armenian experience in
the hands of the Turks.
Armenian political parties had struggled long for a new social order based on equality
between the various ethnic groups as well as for political and economic justice. That
vision contradicted the ideology of Turkish elite just like the vision of Ethiopian
opposition contradicts the domination and exclusive ethnic ideology of Tigryan elite.
The solution to the social problem faced by the Turks was the indiscriminate massacre of
millions of Armenians. Armenians became victims of a preconceived plan of
annihilation. The annihilation involved several predetermined and consecutive steps.
Armenians were disarmed, emasculated as a people. They were collectively demonized
and their humanity, cultural symbols, leaders deconstructed. Having done that the
Turkish soldiers drove them by whips and bayonets into the mountains where they finally
murdered them en mass. Similar steps were taken in Ethiopia, especially in the so-called
“Oromia Kilill” where Amharic speakers were rounded up and massacred in cold blood.
Harsh measures were taken in Northern Shewa and Gondar, Gojjam as TPLF considers
these places as hot-beds of opposition to his regime. All Ethiopians must face this truth.
From reading what Tecola writes about our leaders, the institutions they built, one can
easily conclude that he is regurgitating what TPLF and its satellite ethnic political parties
have been preaching about Amharas. It is also quite obvious he is consumed by fear of
the alleged “Amhara enemy” that lurks in the corner. Tecola really suffers from suffers
from “hate the other” syndrome. He believes that non-Tigrayans are threats to the TPLF
regime that he ethnically identifies with. The need to use Amharas as scapegoat is
therefore to rally other ethnic groups to support TPLF’s mission of divide and conquer.
Just as Hitler tried to fill the hearts of the anxiety-ridden Germans with a sense of
superiority by painting the Jewish people as “vermin” and “pestilence”, Tecola and his
TPLF followers try to rally Tigregna speakers and non-Amharas behind them with an aim
to render “The Final Solution” to the Amhara conveniently packaged as “Mehal Sefaris”.
He believes Tigrayans were kept in the dark due to “Amhara hegemony” hence, now is
the time to take matters in their own hands to make sure that the Mehal Sefaris or
Amharas would never come back to the Ethiopian political scene. If one has any doubt as
to the anti-Amhara thrust of even those former TPLF leaders like Gebru Asrat and Co.
who claim that they have reconstructed themselves and joined the mainstream Ethiopian
politics, the following paragraph from the political program which they recently made
public clearly corroborates their Anti-Amhara fixation and hatred. I quote the paragraph
for the benefit of those who have not read their political program that has been made
public at the end of December 2004.
Paragraph 3.3.4 of the political program which has been distributed by former TPLF
leaders who claim that they are opposed to the incumbent government defines its goals as
follows:
65
“To fight against the efforts of the old and the new chauvinist forces who try to snatch
away the victories and rights of nations and nationalities that have been won after
great sacrifices 110”.
As the reader may infer from the above paragraph, chauvinist forces refers to Amharas
and pan-Ethiopian political groups such as AEPU, EDUP and the Rainbow Coalition
which has recently made its debut on the Ethiopian political scene. Chauvinist is a code
name for anything related to Amharas and it has been the practice of ethnonationalists to
label as chauvinist all those groups who emphasize the supremacy of individual rights
over group or ethnic rights.
There is an awesome amount of theme on which we Ethiopians can debate about our
country’s past, present and future. We all are our parents children and have with us all
the individual and collective societal baggage that attends it. The tendency of
ethnonationalists to ascribe the collective societal and structural problems of Ethiopia to
one ethnic group is not only unfair and unjust but also polarizing and divisive. History is
replete with individuals and governments that annihilated an entire group of people to
legitimize their rule and to stay in power. No one argues that our leaders’ internal
policies were fair and perfect to various ethnic and interest groups. However, to paint
Shoans in particular and Amharas in general as criminals has no factual basis than ethnic
hatred. Self- hatred is at the root of race or ethnic hatred. What is disturbing most is
when the sources of hate and inciting message are people who pride themselves as
educated and liberated from village mentality. In order to hide their intended targets and
hatred, they package their hate messages as “intellectual inquiry” and “seeker of truth”
but in reality they falsify what is truth in a way nobody recognizes it. For all practical
matters the predicament that Ethiopia finds itself today is because of Meles and TPLF but
not the glorious history of Menelik and Amharas who are used as scapegoat by bigots and
hate mongers.
110
- A draft political programme submitted for discussion to the Ethiopian democratic forces, December
2004.
66
It is not unusual for Tigrean and Eritreans to blame Menelik for the colonization of
Eritrea by Italians. Surprisingly among those who criticized Menelik and condemned him
for allowing Eritrea to fall into the hands of Italian colonialists are Tigregna speakers
such as Blatta Gebre Egziabeher. This was an Ethiopian from the Eritrean highlands who
loyally served as official of the colonial Italian government in Eritrea and was only
disillusioned by Italian colonial rule at a later date (after he tasted the bitterness of
colonialism) and subsequently tried to blame Menelik for Eritrea’s fate as a colony of
Italy. Although Blatta Gebre Egziabeher’s Ethiopian nationalist fervor was unmistakable
as could be judged from his letter to Menelik, it was too late to be of any good in saving
Eritrea from the scourge of colonialism. The colonialisation of Eritirea was partly selfinflicted given the predisposition of its local elites in collaborating with Ethiopia’s sworn
enemies of that period such as the Turks, Egyptians, Italians and the British. One thing
that Tigrean and Eritrean ethnonationalists have failed to do is to be introspective and
learn to accept responsibility for their own role in what had come to pass as the
colonization of Eritrea.
Externalization of one’s failures and blaming every failure on others are things that
psychologically belong to the realm of a child’s experiential world that is replete with
existential threats as opposed to the world of a mature individual. A mature person can
resort to introspection to look in wards and recognize his own mistakes and assume the
corresponding responsibility deriving thereof. A child on the other hand misses the
faculty of introspection and locates all the causes of his problems outside himself. A child
needs external actors whom he can blame for his own failures. In this respect
ethnonationalists are like the immature child who lacks the faculty of introspection that
enables one to engage him/herself in a soul-searching self-reflection by way of
understanding his/her own contribution to his/her problems. Introspection allows one to
look into oneself and understand one’s own problems and responsibilities deriving from
such introspection. Unfortunately Eritrean and Tigrean ethnonationalists have not learned
to act as responsible adults in admitting the mistakes committed by their ancestors in the
process that led to the colonization of Eritrea that they falsely ascribe to Menelik. To
illustrate such a faulty thought process of an ethnonationalist, we quote the following
account of Aregawi Berhe – the current European bureau chief of the Ethiopian
Democratic Coalition) who has scribbled down the following nauseating and baseless
statement about Menelik he and his Tigrean lot loathe so much.
We reproduce Aregawi’s baseless accusation hereafter:
“Menelik’s idea to divide and weaken the north was accomplished by giving half of
Tigrai proper to be colonized by Italy. The defeat of the Italians at Adua gave
Menelik immense power over his potential rivals, particularly the Tigraian nobility
under Mengesha Yohannes and Alula Aba Nega. Menelik had the opportunity to
divide and weaken Tigrai. His army was let loose to devastate as much as the
colonial army did. The people remember this period as Zebene Shoa which means
the era under Shoa 22”.
22
- Aregawi Berhe, Origins and Development of the National Movement in Tigrai, 1993
14
Such a statement can only be a figment of a hateful ethnonationaist who oozes a
sentiment of hatred against Menelik and all Ethiopian rulers that hail from the Amhara
ethnic group. Such allegations of Tigrean ethnonationalists and myth spinners like
Aregawi fail to take into account the collaborationist role highland Tigrigna speakers
have played in the process that turned Mereb Mellash into the Eritrean colony as we
knew it later.
Tecola, the other Tigrean ethnicist has the following to say:
“Contrary to what some modern historians and politicians have attempted to tell us,
Menelik II was not a nation builder but an opportunistic predatory empire builder.
With his insatiable appetite for political intrigue and his desire to subjugate and
oppress weak communities and people, Menilik did more harm against the building
of Ethiopia into a modern “nation” than any Ethiopian emperor before or after
him”23.
Let us see what Ras Alula the ruler of Mereb Mellash (present day Eritrea) who was a
contemporary of Menelik was doing in what is now Eritrea in January 1882. We quote
from Haggai Erlich’s book, which contains the following account about the predatory
campaigns of Ras Alula in what is now called Eritrea.
“Around 15 February, Alula pillaged for two days in the Ad-Tamaryam and Bedjuk
countries and returned to Addi Taklay with 7000 to 8000 sheep and goats, almost as
many cattle, and some 15000 Thalers (Maria Theresa dollars) “24.
Not surprisingly such predatory campaigns of Tigreans escape the notice of Tigrean
ethnonationalists like Tecola for whom only Amharas happen to be the sole repositories
of vice and evil in the whole of Ethiopia. While calling Menelik a predator, Tecola shies
away from applying this word to describe what Alula did to the lowlanders of Mereb
Melash.
Tecola describes Menelik’s mischief in the following way:
“Menilik’s scheme was brilliant but immoral, by stalling and not bringing troops to
the aid of the warring emperor Yohannes, Menilik was hoping Yohannes would be
either killed in battle or irrecoverably weakened. Either way, Meneilik was
deceitfully positioning himself and his co-conspirators from Gojjam to a political
and military strategy which would allow them, at an appropriate time, the chance to
pounce upon the war weary army of emperor Yohannes and ultimately control
23
24
- Haggai Erlich, Ras Alula and the Scramble for Africa, a Political Biography: Ethiopia & Eritrea,
1875-1897
15
Ethiopia. After the death of Yohannes IV and a number of Tigrean generals and
warlords at Metema, Menilik was able to manipulate and exploit the weakened
Tigrean warlords and the leaderless army, and succeeded in snatching the crown
from the heirs of emperor Yohannes25”.
I think the above statement requires no further commentary as it is ethnically bent
perspective on history is so evident.
Does Tecola Oppose TPLF’s Ethnicist Policy or is he just a Disgruntled Ethnicist?
Tecola writes the following in his book: “People like Kassu Illala, Dawit Yohannes
and a few others are consummate opportunists whose contribution to the struggle is
too sparse to warrant the kinds of responsibility and privilege heaped on them,
bypassing deserving veterans (read Tigreans like Tecola Hagos) of the struggle26”.
If you remember colonel Goshu Wolde’s letter 27 of resignation when he took leave of the
Dergue government, his problem with the Dergue was not so much related to his
opposition to Dergue’s destructive policies as his frustration by Mengistu’s more trusted
cronies such as captain Legesse Asfaw. Drawing a parallel between Goshu’s
disenchantment with Mengistu’s regime and Tecola’s frustration with the TPLF becomes
irresistible. This is borne by the fact that Tecola’s resentment of TPLF emanates from the
fact that non-Tigrean such as Kassu Ilala and Dawit Yohannes (Tecola’s relative), whom
Tecola castigates as opportunists of the 11th hour, have come to assume political positions
which they do not deserve. For Tecola TPLF’s hard won victory is something which was
won with the sweat and blood of Tigreans and accordingly should not be abused by nonTigreans like Dawit and Kassu who joined TPLF at the 11th hour. Tecola has nowhere
questioned the very ethnicist policies of the TPLF regime that have:
1 – Bantustanized Ethiopia on ethnic lines in a manner which the noted Ethiopian human
rights activist professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam28 has dubbed worse than the Italian fascist
policy of divide et empera (divide and rule policy) that was promoted between 1935-1941
2 – benefited and economically and socially empowered Tigreans 29 at the expense of
95% of the non-Tigrean population of Ethiopia by transferring resources from areas south
of Tigrai into Tigrai.
25
26
27
- Goshu Wolde’s resignation letter, Ethiopia Profile, Vol. VI, No. 2, London, 1987
28
- Mesfin Wolde Mariam, Ye Kihidet Kulkulet (written in Amharic and published in 2004
29
- Assefa Negash, Pillage of Ethiopia, 1996
16
3 - unleashed inter-ethnic animosities and conflicts that have claimed tens of thousands of
lives in southern Ethiopia (Guji-Deressa, Afar-Oromo, Oromo-Amhara, Oromo-Somali,
the Gambella conflict, etc).
4 – led to ethnic cleansings that have taken place in the name of structural readjustment
program by dismissing more than 120,000 non-Tigreans who have been working in
various government-owned farms, factories (most of which have been bought by TPLF
owned business organizations like TDA, the Tigrean Endowment Fund, etc).
5 – Tecola has not questioned the illegality of TPLF’s territorial redefinition of Ethiopia
which has resulted in the forceful annexation of a third of the fertile lands of Gondar and
parts of Wello to Tigrai and its subsequent effort to populate these annexed lands with
Tigrean settlers from Tigrai in what amounts to a forced demographic change with far
reaching effects for the future coexistence of the Amhara and Tigrean people.
Until and unless Tigrean ethnonationalists like Tecola, Aregawi, Gebru Asrat, Seye
Abraha and all of their followers who currently cry foul about TPLF on such mediums
like Tigrai net, Deki Alula, etc admit that that the ethnicist policies of TPLF have
fragmented Ethiopia and unjustifiably benefited minority Tigreans (5%) at the expense of
non-Tigreans (95% of the Ethiopian population) and oppose the ethnic politics which
launched Ethiopia on the current process of fragmentation and mutual hostility, the very
future coexistence of Tigreans and non-Tigreans in a country called Ethiopia becomes
doubtful. However judging by the content of the draft program publicized in December
2004 by the anti-Meles faction representing former TPLF leaders such as Gebru Asrat,
there is no sign of any shift from ethnic politics in spite of the rhetorical claim by Gebru
Asrat (and other Tigrean ethnicists) that Ethiopia should have a sea outlet through the
Red sea. Such posturing would fool no one. Isn’t it true that the sweat and blood of
Tigryans were spilled to liberate Eritrea by fighting a proxy war on the side of EPLF and
against Ethiopia? Does Tecola think Ethiopians will ever forget and forgive the treachery
of TPLF and its supporters in undermining Ethiopia in their proxy war on behalf of
Eritreans? Fighting a dictatorial regime like Mengistu to replace it by a deomocratic
political and legal order that empowers all Ethiopians is one thing, but fighting to destroy
the very foundations of the Ethiopian identity by fragmenting Ethiopia into mutually
exclusive ethnic enclosures in the name of ethnic democracy is an act of treasonable
proportion which no self respecting nation and people can live with for long.
Tecola’s double standards & disingenuous attempt to rubbish AAPO & Professor
Asrat Woldeyes
In his effort to cast aspersion on Professor Asrat whom he could not accuse as being of
feudal background, the Tigrean ethnicist Tecola has the following to say:
17
“He (Professor Asrat) is accused of acquiescence or at worst, collaboration for not
disclosing or questioning the mysterious death of the emperor in 1975 at the hands
of the military junta 30 ”.
Had Tecola whose knowledge of things like all ethnonationalist is based on hearsay and
fabrication read Professor John H. Spencer’s book, he could have taken note of the
following truth. The following words by professor John H. Spencer attest to professor
Asrat’s courageous and unflinching stand when it comes to telling the truth even when
faced by a brutal military regime like that of the Dergue. Professor John H. Spencer’s
account on the brave conduct of professor Asrat reads as follows:
“The circumstances of his death are a mystery as is the disposition of his final
remains, effected without an autopsy. The Derge announced that Haile Selassie had
been found dead in bed and that it had immediately summoned the former
Emperor’s physician, Dr. Asrat Woldeyes. With considerable courage, the doctor
publicly denied any such summons. He had been at home all day and no such call
had ever reached him 31”
Speaking about the AAPO, the Tigrean ethnonationalist Tecola Hagos was preaching the
following sermon to the APPO leaders:
“The problem with the All Amhara People’s Organization (AAPO) is not its lack of
support but rather the narrowness and limited ambition of its program. The
organization can pose a challenge and possibly win it if expands its program to a
national program, and drops the term Amhara from its name 32”.
It is rather ironic to hear such lectures from a Tigrean ethnicist like Tecola who served as
TPLF’s senior advisor while his cherished ethnicist organization TPLF was demonizing
Amharas and exhorting non-Amharas to rise up against Amharas. The continuous
demonization process to which Amharas have been subjected during and after the July 1,
1991 conference, prepared the ground for the mayhem and massacre that was later
perpetrated by the OLF and OPDO forces, which were armed by the TPLF regime. These
destructive fascistic forces were given carte blanche by TPLF to uproot Amharas,
desecrate their churches, massacre monks and priests as had happened in Arba Gugu33,
Assebot monastery 34, etc. Has Tecola any regrets about what the government led by his
30
31
- Ethiopia at Bay”: A Personal Account of Haile Selassie Years, 1987
32
33
- For a detailed account of this account, I refer readers to SHINE’s document entitled “ The Hidden
Massacre of Amharas and Christians in Arba Gugu, Arsi – December 1991.
18
beloved organization the TPLF did to these people? Does he realize what these atrocities
would mean for the future co-existence of followers of TPLF and the Amhara people who
were allowed to be massacred by fascistic forces encouraged and armed by the TPLF?
Time will tell this.
One only needs to refer to the incessant media barrage against Amharas that culminated
in the mayhem of thousands of Amharas and displacement of tens of thousands others in
areas like Bedeno, Wellega, Arsi Neghele, etc. Tecola Hagos, who was admonishing
Professor Asrat to drop the name Amhara from AAPO, has always been proud of what
his ethnic comrade-in-arms of TPLF have done in organizing themselves as liberators of
the Tigrean people. But Professor Asrat’s AAPO which has never accepted group right
and fragmentation of the country on ethnic lines nor agreed to the territorial redefinition
of Ethiopian map on ethnic or linguistic lines, was being lectured by Tecola on the virtues
of broadening the ethnic constituency of AAPO. Tecola should be reminded that he may
act as a pious person but cannot preach a sermon with his pen while harboring evil
against others.
One cannot help but be surprised by Tecola’s assertion that his grandfather and cousins
were killed by Italian fascists while resisting Italian invaders (1936-1941). Ethiopian
patriots fought against fragmentation and ethnicization policy which fascist Italy tried to
impose on Ethiopia in order to facilitate its colonial rule. How does Tecola reconcile the
patriotic role of his relatives with his own role as a fanatic former senior TPLF cadre of
an ethnocentric Tigrean regime which, since May 1991, has embarked on a process of
Bantustanization or fragmentation of Ethiopia a la Mussolini by breaking up Ethiopia into
ethnic enclosures and fanning ethnic hatred 35 as can be gleaned from what transpired in
areas south of Ethiopia (Gambella, Amhara/Oromo, Guji/Derassa, Somali/Oromo,
Afar/Oromo, etc? Was that not exactly what Mussolini did in his effort to impose Pax
Italiana by fanning ethnic and religious hatred to ensconce itself in power? Is the Pax
Tigrigna (the policy of fragmenting Ethiopia on ethnic lines), which TPLF imposed in
May 1991 and was legalized by the July 1, 1991 Charter and of which Tecola was an
enthusiastic supporter while he was working as a senior foreign ministry advisor in
TPLF’s government any different from Pax Italiana? As one of the top TPLF cadres in
TPLF’s government, Tecola presided over an ethnicist government which fanned ethnic
cleansing in areas like Bedeno, Arba Gugu, Wellega, Limmu, Arsi Negehle, etc. Does he
or all other disgruntled former TPLF cadres like Tecola, Gebru Asrat, Seye, etc take
responsibility for what transpired in these places?
Actually what Tecola is resenting most, like many other disgruntled former TPLF cadres
who currently oppose Meles but not any of TPLF’s ethnicist and pro-Tigrean policies in
34
- Not surprisingly, the Tigrean patriarch who heads the Ethiopian Orthodox church has not said anything
when churches were desecrated and priests and monks were slain.
35
- For a historical parallel between TPLF’s ethnic politics and fascist Italy’s policy in Ethiopia between
1935-1941, I refer the reader to Alberto Sbacchi’s book entitled : Ethiopia Under Mussolini – Fascism and
the Colonial Experience, 1985
19
Ethiopia, is the fact that non-Tigrean “individuals like Dawit Yohannes are allegedly
using “the blood and sweat of young Tigrean freedom fighters, to fulfill their political
ambitions36.
The Anti-Amhara Campaign – TPLF vs. Fascist Mussolini of Italy
Oromo’s oppression under Amhara domination became the central theme of Italian
propaganda and of de-Amharanization campaign. In Oromo-Sidama a number of Amhara
place names were replaced by Oromos and Italian names37. Drawing a historical parallel
between the policies of the TPLF and Italian fascist policies is irresistible as can be
gleaned from TPLF’s effort to efface anything connected with Amharic names. One has
to just mention how the names of patriots like Haile Mariam Mamo38- a fiery patriotic
figure who lost his life fighting Italian fascists in central Ethiopia (Shoa). The name of
Haile Mariam Mamo39 was deliberately obliterated after the name of the hospital bearing
his name was changed in Nazareth on the order of the incumbent Tigrean government.
How many of us know how the Tigrean regime and the Somali ethnonationalists it
encouraged demolished the monument of the great Ethiopian patriot Dejazmatch
Afework Wolde Seymayat, hero of Korahe in the Ogaden? Dejjazmatch Afework’s
monument in Jijiga town was demolished by Somali ethnonationalist with the tacit
encouragement of the incumbent Tigrean regime. Should one forget for a second the
attempt by TPLF and the OLF thugs who tried to demolish Menelik’s monument in
Addis Abeba in 1992? Fortunately they could not realize that for fear of a great backlash
that such an effort would have caused.
36
- Tecola Hagos, “Democratization? Ethiopia 1991-1994, a personal view, 1995”
37
- Alberto Sbacchi, Ethiopia Under Mussolini – Fascism and the Colonial Experience, 1985
38
- Haile Mariam Mammo was a selfless patriot from northern Shoa about whom the following song was
sung by Ethiopians:
39
- For a well documented account of Halie Mariam Mamo’s patriotic exploits in central Ethiopia (Shoa), I
refer readers to Anthony Mockler’s book entitled: Haile Selassies’s War, first published in 1984
20
“To facilitate the conquest of Ethiopia the Italians were concerned to foment
internal discord and warfare and counted especially on the revolt of the nonAmhara populations such as the Oromo and the Muslims 40”.
Compare this with the incessant inflammatory campaigns, which have been waged
against the Amhara people by TPLF in order to drum up anti-Amhara hysteria among the
non-Amhara population of Ethiopia. TPLF’s monopolistically controlled media within
Ethiopia and the media its supporters have been controlling outside Ethiopia such as the
now defunct “Ethiopia Commentator”, “Ethiopian Times” and currently the various
electronic mediums owned by TPLF supporters (including those who now support the
discredited TPLF leaders) media continue to misrepresent the Amharas in a manner
which is reminiscent of fascist Italy’s anti-Amhara campaign between 1935-1941.
Mussolini’s fascist general Graziani said the following about the Amharas in 1937:
“Although they (Amharas) might seem submissive, they in reality lay in ambush
ready to act at a favorable moment”.
Similar warnings were given about the Amhara by the now discredited former TPLF
strong man Seye Abraham who in 1992 was warning his fanatic Tigraean followers to be
vigilant about the allegedly grave danger Professor Asrat Woldeyes was posing to
Tigreans. Seye did not stop at just warning about the danger being posed by Professor
Asrat to the apartheid system TPLF has established with the sole aim of promoting the
exclusive interest of Tigreans at the expense of non-Tigreans. He and his beloved
organization TPLF threw professor Asrat in prison on the basis of concocted charges.
Professor Asrat was a courageous man who was not given to hemming and hawing. He
was finally made to suffer and die in prison on the orders of Tigrean hate-mongers such
as Seye (Tecola’s hero) in a manner, which is reminiscent of the death of professor
Asrat’s patriotic father by Italian fascists and their Tigrean and Eritrean askaris.
Although the main thrust of TPLF’s ethnicist policy is directed against the Amharas,
other non-Tigrean ethnic groups (save for Tigreans and Adares) have not been spared the
scourge of TPLF’s divisive and ethnic cleansing policy as can be gleaned from the deaths
of tens of thousands of people in consequence of the ethnic conflicts that were fanned by
the Tigrean government in areas south of Tigrai.
The Pillage of Gojjam by the Rapacious Army of Emperor Yohannes ( August 1888
to February 1889)
Let us give you an example of the devastation wrought by emperor Yohannes’s army,
which deliberately ravaged and laid waste to Gojjam in the 1880’s as a revenge for the
alleged conspiracy (against emperor Yohannes) of king Teklehaimanot of Gojjam
(whom Tecola dubs co-conspirator) with king Menelik of Shoa. In what follows we quote
folk songs, which were composed 117 years ago to give expression to this deliberate
40
- Alberto Sbacchi, Fascism and the Colonial Experience, 1985
21
destruction, which has escaped the attention of hateful Tigrean ethnonationalists like
Tecola Hagos, Aregawi Berhe and others. These hatemongering ethnonationalists, who
were brought up by their parents being fed on the dire diet of anti-Amhara anecdotes,
have closed their eyes to what their own ancestors have done to the Amharas they dub
perpetrators of national oppression.
English version of the above couplets read as follows:
The oxen are taken and slaughtered by the soldier
The cow is taken and slaughtered by the soldier
The grain is looted and eaten by the hungry
The clothes are looted and worn by the rugged (the unclad)
Just a word is left now your majesty !!!!
Plunder our stomach so that we can sleep in peace!!!! 41
Precisely a year after emperor Yohannes’s army had ravaged Gojjam, most people had
nothing to give their children, not even a piece of bread (qurash injera). The intensity of
the famine is expressed by the following tragic poem which shows “parents” inability to
provide food for their children”. Here follows the Amharic couplet and the English
translation which the people of Gojjam coined to express their anguish at the invading
Tigrean army of emperor Yohannes.
“July and August have passed by my gate
Just like my enemy, so unlike my friend
And I have nothing to offer my child
Though he begged me for food42”
Emperor Yohannes’s soldiers ate up almost everything they lay their hand on. The
following couplet, which has been coined by the people of Goojjam express, the pain felt
by them during that critical period in their history.
41
1889
42
1889
22
We mourned the death of our cattle
We mourned the plunder of our crops
Yet we still have another mourning
To worry about our children and the emptiness of our dough pots 43.
In spite of the above atrocities they have endured, the people of Gojjam have neither
considered Yohannes an alien enemy nor have they said that the descendents of
Yohannes should be held responsible for his misdeeds.Unlike the ancestors of Tigrean
ethnonationalists, the people of Gojjame have not cultivated anti-Tigrean feelings by
feeding their children on the dire diet of hatred (for Amharas). The Amharas, unlike the
Tigrean ancestors of the likes of Tecola, Meles, Aregawi and all those Tigrean ethnicists
who subscribe to TPLF’s ideology of hate have not instructed their children about the
alleged “historical wounds” they sustained under emperor Yohannes. The people of
Gojjam have not taught their children to hate Tigreans for the mistakes Yohannes has
committed more than 100 years ago. Amharas have not taught their children to remember
the atrocities which were perpetrated by tens of thousands of Eritrean, and Tigrean
mercenaries who chose to ally themselves with Mussoloni’s fascist army. Mussolini’s
fascist forces particularly targeted Amharas during their 5-year long occupation of
Ethiopia between 1935-1941during. At this time at least 730,00044 Ethiopians lost their
lives as a result of Italian bombings and massacres. Many of the present day
ethnonationalists would have been embarrassed if one was to get into the business of
calculating what percentage of these 730000 (seven hundred thirty thousands) Ethiopians
belonged to the Amhara ethnic group (which bore a disproportionate burden in terms of
the Italian fascist assault directed against patriots and civilians) which is today pilloried
by Tigrean, Oromo, Eritrean, Somali, Southern ethnonationalists for all the ills of
Ethiopia.
43
1889
44
- Sylvia Pankhurst, Italy’s War Crimes in Ethiopia, Evidence for the War Crimes Commission
23
Tigrean Ethnonationalists and Historical Revisionism
The TPLF which began its anti-Amhara struggle by revising the history of Ethiopia and
misrepresenting its mortal enemies the Amharas has this to say in its political program
which was adopted at its second congress in 1983. This program was adopted by the time
Aregawi Berhe, who currently masquerades as an opposition leader (European bureau
chief of the United Ethiopian Democratic Coalition), was one of the top bosses of the
organization.
“Heavy taxation was levied on the people and hundreds of thousands of Menelik’s
army deliberately sent without food provisions plundered the villages of Tigray.
Within a short period the economic and social conditions of Tigrai deteriorated
sharply45”.
Aregawi, Tecola and all those Tigreans who subscribe to TPLF’s ethnicist historical
reading and interpretation accuse Menelik for having sold out Eritrea in order to weaken
Tigreans living in Tigrai and those across the Mereb Mellash (Eritrea since 1890). At he
same time they all accuse Menelik for sending “hundreds of thousands of his army to
Tigrai without any food provisions in order to plunder the villages of Tigray”. Is this not
a contradiction in terms? Even if one was to accept the allegations of Tigreans
ethnonationalists about the evil machinations of emperor Menelik against the people of
Tigrai, did this army of Menelik which was recruited and mobilized from almost all
nooks and corners of Ethiopia spare other regions of Ethiopia through which it had
traveled on its long journey from southern Ethiopia, Shoa to northern Ethiopia (Wello,
Gojjam, Gondar)? Or should we assume that Menelik’s army was transported by air from
Shoa and dropped on Tigrai so that it could pillage the villages of Tigrai? What would
45
- TPLF’s political program adopted at the second congress: 1983
24
Tigrean ethnonationalists say about this? Far from being deliberately pillaged by
Menelik’s army, by the time of the Adwa campaign, Tigrai and all of north Ethiopia had
not even smarted from the great famine of 1888-1892 which had devastated northern
Ethiopia following the cattle disease which was introduced into Ethiopia by the Italians.
As such there was nothing to be pillaged in Tigrai. In fact it was thanks to the strategic
thinking and military genius of emperor Menelik who put in place granaries and food
supplies all along the route leading to north Ethiopia including Tigrai that the food needs
of Menelik’s army could be met and the victory at Adwa became a reality.
Months ahead of the war, Menelik had moved food supplies from the newly incorporated
southern Ethiopian provinces to the north in order to support the massive force that was
to defend northern Ethiopia. The expansion of Menelik’s territory in the south, south west
and south east for which the TPLF and those gathered at the July 1, 1991 conference had
demonized Menelik and the Amhara people, was the single most important factor in
guaranteeing the success of Ethiopia’s victory over Italian colonialist assault. Without the
human and logistical support of the newly incorporated southern provinces which
“provided the resources to establish granaries in many provinces, including Tigre”, the
Adwa victory would have been unthinkable46. Writing on this very subject, Richard
Pankhurst has the following to say about Menelik’s effort in securing the necessary war
provisions ahead of time.
“These reserves were to prove of great value to Menelik’s forces during the
subsequent fighting with the Italians in 1895 and 1896, and thus played their part in
overcoming the legacy of famine47”.
This is a fact, which is lost on Tigrean ethnonationalists of all hues and cries. In fact it
was the material (food provisions) resource from the newly incorporated southern
territories (for which Menelik is pilloried by Tigrean nationalists) which helped
Menelik’s army in carrying out the Herculean task of defending the independence of
Ethiopia by defeating the Italians at Adwa. Had Menelik not been able to expand his
territory by incorporating southern, western and eastern Ethiopia at that time, the victory
of Adwa would have been unthinkable. This is because at that time the resource base of
northern Ethiopia, which had been weakened by the great famine of 1888-1892, was not
such as to sustain the huge Ethiopian fighting forces for months. That is why we call the
great patriotic exploits of Ethiopian patriots at Adwa the victory of people from all nooks
and corners of Ethiopia, whose sweat and blood had gone into making that glorious
victory over European colonialism a shining chapter in the annals of Ethiopia’s long
history. The shrill noise Tigrean ethnonationalist hate-mongers are making about the
heavy price Tigreans paid by supporting the hundreds of thousands of Menelik’s army,
46
47
25
which were allegedly sent without food provisions sounds hollow in the face of such
stark historical truths.
The following is what Harold Marcus wrote in summing up Menelik’s effort in forging
the unity and the independence of Ethiopia:
:
“As king of Shoa, Menelik had exploited the south and south west to purchase
weapons; as emperor he used its wealth to bolster the north’s sagging economy. This
done he turned his attention to the dignified survival of the empire’s independence
48
”.
What is contradictory, if paracoxal, about the Tigrean ethnonationalists is the fact that
while they cry foul about Menelik’s alleged refusal to liberate Eritrea, they
simultaneously accuse this same Menelik for having sent hundreds of thousands of his
troops into Tigrai to pillage the people of Tigrai. For any sane person it is not difficult to
conclude the added burden Menelik’s army could have meant to the population of Tigrai
had Menelik decided to stay there longer than he did in his effort to drive the Italians
from Eritrea. It is not difficult to imagine what Tigrean nationalists may have to say if
Menelik’s army had stayed even longer than it did. The moral of all this is the following.
Tigrean ethnonationalists grew up being fed upon the dire diet of hatred for anything
Amharas have done. They feel very inferior to the Amharas with regard to the role some
of their ancestors have played in Ethiopian history and during the Italian colonization of
Eritrea. Their inability to see Menelik as a fellow Ethiopian has prevented them in
appreciating what Ethiopians have collectively achieved in Adwa as a source of
collective national pride. It is this sense of feeling inferior vis a vis the Amhara which
forced TPLF leaders and their Tigrean intellectuals to shamelessly claim in 1996 that the
Adwa victory 49 was an exclusive Tigrean victory. This has only made Tigrean
ethnonationalists a laughing stock.
Amharas, unlike Tigrean ethnonationalists, have never been brought up believing that
Alula or Yohannes were their enemies. Amharas have always learned to take pride in
what all great Ethiopian leaders have done as Ethiopians irrespective of the particular
ethnic group or region they came from. One can easily glean this from the various
patriotic songs and poems Amharas have composed in memory of Ethiopian giants by
way of immortalizing these Ethiopian heroes irrespective of their ethnic origins. The
following poem50, which was written in 1935 by the famous Ethiopian artist Agegnheu
Engida, attests to this fact.
48
49
- One such Tigrean ethnicist is Kinfe Abraham (a Tigrean who grew up in Godnar city) and had the
effrontery to claim the Adwa victory as a being an exclusive Tigrean victory during his speech presented at
the Adwa centenary in 1996. Here we see how Tigrean nationalists not only claim the lion’s share of
Ethiopia’s wealth today, but also try to appropriate for themselves all the glorious aspect of Ethiopian
history (such as the Adwa victory) that is a product of a collective sacrifice of all Ethiopians.
50
- Quoted from the monumental book Zikre Neger written by Bilaten Geta Mahteme Selassie Wolde
Meskel, 1970
26
Here follows the English translation of the Amharic couplet coined in honor of Ras
Alula, one of Ethiopia’s best military strategists from Tigrai.
How are you Alula the door of Tedali
The one who kills five thousand (enemy force) in a day
The problem of Tigrean ethnonationalists is their failure to reconcile themselves with a
pan Ethiopian identity they can rightly belong to like any one Ethiopian. For them pan
Ethiopian identity represents the Amharas they very much resent and hate. It makes them
feel they have no part in it. The Amharas have never claimed for themselves alone the
struggle waged to liberate Ethiopia from the clutches of Italian fascists during Ethiopia’s
occupation (1936-1941) although they paid disproportionate price in the fascist Italian
onslaught that particularly targeted the Amharas during the 1936-1941 periods 51. In fact
the government of emperor Haile Selassie, who has been dubbed Amhara by Tigrean and
other ethnonationalist, was generous enough not to execute the greatest Ethiopian traitor
Dejazmatch Haile Selassie Gugsa of Tigrai who was kept in house arrest in southwestern
Ethiopia whereas the defiantly patriotic and fiery luminaries such as Belatta Takele
Wolde Hawaryat and Dejazmatch Belai Zeleke (both Amharas) were sentenced to death.
Does this not say something about the ethnic-blind nature of Haile Selassie’s regime
where loyalty to the personal authority of the emperor counted more than anything else
contrary to the allegation of Tigrean ethnonationalists who hold the view that Haile
Selassie’s regime served the Amharas?
,
51
- According to Alberto Sbacchi, “During the Duke of Aosta’s administration, poison gas bombs were
employed mostly in the Amhara and Shoa governorates, by General Ugo Cavallero, chie of the Armed
Forces in the Italian East Africa who supported Graziani’s actions to wipe out the patriots”. For a detailed
account of such atrocities, the reader is advised to refer to Sbachhi’s book entitled “Legacy of Bitterness,
Ethiopia and Fascist Italy, 1935-1941
27
THE JUSTIFICATION FOR NOT EJECTING ITALIANS FROM ERITREA
Time and again foreign observers and Ethiopian historians, who wrote eyewitness
accounts of the situation that led Emperor Menelik and his military leaders to settle for
peace over continuation of the war, gave convincing reasons. Notwithstanding all such
eye account witnesses, some elements within the Tigryan and Eritrean elites have
continued to perpetuate the myth that Menelik sold Eritrea to Italians. True, the decision
to cede part of Ethiopian territory remains a scar on Ethiopian history. However, there
were plausible reasons and factors that compelled Menelik to agree to the border
demarcation, which was a culmination of the process of loss of control over Eritrea that
has begun to unfold during the reign of Yohannes. From Menelik’s point of view, it was a
strategy of protecting larger parts of Ethiopia by giving up some. “It was necessary to
amputate the part for safety of the larger body 52.”
For the record, almost all historians and observers agree on the combination of the
following accounts for Menelik’s decision not to go all the way into Eritrea following his
victory at Adwa:
52
- Solomon Gashaw, Adowa Victory Centenary Conference Proceedings.
28
1
- Before and after the conclusion of the Adowa campaign, the problems of
supplying provisions to a large army became acute to the extent of dictating the
movement of soldiers. The decision not to march to Hamasein was influenced
more by the problem of provision than by the preference for a favorable terrain
for combat.
2
- Four days later after the Italian defeat, the remnant of Italian soldiers were
regrouping inside Eritrea. The Italian government committed four million lire and
General Balderisa and his 15,000 soldiers were unloading at Massaawa. It was
widely believed that the local population would have supported the 15,000 fresh
troops and 5,000 Italians inside Eritrea against Menelik’s army.
3
- The Ethiopian voluntary army was on the road for eight months. The army was
exhausted, hungry, and suffering from all sorts of ailments. Its ability to fight on
under the circumstances was questionable.
4
- The large Ethiopian armies of that time used to rely on the rural folk and that
lean northern country, whose resource base was depleted by the 1888-1892 Great
Ethiopian Famine, was not able to support such a huge army. Towards the end of
the month, Menelik was forced to send a third of his army away to provision for
themselves elsewhere.
5
- Cholera epidemic swept the country and killed many people and there was wide
spread famine.
6
- Had Menelik decided for an all out war, Britain and other European nations
could not have remained indifferent to Italy’s humiliation. In order to safeguard
its colonial interest in the Sudan and strategic design, Britain had signed a treaty
with Italy to which it was committed. This could have given Britain a pretext to
assist Italian forces in resisting and defeating Menelik’s army in side Eritrea
thereby guaranteeing the colonalization of Ethiopia by the British and Italy.
7
- Encroachment by the British, the French and Egyptians in the East and South
East and security risk they posed on whole country was another factor, which had
to be considered by Menelik.
8
- Menelik was aware of the strategic and logistic problems emperor Yohannes and
Ras Alulua faced. In spite of their victory and concentration of troops, Yohannes
and Alula could not dislodge the Egyptian forces, and then the Italians which they
defeated at Dogali, and which they threatened at Sahati. The same reason that
prevented Yohannes and Alula to dislodge Italy from Eritrea was taken into
consideration. That reason was an assessment of Ethiopia’s ability to fight on and
preserve its independence while surrounded by imperialist forces.
29
“It is erroneous, thus, to judge the past with the influence of the present day
military strategic thinking and concept53.”
In the views of Paul Henze:
“Emperor Menelik’s defeat of the Italian invaders at Adwa gave him an opportunity
to regain Eritrea. He chose instead to compromise – let Italy retain its colony in
return for a peaceful stance toward Ethiopia, securing a stable northern frontier
while he concentrated on rounding out Ethiopia’s borders in the South. Menelik
thus confirmed Eritrea’s “loss” to Ethiopia. Some Tigrayans have never forgiven
him. The if’s of history are incalculable, but Menelik’s decision was not casual or
irrational. He was a pragmatist. If he had devoted his energies to expanding
Ethiopia’s ill-defined frontiers in the north, he might never have been able to
stabilize the south and consolidate control over the empire. Ethiopia might then
have fallen victim to European colonialism from all sides 54”.
“The large Ethiopian armies living on the country, and that lean northern country,
were in almost desperate case. Towards the end of the month Menelik was forced to
send a third of his army away to provision for themselves elsewhere55”.
The British military historian Berkley said the following about the war:
“If Barateieri had waited another week, perhaps even another day, Menelik’s army
might have been broken up and Ethiopia might have fallen piecemeal before Italian
penetration 56”.
Professor Bahru Zewde echoed similar sentiments: “Yet, in the immediate aftermath, the
Gundet and Gura victories were to remain hollow. Yohannes persisted in policy of
restraint. He followed up his victory not with a march to Massawa, but with letters to
Victoria and Ismail once again suing for peace. He renounced the military option either
because his army was in no condition to continue the fighting, or because he feared
further military action would antagonize the European governments. Thus began
Yohannes’s diplomatic efforts to crown his victory with a peace treaty – something that
was to elude him for almost a decade57”. Yet, Tecola Hagos and the other hypocrites
expected Menelik to perform a miracle with the limitations he encountered. A hypocrite
53
- Solomon Gashaw, Adwa Victory Centenary Conference Proceedings, 1996, p. 138]
54
- - Paul Henze, Eritrea’s War, p.215
55
- - Margery Perham, The Government of Ethiopia. P.57.
56
- Berkeley, G.H., The Campaign of Adowa and the Rise of Menelik, 1902
57
- Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia
30
at least appreciates goodness enough to imitate it. Tecola sees no goodness in anything
Sahle-Selassie, Tewodros, Menelik, Haile-Selassie and Amharas did because he
considers them the enemies of Tigrayans. If Tecola was presiding in a court of laws to
render justice, Emperor Yohannes would be forgiven for seeking diplomatic solution but
Menelik-the Amhara king should be tried as “common criminal” for using the same
method.
Professor Rubenson writes the following:
“In a conversation with one of the survivors at Adowa 25 years ago, I asked what
they had done after the battle, if they had celebrated, and his reply was: “We had
no food ”. My own assessment is that “the great famine” was a contributing factor
if not one of the main reasons why the Italians succeeded in establishing their colony
of Eritrea58”. Therefore, Menelik’s predicament cannot be objectively appreciated by a
Tigrean ethnonationalist sitting in an Ivory Tower and consuming American hamburgers.
It is not easy for an idea to squeeze itself into a head that is filled with prejudice and
hatred.
58
31
As the foregoing accounts show, none other than Tigrayan ethno-nationalists
characterized Menelik as a “common criminal” for not pursuing the remaining Italians
beyond Tigray proper. Even the racist British military historians Berkeley and Augusts
Wylde, who called the gallant Ethiopian heroes of Adowa “barbarians hordes and half
savages”, had better things to write about Menelik than the Tigrayan ethnonationalists.
At the very least Berkeley, sympathetic to the Italian cause, was an eyewitness to the
battle, and documented the event. He was also in a better position to be a good character
witness than the ethno-nationalists who rely on hearsay and word of mouth accounts of
Adowa which for the most part have been contaminated with prejudice and ethnic hatred.
Unlike the homegrown hatemonger ethno-nationalists, the racist Berkely was more
gracious in complimenting Menelik’s leadership and his achievements at the battlefield:
“From the broader standpoint of politics and history, it seems possible that is [the
Battle of Adowa] heralds the rise of a new power in Africa – we are reminded that the
natives of that continent may yet become a military factor worthy of our closest
attention. The suggestion has ever been made – absurd as it appears at present – that
this is the first revolt of the Dark Continent against domineering Europe ”59.
In the words of Bahru Zewede:
“Thus, eight months after the war, Menelik had been able to achieve more than
Yohannes had been able to do in eight years after the Battles of Gundat and Gura.
Moreover, viewed in the African context, the Ethiopians had won recognition of their
independence by force of arms. They had stemmed the tide of colonialism. The future
of Ethiopia became different from that of the rest of Africa. This had its impact not
only on the political economy of the country, but also on the psychology of its people
”60.
What Bahru Zewde is alluding to are the successes of Menelik both on the war and
diplomatic fronts. Margery Perham corroborated this when she wrote:
“Ethiopia, instead of being surrounded as she always had been by the wilderness of
Islam, or of savagery, suddenly found European governments on all sides of her. She
had Italian Eritrea on the North, Italian, British, and French Somaliland took firm
shape on the east with British East Africa on the south, the Ugandan protectorate to
the Southwest. The result of Adowa was that Menelik’s new neighbors and other
European powers were obliged to take him very seriously 61”.
59
- Berkely, The Battle of Adowa
60
- Bahru Zewede, A Modern History of Ethiopia.
61
- Margery Perham, The Government of Ethiopia. P.59
32
When viewed from the factual historical record of Emperor Menilik, what appears to be
criticism of Menelik is actually an attack on his ethnicity and the ethnicity of his alleged
political base. As stated before the purpose of this article therefore is not to revise and
regurgitate what has been debated and documented or provide defense for the hate
messages against Menelik. The glorious legacy of Menilik does not lack defenders.
Moreover, when compared with many Ethiopian and foreign-born historians and
scholars, Menelik’s critics are insignificant and inconsequential both in the arguments
they marshal and their understanding of Ethiopian history. Since the reading and
understanding of Ethiopian history by ethno-nationalists are distorted and out of place,
one need not dignify ethnic ideologues by providing rebuttal to their utter ignorance.
Nonetheless, the real motives behind the distortion and fabricated lies they spread have to
be addressed. Furthermore, narrow ethnic ideologues that preach the virtues of ethnic
division and dismemberment of Ethiopia have neither credibility nor moral authority to
accuse Menilik as “common criminal.” People who preach the virtues of differences and
fragmentation instead of unity and social harmony do not have moral authority to accuse
leaders who united Ethiopians for a common cause.
In a twisted and misplaced logic of Amhara-phobic ideologue, Meles, the traitor and the
number one enemy of the Ethiopian people (save for his Tigrean supporters), is
considered a “world figure” whereas Menelik is referred to “common criminal”.
Ethnic loyalty is one thing. Trying to cover up the criminal acts of a known traitor like
Meles (out of blind ethnic loyalty), while trying to discredit a giant historical figure like
Menelik with the help of lies is disgusting, to say the least. The aim of this paper is,
therefore, to speak about the mind-set of hate mongers and Amhara bashers than provide
rebuttal to their distortion of Menelik’s record. When arguments are premised on lies and
fabrication, there is no foundation for debate. “Lies, no matter how often repeated, cannot
obliterate the truth.”
In contrast to what they say about Menelik, the ethno-nationalist support for ethnic
ideology and bigotry is pungent and nauseating. Unfortunately, the empty lives of
ethnonationalists need to be supported with fabricated lies and false sense of superiority,
which cannot be achieved through their accomplishments. Hence, their tendencies to seek
resort to verbal assault of all those vis a vis whom they feel so inferior and diminutive.
The only reason for their preoccupation with Menelik is to find an outlet for their
repressed ethnic hatred born of a deeply entrenched inferiority complex, which I will
come to later. The claim that Menelik betrayed Yohannes and sold a part of Ethiopia is
even more misleading than some of the outlandish assertions of ethno-nationalists that no
country with the name Ethiopia was known in the world before Yohannes.
According to Hezbawi Democratic Program, adopted at its second Congress in May
1983, TPLF and the ethno-nationalists stated:
“The Dogali victory, unlike the distortions of the Amhara historians, is not the victory
of all Ethiopian peoples. It is the victory of peoples of Tigray and Eritrea .At the time,
Yohannes subdued and collected taxes and tributes from Gondar, Gojjam, Shoa and
Wello. But no country with the name Ethiopia was known in the world map and
33
history. Even the Shoan King Menelik was collaborating with Italy, which was making
preparations to invade Eritrea and Tigray. In an attempt to weaken Tigray he was
secretly dealing with the Italians. Italy was then giving Menelik money and arms”62 .
From the foregoing, it becomes clear that contrary to the baseless assertion of ethnonationalists, Menelik did not sell Eritrea, which was then part of Ethiopia. If Tigray and
Eritrea were not part of a country known as Ethiopia, how could Menelik sell what was
not part of Ethiopia? This contradiction is another proof of the grand delusion that the
ethno-nationalists suffer from. “Although Menelik appeared highly accommodating in
their [Italian] interests, the Italians found to their dismay that Negusa Nagast Menelik
scarcely differed from Negusa Negast Yohannes on the vital question of Ethiopian
independence63.
Contrary to TPLF’s assertions that Yohannes’ victory over Italians and Egyptians was not
the victory of all Ethiopian people, a French traveler and business man by the name
Pierre Arnoux, who was in Shewa, at the time of Egyptian defeat at Gundet, said,
“Shewan army had celebrated Yohanni’s victory over the Egyptians for three days. It
was at this point that he (Menelik) sent his congratulations to be accompanied by a
cavalry force for the continuation of the war 64”.
What do these Tigrean ethnicists say about the collaboration of Yohannes with the British
force that violated the territorial integrity of Ethiopia and marched up to Mekdela in its
attempt to capture the defiant Ethiopian emperor Tewodros who chose to keep the dignity
of his country by committing suicide than surrendering to a colonialist force? A visit to
the British museum in London corroborates the extent of the cultural pillage that
collaboration of Yohannes has resulted in when he chose to ally himself with British
colonialist forces. The unruly British soldiers65, whom Yohannes enthusiastically helped
in penetrating deep into the Ethiopian territory, had no qualms whatsoever when they
even violated the dead corpse of the brave emperor Tewodros as can be gleaned from the
following historical record that was penned down by Henry M. Stanley who was at
Makdela:
“I strolled to where the dead body of the late Master of Magdala lay on his canvas
stretcher. I found a mob of officers (British) and men rudely jostling each other in the
endeavour to get possession of a small piece of Theodore’s bloodstained shirt. No
62
- Hezbawi Democratic Program, adopted at its second Congress in May 1983, TPLF
and the ethno-nationalists stated:
63
- Modern History of Ethiopia, Bahru Zewde,
64
- Sven Rubenson, The Survival of Ethiopian Independence, P. 336
65
- The unruly British colonialist force which was aided and guided by Yohannes not only destroyed
Mekedela, but raped Ethiopian women such that the wife of emperor Tewodros, queen Tirunesh had from a
secluded position witnessing the rude behavior of the so-called civilized European army which turned
proud Ethiopian women into sexual objects. For detail see Fekade Habte’s article in the Tobia monthly
magazine Vol. 7, No. 12 (pp. 17-22) entitled the “Baytewaru Mesfin – a story about Alemayehu
Tewodros”.
34
guard was placed over the body until it was naked. Extended on its hammock, it lay
subjected to the taunts and the jests of the brutal-minded66”.
We assume that the followers of Yohannes were also around and rubbing their hands in
glee when all this was happening. Do the Tigrean admirers of emperor Yohannes like
Tecola Hagos who are quick to castigate emperor Tewodros as brutal tyrant understand
the pain suffered by those Ethiopians like Dejazmatch Alemayehu Tewodros (a small
child who was estimated to be 9 years of age when he lost his father and mother in a
matter of 5 weeks) who was forcibly taken away by the British and finally died in Britain
at the age of 19 as a deeply depressed and unhappy orphan on alien British soil of the
Victorian age? Alemayheu Tewodros was always unhappy and depressed after having
been thrust into an alien society at that prime age. He had no one family member who
could care for him and had been tossed like a ball between multiple care takers with
whom he could not form any abiding emotional bond which any child needs. Do the
Tigrean ethnonationalists know about some of the Ethiopians who were ostensibly taken
to Britain to accompany Alemayehu Tewodros (son of emperor Tewodros) and were later
transferred to what was then the British colony of New Zealand67 and have not returned
to Ethiopia ever since? What would Tigrean nationalists of today have said if Yohannes’s
role of collaboration in accompanying and guiding a colonial British army into the heart
of Ethiopia was played by an Amhara collaborator? How would Tigreans have reacted
towards an aspiring Amhara who would have gone to the extent of collaborating with
British colonial forces to the extent of precipitating the death of an emperor from Tigrai
and the forceful displacement of his beloved child to Europe and the subsequent death of
this child as a depressed orphan?
In passing, I wish to briefly touch upon a couple of points. Dr. Tseggai Mebrahatu wrote
and posted a critical analysis of Menelik’s reasons for not pushing the Italians out of
Eritrea and the consequences to the rest of Ethiopia had emperor Menelik chose to
massacre the remaining Italian forces inside Eritrea. He also wrote why Menelik chose
diplomacy in order to buy time. He provided a different perspective from the
hallucinatory accounts of Menilik’s detractors. Dr. Tseggai was viciously attacked and
insulted for his remarks and for thinking “outside the ethnic box.” In stead of debating
the crucial points at hand, Tecola, who has no qualms in railing and ranting against any
one who opposes his ethnicist views, tried to belittle the former as “a boy wanting to
grow up fast”.This attitude reflects dismally on Tecola’s poor intellectual acumen in
arguing a case. And the ability to argue one’s case is something that all ethnonationslaists
woefully lack.
A keen observer of the current political system commented as follows:
66
- Henry M. Stanley, Coomassie and Magdala, 1874
67
- In 1987 a group of Ethiopians who went to New Zealand on a scholarship were invited by and
subsequently met with New Zealanders who claim to be descendents of a certain Ethiopian Dejazmatch
who was taken to Britain during the Napier expedition to allegedly accompany the Dejazmatch Alemayehu
Tewodros who was brought to Britain by the British expeditionary force.
35
“TPLF and supporters appear to have lost their sense of humility and resorted into a
simplistic propaganda mills. While they are forefront on ethnic politics, however,
when it comes to others they apply different rules, and castigate others as narrow and
separatists elements. “TPLFites,” said the observer, “try to outsmart others but fail to
understand the simple logic: once you advocate and practice ethnic politics, then there
is no way you can prevent others to do so. In other words, it becomes a right not a
privilege”68.
TIGRAYAN ENNOCENTRISM AND THE AMHARA FACTOR:
Ethnocentrism is the bonding of people around their imagined ethnic group. When people
bond around their nation and ethnic group, it is easier to project evils onto scapegoated
enemies in times of war. In the annals of world history, we have witnessed the
emergence of leaders who have drummed up prejudice and xenophobia as a means of
putting themselves in the saddle of power. When looked at from these perspectives, the
rational for Tigrayan ethno-nationalists’ verbal assault and terrorism on Amharas is not
surprising. A regime had come to power determined to undertake a task – the elimination
not only of Amharas from all aspects of social life in Ethiopia but also their capacity to
fight back and defend their inalienable rights as citizens of Ethiopia. Like Hitler who
targeted the Jews, Meles and his trusted cronies used slogans to identify their perceived
enemies. In an interview with Paul Henze, Meles said, “Shoan Amhara is our enemy.”
TPLF’s policies toward Amharas share two important features and objectives with that of
Hitler to the extent that both TPLF and Hitler have tried to misrepresent, demonize and
target what they call their enemies i.e. Amharas and Jews respectively as the source of
evil for what went wrong in their respective countries (Ethiopia and Germany).
The TPLF and its supporters have tried:
1 - To criminalize and demonize the Amhara in such a way that the Amharas are made to
continuously feel responsible for all the ills of Ethiopia. The incessant propaganda
campaign to which Amharas are subjected force them in the long run to internalize a
sense of culpability thereby making them passive onlookers as their ranks are persecuted
and physically wiped out. The experience of the Amharas during the last 13 years of
TPLF rule attests to this fact.
2 – To criminalize and demonize all historical symbols with which Amharas are proudly
identified with. The destruction of historical monuments, the changes of names of
institutions bearing Amhara names, etc belong to this category of the anti-Amhara
campaign waged by the TPLF government.
3- To socially isolate, discriminate at and keep the Amharas in a state of darkness and
backwardness.
68
- Wasadan’s commentary, (EEDN 8/24/04.)
36
4- To punctuate the rightful place and role of Amharas as citizens of Ethiopia in a scheme
which has reduced Amharas to the status of passive victims who should not raise any
opposition to defend their inalienable rights. In this regard it is instructive to say what one
U.S. State Department official have reportedly said, “Amharas are now boxed.”
In accordance with these objectives, since 1991 the following types of wars continue to
be waged on Amharas as can be evident from the following facts:
1 - Physical elimination of leaders of organizations identified with the Amharas: a case in
point is the deliberate killing of Professor Asrat Woldeyes, leader of the AAPO.
2 - Use of terrorist organizations as proxies to eliminate Amhars. Cases in point are the
mayhems and murder carried out in Bedno, Arba Gugu, Assebot, and Wollega by
fascistic organizations such as the OPDO who have perpetrated massacres of Amharas
under the supervision and watchful eyes of TPLF. We can also not forget what the
fascistic Oromo organization OLF had perpetrated in Bedeno, Wellega, etc and what
IFLO had perpetrated at the historic Assebot monastery where it massacred 18 monks in
1992 when it was part of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia under the TPLF. In
1999 some 16000 Amharas who have lived in eastern Wellega for generations were
ethnically cleansed and uprooted from Wellega and sent to Gojjam across the Abay river.
This process of ethnic cleansing had caused the brutal death of at least 1000 Amharas, the
burning of their villages, the confisification destruction of their properties, etc. The
Tigrean government and its Oromo ethnonationalist hirelings that it has organized under
the OPDO were responsible for this brutal act.
3 - Uprooting Amharas from the political, economic, and social life of Ethiopia through
systematic deprivation of land, jobs, education, and business opportunities. Amhara
business owners in so-called “Oromia” regional state are heavily taxed and then forced to
abandon businesses on which their livelihood depend. Land is used as political tool.
Amharas are openly and routinely discriminated at when it comes to getting permits to
erect a fence much less a building a home in the apartheid system created by TPLF.
4 - Use of psychological war on the Amhara psyche. This last form of psychological war
is the most vicious and panders to the passion of Tigrayan public Amhara-phobia
embraced by all Tigrean followers of TPLF. Amharas and leaders such as Menilik and
Haile Selassie are assailed as the enemies of the Tigrayans and all non-Amharas in
Ethiopia and Amharas are held responsible for Ethiopia’s backwardness. Their legacies
are painted as the worst possible episodes in the annals of Ethiopian history. Through
these physical and psychological wars, the TPLF and its ethno-nationalist supporters
want Amharas to be ashamed of their culture, language, leaders, and their contribution to
the Ethiopian state.
At the beginning of the anti-Amhara campaign the medium used to denigrate and bash
Amharas was the now defunct “Ethiopian Commentator”. In one of their publications the
editors, all of whom were Eritreans and Tigrayans (including yester years’s TPLF
37
ideologues and the current “super-patriot” the Tigrean Ghelawdewos Araya who
currently makes shrill noise about Assab port and Ethiopian territorial integrity) inserted
a picture of Professor Asrat Woldeyes while he was accepting an award for his
contribution in the medical field in an article submitted by a professor at The American
University in Washington, DC. The text below the picture falsely states: “the professor
was awarded for his contribution for the war effort against the Ethiopian people.”
This was done by the editors of Ethiopian Commentator without the knowledge and
approval of the author of who submitted the article.
The same Ethiopian Commentator inserted another picture of the former Patriarch of
Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In that picture the Patriarch is seen giving financial
contribution to help famine victims. The text inserted under the picture states,” the
contribution by the Patriarch was to help in Mengistu’s war effort.” In the
background of the same picture Ato Shimeles Adugna, the former Commissioner of
Famine Relief is shown. However, the caption reads: “the other dog in the picture is
unidentified”. Others gleefully replayed the scurrilous attack by the Ethiopian
Commentator and its editors on the internet.
Having created a mythical enemy, “the Amhara”, and trained the Tigrayan public to
reflexively hate it, the myth is later deployed to discredit anyone by saying he or she is a
member of Shoan Amhara and Mengistu’s supporter. Thus instinctively, the entire
talking-head cabals knew just what to say about Professor Asrat and Amharas.
Hate message by emotional speakers can sway audiences. For ethnocentric Tigrayans,
Mengistu, who crushed the Ethiopian people, became an Amhara boogieman for scaring
Tigrayans and silencing TPLF’s critics. In the views of ethnocentric, all Amharas are
now Mengistu’s supporters. In all honesty, TPLF nationalists should be grateful to
Mengistu not the other way round. By crushing many Ethiopian patriots and silencing
the rest Mengistu did a great favor to TPLF and the ethnocentrics. It should be noted
that history details how often friendliness of the native people is betrayed by treachery
and ethnocentrism on the part of their conquerors. If it was not for the hated Mengistu,
Amharas could not have assisted TPLF to seize power and later to be victimized.
On a televised debate Meles admitted that TPLF got the support of Amharas while
advancing to the center of the country to oust Mengistu. But later he turned against the
same people with impunity. In lambasting the Shoan Amhara as unpatriotic and coward
to fight back, Meles said: We know Shoan Amharas. We saw Shoan Amharas. We
stepped over them while they were using cow dung for fire wood and were being
suffocated by the smoke.” Ye Shoan Amarotch ayitenatchewal. Kubet cia’chesu
regitenatchew new yalefinew.”
In Debre Berhan hundreds of Amharas were picked up and put in prison for no reason.
After being told they were free to leave the prison gates, TPLF combatants opened fire
and killed the unsuspecting Amharas. Although the local people knew the truth, TPLF
38
attributed the killings to an attempt by criminals to break out from prison. Gebru Asrat,
former TPLF administrator in Tigray, has been quoted as boasting,
“we have cut off the Amhara head. Soon we will uproot him from the ground.”
Another one of TPLF’s slogan and moral boost to its combatants was,
Be’Amhara me’Qabirr Tigray Tabibalech” which translates into, “Tigray will blossom
on the grave of Amhara”. According to former EPDM combatant who now lives in
California TPLF’s slogan was, “Amara Gedai”, Amhara killer. It is not hard to imagine
what the fate of Amharas would have been had some of the hard-core anti-Amhara
elements in the exiled group of TPLF central committee members were sharing power
with Meles today.
One of the reasons for the current anti-Amhara campaign is to scapegoat the Amharas for
the crisis TPLF finds itself in. As the resistance of the Ethiopian people to the fascistic, if
divisive, ethnic policies of TPLF grow, the TPLF and its supporters resort to name calling
which amounts to the pillorying of Amharas. The anti-Amhara propaganda crusaders
accuse Shoan-Amharas under a subtle code name “Mahal-Sefaris. And such accusations
become all the more acute as the disarray and split in the ranks of TPLF increases. There
is no difference between the fanatical ravings of a foaming-at-the mouth Meles Zenawi
and the utterances of his one time confidant and advisor Tecola Hagos. They make no
deeper point than “I hate you”. Tigrayan ethnic supremacists are neurotically obsessed
with ethnicity in spite of the well-established negative impact which ethnic politics has
plunged Ethiopia in during the last 13 years of deadly experimentation with ethnic
politics. Their obsession with ethnicity and hate for the Amhara has to do with the
inferiority they feel vis a vis the Amhara. This has impelled them to blame all socioeconomic problems (which were not unique to Tigrai) on an alleged Amhara enemy as
though the Dergue government represented the interest of the Amhara ethnic group69.
Tecola’s fabricated stories include that the Derg regime targeted Tigrians on the basis of
their ethnicity and disproportionate number of Tigreans were victims of the Red Terror.
This is unforgettable insult to the tens of thousands of Amharas whose lives were claimed
by the Red Terror on the streets of Ethiopia. If one was to indulge in the distasteful
business of making head count of Red Terror victims on the basis of ethnic origin, neither
Tigreans nor other ethnic groups may have been able to point their fingers at Amharas as
69
- Every sane and rational thinking Ethiopian knows that the so-called “oppressor or dominant Amharas”
have not performed any better than the Tigreans. In fact by 1974, Tigrai, an Ethiopian province with less
population than each one of the predominantly Amhara-inhabited regions of Gondar, Wello or Gojjam had
5 high schools while these three predominantly Amhara areas had just two high schools. These are facts
which were lost on the Tigrean ethnonatioanlists and the luminaries of the Ethiopian Student Movement
which were generating the Amhara national domination and “national oppression” theory without
providing any substantive facts to support how the millions of Amharas have performed better than say the
Eritreans, Adares, Tigreans, Gurages, etc. We have to add that before 1974, Tigrai sent more students to the
university than Gojjam and Gonder provinces did together. The picture for northern Shoa was even more
depressing than the other Amahra regions.
39
the latter were disproportionately over represented in terms of the number of human lives
claimed by Dergue’s violent repression across the various parts of Ethiopia.
Among the discoveries of Freud is the psychological process of creating enemies – which
requires that for their own ego survival and sanity, people deflect their own aggression or
self-hatred outward onto others. According to Freud, self-hatred is at the root of race or
ethnic hatred and projection is the means of depositing unacceptable parts of oneself
onto, what one perceives, as an external enemy. Communal neuroses will always be
much harder to detect because they define an entire group, not an individual distinct from
the group. Freud’s discovery is a clear manifestation of Tigrayan ethnic supremacists’
obsession with hatred for everyone but Tigregna speakers.
THE MAHAL-SEFARI MASK
The latest assault on Amhara, especially Shoan Amhara, comes from a website owned
and operated by Tecola Hagos. At first glance, Tecola’s webpage looks like any one of
the thousands of personal home pages but visitors who scroll down soon discover that the
website is devoted to hate speech. Just like the neo-Nazi rant, it contains articles that
support ethnic ideology and Amhara bashing. The code name used for Amhara bashing
this time is “Mahal-Sefari”. The reason why the owner of the webpage chooses to use
this code name is to mask the truth about the intended targets of his verbal assault.
What does Mahal Sefari mean? When used in its geographic context the term “Mahal
Sefari” refers to central Ethiopia. However, Tecola proves his shallow understanding of
the meaning of Mahal-Sefari when he uses it in a pejorative context. In ancient times the
term “Mahal-Sefari” meant a specialized units of the Imperial army attached to the
palace. The army had multi-national dimension as opposed to being exclusive Amhara as
to Tecola would like us to believe. As a political term, the correct meaning of MahalSefari is “Liberal” as opposed to extremism. Since those specialized units attached to the
Imperial army are long gone, Tecola’s reason for raising the “Mahal-Sefari” issue cannot
be any other than for the purpose of validating his well-known hatred for Amharas. On
all accounts of the term “Mahal-Sefari’, the self-appointed “professor” showed utter
ignorance about the “what” and the “who” of the subject matter he repeats ad nauseam.
In geographic terms, Mahal-Sefari refers to Shoan Amharas districts of Ankober,
Anstokia, Efrata, Gidim, Gishe, Insaro, Menz, Merha-Bete, Moret, Tegulet, Qewet, Yifat,
Washa, Wogda, plus Shoan Oromo regions of Ada’a, Ambo, Jeldu, Gindeberet, Guder,
Meacha-Tulama in Selale.(see Getatachew Haile, Adwa Victory Centenary Conference
Proceedings, 1996]
The code name Mahal-Sefari is used as a cover and to hide the intended targets – Shoan
Amharas in particular and Amharas in general. No one, least of all, Amharas should have
any doubt about Tecola’s aim and intended targets of this vilification campaign. As
Winston Churchill said, “appeasement reflects hope that the crocodile will eat you last.”
Since we are dealing with a species of primitives, like crocodiles in the prowl,
40
ethnocentric are dangerous predators that need to be checked. As someone once said, “to
be hoodwinked once is human, but to be taken for a second time is inexcusable.”
The leading anti Shoan-Amhara and anti-Menelik campaigner Tecola Hagos falsely
accuses and demonizes the Mehal-Sefaris (all of the people from the aforementioned
regions) as the enemies of the Ethiopian people, the reasons for its backwardness and
accuses these Shoan Amharas as collaborating with Meles. Let us assume for a moment
that what Tecola says is true and Meles’ advisors and political cadres are Mehal -Sefaris.
Why is it then the entire economy of the country, the major private businesses, public
agencies, the military, the security apparatus and other aspects of Ethiopia are under the
control of Tigrayans? Why is it that there are no developments in the so-called MehalSefari regions which have practically been excluded from any development process while
Tigray has continued to absorb the lion’s share of Ethiopia’s national budget? Why are
the pharmaceutical, chemical, textile, clinics, institutions of higher education, and road
constructions concentrated and limited to Tigray if the Mehal Sefaris are in the position
of power to influence policy decision that favors their region? It is doubtful that Tecola
can provide convincing evidence to these pointed questions and show that the Tigrayan
regime under the leadership of Meles and Sebhat Nega is influenced and advised by
Shoan Amharas. The anti Shoan Amhara campaign is a continuation of the agenda
doctored and rehearsed at Dedebit during TPLF’s bush dwelling years.
In the early days of TPLF, any Tigrayan national who dared to speak out against what he
or she perceived to be wrong had to be labeled as “sell out” or in the language of TPLF,
“Shoawaweyan Tegaru,” Shoan Tigrayans. Gidey Bahirishum is a Tigrayan national who
witnessed the fate of ordinary Tigrayans in the hands of TPLF when the latter controlled
part of Tigray during the war for the liberation of Eritrea and Tigray. In his book,
“AMORA 70” Mr. Gidey tells very disturbing stories about Tigrayan victims in the hands
of TPLF cadres. Their own sons and daughters executed Tigrayan parents who
questioned the motives behind the Woyane slogan, “Tigre and Amharas “or” Ethiopia
and Tigray. The executions were carried out on the order of Tigrayan cadres like Meles
and others. After Tigray came under EPLF/TPLF control, untold numbers of Tigrayans
were accused as supporters of EDU and shot point blank. The victims were denied
proper burial and their remains were left in the open for wild animals. The executed
victims were castigated as “anti-Tigre”, “kora huru Amharu”, (Amhara dogs), and
“Shoawaweyan tegaru” (Shoan-Tigrayans). Mr. Gidey’s story is a clear example of the
continuation of the previous anti-Amhara campaign to the present time by the ethnonationalists. This episode testifies to the ease with which ethnocentric can punctuate the
lives of people who oppose their ideas and even take joy in the death of their own kind.
WHO GAVE UP ERITREA TO THE ITALIANS - THE HEWETT TREATY OF
1875 – 1876 and ‘POLITICA TIGRIGNA’
The second, perhaps the most important, point I wish to raise is the failure of the ethnonationalist to place side by side the events that lead the Italians to occupy Eritrea and
Emperor Yoahnnes’ role in the occupation when finger pointing at the alleged crimes of
70
- Gidey Bahirishum, Amora
41
Menelik. The important factor for Italian occupation of Eritrea that the ethno-nationalists
mask and hide from public discussion and scrutiny is what is known as “Hewett treaty of
1875 –1876” with the British, signed and ratified by emperor Yohannes.
The treaty is important for two reasons. First, the British deceived the emperor and never
carried out their part of the agreement when Italy occupied Eritrea. Second, the treaty
became the single reason for the Mahdist to attack Ethiopia, the death of the Emperor
himself, and for Italy to move at will and take over Eritrea. According to the foremost
Ethiopianist, Professor Sven Rubenson, by signing the Hewett treaty, Yohannes has
“traded one weak enemy for two strong ones, the Mahdist state and Italy71.”
Article III of the Hewett treaty reads:
“His Majesty the Negoosa Negust engages to facilitate the withdrawal of the troops of
His Highness the Khedive, from Kassala, Amedib and Sanhit through Ethiopia to
Massawah 72.”
The primary interest of the British and Egyptionias was the rescue of their garrisons from
the Mahdist attack. The Emperor and Ras Alula gave their full cooperation in accordance
with the terms agreed in the treaty. Following this unequal treaty between Yohannes and
the British, in June 1885 Ethiopian forces under the command of Wagshum Gebru and
Bejirond Lewte lost 600 fighters and finally relieved the Egyptian troops at Qallabat from
the Mahadist siege 73. In September 1885 Ethiopian force numbering 10,000 fighters
under the command of Ras Alula marched to Kufit and relieved the Anglo-Egyptian
forces that were under siege of the Sudanese Mahidists. The defeat of the Mahidists was
possible at the cost of 1550 Ethiopian lives74. In January 1887 king Tekle Haimanot of
Gojjam had to march with his100,000 army to Tabarek, Qallabat where he defeated the
Mahidist army 75. According to Rubenson, when it was discovered that Metemma and
Girra had not fallen to the Mahdists, Yohannes accepted additional obligations, and these
two garrisons were saved together with Amideb and Keren.This lead Mahdists to attack
Ethiopia. The emperor ordered Ras Alula and the entire Ethiopian army to abandon
71
72
- Teklesadik Mekuria, Atse Yohannes enna Ye Ethiopia Andinet, pp 273
73
74
75
42
Eritrea and move to the Metemma front. He replaced the experienced and master
tactician military leader Ras Alula by Ras Haile Mariam. The replacement of Ras Alula
was one of the reasons for the Mahdist force to gain the upper hand in the battle.
Meanwhile, the Italians with the tacit support of the British found an opportune moment
to move from their fortified bases in Massawa to Eritrean highlands and occupy Asmara
and Karen, albeit with the full cooperation of Eritreans. The cooperation of Eritreans with
foreign invaders was not new as could be gleaned from the documented records of
Eritrean local elites such as Ras Walda-Mikael Solomon of Hamasen who played a major
role by defecting to the Egyptian side after the Battle of Gundat in 1875.
In accordance with the Italian “politics of Tigrigna and the Convention of Mereb”, on
December 6, 1891 on the banks of Mereb, in a solemn convention between General
Gandolfi and Ras Mengesha, in the presence of many officials among others Ras Alula,
Mengesha recognized for Italy the border Mareb-Belesa-Muna. Tigrayan princes, headed
by Ras Mengesha Yohannes, swore an oath of solidarity with the Italians. The ethnonationalists who made Amhara bashing their lifetime occupation never mention the
crimes and duplicities of some highland Eritreans and Tigryans. It was the cooperation
of some highland Eritreans aristocrats first with Egypt and later with the British and
Italians that led to the occupation of Massawa. The occupation of Masswas was a
prelude to Adwa. Unfortunately those who believe they have monopoly over the truth
are ignorant of their own history while defaming Menelik.
Solomon Gashaw writes:
“The Hewett Treaty was very costly to Ethiopia. It infuriated the Mahdist, who
retaliated by invading Begemder and burning down the city of Gonder. It is not clear
why Emperor Yohannes IV, who never abandoned his claim of Massawa settled for a
mere free transit of goods 76”.
One of the bandits who collaborated both with Egyptians and the Italians against
Yohannes and Alula was Dejazmatch Debebb Araya. Debebb Araya and Dejazmatch
Sebhat of Tigrai who happens to be a descendent of Dejazmatch Sebagedes of Agame
were in the service of the Italian colonialists as spies, guides and suppliers of weapons
and other military provisions until one week before the Adwa war when they changed
side and joined the Ethiopian forces under emperor Menelik. They were instrumental in
the occupation of Eritrea by Italy. The aspiring historian and ethnic ideologue never
mention their crimes. The allegation that Menelik gave active support to Italians and
Egyptians against Yohannes is bogus. According to Prof. Sven Ruben son, “all available
evidence, in fact, points to Cairo and not Liche or Wereylu (Menelik’s two main
residences) as the place where the ‘conspiracy’ originated77”.
76
77
- Solomon Gashaw, Adowa Victory Centenary Conference Proceeding, 1996 P. 102.]
43
Italians showed no interest in abiding by the terms of the Hewett treaty. Rubenson
writes, “On the contrary, they had come to inherit the estate of the Egyptian, Bogos
and all78”. In spite of his misgivings to save his former enemies the Egyptians,
Yohannes trusted the British as an ally but was betrayed by them.
The following was what Yohannes regretfully intimated about the mistake he had made
in signing the Hewett Treaty that amounted to a political alliance79 with the British
colonialist forces. “Yohannes stated, however, that he had been greatly wronged by
both Italians and English in spite of the fact that he had come to their aid against the
Mahdi 80”
“On April 20, 1888 Emperor Yohannes IV mobilized 80,000 peasant army to stop
Italian incursion and dislodge them from Sa’ati. But after parading his force for
weeks the emperor abandoned the idea of ousting the Italians. Instead he decided to
march south and push out the Mahdists out of Ethiopian territory. Besides his
decision to quit fighting Italians, he also removed Ras Alula from his post of
governorship of Mereb Melash. The decision of the emperor Yohannes signaled a
weakness in the Ethiopian defense. It encouraged Italy to occupy more territory. Had
the emperor with his superior force fought Italy at Sa’ati his victory could have made
Adowa unlikely 81.”
At the 1996 Adowa Victory Centenary Conference Professor Getatchew Haile had this to
say about British betrayal. “The tragic story of British treachery is probably well
known to most of you. When ‘poor Egypt had no army worthy of the name, no officers
deserving of confidence, no money, no credit and no men,’ its protectors, the British,
turned to Ethiopia, who had everything Egypt lacked, and used her. Signing a treaty at
Adowa in 1884, they asked the Emperor to use his army to facilitate the withdrawal
through Ethiopia of the Egyptian colonialist troops besieged by the Sudanese. In
return, Ethiopia was promised by the treaty the return of the territories annexed to
Sudan and access to the port of Massawa.82”. He further stated, “Once the Italians took
the port, they started inching into the hinterland. This angered Ras Alula, the
governor of the region, so he destroyed all whom came as far as Dogali (Jan 1887).
78
79
- Hertslet, Map of Africa by Treaty, third edition, Vol. II, pp 422
80
- Documeti Diplomatici, as quoted by Ernst Work in his book entitled, “Ethiopia a Pawn in European
Diplomacy”, published 1935
81
- Ibid
82
- Getachew Haile, Adowa Victory Conference Proceedings, 1996
44
But the Emperor, who believed that the Italians would leave his country, reprimanded
Ras Alula through peaceful negotiations83”.
Call it a blunder or what you may, nonetheless it was the grave mistake made by
Yohannes that handed Eritrea over to the Italians. Menilik therefore inherited the
problems left by Yohannes. The motive of the ethno-nationalists for accusing Menilik as
“common criminal” is not based on the facts but based on his ethnicity.
THE PUNISHMENT OF TRAITORS
One of Tecola’s pre-occupation with Menelik is the amputation of Eritrean askaris at the
end of the Adowa campaign. There are written accounts of the amputation by
eyewitnesses. They all say the same thing. Emperor Menelik wanted the askaris to be
punished by prison terms. The Bishop Abune Mathewos, Rases Mengesha, Alula,
Empress Taitu and other Ethiopian officials rejected Menelik’s proposal and wanted the
traitors to be amputated. Understanding the prevailing sentiment of the wounded and
Dead and accordance with the recommendations of the officials, it was decided that the
traitors should be amputated. Therefore, it was not Menelik who suggested and decided
their fate. The Tigrian Rases were the ones who were in the forefront calling for the
punishment of the traitors. Sadly today Menelik is held as the person responsible for this.
Tecola should know that the punishment of traitors in the “civilized Europe of Menelik’s
time was public execution. In today’s Saudi Arabia, petty thieves are routinely
amputated and put in prison. Traitors are not given a chance to speak before their fate is
sealed by firing squad. The Askaris lost limbs but their lives were spared due to
Menelik’s interventions. This is a fact Tecola and his likes find it hard to accept.
After the Ethiopian army was asked to lay its arm and peacefully surrender, EPLF
executed about 4,000 Ethiopian war prisoners inside Asmara prison. Tecola was with
TPLF when this happened. I don’t believe he raised any objection when Ethiopian war
prisoners were executed in violations of the Geneva Convention. Yet, he shades
crocodile tears about the askaris who fought against Yohannes, Alulua, Menelik and
Ethiopia. Considering their treachery in supporting of the enemy to kill thousands of
Ethiopians who at Adowa, the traitors deserved worse.
ETHNICITY AS A FACTOR IN ETHIOPIAN POLITY
The tradition of ethnic identification and clannishness in Ethiopian history is more
pronounced among Tigregna speakers and Adares(currently known as the Eastern
Weyeanes) than Amharas, Oromos, southerners or any other ethnic group. Under the
regime of Meles Zenawi, almost all high profile government position appointees are
either Tigrayans or Eritreans. Every public organization has at least three layers of
Tigrayan directors and managers. From top to bottom Tigregna speakers serve as
political cadres, security agents and spies. Oromos, southerners, Amharas, etc are
83
- Getatchew Haile, 1996 Adowa Victory Centenary Conference Proceedings.
45
marginalized and relegated to token and lower level positions. In recent military
promotions 11 out of 18 generals were Tigrayans. The list goes on.
In contrast to TPLF’s hegemony, the political system under both Menelik and Haile
Selassie provided social mobility. Teshale Tibebu writes the following: “A slave
captured in war could become a general if, in subsequent service, he proved himself
courageous and resourceful, and personally loyal to the sovereign. For example,
during the latter part of Emperor Menelik’s reign and in the period after his death,
Fitawrary Habte Giorgis (an Oromo) was one of the most powerful men in Ethiopia.
Yet not only was he from a humble non-Amhara background; he was brought to
Menelik’s court as a young war captive84”. Teshale further explains, “Haile selassie used
to a great political advantage this ethnic-blind system of recruitment. His appointments
to high office hardly showed any ethnic preference. He was as comfortable (even more
so), with Oromos from Wallaga as he was with Amharas from Gondar 85”. The
propaganda “Amhara oppressive rule” is therefore hogwash. The ethno-nationalists have
not and could not prove with certainty how Shoan-Amharas in particular and Amharas in
general benefited from the “Amhara hegemony”. Another observer noted:
“In Ethiopia, proponents of ethnic domination can not provide evidence of state
sponsored policies of ethnic domination. The cause of ethnic polarization is rooted in
the frustration of ethnic elite over limited resources both in economic and political
realms. Unlike the masses, it is the elite who feel the brunt of competition in urban
areas. The elite are the most significant social segments of the society that nurture and
develop the feeling of ethnonationalism. They, however, succeed in this project where
there are administrative abuses, lopsided development. Such abuses could be the work
of any social segment that controls the state and its political machinery. In Ethiopia
the state had never been under the exclusive control of a single ethnic group until
199186”.
The architects of the apartheid system in contemporary Ethiopia and ethnic ideologues
like Tecola pride themselves on their fight for their tribe and at the same time claim
allegiance to Ethiopian nationalism. The ethno-nationalists believe they can overcome
their inferiority complex by insulting and degrading Menilik and Shoan-Amharas.
Inferiority complex is a disease that has no cure. I don’t believe if the ashes from
Menelik’s and Haile Selassie’s remains were mixed with water and used as cure for the
malady affecting the ethno-nationalists, would help them overcome the affliction.
Among the discoveries of Freud is the psychological process of creating enemies - which
requires that for their survival and sanity, people project their own self-hatred outward
onto others. According to Freud, self-hatred is at the root of race or ethnic hatred and
84
85
86
- Teshale Tibebeu , The Making of Modern Ethiopia, 1896- 1974.
- Teshale Tibebu, The Making of Modern Ethiopia
- Solomon Gashaw, Adowa Victory Conference Proceedings, 1996. p. 98
46
projection is the means with which this hatred is externalized and blamed on others. It is
no wonder then in the ethnicist Tigrean regime and its apologists and ideological gurus
like Tecola Hagos try to trash Menilik, his legacies and the people of Shoa and by
extension all Amharas whom they consider as the bete noirs of Ethiopia. By attacking
what they believe is the symbol of “Amhara hegemony”, they hope Amharas would be
forced to give up their cultural identity and succumb to their design.
It was suggested that the “Maha-Sefaris” do not fight and depend on others for their
freedom. If the ethno-nationalist did not have a shaky knowledge of history, he should
have been mindful of how the Mahal-Sefaris at Amba Alagie, under the leadership of
Fitawrari Gebeyehu, dealt a deadly blow to the askaris and their Italian masters at the
battle of Adowa. It was Gebeyehu and Mahal-Sefaris who annihilated Major Toselli and
his Eritrean askaris.
While Makonnen Walda-Mikael, now Ras Makonnen, was negotiating with Italians for
their peaceful evacuation [from Tigrai], Fitawrari Gebeyehu, undeterred by his own
illness, led his men in a literally uphill struggle against the well-entrenched Italians. The
Italians were routed; their commander was among the casualties 87”. After the Ethiopian
victory at Adowa, Tigrayans immortalized Gebeyehu as follows:
The above couplet approximately translates into the following lines:
The Adwa Selassie (church) has been desecrated by the enemy (Italy)
Gebeyehu, please enter the church premise and restore its holiness!!
One of Tecola’s admirers reminded us that Tigrayans shared whatever food they had
available with Menelik’s army during the Adowa campaign. What he forgot to mention
was that over seven thousand Ethiopians paid the ultimate price with their lives in
defending Tigray and equal number were wounded and disabled. Unlike TPLF, Menelik
did not demand compensation from Tigrayans or erected a monument for the dead at a
cost of $2 million. Yet, ethno-nationalists keep reminding us to be grateful for alleged
food provided to Menelik’s army as if food is more important than human life.
The leading anti-Menelik and anti-Shoan Amhara campaigner operates in contradiction.
On the one hand he condemns all Shoans using the code name “Mahal-Sefaris”. On the
other he writes and praises individuals he previously accused as the enemies of the
Ethiopian people. A case in point is an article Tecola wrote and posted on his webpage to
pay tribute to the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Tsehafe Tezaz Aklilu Habtewold. The
posting of eulogizing article about Ato Aklilu Habtewold in his website is self-serving
87
47
and deceptive for a Tigrean hatemonger who grew up hating Ethiopians of Amhara origin
such as Ato Akililu Habtewold. It is also a dishonor to Ato Akililu to be flattered by a
Tigrean ethnonationalist like Tecola who stood for the ethnicization of Ethiopian politics
(fragmentation) something which the patriotic Aklilu Habtewold fought against
diplomatically during the first experimentation with ethnic politics between 1936-1941)
(the second being the one we have witnessed from 1991 till today under TPLF). Bees
can’t make honey and sting at the same time. Only gullible Ethiopians, particularly those
Amharas who are easily carried away by the rhetorical exclamations of Tigrean
nationalists like Tecola about the current violation of Ethiopian territorial integrity, can
fall victim of their ignorance. As the English say, “not all that glitters is gold”. And let
me say that not all ethnonationalists like Tecola and Co. who currently pander to the
patriotic passions of Ethiopians have the best of intentions about Ethiopia while
simultaneously failing to denounce the very policies of ethnic politics which
Bantustanized Ethiopia and facilitated the bullying of Ethiopia by the diminutive Eritrea
which used to import 2/3 of its food from Ethiopia. The recent invitation of an ethnicist
like Tecola to address an Ethiopian audience which seems to be against the ethnic
fragmentation of Ethiopia is a sad commentary on the level of consciousness of the
Ethiopian Diaspora regarding the checkered track-records of ethnicists like Tecola and
Co88. Equally, the effort of the likes of Amhara-phobic individuals who shower words of
flattery on the late Ethiopian prime Minster Akiliu Habtewold while denouncing the
entire Shoan Amharas as being responsible for the problems Ethiopia has been through
(from the time of Sahle Selassie till today), is self serving at best and deceptive at its
worst.
TPLF and its ethno-nationalist foot soldiers are refractory or impervious to any logic
beyond Meles’ mantra, “the enemy is Shoan Amhara.” Previously the ethno-nationalist
patriarch claimed that the term “Amhara” is a linguistic concept but does not relate to
people living in a geographically defined area. Ludicrous! If that is the case for the
Amhara then the concept “Tigrayan” refers to language but not ethnic identity. The
suggestion that term Amhara is a linguistic concept is another attempt to deconstruct the
Amhara ethnic identity and culture. Ironically the process of uprooting Amharas is partly
supported by misguided Amhara intellectuals. Some Amhara intellectuals have given
moral and material support to ethno-nationalists, i.e., TPLF, EPLF and OLF. They have
yet to wake up and see the reality of their misdeeds.
Besides the obvious reasons stated above, the paramount reason for war on Amharas is to
divert public attention from the rampant nepotism and unjustifiably disproportionate
economic, social and cultural development of their welfare state – Tigray 89. They want
88
- We urge Ethiopians in the diaspora to check the records of individuals like Tecola before inviting them
as guest speakers to address “burning Ethiopian issues of national significance”.
89
- For those who doubt the strong feelings of the ordinary Ethiopian about the unjustified pillage of
Ethiopia’s resources for the benefit of Tigreans, one has to only look back at the reaction of the
spontaneous actions and outburst of anger expressed in the streets of Addis Abeba during the 1998 student
protest. At the time, marginalized sections of the Ethiopian society who have been forced out on the streets
of Addis Abeba targeted Tigrean businesses in their violent attack that lasted several hours. Understandably
and not surprisingly that spontaneous action has sent a shudder down the spine of Tigrean ethnicists who
48
non-Tigrayan Ethiopians to focus their attention on the imaginary enemy – the Amhara
while they rob the rest of Ethiopia blind. The rest of Ethiopia is to be used for their goal
of making Tigray self-sufficient. They use all means of deception and fake history to
justify the looting and carting of public property to their Tigrean welfare state. Hence the
acronym, TPLF has become synonymous with “Tigrayan Peoples Looters Front”.
Tecola and cheerleaders arrogantly and unabashedly say there is nothing wrong if Tigray
shared the national wealth. But sharing the national wealth does not mean using every
conceivable reason to develop one region at the expense of all others. As things stand
now, the ruling clique is using the lion’s share of the country’s internal resources and
external foreign aid for the development of Tigray.
“ETHIOPIA IS BETTER UNDER MELES”
By sugar coating the evil work of their altar ego, Meles Zenawi, as the right path to
democratization of the Ethiopian society, the Ethno-nationalist provide false alibi to the
Ethiopian reality. In a bizarre twist of the truth, the self-righteous ethno-nationalist and
former Woyane high priest tells us that Ethiopia is better under Meles than all of his
predecessors. The facts on the ground tell different stories. A glimpse of the Ethiopian
reality today paints the following pictures:
1. During the last 13 years malaria infestation was resurrected and is killing
thousands of Ethiopians after the Tigrean regime deliberately dismantled the
Ethiopian Malaria Control Service in 1995, laying off more than 90 senior lab
technicians, epidemiologists, medical microbiologists, etc from the head office in
Addis Abeba and hundreds of others all across the country thereby exposing
millions of people in areas south of Tigrai to the scourge of Malaria epidemics 90.
Meanwhile the Malaria Control program in Tigrai has been strengthened with
manpower, logistical support and network of early warning system that has been
put in place down to the village level. Today more people die of malaria
epidemics than at any one time in the annals of Ethiopian history including the
periods under Menelik or Haile Selassie.
2. On the continent of Africa, Ethiopia is the country with the second largest
population (only second to South Africa) in terms of the number of people
affected by HIV/AIDS. For the most part the HIV/AIDS pandemic is the result of
neglect and indifference by the TPLF regime and the destruction of the basic unit
thought all was calm in the “democratic Ethiopia” of “nations, nationalities and peoples” where Tigreans
claimed that they have guaranteed the equality of all Ethiopians. As the spontaneous actions of the street
demonstrators have shown, Tigreans have not convinced Ethiopians of non-Tigrean origin (save Tigreans
and Adares) that they have indeed brought about this equality. If the insensitivity of the Tigrean ethnicists
continues unabated, we are sure that we will witness even more horrendous things that will leave behind
deep scars on our minds. Have the Tecola’s and Co. who continue to spew their venom against the
“alleged” Shoan and Amhara enslavers awoken to the reality of their own making which is engulfing them
like a whirlwind?
90
- Assefa Negash, Ethnic Regionalization & its Ramification On Health: A Study of Malaria Epidemics in
Ethiopia, Ethiopian Register magazine, August 1997, pp 22-28
49
of a society i.e a family by the ethnic politics which has led to the displacement of
millions of Ethiopians internally (demobilization of the Ethiopian national army,
ethnic conflicts fuelled by the TPLF, massive lay-offs motivated by ethnic
cleansing, etc). .
3. In spite of the fact that 11 billion dollars have been injected or poured into the
country in the form of foreign aid and debt relief, hunger still stalks 14 million
citizens.
4. Ethnic violence and genocide have been galvanized by the deliberate policy of the
ethnic balkanization of the Ethiopian society. What transpired in Bedeno, Arba
Gugu, Arsi Neghele, Wellega, Gedeo and only recently in Gambella have bear
witness to the destructive consequences of TPLF’s ethnic politcs. .
5. The ideological apparatus of the state is staffed by Tigreans who control not only
the highest political offices of the country but also control the scaling heights of
the economy. Tigreans have effectively excluded and marginalized other political
and ethnic groups from any commensurate role in the economic, social and
political life of the country.
6. Trafficking of young Ethiopian girls to the Middle East as domestic workers
forced many of them to engage in prostitution and commit suicide because of the
humiliation they suffered in the hands of their Arab hosts. In January 200,
Lebanese authorities returned the bodies of 67 Ethiopian women to Ethiopia. The
women had been trafficked into protstitution and had been sexually abused;
suicide was the registered cause of death for all of them91”. The trafficking of
young women is one form of profit making enterprise of the regime and its
Tigrean supporters. The regime receives hundreds of thousands of dollars for
issuance of visas and passports.
7. According to a survey released on October 12, 2004 by the UN Economic
Commission for Africa, Ethiopia ranked last for the way its government runs
public affairs. Ethiopia fell short on corruption, political representation, economic
management and respect for human rights, says the UN report. The survey added
that in Ethiopia and four African countries there were doubts about the
commitment of government agencies to respect and implement the rule of law.
8. Inside and out side the country innocent Tigrayans are castigated and shunned by
the vast majority of Ethiopians because of TPLF’s misrule and its ethnic policies.
Most often than not, Tigrayans who frequent Ethiopian restaurants are shunned,
ostracized and treated with contempt. Throughout the U.S. a handful of Tigreans
attend the same churches with other Ethiopians. The majorities of them either
attend their own separate churches or stay home due to resentment by other
Ethiopians for their support to TPLF.
91
- International Organization for Migration, “Ethiopian Women Trafficked to the Arab Countries,
“Trafficking in Migrants, No. 20 (December 1999/January 2000)
50
9. Grinding poverty and political oppression is forcing thousands of Ethiopians to
leave their country for life in exile and humiliation in refugee camps.
10. Hatred and discrimination on the basis of one’s ethnic origin are common
practices under TPLF apartheid system. A good example of this is the
discriminatory educational system in the so-called “Killils” or ethnic enclosures
south of Tigrai like the so-called Amhara, Oromo, Southern, Afar and Somali
Killils (or ethnic enclosures a la Bantustan). In order to deny equal educational
opportunity to non-Tigreans (ethnic Amharas, Oromos, Somalis, Afars,
southerners, etc) in favor Tigrayans, the language of instruction (for all subjects
except Tigrigna) from grade four onwards up to the completion of high school is
English in Tigray regional state. Children from areas outside Tigrai region are
given instructions in English beginning only at grade nine and as such forced to
eventually drop out massively out of high school as they, unlike their Tigrean
counterparts, have not picked up the English language (the medium of instruction
in high schools in Ethiopia) early on in life (i.e. beginning at grade 4).
The massive attrition or drop-out rate witnessed among non-Tigreans from the high
school system comes about on account of the fact that non-Tigreans have been
deliberately made to be drilled in their own local vernacular languages during the first 8
years of their schooling to the exclusion of English wich becomes a medicum of
instruction n high schools92. The self-righteous Tigrean ethnonationalists like Tecola
92
- It is instructive at this point to share with readers what Seye Abraham, the now disgraced former TPLF
luminary, who is currently in prison, instructed Tigrean students at a public rally held in the town of
Aksum. Seye said to his Tigreans audience “You should learn Amharic. Your future is not in Tigrai but
elsewhere in the rest of Ethiopia south of Tigrai. As such you need to master the Amharic language
which allows you to move about anywhere in Ethiopia and earn your living”. At the same time, in
central, southern, western and eastern Ethiopia i.e. in all areas outside the predominantly Amhara areas,
parents have been denied the opportunity of sending their children to schools where Amharic language is
taught. This policy would tie non-Tigreans to their respective ethnic enclosures while allowing Tigreans to
thrive and build their lives by moving about freely across the whole length and width of the country. By
making use of the unwritten laws that favor them in the Ethiopia of today, whose resources they
monopolistically control, the mastery of Amharic facilitates Ethiopia’s “golden” people the advantages that
accrue to rulers. After all ethnic entitlement and not democracy was that for which the “golden people”
(Melles’s description of Tigreans) from Tigrai have fought for during their 17 years struggle against the
“Amhara regime of the Dergue” to use Aregawi Berhe’s apt expression . Aregawi Berhe uttered these
words at a public meeting held in the Hague, Holland on July 7, 1991. Aregawi stated at that meeting
saying, “For us the Dergue regime was an Amhara regime as its support base was formed by the
Amhara people”. The late TPLF leader Assefa Mammo, who addressed a public meeting organized by
TPLF supporters in Amsterdam, Holland on October 5, 1991 uttered the following insensitive and ethnicist
remarks. “ There is nothing wrong about the transfer of resources to Tigrai and Eritrea. This is
because whereas the people of Ethiopia south of Tigrai were contributing money to the Dergue
military government for the purchase of bombs, bullets and ammunition which were used to kill and
maim the peoples of Tigrai and Eritrea, the people of these two regions were fighting on their own
the fascist military government of the Dergue”. Assefa Mammo, a notorious ethnicist, who is better
known for not mincing his words when it comes to stating his obnoxious ethnicist views, uttered these
insensitive remarks when he was asked the reasons for the disproportionate transfer of resources to Tigrai
and the transfer of 500 million Birr (in one go) from the Ethiopian Commercial Bank to the Eritrean
government shortly after TPLF’s seizure of power in May 1991. This was the time when the likes of Tecola
51
cannot tell us with absolute certainty that these kinds of naked and blatant discrimination
in public education were the norm under Menelik or Haile Selassie or Dergue regimes
that they dub Amhara. The end result of this practice will have unintended consequences
for the future relationship between Ethiopians favored by the regime (Tigreans) and those
discriminated and marginalized by this same Tigrean regime. If the foregoing facts are
something the ethno-nationalists are proud of today, they live to regret it later when the
collapse of the apartheid system Tigreans have built would definitely crumble into pieces.
And that time is not long in coming or is not far off. Tecola’s statement that Ethiopia is
better off under Meles than Menelik or Haile Selassie is a clear manifestation of his
undivided support for the apartheid system created by TPLF.
Tecola asks if a single high-rise building would have been built if Meles were not in
power. This is another classic example of how ethno-nationalists cannot think outside the
box. Self-interest or ethnic-interest is equated with national interest. In sharp contrast to
his make-believe story of standing for the welfare of ordinary Ethiopians, Tecola reveals
the truth that when he says ordinary Ethiopians he means Tigrayans only.
THE LEGACY OF EMPEROR YOHANNES
While discrediting and viciously attacking emperors Tewodros, Menelik, and Haile
Selassie and by extension the Amharas, the self-acclaimed erudite Mr. Hagos reminded
us that the Tigrayan emperor Yohannes did no harm to Ethiopia adding that Yohannes
was pious and fair in all his public conducts. The Amharic proverb “Le Ras Sikorsu
Ayasnsu” captures Tecola’s insensitivity and lack of objective judgment when it comes to
passing verdict on the merits or demerits of Yohannes who hails from Tigrai. Tecola
topped his bigotry with a tribute to Emperor Yohannes by stating his partisan admiration
when he stated that Yohannes was the most intelligent leader that Ethiopia had seen since
eons.
Let me state at the outset that it is not my intention to write and discredit emperor
Yohannes in the same manner as Tecola or other ethnicist Tigreans like Aregawi and Co.
have done by demonizing and dehumanizing emperors Tewodros, Menelik, Haile
Selassie and lately Negus Sahle-Selassie. I acknowledge the sacrifices and the ultimate
price emperor Yohannees paid with his life in defense of Ethiopia. Nothing said here is
meant to imply that Emperor Yohannes was less patriotic or should be treated harshly.
His was emperor of all Ethiopians even though most Tigrayans attribute value to his
leadership on the basis of his ethnic identity. Ethiopians of his time and the present time
immortalize emperor Yohannes as a leader who fought to preserve the independence and
the territorial integrity of Ethiopia. As he had many good qualities as a leader, emperor
were serving the TPLF government as advisors and ideological luminaries of the regime they now condemn
of being pro-Eritrean. In fact the unscrupulous Tigrean ethnicist Assefa Mammo added, “had the
Eritreans asked for a ransom or compensation for all the human and material destruction wrought
by Ethiopians, then Ethiopia would not have been able to pay for the wanton destruction it has
precipitated in Eritrea”.
52
Yohannes’s legacy like all other emperors of Ethiopia before or after him, was not
without blame and criticism. Therefore, the truth must be told in order to balance
Tecola’s one-sided admiration and excuses for any shortcomings of emperor Yohannes.
We should be mindful of the adage, “It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a
thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before.”
Unlike the present day ethno-nationalists, Ethiopians in general show greatest respect for
their leaders irrespective of the ethnic origin of the leaders. Ordinary Ethiopians
immortalize leaders in their songs. Others swear by their names. Parents name their
children after leaders. The same is not true about Tigrayan ethno-nationalists. Any
leader, who is not of Tigrayan origin must be discredited, vilified, and condemned as the
enemy of the Tigrayan people. The defacing of streets in Addis Ababa named after
Ethiopian leaders and patriotsof Amhara origin is a testimony to hidden motives. The real
motive of renaming the streets is to remove any symbol of Amhara leaders and patriots.
But the destruction of any symbol of Ethiopia must take precedence before everything
else so that anti-Ethiopian agenda of the Tigrayan regime can be enforced.
In fairness to Ethiopians who may be mislead by the false accusations of Tewodros,
Menelik, and Haile Selassie, the personality and excesses of Yohannes’reign must not be
glossed-over, to borrow from Tecola’s language. Since Tecola has no monopoly over the
truth, his hollow rhetoric should not be accepted as fact. The power of brainwashing by
repetition is illustrated in the case of Tecola Hagos’ vicious personal smear. He believes
his savagely cruel insinuation of Menelik as a common criminal and immoral; his
characterization of Tewodros as drunkard, irrational, insane, etc would constitute a clever
counter argument against Yohannes’s collaborationist role and Meles’ treason.
Tigrayan ethnocentric never fail to blame Menelik endlessly for real or imagined
mistakes and his dealings with Italy for the purchase of arms to defend himself and his
kingdom. But their memory betrays them when it comes to Yohannes’ collaboration with
the British in the overthrow of emperor Tewodros. Those errors are buried, forgotten,
ignored and lied about. They want us to forget that part of Yohannes’ duplicity while
they perpetually talk about “Menelik’s alleged “treason”. The motives of Yohannes for
enthusiastically putting himself at the service of British colonialist forces under Napier
were both financial as well as material rewards. Professor Bahru explains: “The British
thus obtained most valuable support from Kassa Mercha of Tigre (the future emperor
Yohannes IV), who ensured that the expeditionary force would be supplied with the
provisions and the means to transport essential for its march, indeed, the expedition
proved to be the first army in Ethiopian history which was prepared to pay for its
food”93.
Tecola provided a lame excuse that Yohannes was young (as if 35 years old man is
considered young) when he betrayed Tewodros. Nonetheless Kassa received his reward
of six howitzers, six mortars and 850 muskets and rifles with ammunition, for the
93
53
assistance he had provided, but his request for two or three British officers on loan for
three months to train his people in the use of the guns was not granted94.
Yohannes’s collaboration with the British was costly to Ethiopia in terms of human lives
lost during the battle and looted treasures. In an article dated Tuesday October 19, 2004
Terry Kirby, Chief Reporter for The Independent News Paper in U.K. wrote the
following story about Ethiopian looted treasures found hidden in a British Museum
basement.
“On a shelf in locked basement room underneath the British Museum, are kept 11
wooden tablets; they are covered in purple velvet. And no one among the museum’s
staff - including Neil MacGregor; the director - is permitted to enter the room. In
1867, a British force was sent to Ethiopia to free hostages taken by Emperor Tewodros;
after the defeat at the Battle of Magdala, he committed suicide. Extensive looting of
the imperial treasures ensued and Richard Holmes, a museum curator sent specifically
to locate items, obtained 80 objects taken by British soldiers; others found their way to
the museum through bequests. As well as the tabots, the haul included ceremonial
crosses, chalices, processional umbrella tops, textiles and jewelry. The Victoria &
Albert Museum holds more than 50 items, including a gold crown, a chalice, a shield, a
silver cross and the dress worn by the emperor’s widow, queen Terunesh. The British
Library holds 350 manuscripts from Magdala. Other artifacts are held in the Royal
Library at Windsor Castle and by the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, many
remain in private hands”95.
The historical record in the British archive reveals the following undisputable facts about
Yohannes’s collaboration.
“Robert Napier, the commander, paid money and weapons to Kassa Mercha, a
Dejazmatch* of Tigray, in order to secure passage inland. On April 9 or 10, 1868, on the
plateau of Argoi below Magdala (or Mek'dela, Magdela, Amba Maryam), British troops
defeated the main imperial force. British and Indian battle losses are estimated at 29
wounded while the Abyssinians are believed to have suffered at least 500 killed and
thousands wounded in the battle of Arogi. Soon afterwards, the British burned Magdala
and left the country. Total Anglo-India losses are estimated in one source to number 400;
total Abyssinian losses are estimated to be 100096” .
“The British and Dajazmach Kassa came to an agreement in which Kassa would let the
British pass through Tigray (the British were going to Magdala which Tewodros had made
his capital) in exchange for money and weapons. Surely enough, when the British
completed their mission and were leaving the country, they rewarded Kassa for his
94
- Holland and Hozier, Expedition, Vol. II, pp.94-6].
95
- Terry Kirby, The Independent – Tuesday October 19, 2004
96
- How to Stop a War; Ethiopia; Robert Napier; Tewodros II; Abyssinia 1868.
54
cooperation with artillery, muskets, rifles, and munitions, all in all worth approximately
£500,000 97”. This formidable gift came in handy when in July 1871 the current emperor,
Emperor Tekle Giyorgis II, attacked Kassa at his capital in Adwa, for Kassa had refused to
be named a ras or pay tribute 98. Although Kassa’s army was outnumbered 12,000 to the
emperor’s 60,000, Kassa’s army was equipped with more modern weapons and better
trained. At battle’s end, forty percent of the emperor’s men had been captured. The
emperor was imprisoned and would die a year later. Six months later, on 21 January 1872,
Kassa became the new emperor under the name Yohannes IV 99 “
Margery Perham, in her book The Government of Ethiopia, gives the following accounts
of Yohannes’s personality :
“Kassa/Yohannis as ‘the monk and soldier’, weak in everything but ‘his
fanatical hatred of Muslims and aversion from Roman Catholics’, representing ‘the
old, aristocratic and religious Ethiopia’, and therefore by definition a reactionary or at
least a conservative 100”.
Members of the British expedition had the following to say about Yohannes.
“The weak-minded Kassa went about with a sort of crown on his head, which was
always coming down over his eyes, and gazed with stupid wonder at the rocket practice
of the Naval Brigade. He is evidently a tool of the more powerful chiefs, whom
accident has pitch forked into supreme power, and who may or may not be allowed to
retain it; but in any case little good can be expected from so poor a creature 101”.
In one of his dispatches to France and England, Muzinger, the vice-consul and acting
consul at Massawa of both France and Britain, expressed a negative impression regarding
Yohannes:
“Kassa was suspicious towards foreigners, unpopular among his own people in spite of
his noble birth, inferior as a ruler to both Minilk and Gobeze. Whatever real power he
held in 1868 had come to him as the result of lucky circumstances. Kassa’s success
over Tekle Giorgis in July 1871 was a victory ‘by sheer accident 102”.
By far the crulest act of Yohannes was against his own brother-in-law Negus TaklaGiorgis. After the death of Emperor Tewodros, Tekle Giorgirs of Lasta succeeded him
97
- Marcus 2002, 71-72)
98
99
- Bahiru Zewde, History of Modern Ethiopia, 2001
100
- Margery Perham, The Government of Ethiopia, P. 52.
101
- Markham, Abyssinia Expedition, p.381
102
- Munzinger’s dispatches, 29 Feb. August 1868
55
and assumed the throne. Yohannes, armed with British weapon and military advisor
challenged Tekle Girogris. At the battle of Asam in 1871 Yohannes defeated Tekla
Girorgis. After defeating and capturing Takla-Girogris of Lasta, the pious chrisitan
emperor. Yohannes gauged his brother-in-laws’s eyes with hot iron and made him blind.
In expressing her sorrow and grief, Yohannes’s sister lamented:
The rough English translation of which is:
The killer is my brother and the victim my husband
My sorrow is deep and within my household.
While bad mouthing Menelik for not chasing Italians out of Eritrea, there is another
episode that Tecola and cheerleaders never read or understood. That episode was
Yohannes’ failure to attack and dislodge Italians after he marched to Se’ati. Prof. Sven
Rubenson writes, “Yohannis first marched to Se’ati and then failed to attack and
dislodge the Italians seriously compromised his leadership position. He lost the
allegiance of Tekle Haymanot who was humiliated by his defeat and blamed the
Emperor for having left him to face an overwhelming enemy alone 103”.
In order to weaken the position of Menelik, Yohannes began to support Adal (later
known as king Teclehaimanot) as a counterweight to Menelik. Yohannes ordered Adal to
go to Shoa and attack Menelik. Adal refused to attack Menelik unless he got help from
Yohannes. When this policy failed and Adal decided to side with Menelik, Yohannes
reacted by marching on Gojjam to punish Adal. Adal escaped and took refuge at Mutera
Amba. “The emperor reacted by devastating Gojjam, the land of his relatively more
favored vassal with a fury which he himself found hard to explain: “I do not know
whether it is through my sin or that of the peasant, but I went on devastating the
country104”.
A grieving Gojjame woman who saw the devastation expressed her sorrow and at the
same time begged Yohannes to have mercy on Gojjam in the following manner:
103
104
- Sven Rubenson, Suvival of Ethiopian Independence
- Bahru Zewde, p.45 and Belatan Geta Hiruy. P 83.
56
The English translation of the above couplets here given hereafter:
In the name of the heavenly Lord your friend
In the name of Saint Michael your guardian angel
In the name of the Ark of Moses the giver of your white bread
Oh have mercy on Gojjam and we shall not call you coward 105
During the rampage by Yohannes’s army, women were raped, crops were destroyed,
cattle and other domestic animals were looted and churches desecrated. The result was
widespread famine in the otherwise self-sufficient Gojjam. A starving woman who
allegedly killed her cat for meat and feared death from the animal’s flesh asked people
who traveled through her village to tell the cause of her death as follows”
Yohannes’s policy of unification had also religious dimension as can be inferred from the
following passages scribbled down by the Ethiopian historian Bahiru Zewde.
“The Muslims of Wallo were told to renounce their faith and embrace Christianity or
face confiscation of their land and property. The reactions were varied. The political
leaders generally acquiesced. Thus, two prominent converts were Muhammad Ali,
baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as Mikael, and Abba Wataw, who
became Hayla-Maryam. Others confirmed outwardly, praying to the Christian God in
the daytime and to the Muslim Allah at night – thereby reinforcing the unique
juxtaposition of Islam and Christianity that we find to this day in Wallo106.”
“The harsher aspects of Boru Meda in any case soon paled into insignificance in
comparison with the intolerance, verging on fanaticism, that Yohannes showed
towards Islam: it emerged that he was aiming not only at unity of doctrine, but also at
unity of faith. There was no room for Islam in his ideological world. The thrust of his
repression was directed against Wallo107.” The harsh treatment of Muslims in Wallo
105
- Abdusasamad H. Ahmed, Northeast Africa Studies, 1991
106
107
57
forced some of them to flee to other areas of Ethiopia. Those who fled to Gurageland and
Arsi were instrumental in spreading Islam. After resisting Yohannes’s forced conversion
of Muslims into the Christian faith, an Argobba Muslim leader by the name Sheik Talha
fled to the Sudan with his followers. Later Talha and other Muslims from the districts of
Azebo and Wolkait served as guides and foot soldiers to the Mahdists against Yohannes.
By the way what should we say about the atrocities committed against Ethiopian
Muslims from Wello when they were forced by emperor Yohannes to renounce their
religion and embrace Christianity on the pain of death? Why does Tecola or other
Tigrean nationalists fail to mention the atrocities committed by Yohannes in the name of
national unity whereas they are so vocal in cataloguing the alleged crimes of emperor
Menelik who in fact had a liberal religious policy? Was it not on the order of emperor
Yohannes that Ethiopian Moslems were beheaded? The following couplet encapsulates
the pain of the Welloyes who were forced to convert their religion under duress. During
one of the forced conversions to Christianity at a place called Kerka, a Wallo Muslim
posed the following question to emperor Yohannes by the coining the following couplet
which encapsulate the sense of loss and anguish felt by the Wello Moslims who were
forced to change their religion on the pain of death.
Tanash talak bellan Kerka Adeebabay
Kiristian hoy al leb siga yitafetal wey ?
Translations of the Amharic couplet coined by the people of Wello (who were adherents
of Islam) and were forced to change their religion into Christianity on the order of
emperor Yohannes :
We have eaten the best of the oxen meat at Kerka square
Oh Christians is flesh tasty whereas the heart is missing108?
We are not writing about the facts cited above with a view to demonize Yohannes who,
in his view, was strengthening Ethiopian unity by promoting Ethiopian nationalism based
on the Orthodox Christian faith at that time. Yohannes, unlike those of us who live today
and reflect on his records deeds with a different lens and the benefit of hindsight, could
not have appreciated the pain he was inflicting on Ethiopian Moslems. Equally, we
cannot today endlessly condemn Menelik or Tewodros or their predecessors for things
they have done more than 100 years ago. Unlike those of us who live in a modern era
blessed with the virtues of knowledge, all our past rulers did not have the opportunity of
benefiting from the progressives insight and knowledge we have at our disposal today.
What we those of us in this generation can and should do is to learn from the mistakes of
our past rulers and avoid the repetition of past mistakes so that our generation and
posterity may be spared the scourge of hatred and the ravages of wars. Mutual
108
- Desta Tekle Weld – Addis Ye Amarigna Mezgebe Kalaat, pp 126
58
recriminations would not bring us anywhere nor help us in cultivating a sense of harmony
that we need to forge unity and build a new future for our people who are at the bottom
end of the world in terms of human development.
ARE WOYANNES VISIONARIES?
Tecola Hagos, like all other Tigrean ethnicists, believes it required visionaries like the
Woyannes for brining fundamental changes in Ethiopia. I tend to agree with him on one
aspect. To the extent Woaynnes have resuscitated fascist Italy’s divide and rule policy,
they are visionaries for spreading hate and divisiveness. The problem is that their vision
is not original. It is a borrowed vision from the days of Mussolini and his fascist regime.
Deeply ingrained in the psyche of “the hate Menelik” campaigners, is their love for
Mussolini and their cherished hope that Meles would succeed in crystallizing the ethnic
division of Ethiopian as the only means of guaranteeing the exclusive empowerment of
the Tigrean ethnic group. A mere comparison between the socio-economic development
of Tigrai and other parts of Ethiopia during the last 13 years abundantly corroborates this
fact.
The very essence of democracy is at loggerheads with the so-called “ethnic democracy”
the stock-in-trade of the Tigrean regime that has been promoted by the TPLF during the
last 13 years. Ethnic democracy which promotes group right (ethnic right) over individual
right calls for a system of government whereby ethnic elites assume power on behalf of
the imagined ethnic group they claim to represent. The very idea of the supremacy of
individual right which forms the basis of any genuine democratic system is anathema to
the entrepreneurs of ethnic nationalism such as the TPLF, OLF, ONC, Southern
Coalitition, TAND, etc who clamor for a political system which is based on group right
(self-determination of a particular ethnic group) as opposed to individual right (a system
of government where the individual determines his individual destiny freely and without
being dictated by the whims of ethnic warlords or elites). The so-called “ethnic
democracy” only succeeds in fragmenting a nation and encouraging different ethnic
groups in a country to make exclusivist claims to a territory housing various ethnic
groups and which otherwise belongs to all Ethiopians. The recent ethnic cleansing that
took place in the Gambella area is one such consequence of the “ethnic democracy and
ethnic federalism” which TPLF has been promoting in Ethiopia during the last 13 years.
What transpired in Hararghe (Bedeno), Arsi (Arba Gugu), Sidamo (Guji versus Gedeo),
Ogaden (Somai versus Oromos), Shewa (Afars versus Oromos), etc, Gojjam (Gumuz
versus Amharas), etc eloquently corroborates the destructive and divisive aspect of ethnic
politics. Which ethnic group benefited from the mayhem, destruction and instability by
the divisive policy TPLF has promoted in the name of ethnic democracy and which
ethnic groups became victims of this destructive ethnicization policy is a question which
all of us have to pose and find answer for. The majority of Ethiopians, who have to bear
the brunt of the pain caused by TPLF’s ethnic policy, can give an answer to this question.
While seemingly a new method to resolve the so called “nationalities question”, its origin
has deeper roots in the colonial policies of Italy. To call the proponents of this backward
divide and rule politics visionaries is nothing but closing one’s eyes to the tragic realities
59
which have been unfolding in Ethiopia before our own eyes. TPLF’s vision in
resuscitating Mussolini’s fascist policy implies that there is a great confusion in our
country. It is not ethnic and divisive politics that will solve the contradictions but
popular-democratic struggles. What Ethiopians inside and outside the country demand for
now is the general elections of 2005 must be free, fair and democratic. The election law
that favors TPLF must make room for political parties with new ideas. Ethnic politics is
dead on arrival.
“An Eternal Seeker of Truth” and The Hidden Truth
In order to deceive critical observers, Tecola implies that his essays are intended to seek
the truth, but there is one important truth that Tecola is hiding from the public. At the
beginning of his verbal assault on Amharas and Menelik, Tecola received and published
letters to the editor on his website. Most of the letters he received were from people who
shared his hatred of the Amhara and congratulated him for standing up against the
enemies of Tigrayans (read Amharas). One of the letters reads:
“You are a kin person we (Tigrean) are lacking at this moment, telling them like it is.
We are being pushed aside by this Neftegnas who will never see a good thing of us, no
matter how we bend backwards. They have spread their poison since 100 years ago
which is haunting us to this day.”
The above paragraph is taken from a letter of support sent to Tecola for his effort that
went into dehumanizing and pillorying Amharas and Menelik as the cancers in the body
politics of Ethiopia. The writer signed his name as “Yoseph Giday.”
While letters of gratitude are kept on Tecola’s website where readers have easy access to
see the support he receives from his admirers (ethnicists), letters which are very critical
of his anti-Amhara campaign are posted in a section of Tecola’s webpage where a casual
observer cannot see them. Mindful of the damage the critical letters can do to his image,
Tecola keeps the critical letters in section dubbed as “Book Review” hidden from public
view. For the record here is one of critical letters NOT found in “Letter to The Editor”
section of the website.
Dear Dr. Tecola,
“I initially wanted to post this brief message on Ethioforum (where an excerpt of
your book review was posted), but I finally abandon the idea and decided to send
the message to you. I am not a Shoa Amhara, not even an Amhara by ethnicity.
Nor do I support Meles or EPLF. I have opposed all the three regimes that have
ruled (misruled) Ethiopia during my lifetime. Obviously, I should belong to the
group of Ethiopians who you consider genuine compatriots. However, I was
honestly dismayed by both the content and tenor of your book review. I had had
high regard for you for quite some time because I consider you a courageous
Ethiopian, and your love for your country is inspiring. You also are a very smart
man with a sharp intellect. Your potential to contribute to your bleeding country’s
60
salvation is enormous. There are very few Ethiopians who have been blessed with
the good fortune to amass so much knowledge or to nurture passion and
commitment to causes larger than themselves.
But I am beginning to harbor serious doubt whether Ethiopia will ever be fortunate
enough to see the potential of yours translated into reality. I used to regret that a
person like you had wasted so much of his life with a petty obsession with ethnicity.
I was hopping that after you left Meles’ government, you would gradually escape
your ethnicist entrapment. However it seems to me that both your mental frame
and structure of feeling is seriously damaged by parochial ethnicist outlooks. Your
ability to perceive social processes in any meaningful depth and to formulate visions
that are grounded in humanistic values is seriously constrained by the primary
frame of reference from which you seem to draw your ethics and politics, namely
ethnicity. You often sound like a sect leader who must make all events of the
universe fit into narrow religious scheme of interpretation and judgment.
Just read your book review again – it is morbid. The single organizing notion of
your narrative of Ethiopian evens going all the way to Menelik is an anti-Amhara
and pro-Tigrean bias. You even go to the extent of claiming that the reason why
people in DC were hostile to Ambassador Berhane was because they didn’t want to
see a Tigrean in a position of power/honor (as if you don’t know who one of
Ethiopia’s powerful Foreign Minister was long before TPLF came to power!). And
you really want us to hold Shoan Amharas (that is how you label the people whom
TPLF brought together to fake Amhara ethnic representation) responsible for
Meles’ victory over the Dissenters today? The only people who end up being the
bright lights of your narrative are Tigreans at home and abroad (save Meles
Zenawi), Negasso Gidada, and of course you. Really, you live in a very small
cognitive and emotional universe.
I think this is sick. It diminishes you as a person, let alone as a public intellectual
and political leader who aspires to elevate a people. I hope you realize some day
that purging yourself of the dehumanizing and deforming grips of ethnicism would
be a truly liberating experience to you both as an Ethiopian and as a thinker. Only
when we cease to overvalue ethnicity and develop social perspectives that go beyond
ethnicity can we, as intellectuals and civic leaders, help take our Ethiopian
compatriots to the heights of their humanity – a place where their goodness can be
nurtured, and whether their human weaknesses can be mitigated or at least less
exploited by fanatic tyrants and rank political crooks. Forgive me for the harsh
words – I simply was disgusted by the ethnicist excesses of your book review. I
honestly hope that you will escape the entrapment that has victimized so many, you
simply are too good for that.”
Signed:
Best, Afework.
61
The letter is a crucial for two reasons. First, the writer knows Tecola’s past obsession
with ethnicity, and second it validates my argument that what Tecolas disguises as
“Mahal-Sefari” is a cover up for his hatred of Shoan Amhara. If there is any doubt in
people’s mind, Afework’s letter clearly demonstrates Tecola’s reason for dwelling on
Ethiopian leaders he identifies with Amharas is NOT to seek the truth but to manifest his
deeply held views that Amharas are impediment to Tigrayan progress and should be dealt
with. I am obliged to ask: if Shoan Amharas are such monsters how is it possible for
Tigregna speakers living in Shoa to prosper and attain a high standard of living than
Shoans?
Dishes Out But Cannot Take It Back
When cornered with his insensitive and ethnocentric argument Tecola resorts to vulgarity
and uses street language to deflect his critics. He has no problem hurling insult against his
critics but not equipped to take back when reciprocated. He believes he is a person
deserving respect and adulation for his dubious academic credential while he does not
reciprocate respect to our leaders and his critics. Respect is earned by the manner one
displays in his private and public life but not demanded while insulting others. He insults
the humanity of Menelik as “no ordinary criminal, the wrong symbol, common
treasonous, divisive, immoral, and corrupt leader who remains to this day the very cause
of our present economic and political problems. In the same vein the high priest of
morality contradicts himself and writes, “Hate is an emotional degenerating handicap; I
have no such deformity.” When I read Tecola’s contradictions I am reminded of what
Malcom X once said. Malcom X who saw some of the American society as irredeemably
racist, reminded the hatemongers, “You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches
and then pull it out six inches and say you’re making a progress.” Tecola cannot lecture
others about hate when in fact almost everything he writes is full of hate and a stab to the
chest with a dagger.
In a private email to an Ethiopian colleague Tecola wrote slander and complained about
Professor Getatchew Haile and myself. I sent email message to Professor Getatchew and
asked him the reasons for Tecola’s outburst and disrespectful behavior. Here is Professor
Getatchew’s response:
“Dear Girma,
You have asked me what occurred between me and Professor Tecola Hagos to provoke
him to insult me as he has.
I am not sure; but let me begin at the beginning. It was I who first initiated contact with
Mr. Tecola (I was not aware at that time that he had the academic title of professor),
because I had read about his book "Democracy in Ethiopia?" and was curious to speak to
him, just as I am curious to speak to all writers who write about Ethiopia. We had several
long telephone conversations, and in all of those exchanges I found Professor Tecola
engaging and polite. Nothing he ever said would lead me to think him capable of using
62
the vulgar street language attributed to him. Indeed, are you sure the words are his?
Anything is possible with the Internet.
In fact, the only thing that I ever found unusual in our exchanges was a strange letter he
once wrote me. In that letter, he all of a sudden asked me to stop writing on the political
situation in Ethiopia. I could not figure out who he thought I was hurting. In any event,
he changed his mind when I asked him why I should not write about my country when
others, including him, continue to do so.
Our exchanges were warm and productive enough that Professor Tecola proposed that I
meet him and others in Washington, D.C. to discuss some important matters. I could not
make the trip from Minneapolis to Washington on the date he proposed, but rather than
turn down the invitation I informed him that I would be in Washington at another time on
other business and proposed that we meet then. As his other colleagues could not make
my date, Professor Tecola and I agreed that he and I would meet so that he could brief me
on his discussions with the others. I made arrangements to come to Washington one day
earlier than I needed to for my other business and informed Professor Tecola of the date
and time of my arrival and the name of the hotel where I would be staying. We agreed
that we should call each other as soon as I arrived.
The gentleman never showed up, nor called. I called him several times, only to meet an
answering machine on which I left at least two messages. When everything was silent, I
remembered Emperor Haile Sellassie’s words, "Silence is also a form of response—
"zimmitamm mels new."
After all this rude and un-Ethiopian behavior, I received from Professor Tecola, several
months later, an e-mail inviting me to write for his website, without any reference to,
much less apology for, what occurred in Washington. As you know, there are many,
many websites. I am honored when I am invited to contribute to these venues, but I
cannot possibly respond to every invitation I receive. Moreover, in this particular case I
was not persuaded that a new website was necessary as opposed to enhancing an existing
site such as the Deqi Alula website (to which, incidentally, Professor Tecola had also
invited me to contribute).
So did I respond to Professor Tecola’s invitation? To use His Excellency’s adage again,
"Silence is also a form of response—"zimmitam mels new". As is my right, that was the
response I chose.
Selam
Getatchew Haile “
As any keen observer can see from Professor Getatchew’s response that the main reason
why Tecola approached the Professor was to convince him to stop writing about TPLF
(Tecola’s darling organization) and expose its divisive and destructive politics. Tecola,
no doubt, felt that the Professor’s argument against TPLF had inflicted a deep wound in
63
his psyche and wanted him to stop writing about TPLF. By all accounts of his public
pronouncements, Tecola is “Their Man Amongst Us” posturing as a great patriot while
espousing TPLF and its ethnic agenda.
“The Final Solution” to the Amhara problem as suggested by Tecola Hagos
As I was finishing this article I watched a TV documentary about the extermination of
Jews in Auschwitz and other Nazi camps. One of the S.S. guards was asked if the killing
that took place in the camp was justified. His response was, “Based on the propaganda
we read, we all believed all Jews were criminals.” The propaganda against the Jews was
Hitler’s assertion that there were International conspiracy by the Jews against Germany
and that the defeat of Germany in the First World War was due to Jews. In Rwanda the
Tutsi were considered as snakes and cockroaches to be exterminated.
A careful examination of EPLF, TPLF, OLF campaigns, mayhem and the writings of
ethnonationalist such as Tecola and others are clear reminders of the prelude to the
extermination of Jews in Germany and Tutsis in Rwanda. There is a similar tone in
Tecola’s discourses. Just like the Jews were assumed conspirators against the German
people, there is a belief that Amharas, especially Shoan-Amharas, are conspiring against
the Tigrian regime. Tecola’s writings are clear examples of Shewan-Amhara conspiracy
theory. One cannot help but draw a parallel between Nazi propaganda against Jews and
the anti-Amhara campaign by ethnonationalists. What should be done to solve the
problem – i.e. Amhara? Tecola gives a hint on how to solve that problem. His
prescription reads:
economic advancement. They have set us back from being united, productive, and
socially responsible citizens for at least a century since the time of Menilik II. They
are the cancerous growth in our polis. We must entertain the possibility of moving
ahead with our destiny without the mehal safaris. We can excise them from power,
or bottle them up in their own area of kingdom and see to it that they do not any
more use us to promote their hold on economic and political power in Ethiopia. Our
decision must take into account how we can achieve the greatest good109”.
Tecola Hagos, “PARADIGM OF POVERTY AND HUMANISM: UNDOING
ETHIOPIA’S MODERNITY”, July 24, 2003 Washington DC USA.
As readers can judge from the foregoing, Nazi and Hutu extremists could not have used a
better propaganda tool than this to eliminate what they considered their enemies. Some
- Tecola Hagos, “PARADIGM OF POVERTY AND HUMANISM:
UNDOING ETHIOPIA’S MODERNITY”, July 24, 2003 Washington DC USA.
109
64
people may dismiss Tecola’s ideas as mere rhetoric and nuisance that should be ignored.
I submit that the writer is expressing a deeply held belief in his heart that Amharas are the
enemies of Tigrayans and should be dealt with while TPLF is in power, an opportune
moment to implement “The Final Solution.” This is a sadistic prophecy that Amhara
Ethiopians should not ignore. It is also a clear reminder of the Armenian experience in
the hands of the Turks.
Armenian political parties had struggled long for a new social order based on equality
between the various ethnic groups as well as for political and economic justice. That
vision contradicted the ideology of Turkish elite just like the vision of Ethiopian
opposition contradicts the domination and exclusive ethnic ideology of Tigryan elite.
The solution to the social problem faced by the Turks was the indiscriminate massacre of
millions of Armenians. Armenians became victims of a preconceived plan of
annihilation. The annihilation involved several predetermined and consecutive steps.
Armenians were disarmed, emasculated as a people. They were collectively demonized
and their humanity, cultural symbols, leaders deconstructed. Having done that the
Turkish soldiers drove them by whips and bayonets into the mountains where they finally
murdered them en mass. Similar steps were taken in Ethiopia, especially in the so-called
“Oromia Kilill” where Amharic speakers were rounded up and massacred in cold blood.
Harsh measures were taken in Northern Shewa and Gondar, Gojjam as TPLF considers
these places as hot-beds of opposition to his regime. All Ethiopians must face this truth.
From reading what Tecola writes about our leaders, the institutions they built, one can
easily conclude that he is regurgitating what TPLF and its satellite ethnic political parties
have been preaching about Amharas. It is also quite obvious he is consumed by fear of
the alleged “Amhara enemy” that lurks in the corner. Tecola really suffers from suffers
from “hate the other” syndrome. He believes that non-Tigrayans are threats to the TPLF
regime that he ethnically identifies with. The need to use Amharas as scapegoat is
therefore to rally other ethnic groups to support TPLF’s mission of divide and conquer.
Just as Hitler tried to fill the hearts of the anxiety-ridden Germans with a sense of
superiority by painting the Jewish people as “vermin” and “pestilence”, Tecola and his
TPLF followers try to rally Tigregna speakers and non-Amharas behind them with an aim
to render “The Final Solution” to the Amhara conveniently packaged as “Mehal Sefaris”.
He believes Tigrayans were kept in the dark due to “Amhara hegemony” hence, now is
the time to take matters in their own hands to make sure that the Mehal Sefaris or
Amharas would never come back to the Ethiopian political scene. If one has any doubt as
to the anti-Amhara thrust of even those former TPLF leaders like Gebru Asrat and Co.
who claim that they have reconstructed themselves and joined the mainstream Ethiopian
politics, the following paragraph from the political program which they recently made
public clearly corroborates their Anti-Amhara fixation and hatred. I quote the paragraph
for the benefit of those who have not read their political program that has been made
public at the end of December 2004.
Paragraph 3.3.4 of the political program which has been distributed by former TPLF
leaders who claim that they are opposed to the incumbent government defines its goals as
follows:
65
“To fight against the efforts of the old and the new chauvinist forces who try to snatch
away the victories and rights of nations and nationalities that have been won after
great sacrifices 110”.
As the reader may infer from the above paragraph, chauvinist forces refers to Amharas
and pan-Ethiopian political groups such as AEPU, EDUP and the Rainbow Coalition
which has recently made its debut on the Ethiopian political scene. Chauvinist is a code
name for anything related to Amharas and it has been the practice of ethnonationalists to
label as chauvinist all those groups who emphasize the supremacy of individual rights
over group or ethnic rights.
There is an awesome amount of theme on which we Ethiopians can debate about our
country’s past, present and future. We all are our parents children and have with us all
the individual and collective societal baggage that attends it. The tendency of
ethnonationalists to ascribe the collective societal and structural problems of Ethiopia to
one ethnic group is not only unfair and unjust but also polarizing and divisive. History is
replete with individuals and governments that annihilated an entire group of people to
legitimize their rule and to stay in power. No one argues that our leaders’ internal
policies were fair and perfect to various ethnic and interest groups. However, to paint
Shoans in particular and Amharas in general as criminals has no factual basis than ethnic
hatred. Self- hatred is at the root of race or ethnic hatred. What is disturbing most is
when the sources of hate and inciting message are people who pride themselves as
educated and liberated from village mentality. In order to hide their intended targets and
hatred, they package their hate messages as “intellectual inquiry” and “seeker of truth”
but in reality they falsify what is truth in a way nobody recognizes it. For all practical
matters the predicament that Ethiopia finds itself today is because of Meles and TPLF but
not the glorious history of Menelik and Amharas who are used as scapegoat by bigots and
hate mongers.
Disclaimer
EthioLion does not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the
accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information published herein.
Information about individual and firm has been supplied by such individual or firm
without verification by us .The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do
not necessarily state or reflect those of EthioLion editors or those of other
opponent parties. The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute
endorsement by EhtioLion.com of the linked web sites, or the information,
products or services contained therein.
110
- A draft political programme submitted for discussion to the Ethiopian democratic forces, December
2004.
66

Ethnocentrism Masqueraded as “Intellectual Inquiry”

Transcription

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