• The idea of south-south co-operation evokes a positive image of solidarity between developing countries through the exchange of resources, technology, and knowledge. It’s an attractive proposition, intended to shift the international balance of power and help developing nations break away from aid dependence and achieve true emancipation from former colonial powers. However, the discourse of south-south co-operation has become a cover for human rights violations involving southern governments and companies.

-”Ummata Fannaana Ummata Qashxii Dire Dhawaa” (The Artistic and Jolly People of Dire Dawa)

By Afendi Muteki

Once up on a time, the people of Dire Dawa were assembled in the city’s main hall to listen to the speech of a member of the central committee the Dergue (the military govenment that ruled Ethiopia from 1974-1991) who came to vist the city. As most of the people were the speakers of Afaan Oromoo, the Dergue official picked certain boy from among the people and made him a translator (the official deliverd the speech in Amharic).
The official started his speech. And when he said “Yetekeberkewna yetewededkew Ye Dire Dawa Hizb” (meaning “the beloved and the respected people of Dire Dawa”), the boy translated it “Yaa Ummata Fannaana Yaa Ummata Qashxii Dire Dhawaa”. Hearing the boy’s translation, the people of Dire Dawa burst in laugher.
********
The above incident might happend; or it might not happend. But if it were a real account, I am sure that many people who heard it would laugh again and again. If you say ”why?”, I will reason out it as follows.
“Fannaan” is to mean “an artist” in Arabic language. But in its usage in Dire Dawa and other East Ethiopan towns, it refers mostly to the youth that dress well and always appear smart and clean. A fashion follower may also be called ”fannaan”.
In a wider sense, “fannan” is to mean a sociable, humorous and funny person. If we follow this wider sense, the people of Dire Dawa are 100 % “fannaan”.

”Qashxii” has no exact meaning in any language. It came out from the creative mind of the youth of Dire Dawa; and its real meaning can be found only in their dictionary. But in the usage prevalent around Dire Dawa, it can be a variant of “fannaan”. However, “qashxii” has extra applications; we express many things in it which “fannan” can’t describe. For example, a man that performs his work efficently can be called “qashxii”. We may look at a plane or a train passing at a high speed and say “It’s qashxii”. A bus that arrives on time is also “qashxii” (here it is to mean ”the one that arrives when people wanted it”). A new car model, a paper money note printed recently, a luxurious and gallant villa and any other beautiful thing can be called “qashxii”.

Given the above meanings of “fannaan” and “qashxii”, can we pass a judgment on the boys saying about the people of Dire Dawa? Exactly! The boy did no wrong. The people of Dire Dawa are always “fannaan” and “qashxii”. They are giants of creativity, modernity, modesty and sociability. However, the statement of the boy is more applicable to the city itself.
Dire Dawa is only 110 years old. But it excels all ethiopians cities in the role it has played for the modernity of the nation save Addis Ababa and Harar. It is the center of trade, banking, manufacturing, transport, technology and art. Through its mystique threads, it has connected the natives of the three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe) at one place. In short, modern civilization enterd Ethiopia through it.

I could have said many words about Dire Dawa. But that is not the theme of this article. Here, I will focus mainly on four things: I will tell you the foundation of the city; introduce you to Dire Dawa’s main boroughs and their namings; describe in short the Dire Dawa youth language usage and their creative skill; give you some notes on artists’ view of Dire Dawa.

Abdulkariim Ibraahim- Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa
Duuti inni du’e nuttis tahu gadda
Kan inni habaqaale Oromoota hundaa
Hoggayyuu yaadannaa way sammuu nu badaa.

Tokkicha Oromoo goota kumaatamaa
Inni kaayyoon isaa arguu bilisummaa
Silaa duuti hin ooltuu namuu itti deemaa
Arra du’anillee hogguut yaadatama.

Gabrummaa cunqursaa didee diinaan lolee
Qabsoo jalqabaa gaafa isiin qoollee
Isaatu gad dhaabe qawween diinatti lolee
Garuu du’a  Rabbiin  addunyarraa gale.

Miidhaa  saba isaaf garaansaa rora’ee
Qabsotti jalqaba  kophaa lafaa ka’ee
Adawwii haleeluuf karaa dheeraa bu’ee
Qabsoo itti jirru isaat asiin ga’e.

Guddina keenyaaf akkaan carraaqanii
Ifa nu baasuudhaaf heddus miidhamanii
Tattaafateen hafne bakkaanis gahanii
Bu’aa meeqaantam arra nuuf dhiisanii
Xurree isaan baasan irra kan deemanii;
Rabbummaan jannataan haa qananiisuunii!

Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa leenca haati deesse
Goota gootarraa kan saba isaa boonse
Meeqatam dammeeysuun if jala hiriirsee
Qabsoo jalqabaa isumaat daaddisee
Diinatti lolee dura kan lolchiise
Adawwii sabasaa meeqa girgireeyse.

Goota sodaa hin qabne kan sabaaf if kanne
Cunqursaa diinaatiif isa gad hin janne,
Hanga lubbuun jiruu isa hin hifanne,
Silaa du’uu hin qabu goonni hin mo’amne
Garuu humaa miti du’a Rabbiin dhabnee.

Isaat du’e malee ni jira seenaan isaa
Waan inni nuuf dhaaman hin bahu sammuu keessaa
Yaa Rabbi yaa Allah hunda ni dandeessaa
Nuuf naqi yaa goytaa jannata kee keessaa
Haalaan jajjabeessi warraa fi maatiisaa
Nutis nuuf kanni mee waan nu sabbarsiisaa.

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Najiib Zannuun
marsimoonaa@hotmail.com

As long as enough people can be frightened, then all people can be ruled. —James Bovard

With the convergence of the ‘war on terror’ with the war on political adversaries, draconian justice has returned with a vengeance in Ethiopia. Just as authoritarian and racist regimes during the Cold War used the fight against communism or imperialism for the repression of political dissent; the regime in Ethiopia is using the ‘fight against terrorism’ as a framework for justifying the liquidation of democratic mobilization, and political dissent.

Just as Stalinist USSR, Apartheid South Africa, and other authoritarian systems have deployed the entire sovereignty of the state, including their constitutions and court systems, to suppress basic freedoms, and eliminate political adversaries, the Ethiopian government is aiming for total power and total control of its population.  To curtail the activities of opposition politicians, journalists, activists, and dissenting forces, the regime has adopted an Anti-terrorism Proclamation widely criticized for its vague and broad formulations. The trajectory of the Ethiopian legal system and its systematic mobilization against political foes of the regime points to an emerging parallel between Ethiopia’s political trials, and Stalinist show trials. Interesting parallels between Apartheid South Africa’s deployment of the Suppression of Communism Acts, and Ethiopia’s turn to anti-terrorism legislation can also be seen in the current ongoing trials of 28 community leaders in Ethiopia.

Nelson Mandela is one of the many victims of political justice who, at the end of his ‘long walk to freedom’, secured his voice, and visibility in the world. But the victims of these aberrations of justice are countless. In fact, repression of political dissent and activism is not something exclusively reserved for authoritarian states. Liberal democracies such as the United States have frequently turned to the legal system for the same purpose. At the height of the Cold War, the United States used the Smith Act and other laws to suppress communists, Black and Indian liberationist movements and other dissenting voices.

In the post 9/11 order, the new security constellation is encoding overarching security discourses into virtually all spheres of life, subverting fundamental freedoms of expression, and dissent. The law is now expressly conceived as a tactical deployment. But this is not to suggest that the function of law in authoritarian systems and democratic societies is comparable. In fact, aberrations in liberal democracies are frequently held up as justifications for authoritarianism in authoritarian systems.

In Ethiopia, despite a progressive constitution that accords due recognition to the liberal ideals of the rule of law and human rights, despite a government that never ceases to proclaim its democratic credentials, courts operate as technologies of repression and centres of propaganda aimed at something that transcends the individual on trial.[1]As in Stalin’s Russia, the judicial machine is activated not to redress past injustices ex post and deter future offenses ex ante, but to upset, fray, or destroy existing force-relations within the body politic. In both systems, the legal space is activated on the premise that the state does what it has the power to do and the defendant accepts and confirms the government’s version of truth, reality, and history.

In both systems, confession is synthesized with bureaucracy and functions as a key instrument of the enterprise of indoctrination, terror, and repression. In Ethiopia, confession comes in different forms. There are pretrial confessions of which the recent documentary film, “Jihadawi Harekat” is a glaring example. But there is also the now popular post-conviction confession called ‘a pardon’.

In Ethiopia, a convicted political prisoner is presumed not to have been rehabilitated unless he agrees to sign a ‘pardon’ document the terms of which are determined by the state. This is irrespective of whether or not the accused has served the term of sentence. Even if you have finished the terms of your sentence, you must apologize to the state, and sign the pardon document. If the term of your sentence runs out before you agree to the terms of the pardon document, you will be released and rearrested on another charge. If you let that happen, it means that you would have to go through the entire process, and get convicted again, only to face the same dilemma again.

This is precisely the story of the two civil society activists who were tried and convicted during the post 2005 election: Daniel Bekele and Netsanet Demissie. Through intermediaries that came to be known as ‘shimagiles’, Amharic for elders, the duo were told that their freedom depends not on the completion of the terms of their sentence but their consent to the pardon document. This is the reality of justice and the rule of law in today’s Ethiopia. And it is precisely the same logic and rationality that explains the ongoing trial of the Committee of 17 and the attendant propaganda campaign.

 The trial of the 28 community leaders

This is a trial against leaders of a Muslim protest movement that has been negotiating with the government to seek a resolution for the grievances of the Muslim community in Ethiopia. The conflict began when the government embarked on an audacious act of re-indoctrination through coercive introduction of the teachings of an alien sect, the Ahbash, into mosques and schools. The same government that recognized the Committee as representatives of the people and negotiated with this body turned around and labelled them self-appointed terrorists, and arrested them under charges of terrorism when negotiations failed.

From its very inception, the trial was marred by allegations of procedural irregularities and heavy handed government intervention. The indictment is a chilling assemblage of fabricated allegations aimed at legitimizing the violence of the state, and preemptively eliminating any meaningful fight back against state control of the formation and circulation of religious discourses. It is so bizarre that even this court has to throw out the allegation of conspiracy “to establish an Islamic state” because it was not even convincing on the grounds of ‘political expedience’. From arrest to the preliminary hearing, and throughout the pretrial detention, those arrested were mistreated and tortured. The government’s unrelenting propaganda campaign against the defendants created an environment in which their right to presumption of innocence is no longer tenable.

During the preliminary hearing, lawyers contested the constitutionality of the anti-terrorism law, and asked the court to refer the matter to the Council of Constitution Inquiry, and the House of Federation, bodies charged with the authority to interpret the constitution. The lawyers argued that the law is essentially without force, that it is illegal, since its provisions, in significant part, fly in the face of the very constitution and constitutional order from which it derives its validity.

 The right to a fair and public trial

The right to a fair and public trial is recognized by the Ethiopian constitution and other international human rights instruments accepted by Ethiopia. Without providing sufficient reasons that warrant the limitation of this fundamental right, the government asked the court to hear the case ‘in closed session’. To prevent a repeat of a few embarrassing scandals in past political trials – there is indeed a much higher risk of embarrassment in a nation-shaking trial such as this – the court accepted the government’s decision. According to the constitution, the limitation of the right to a public trial is justified only if the limitation is due to the “privacy of the parties concerned, public morals, and national security.” The government argued that since the names of prosecution witnesses were released on social media sites such as Facebook, a public trial endangered the safety of the witnesses.

But nowhere in Article 20 of the Constitution does it say or imply that the safety of witnesses constituted the basis for limiting the defendant’s right to a public trial. This not only deprives the defendants of the right to be tried before an open and public court but also violates the fundamental presuppositions of the criminal law. Nevertheless, the court accepted the government’s decision without asking how the latter’s explanation squares with the expressly enumerated exceptions in the Constitution.

 The ‘presumption of innocence’ and the film – Jihdawi Harekat

The government made its most audacious move so far when it announced that it would broadcast a propaganda film titled “Jihadawi Harekat: Boko Haram in Ethiopia?” in blatant disregard of the defendant’s right to presumption of innocence. The government announced its intention to broadcast the documentary film during prime-time television on 5 February 2013. In the one minute trailer, the film shows the chairman of the committee saying: “the ultimate goal was to establish an Islamic state”—one of the most bizarre accusations that this court itself decided to throw out.

Prompted by the trailer, the lawyers for defence petitioned the court and obtained an injunction against the TV station on 5 February 2012. Shortly afterwards, it was reported that the President of the High Court nullified a ruling of the three judge panel through an administrative act and the TV station broadcast the film. As a matter of law, a judicial decision can only be annulled through another judicial decision at an appellate level. In this case, the President nullified the court’s decision in a blatant violation of the Constitution and other laws of the country. This is precisely what happens in a system where ‘political expedience’ trumps the rule of law and legality.

Defending the government’s decision to go ahead and broadcast a documentary against a court order, Shimelis Kemal, Ethiopia’s own Andrey Vyshinsky, came up with multiple justifications that simply do not hang together. One of these mutually contradictory justifications is the idea that the subject matter of the documentary is a new terrorist conspiracy that is under investigation and not yet the object of judicial determination. He said, “this is a new crime” that is “not yet presented to the court”. But the fact remains that the documentary is primarily about leaders of a movement who are on trial, and unquestionably affects their right to be presumed innocent before the law. When the court that is considering the matter issued an injunction against the documentary, the court is saying two basic things. First, that the documentary will affect its ability to give a fair trial to the defendants. Second, that the rights of the defendants to be seen as defendants, not convicted criminals, both by the court and the general public, will be endangered. So this threatens not only their right to be presumed innocent before the court, but also before the body politic which has an interest in the maintenance of law and order. Furthermore, once the documentary was in the public domain, what public safety or national security reasons justified the closure of the hearing from the public?

 Hurling terrorism at defense lawyers

The government in the wake of the documentary scandal has resorted to accusing the defense lawyers of trying to protect their clients. Shimelis Kemal, former judge and prosecutor, now State Minister for communications, accused the lead defense lawyer, Tamam Ababulgu, of aiding and abetting terrorism. Referring to statements by Mr. Tamam to a few media outlets about the injunction, and acts of torture used against his clients to extort confessions, the Minister called the lawyer’s statements on behalf of his clients “white lies”. Tamam Ababulgu was summoned to a court to answer questions.

Nietzsche brilliantly encapsulates this logic in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie creeps from its mouth: ‘I, the state, am the people’.” The lies that creep out of the state’s mouth are justified as the protection of order, even when they are against the law, but a citizen’s lawful attempt to counter their lies is terrorism. If Tamam Ababulgu can be accused of terrorism by the State Minister, that is impeccable evidence of the distance the state is willing to go to mute and paralyze dissident narratives in the country. It also tells us that there is no room for cause lawyering in Ethiopia let alone imagining becoming a radical lawyer of the calibre of a Clarence Darrow, or a William Kunstler.

Conclusion

Although the deployment of the law as a tactic is not reserved for authoritarian systems, there is no symmetry between the role of law in democratic societies and non-democratic societies. In democratic societies, where a series of accountability mechanisms operate, the law cannot be used arbitrarily as an instrument of control, and terror. However, in authoritarian systems, the law is constantly invoked by a regime that does not respect its reciprocal obligation on which its legal authority to accuse and jail rests. In Ethiopia, the rhetoric of law and order is itself a form of ideological consciousness that makes a vigorous strategic use of the legal system, including the sovereignty of the state, to produce political and moral panic. This panic and generalized fear is used to coerce the “silent majority” into embracing oppressive measures as necessary and proportional to the threat facing the unity and stability of the nation.

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Awol Allo is the Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith Scholar at the University of Glasgow Law School, Glasgow, UK. Previously, Awol was a lecturer at St. Mary’s University College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Bisrat Teshome|  Addis Standard

Ethiopia’s inflation has been out of control for five consecutive years, at a great cost on the urban poor; now it looks as though it may come down to a somehow acceptable digit

For the last five consecutive years it is a routine practice for ordinary Ethiopians to go to any given market and confront erratic prices, mostly higher, for same products purchased a few weeks, days or even hours before from the same market. Consecutive data from the country’s Central Statistics Authority (CSA) can hardly conceal this dreadful fact either. In the month of September 2008, the CSA published a data showing inflation that went through the roof (59.67%), which is the highest ever recorded in recent history of Ethiopia.

Rudimentary economics define inflation as general price hike in goods and services in an economy over a period of time, paralyzing the purchasing power of the cash, which in turn results in people unable to afford to pay for goods and services.

Worse on urban dwellers

In the case for Ethiopia urban dwellers in Addis Ababa, the capital, and other major regional cities are the most affected segments of the society. This directly corresponds to the nature of urban lifestyle where almost all of the consumable products are purchased by a majority of city dwellers living on fixed salary based incomes. However, this is not to say that the poor in rural parts of the country is not affected by high price hikes.

A 2008 study conducted on urban food insecurity inside Kirkos sub-city in Addis Ababa, ‘Urban Food Insecurity: Extent of Food Deprivation’, revealed that 70% of the respondents in the sample were food insecure as a result of the high food prices, which means they were not able to meet a daily calorie requirement (> 2100 kilo calories per day) that is essential for the normal functioning of the body. Common coping mechanisms with urban food insecurity adopted by the urban poor around Kirkos sub-city were limiting the number of meals per day to two times or once and consuming less preferred food types. Some households have also reported that they have sold household assets to buy food.

As was clear from various indications, the respondents have said that this trend in price hikes started after the disputed elections of 2005. This period also coincides with a period shortly before the elections and after, during which the government in Ethiopia launched massive public investments in the Ethiopian economy.

Why persistent?

The serious impacts of inflation in the Ethiopian economy, which is believed to have been worsened by the state’s massive investment in infrastructure, have in turn pushed market players to go against major market principles: hoarding consumer products such as sugar and cooking oil, which, more than once, has exacerbated the problem into a full scale market disorder (currently sugar is an item available only in ration). Consumers’ and traders’ inflation-expectations have also played a major role in ever ballooning the vicious cycle of price hikes; it is common to see middle to upper class Ethiopian families in urban areas easily getting into the habit of purchasing larger quantities of consumable products expecting that in few more days or weeks prices will be more expensive than the “already old” prices. This in turn has created a fertile ground for wholesalers and retailers who used the demand as an opportunity to raise prices as it fits them best and not as dictated by the market.

Different multinational organizations such as the IMF and the WB have been proposing different mechanisms to curb inflation in Ethiopia. Their recommendations range from decreasing the already excess money supply in the economy (expansionary monetary policies) to diminishing the momentum of growth in the country’s economy. Experts from these institutions suggest that Ethiopia’s economy is fueled up way above its capacity to handle it. The counter recommendation by the government in Ethiopia has always been to continue increasing the country’s GDP growth which should help in countering high inflation rates by increasing opportunities and supply into the market.

Authorities have also repeatedly claimed various monetary and fiscal measures were taken to tame inflation. Although some of the measures showed a fair success in slowing down the general inflation since its peak year in 2008, it is yet to go lower than 20%, let alone to a single digit by June 2012, as was promised by the government in Ethiopia.   In economics this type of inflation is known as ‘comprehensive inflation’ or ‘economy wide inflation’.

One of the likely reasons for slow responses of inflation digits to the government’s anti-inflationary measures is the possibility of miscalculated strategy. The government often blames “superficial causes” mainly “imported inflation”; but a sober analysis of the root cause put the blame elsewhere. A working paper published in August 2012 by the African Development Bank Group, for example, says that the major reason for the excessive inflation in Ethiopia is the printing of money by the government to finance its deficits and stimulate aggregate demand.

On the way down, thankfully 

Perhaps heeding to unrelenting pleas from many directions, as of recent the government has decided to ease its borrowing from the central bank, and somehow switched funding sources for some of its massive and ambitious projects from central bank to domestic borrowing. This is hugely welcome news as it means the government may actually have stopped printing money and started borrowing from various alternative sources.  The official Inflation data shows that food inflation has declined from 41% in January 2012 to 11.8% in December 2012.

This is a relief for the urban poor, but it has to be sustained. It goes without saying that inflation has a rolling snowball effect on the urban poor, where the prices that are seen today are higher than they were days before and the salary based incomes fail to rise higher than the price hikes. It is now crucial for the government not to indulge, among many other things, in ambitious economic stimulus packages that can pressure it to borrow excess money from the central bank, which, as was the case in the last five years, will easily lead the economy into another daunting inflationary era.

The government’s uncanny response to “basic demands of religious freedom” has created a rare opportunity for a decisive break with a docile political past and for the “formation of a new collective consciousness” [AP]

On February 5, 2013, Ethiopia’s only and publicly funded Television Station, ETV, aired a controversial documentary during prime time in violation of an outstanding court injunction. Oddly subtitled “Boko Haram in Ethiopia”, Jihadawi Harekat – Arabic for “jihadi movement” – ­denounces leaders of Ethiopia’s year-long protest movement for alleged links to foreign terrorists.

Muslims in Ethiopia have been protesting the government’s control of the Supreme Islamic Council and its imposition of al-Ahbash, an unknown Islamic sect across mosques in Ethiopia. In a press statement last year, the bipartisan US Commission on International Religious Freedom said: “The Ethiopian government has sought to force a change in the sect of Islam practiced nationwide and has punished clergy and laity who have resisted.” Elected to represent the movement, the accused Muslim leaders were arrested and charged under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law when negotiations with the government failed last July.

A joint production of the Ethiopian National Security Agency, the Federal Police and ETV, the film draws a parallel between a local protest movement recognised for its peaceful acts of resistance with Africa’s most notorious terrorist groups such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Mali’s Ansar Din and Somalia’s al-Shabaab.

With dozens of journalists, politicians and activists already charged or convicted under its vague and broad anti-terrorism law that criminalises all forms of dissent, the fight against terrorism has become the primary juridical framework within which to legitimise and justify war against political foes. It is the new legal ideology in which these political motives are institutionalised to provide long-standing relationships of domination some legal pretext. In Ethiopia today, America’s “war on terror” is used to short-circuit both the constitution and international criticism.

Making fiction intelligible 

Made to portray the Muslim community’s struggle for religious freedom as a terrorist ploy designed to “establish an Islamic state“, Jihadawi Harekat is less about what it describes so much as the alternative reality that it depicts and crystallises. By drawing politically explosive parallels between groups with radically different political presuppositions, the film dramatises and escalates the gravity of the threat. It replays deeply held narratives of the past and accentuates the “evil” embodied by the committee in its attempts to frame them as “public enemies” working towards a common goal with groups that inhabit an entirely different political universe.

To amplify this new reality, that is, the cinematic production of new subjects of terrorism, the film appropriates pre-existing frames of reference that sociologists call “processes of signification”. To augment the parallel, it situates the protest movement in the context of terrorism – a discourse whose antecedent is always Islamic and “whose stereotypical characteristics are already part of socially available knowledge”.

Just because the protest movement shares the antecedent “Islam” with al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, the signification equates a peaceful movement that operates within the framework of Ethiopia’s own constitution with violent groups on the sole basis of their imputed common denominator. The exemplar images of violence embodied by al-Shabaab and Boko Haram are situated within the geopolitical context and cultural idiosyncrasies of Ethiopia to essentialise the association and ultimately render its absurd collocation socially intelligible.

There are temporal, spatial, material and editorial questions that the film cannot account for. By connecting events that took place from East Africa to West Africa, from North Africa to the Middle East, by gathering actors of differing ideological persuasions into unity, by reducing complex and contingent historic and political issues into self-evident mathematical varieties, Jihadawi Harekat inadvertently slips into a crisis it cannot contain or suppress.

One excellent example is a hinge the film uses to connect the leaders of the protest movement to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. In an unedited interrogation clip wrongly broadcasted after the film, the interrogators coerce Abubakar Ahmed – the chairman of the committee chosen to be representative of the Muslim community – into accepting their conclusion that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis have the ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic world under Sharia law.

While the reduction of such complex and contingent issues of historical and theoretical specificity into an either-or binary is emblematic of the logic through which the film establishes its central thesis, I am interested in the logic used to connect the ideologies of the Brotherhood in the Middle East to the protest leaders in Ethiopia. This pivot is a distinguished Qatari public intellectual, Jassim Sultan whose teachings two members of the protest leaders were said to have attended.

In an article that examined the increasing role of Qatar in the politics of the Middle East, The Economist holds up Sultan as an exemplary figure known for his “middle-of-the road” politics, not the extremism depicted in Jihadawi Harekat. Sultan, whom the film accuses of being a middle man between the “extreme ideological orientations” of the Brotherhood and Ethiopia’s “jihadists”, was praised by The Economist as, “a renowned Qatari intellectual, [who] strikes a chord by rejecting the Brotherhood’s demand for strict obedience… derides its slogan, ‘Islam is the solution’, as facile”.

By editing conversations about conversations, copy-pasting interrogations about different spatial, temporal and material co-ordinates into a coherent Ethiopian story, the film seeks to transform the most basic demands for freedom of religion into a joint criminal enterprise with terror groups near and far. Nowhere else is the conjuncture between words and images, facts and fictions, times and spaces, persons and events manifestly absurd as in Jihadawi Harekat.

Instead of generating a moral panic that serves as the material fabric for social control, the film generated consequences that are destabilising the regime. In a statement to the press, a coalition of 33 political parties emphatically denounced the film as yet another spectacle that epitomises the ruling party’s contempt for the constitution and the rule of law.

Boomerang effects 

The film, along with the ongoing trial, offers an important window into the cleavage that divides the old Ethiopian Muslim subjectivity from the new. Thanks to the government that never ceases to generate crisis and mobilise the law and its court system to cement this crisis, these events have opened up a space for critical cultural-political awareness.

Muslims in Ethiopia, who conceive their religious subjectivity as apolitical and go about their lives, have begun to realise that their religious identity can be a potent site of subjectification and domination. As one of 20th century’s prescient political thinkers, Hannah Arendt formulates this point; an attack against a specific identity creates spontaneous moment of political self-awareness. “If one is attacked as a Jew,” Arendt said, “One must defend oneself as a Jew. Not as a German, not as a world-citizen, not as an upholder of the Rights of Man.”

Because of the events of last year, there emerged a critical space in which a society that rarely, if at all, engages in questions of law and politics, protested the usurpation of its constitutional guarantees. In their struggle, Muslims in Ethiopia began to see unfair closures and systematic subjections taking place at sites and moments they could not have seen before. The government’s uncanny response to basic demands of religious freedom has created a rare opportunity for a decisive break with a docile political past and for the formation of a new collective consciousness.

Awol K Allo, is the Lord Kelvin Adam Smith scholar at the University of Glasgow Law School, UK. Previously, he was a lecturer in law at St Mary’s University College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

March 7, 2013 (OPride) — Abdulkarim Ibrahim Hamid, who is popularly known as Jarra Abba Gadaa, was a long-standing Oromo nationalist. His death a few days ago was a great loss for his family, for all those who knew him, for our people and for all freedom loving people everywhere. He was an exceptional person, who was driven with passion for freedom and human dignity of his people.

Jarra understood the connection between the conquest of the Oromo and the unmitigated attack on their cultural heritage. The purpose of that attack was to make the Oromo feel inferior in terms of their language, culture, history, way of life, political and cultural institutions. As a result of their conquest during and after 1880s the Oromo lost their sovereignty and freedom. With that they lost their land, their human dignity, as they were subjugated socially, dominated politically, exploited economically and dehumanized culturally. They also lost their pride as a people.

The daily degradation and oppression of the naftanya system took toll on the spirit of our people and slowly ate away at their national pride.Jarra Abba Gadaa was among few farsighted Oromo nationalists who had the wisdom to understand that a system that crushes the self-respect and self-confidence of individuals or a people, a system that kills the spirit of human dignity and pride is crude, brutal and oppressive that has to be resisted. For Jarra, there was nothing more precious than the human spirit of freedom, pride, self-respect and dignity of his people.

Through his lifelong struggle and sacrifice, Jarra Abba Gadaa and others were able to raise Oromo political consciousness that has altered how the Oromo perceive themselves and how they are perceived by others in the political landscape of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. It is the responsibility of the current Oromo generation to marshal their human, material, and spiritual resources to achieve their own liberation —the life-long objective for which Jarra struggled for more than half a century. When the history of Oromo struggle since the 1960s will be written, Jarra Abba Gadaa will have pride of place in that history. The purpose of this short piece is not to write about Jarra’s contribution to Oromo national struggle. It is only to mention few points that I remember about one of the most remarkable Oromo nationalists of our time.

Jarra Abba Gadaa and the formation the first Oromo student union

I first came to know Jarra Abba Gadaa in 1961 when I was a grade 6 student while he was 12-grade student in the city of Harar. At that time there were probably 3,000 students in the city of Harar, out of which there were no more than twenty to thirty Oromo students. During Christian and Muslim holidays in the city of Harar, Adare or Harari, Amhara, Tigrayan, and Somali students, all proudly sang their songs and danced their cultural dances and enjoyed their religious holidays. However, the few Oromo students were never able to enjoy their songs and cultural dances on their holidays. At that time, the Oromo were the most abused and humiliated people in Ethiopia. Some Oromo students hid their identity in order to escape from humiliation to which their people were subjected.

Jarra Abba Gadaa realized that people who lack self-respect lack the essential elements of humanity. After all, no one respects people who do not respect themselves and their cultural heritage. Jarra took the first important step on the long road to mental liberation of those who were touched by his magnetic personality. He contacted every Oromo student in Harar and brought us together in one place. That was how we were able to meet for the first time and came to know each other.

From the very beginning, all our meetings were conducted in Afan Oromo, which in itself was liberating experience as most of us who didn’t have a good command of Amharic language. Jarra informed us that he gathered us together to form the Union of Oromo students. He added that the purpose of Oromo student union was for organizing Oromo cultural show in the city of Harar. We were truly exhilarated.

In those days, the Oromo were called by the derogatory name of Gala. Although we never called ourselves by that name, we hated those who called us Gala. As a politically conscious young man, Jarra was far ahead of his time and suggested the name of our group to be the Union of Oromo students, which was unanimously endorsed by everyone at our first meeting. That was how the first Oromo student union in Ethiopia was born.

At that time most people in Ethiopia did not know that Oromo was the core of our people’s identity. It was Jarra’s political genius to pick our national name as the name of our student association. As the core of our people’s identity, our national name evoked an atmosphere of drama that captured our young minds with magic power that lifted us out of the depth of humiliation under which our people suffered for so long. Jarra was elected as the chairman of our union. Ahmed Mohammed Yusuf, who currently lives in Georgia, was elected as the secretary of our union. Taha Ali Abdi, who currently lives in London and one of the founders of the Oromo Liberation Front, and Jemal Ali Abdi, who currently lives in Toronto, were active members of our union.

Thanks to the leadership of Jarra Abba Gadaa, our union was able to organize the first ever Oromo cultural show at the cinema hall in the city of Harar in 1961. That in itself was a major achievement, when young students fearlessly and proudly performed Oromo cultural show in front of an audience, many of whom wept with joy and filled with pride that our language is as good as any other language in touching the human heart and soul. In those days, the Oromo language was proscribed in public.  The exhilaration that we felt at that time is impossible to express in words today. Let me just say it was a wonderful experience that taught us the importance of having an organization. Even after Jarra Abba Gadaa and Ahmed Mohammed Yusuf graduated from Harar high school, our union was able to organize more Oromo cultural shows in the city of Harar. It only shows that organized individuals, no matter how small their number, can achieve tangible results.

My last encounter with Jarra before he joined the armed struggle

I saw Jarra Abba Gadaa for the last time before he embarked on nearly half a century of struggle, which defined his character and served as the life-spring of his existence. That was during the summer of 1966. We met in the city of Dire Dawa and went together to the house of my friend, where we had lunch and spent the whole afternoon talking about the conditions of Oromo at the time. Then Jarra was already a conscious nationalist who could no longer live in peace, while our people were subjected to daily humiliation in all ways, big and small. Although we did not realize it at that time, the idea of joining armed struggle was crystallizing in his mind. But he kept it to himself. Few months later we heard that Jarra Abba Gadaa joined the Bale Oromo armed struggle, which was led by General Waaqoo Guutuu.

The following section is based on the interviews I conducted with many individuals over the years, including, Sheikh Mohammed Rashad in Mogadishu, whom I interviewed on July 18, 1980, Adam Tukale Ali, popularly known as Mulis Abba Gadaa, whom I interviewed on June 17, 1982 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Abdullai Mumad Bili, popularly known as Abdullahi Lungo, whom I interviewed on June 20, 1982 also in Jeddah, Suadi Arabia.

According to the information I obtained from the above-mentioned individuals, it was during his participation in the armed struggle in Bale that Jarra first distinguished himself as a brave warrior. As an intelligent man, Jarra quickly realized the importance of obtaining modern military training. It was for that purpose that he went to Somalia in 1967 but quickly disappointed when he realized the Somali government of the time never wanted to support an independent Oromo force that they did not control.

Jarra then went to the Middle East where he worked with Elemo Qilxu, the famous Oromo nationalist leader. With support from the Iraqi government, Jarra and 38 of his comrades received a yearlong military training program and equipment for starting guerrilla activities. After completing their training, under the command of Jarra Abba Gadaa, the first small guerrilla group was dispatched to Hararghe . Unfortunately, Jarra and his comrades were ambushed by Somali forces while in transit through northern Somalia and were detained in November 1969 by the order of General Said Barre. They were detained without trial for five years and released only in 1975.

After his release, Jarra was taken to Mogadishu, where he was personally asked by General Said Barre to join the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF). Jarra refused joining the WSLF and secretly returned to Hararghe in early 1976. His return to Haraghe was a major turning point in modern Oromo history for several reasons that cannot be discussed in this short piece. Here it should suffice to say that Jarra Abba Gadaa established the first Oromo Liberation Army and started armed struggle, which for decades formed the central drama of his fascinating life of struggle. And that struggle was crucial for the rise of the Oromo national consciousness. Since the armed struggle conducted by the OLF faced bewildering vicissitude, I limit myself to mentioning only the following salient points as they are related to Jarra Abba Gadaa.

First, it was during his five-year detention that Jarra Abba Gadaa realized that the Government of General Said Barre had its own ambition for occupying extensive Oromo territories. It was such realization, which made Jarra a reflective and staunch Oromo nationalist. During the 1977-78 war between Ethiopia and Somalia, the WSLF and regular Somali forces occupied vast Oromo territories in Hararghe, Bale and Sidamo, and the Somali regime even attempted at transforming the Oromo into Somali speaking people through what the Somali regime called “crash program” of teaching Somali language to the Oromo people. That was the height of Somali ruling elites cultural chauvinism.

Jarra Abba Gadaa immediately understood that the struggle for the creation of Greater Somalia was a frontal attack on Oromo national identity. Jarra then mobilized the OLF forces under his command and resisted both the Somali aggression and Ethiopian military regime’s attempt at keeping the Oromo under century long domination.   Consequently, the small OLF force, which may not have numbered more than 5, 000, were attacked by both Ethiopian and Somali forces. It was a miracle that the OLF force was able to survive the combined attack of the two major military forces in the Horn of Africa. It was even a bigger miracle that Jarra Abba Gadaa, who was targeted for killing by the security forces of both Ethiopia and Somalia, survived and outlived the regimes of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam and that of General Said Barre.

Second, Jarra Abba Gadaa left behind a legacy of half a century struggle, which will plant his name in the annals of the struggle for freedom and human dignity. His long struggle reflects and represents the spirit of Oromo determination to free themselves from a century long domination. A Tigrayan intellectual can no longer boldly claim that the Oromo “do not have a cultural substance on which to construct their nationalism” because they do not have heroes like Yohannes and Alula to look up to nor do they have a major insurrectionary history like the Weyane in their memory pool.”^[1]

Oromo resistance was largely unnoticed by the outside world, but it provides them with heroes such as Jarra Abba Gadaa, who is at the center of the galaxy of our national heroes, including Mamo Mazamir, Elemo Qilxu, General Taddesse Birru, General Waaqoo Guutuu, Baro Tumsa, Rev. Gudina Tumsa, Shaykh Bakrii Saphalo, Magarsa Barii, Mulis Abba Gadaa, Sisai Ibssa, Adam Jiloo, and thousands of others.

Jarra Abba Gadaa became a legend in his own lifetime by registering half a century of struggle in the interest of his people. Heroes like Jarra Abba Gadaa and those mentioned aboveprovide the Oromo with rich store of memory pool as well as the substance with which to strengthen their nationalism. It is fitting to end this piece by stating that Jarra Abba Gadaa will be buried at the hallowed battlefield of Chalanqo (Calanqoo), where he will join thousands of Oromo, Adare/Harari and Somali warriors who died together on January 7, 1887, fighting against King Menelik of Shawa. Jarra Abba Gadaa’s burial place will soon become a new shrine for Oromo nationalists.

Finally, Jarra Abba Gadaa passed away physically. But he will live in the great heart of the Oromo nation. His spirit of unflinching resistance will live in the minds of our people. Heroes and legends do not die. They become the dynamic force of history, the source of inspiration for the living. May our Waaqaa rest his soul in peace and comfort us with better days for the Oromo and all the peoples of Ethiopia.

*The writer, Dr. Mohammed Hassen, is associate professor of history at Georgia State University.

Obboleeysaa fii firri keenya, Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, Amajjii 12, bara 2013 dhibdee umrii waliin dhufteen qabamee, akka hamaa dhukkubsatee if wallaaluu mudate. Yaroo kana dhageenyu, dirqama firummaa tan nurra jirtu hubachuun, biyya keessa jiru keessatti, mana haakimaa kan dhukkuba isaatiif wal’aansa kennuu ni dandaya ja’ame geessine. Nuu haala kana keessa jiru, oduun dhukkubsachuu isaa, nuu ala baatee, sab-boonota gurra seente.

Sab-boononni oduu dhagayan, Koree “Gargaarsaa fii Tin’isa Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa” jattu dhaabbachuun, haala isaa if bira dabranii, saba mara beeysisan. Gocha isaanii kanarraa, lammiin deeggarsa diinaggee kan ifirraa quba hin-qabne,  tinnisaa fii du’aa’iin nutti dirmatan. Gargaarsa sabaa tiifii kan Rabbii tiin, Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, Gurraandhala 15, 2013, haala keessa turerraa bayyanachuu bira dabree, inumaa, mana haakimaa turuun isa hin barbaachisu sadarkaa itti ja’amu gaye. Garuu, hamma nu keessaa, warri bakka inni jiru dhaquuf saganteeffatan isa bira gayanii haala isaa mirkaneeffatanitti, akkuma achi turu goone.

Warri nu biraa dhaqan, gabaasaa Doktoroota tajaajilaa jiran dhiheessaniif qofa odoo hin-taane, haala Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa kan arkan irraa hiis, wayyaawuu isaatti amananii, Gurraandhala 25, bara 2013, waan barbaachisu mara qopheessaniifii, mana isaatti deebisan. Garuu, Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, obboleeyyan isa laaluuf dhaqan waliin yaroo xiqqoo gaarii dabarsee, gammachuu fii nagayaan eega gaggeesse booda, borumtaa, Bitooteessa 03, bara 2013, akka biyya keessa tureetti, waaree booda, sa’aa 1:40tti, harki nu gabaabachuu fii qoricha barbaachisu dhabinsarraa osoo hin taane, dadhabbii onneerraa madditeen laaffatee hatattamaan akka mana haakimaatti deebisaniin boqote. Innaa lillaahi wa innaa ileyhi raaji’uun.

Jaarra Abbaa Gadaa, nuuf obboleessaa fii fira dhihoo tahullee, nama dardarummaan fedhii isaatiin saba isaatiif if kenne. Bara 1966 keessa, qabsoo bilisummaa ummata Oromiyaa tiif eega manaa bahe, takkaa if duuba hin deebine. Baroota afurtamii torban wal’aansoo saba isaarratti dabarse kana keessatti, dhibdee adda addaa kanneen mudatan keessa hulluuqee, as gayuun isaa tu dinqisiisaadha. Yaroo kana keessatti, bu’aan qabsoo bilisummaa tiif gumaache, kan nu fira isaa bira dabree, saba mara boonse. Kanaaf, du’iinsi isaa nu caalaa lammii mararaa jira.

Akka du’insi isaa dhagayameen, xiqqaa fii guddaan, dhalaa fii dhiirti lammii, gadda itti dhagayame karaa adda addaa tiin mul’isaa turan. Ammaas naannoo hedduminaan qubatan keessatti, taaziyaa taa’uun imimmaan xuruurfachaa jiran. Maatii isa duubatti hafteefiis gargaarsa guddaa godhaa jiran. Kana malees, biyyaa fii saba wal’aansoo godhaafii ture keessatti, akka awwaalamu fedhii qaban karaa adda addaatiin nu beeysisan. “Yo achi malee awwaalame, qabrii isaa findignee, reefka biyyatti galfannee awwaallanna” warri nuun ja’an heddu. Hawwiin kuni, jaalala Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa tiif qabamu irraa kan madde malee, hammeenyaaf akka hin taanetti hubanna.

Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, kan sireerratti du’uuf takkaa hin saganteeffatin, akka inni fedhu hanqatee, tan Rabbii mudate. Bilisummaa manaa baheef odoo hin arkin, sabni isaa odoo ammallee gabrummaa jala jiruu, biraa deemuuf dirqame. Yaroo dhukkubaa ture, hoggaa if wallaalarraa dammaqe mara, dhaamsi Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, “waaniin jalqabe bakkaan naaf gayaa!” qofa ture.

Hamma nuti beeynutti, obboleessaa fii firri keenya, Oromiyaa hin bilisoomin Booleen Finfinnee seenuu takkaa itti rafee-ke’ee hin beeku. Bara 1991, gaafa qabsaawonni bilisummaa Oromoo marti Chaartara raggaasisuuf finfinnetti walitti qabaman, kan irraa ala ture isa qofa. Kuniis, dhaquuf carraa dhabee odoo hin taane, guyyaa san booda waan dhufaa, fageeysee waan hubatee fi. Kanaaf, alagaa fii lammii irraahiis, mangoddoon akka Shaggar ol bahu amansiisuuf Bisidiimotti itti dhaqanii, kadhatanii irraa dhaban, raga. Waan gaafas ja’aa ture, “taniin manaa baheef tanaa miti!” dha. San boodaas taanaan, akka biyyatti galee sadoo fii qananiin jiraatu godhuuf mootummaan jirtu karaa adda addaa tiin amansiisuuf carraaqaa turan. Inni garuu, akkuma ganamaan fedhii isaa kan sabaa dursetti, hamma maayyiitti gunaan sobamuu didee akkuma manaa baheen alatti hafe.

Duuba, lammiin teenya, Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, kan baroota 47af, mootummoota Habashaa, tan ammaa tiis dabalee, kanneen saba keenyarratti humnaan waldabraa dhufaniin lolaa ture, Oromiyaa ammallee harka diinaa jala jirtu keessatti deebi’ee akka awwaalamu fedhuun, haalaan nu dinqe. Irraahillee dhukkubsanne. Yaanni kuni, faallaa fedhii Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa  ti jannee waan amannuuf, hamma dandeenyu dura dhaabbachuuf ijibbaanne. Silaa kan du’e kan deebi’u tahee, haala kanarratti yaada Jaarraan Abbaa Gadaa qabu kan beeku Rabbuma.

Akkuma olitti ibsinetti, Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, nuuf fira dhiigaati. Fira jeeyna akka isaa qabaachuu irraa gammachuu nutti dhagayamtu hoonga hin-qabdu. Haa tahu malee, hamtuu fii toltuu kan waliin dabarsaa bahe nu caalaa jaallan isaa kan qabsoo ti. Kana waan taheef, mirga isaan isarratti qaban keenyaa oli goonee laalle. Akkasumatti ammaas, ummanni keenya, kanneen baroota dila inni lolaa ture dahoo tahaniifiis, nu caalaa anaannataniif jennee amanna. Hubannoota kanarraa kanee, dhiibbaa karaa adda addaatiin nutti godhamteen injifatamnee, odoo garaan nu booyuu, reefka obboleessaa fii fira keenyaa, Oromiyaa keessatti akka awwaalamu murteessine.

Murtii teenya hujiirra oolchuuf, warra mootummaa waliin qunnamtii qaban waliin marii gooneen:

1. Mootummaa Xoophiyaa tii fii Oromiyaa sirna awwaalchaa keessatti qooda tokkollee qabaachuu dhaba;
2. Warri mootummaa gargaarsa awwaalchaaf barbaachisu irratti kan gaafataman qofa godhuu;
3. Sirna awwaalchaa irratti, maqaa mootummaa tiin namni tokkolleen akka in haasoyne;
4. Sanduuqa reekfi Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa keessa jiru irratti alaabaan tokkolleen akka hin afamne;
5. Fira, aalii fii sabni bal’aan Oromiyaa bahanii akka awwaallatan;
6. Seenaa Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa guututti dhiheeffachuu;
7. Reeyfi Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, akka biyya seeneen warra deemuun harkatti tiiysuun, itti gaafatama mootummaa tahuu;
8. Naannoo itti awwaalamuttiis toyannaan qabrii isaa, akkasumatti, kan mootummaa tahu, irratti waliif gallee jira.

Waliigaltee armaa olii irratti irkachuun, reeyfi Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, bakka amma jirurraa, Bitooteessa 07, bara 2013 akka karaa Finfinnee deemee, Bitooteessa 08, bara 2013 Dirree dhawaa seenu. Achitti, Salaatul Janaazaan eega irratti salaatame booda, makiinaan karaa Calanqoo sossooha. Akka achi gayeen, jamaa awwaalchaaf walitti qabamaniin lamada irratti salaatamee, Dirree Calii Calanqootti, akka awwaalamu saganteessine.

Waliigalteen bakka bu’oota mootummaa waliin goone akka guutummatti hujiirra ooltu ni abdanna. Qabsaawotaa fii sab-boonoonni murtii fudhatamte tanaan addaa qaban, dhiibbaa nu  mudate ni hubatan jennee yaanna.

Dhumarratti, haala kana aanjeessuuf warra dhama’an mara, qophii dura dursinee galatoomfanna. Oromoota reeyfaa waliin biyya dhaquu murteeffatan, kanneen gargaarsaan nutti dirmatan, warra garaan isaanii keenya caalaa booyaa jiru hundaan, jazakumullah kheeyran, galanni keessan bilisummaa Jaarraan Abbaa Gadaa lolaafii ture haa tahu jenna.

Firaa fii aanota Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa

Bitooteessa 07, 2013

By Alemu Tafesse|Ethiomedia.com|March 11, 2013

The fourteen-month old Muslim civil rights movement in Ethiopia has so far had some spectacular implications for the development of democracy and democratic political culture in the country. It has affected both the cultural as well as the institutional dynamics of the country’s political situation. In the following lines, I will examine just three very inter-related, but immensely broad, points where the Muslim activism has left great impacts on the contours of the current and future democratic possibilities of Ethiopia. I will deliberately be sketchy and short, as I don’t intend to render this piece of writing a journal article.

Many 20th and 21th century dictators pose a modicum of conundrum to anyone who studies the nature of their power. They belie any traditional categorization of regime type. On the one hand, they style themselves as democratic and constitutional. They conduct elections, draft democratic constitutions, establish “human rights” institutions, and tirelessly speak of the need for and their commitment to democracy. On the other hand, they rig elections, embezzle public funds and intimidate, round up, torture and kill their opponents unconstrained by any notion of the rule of law. Such governments strive to have it both ways at the same time: they wish to get the benefits of holding two apparently opposite faces.1) Forced a deceptive government show its true nature more than any other time

The EPRDF has been akin to this type of rule, a master of this Janus-faced game (it isn’t a game for the victims, of course). On its “democratic” face, it has deafened us with its rant of the need for the rule of law; enshrined a more or less democratic constitution; conducted several elections, and installed a parliamentary system. On its autocratic face, however, it defiled the constitutional system and the rule of law by violating the basic political and natural rights of citizens with impunity. By any standards, it has never been serving the law and the state. In fact, it has been the state and the law.

How have the two faces of the EPRDF gone along together? They have been meant to deliver certain political functions internal and external to the state. And in principle, they are supposed to be exploited in their proper places, times, and context, and hence are not expected to be contradictory. But in practice, their relationship has usually been precarious, and tense at times. The democratic face has been used to garner “democratic” legitimacy from those who have been expected to have had any voluntary reason to side by the government. Moreover, this face has also helped these supporters to gratify themselves about the “democratic” cause they have been helping being fulfilled in Ethiopia. Finally, it has helped these same people to self-boost their moral status while engaging in a heated debate with the detractors of the regime.

But the most important function of the democratic face has had to do with the international community (to be precise, major international powers). For the sake of obtaining either diplomatic or economic or military assistance or all, building such an image has always been crucial for any regime in the world that has grabbed state power since 1991. The EPRDF has not been an exception, and it has maximally used—and in many cases succeeded—in styling itself as a pioneer of democracy in this otherwise troubled region of the world we call the Horn of Africa.

But democracy and “EPRDF-cracy” do not by nature go well with each other. As a minority – based party, the EPRDF can’t afford to genuinely liberalize the country and still stay in power. Here comes the need for the second face, which has been at the heart of the persistence of the party’s reign since 1991 well into the 2010s. It has to mortify the psyche, inflict fear in the mind, torment the body, and take life in order to ensure its survival. These mechanisms have been pushed through on those who have refused to be socialized into the regime’s propaganda. The same mechanism has also been applied to those who trusted the regime’s propaganda and, taking it at its words, plunged themselves into public contestation with it. When they appeared threatening, they received the strong message–physical or otherwise–that they should back down.

But the crucial thing in assessing the Janus-faced political order of things is the one related to the balance of the two faces. The balance is very delicate, and with any disturbance, it may lead to either near regime collapse or full-blown regime brutality. When the democratic side is allowed to thrive more than the autocratic one, the EPRDF regime is bound to lose power. However, if the autocratic tactics are put in place with more severity or duration, then the benefits of appearing to be democratic withers away. Hence, striking a balance between those two apparently contradictory aspects of the regime’s image has been of phenomenal significance for ensuring its political longevity.

The regime’s capacity in maintaining this balance has been put to test many times. It has emerged successful few times, but failed in many others. Especially at the international level, the EPRDF has managed, at least in the first couple of years after its cling on to state power, to make an effective use of its “democratic” credentials in order to get multi-faceted support from the major powers of the world. But the internal dimension has quite frequently oscillated from one extreme to another.

The challenge from the numerous oppositions has largely forced the regime to emerge more brutal than democratic, although the trend has not been quite linear. The regime has expectedly turned more autocratic as challenges have mounted and gotten threatening, and it has resumed its democratic discourse when they have subsided. As a minority-based party, the ruling party could not defeat the ethnic or the Ethiopian nationalist oppositions on a peaceful political stage. The need to secure its regime at all odds has repeatedly led the party to use force or the threat of using it to silence its oppositions, something that has seriously damaged its democratic credentials. But at least in one occasion, the ruling party also oscillated in the opposite direction. In 2005, it opened up the political system, and wished to stage a more credible democracy-like contestation from which the new rulers could emerge. The results went rather disastrous to the political life of the EPRDF. It learned the lesson—which it had assumed for long—that democracy is its nemesis. Exposing too much of the democratic face might lead to the replacement of the very body of which the face is a part. As a result, the reversion to brutality has been effected once again in the aftermath of the election.

But this brutality had to wait for yet another—undoubtedly the most significant –phenomenon to emerge as the only pillar of regime survival and to appear in its darkest, most unambiguous, form than ever before. This most significant challenge that has impacted most on the image of the government is the Muslim civil rights movement that has been going on since December 2011. All the developments leading up to the challenge and the form of government response to it have most severely weakened the democratic status of the regime, and laid bare its true unbridled authoritarian nature. The rights movement has altogether shattered the ever-strong desire of the government to be seen as democratic and forced it to discard its hypocritical behaviour. With the looming danger of a critical mass awakening, and the speed at which it has been spreading, the ruling party could not help but throw away its “nicey” grab and take up its most merciless stick.

True, this is not the first time the EPRDF is being challenged, and it is not the first time it responds to challenges with impunity. Right from its contentions with the Oromo Liberation Front, to the most recent threat it sensed from Ethiopian nationalist forces, the government has responded violently. Tons of innocent people—including journalists– have been unfairly victimized, according to a plenty of independent sources. But the regime had never been, I argue, so much involved in the amount of hooliganism that it has been involved in for the last one or so year. Hence, I submit that the rights movement’s one great achievement is that it has brought to a serious end the little possibility that the EPRDF had had of running the politics of hypocrisy.

In the first few responses to the simmering Muslim opposition to its anti-secularist policies, the government tried to play it legal. It acknowledged that the Majlis (Ethiopian Islamic Supreme Council) problem was a legitimate concern and also was willing to negotiate with the committee that was representing the angry crowd. It praised the demands of the representatives, and declared that an election would be held to form a new Majlis. It was true, however, that genuine democracy and the full realization of any kind of right is against the controlling behavior of the EPRDF. Hence, the apparent opening needed to be neutralized by other means. Accordingly, it was soon announced that the Majlis election was to be held in an obviously highly controlled environment (the ulama council, a Majlis affiliate, in charge of the elections, which in turn were to be conducted in the government-controlled kebeles—both contrary to the demands of the protesting masses).

These were the kinds of government responses we’ve been used to since 1991, and there is nothing surprising about them. There have been, however, some other turn of events—some happening quite early, others very recently– that would seal the record of the ruling party as a democracy-free, totalitarian-to-the-core, group of gangs. It all had begun shortly before the Muslim activism set in and actually had led to its break out. A new chapter in the history of Ethiopian state repression began with the state-orchestrated religious indoctrination and forceful imposition of a highly controversial, arguably foreign, religious doctrine on Ethiopian Muslims. A deliberate state imposition of religious outlook on its people was I think the first of its kind among the many anti-democratic deeds of the EPRDF. It was not only deeply anti-democratic, anti-secular and totalitarian, but also incredibly rude, unintelligibly ambitious and utterly perplexing. It was an unprecedentedly bizarre experiment.

But the emergence of the unique forms of totalitarianism of the EPRDF never stopped there. Some of its reactions to the attendant activism have been most strikingly brutal as well. That some people in Harar and Asasa were shot and killed; that people in the thousands have been constantly intimidated, detained and tortured; that the whole movement is denigrated as terrorist and Islamist etc—all these are not quite staggering. But unprecedentedly staggering are, for example, the most recent developments like the state-devised night-time house break-ins and blatant robbery. Many Muslims have by now confirmed that masked thugs accompanied by security officers have broken into their houses without search warrants, intimidating them, searching for materials and taking away some of their valuables. Unconfirmed but numerous reports of highway robbery by government-sponsored thugs especially targeting Muslims with laptops have also been reported.

It is also quite odd for security officers to break into places of worship and desecrate them beyond imagination. Although this is not without precedent (think of the first Anwar incident in the early 90’s, for example), the scale of what has happened this time around and the severity with which it has happened is quite unique. It has been reported by different sources, for instance, that people were preparing food for a Sadaqa session when tons of security officers barged into the Awoliya compound in one night of July 2012, fired tear gas on the people who took refuge in the mosque, rushed into the mosque shoe clad, and deliberately messed up the praying precinct and hurled the Holy scriptures inside it. Since then, other similar incidents have been reliably reported to have occurred in other Addis Ababa mosques, too.

Moreover, security officers have also forcefully prevented the Sadaqa gatherings– that brought together people from diverse backgrounds (and sometimes even faith groups) for sharing food and sending across messages of peace, unity and the protection of citizens’ rights– from taking place. Some of the measures taken by the Police to this end have been both simply outrageous and/or ludicrous. In some occasions, they have confiscated the animal to be slaughtered, and the food ingredients to be used, for cooking. In other occasions, commercial cooks have been impeded from conducting their daily business of selling food items to the Sadaqa organizers. Still in other instances, grand mosques have been unusually closed in the morning hours for fear that Sadaqa sessions would be conducted in them. Finally, and perhaps most outrageously, many intercity busses have been stopped and “Muslim-looking” people have been forced out of the busses by security officers. The reason given: they might be travelling to attend a Sadaqa session in another town!

Also, unprecedentedly, the government, in perhaps the most glaring instance of the breach of the rule of law, has unilaterally revoked a court-issued decree to ban the broadcast of a documentary on the government-owned Ethiopian Television (ETV). The lawyers of the detained Muslim committee members had demanded that the documentary that would allegedly violate the presumption of innocence of the defendants be taken off the air, a demand that the court endorsed and issued a ban on the broadcast. According to the lawyers, however, soon after the letter from the court reached the ETV, the President of the Supreme Court unilaterally reversed the court injunction and the documentary was accordingly released at prime time on Feb 5, 2013. With utter shock and disgust, the lawyers then demanded that the ETV representatives appear in court and expound their decision to release the film in contravention to the court-issued ban. The TV station officials have never felt obliged to appear in court, though.

What do all these examples tell us about the capability of the regime in maintaining a two- forked, ambivalent image (of the kind mentioned above)? They tell us that in this particular sense, the government has been getting remarkably weak in the face of the impending Muslim opposition to its policies. It has failed—and miserably so– to put an end to it without losing the delicate, albeit much-needed, balance between its two faces. The challenge has been so strong and so persistent that it has been forcing the government to come out in what is left of its hither- to hidden authoritarian skin—all naked. The ever-flimsy attempt at justifying the EPRDF’s rule from the point of all those rosy stuffs we have been deafened with—group rights, individual rights, democracy, equality —has now been permanently laid to rest. In short, although we have always known the ruling party to be brutal, the Muslim movement (its immediate causes as well as the government reactions to it) has helped us know what the brutality looks like when it reaches its limit—completely deprived of its “humane” cover.

2) Introduced an alternative path towards democracy

The political culture of Ethiopia has been deeply beset by the politics of exclusion and the psychology of rebellion. On the one hand, the successive governments of Ethiopia have uncompromisingly held the belief that their political survival largely depends on the political death of those they see as their opponents. The exclusion of a significant portion of the voices from the mainstream political system has been at the hallmark of the governments’ power. The excluded might have been earmarked in ethnic, gender, religious, regional or personal terms. This has been an exclusion that bases itself on the self-identification and the political and economic interests of the ruling class, as well as on the personal idiosyncrasies of its members. Opposition, even more than difference, has needed to be “solved”, rather than incorporated and managed. Unflinching on their grip on the bar of certainty, they have never swallowed the virtue of plunging oneself into the unknown that inclusion brings with it. Bent on saving the regime from a lurking threat, exclusion has been the normal and first procedure that has been applied to disagreement.

Exclusion usually breeds rebellion, and persistent and absolute exclusion breeds persistent and absolute rebellion. This has been largely true throughout the political history of this country. Different reformers might have started out to air their critical views in moderate terms, but many of the organized movements in much of modern Ethiopian history have been radical. They have been radical in the sense that they have been anti-system and mostly violent. This system that they have targeted has ranged from the existing political order with all its traces and affiliates to the very entity we call Ethiopia. In other words, while some have violently rebelled against the regime and everything associated with it, and demanded its complete displacement, others have fiercely demanded nothing short of the dismemberment of Ethiopia itself. In either case, the movements haven’t just looked for change, but a radical change supposedly wrought about in a radical way.

The politics of exclusion paradoxically married to the psychology of rebellion has had disastrous consequences for the democratic record of the country. Democracy both as a historical process and as a theory is about compromise, inclusion, diversity, and toleration. In a society, on the one hand, where the balance of power between the rulers and the ruled is highly skewed against the latter; where the rulers feel insecure to hear dissent from the ruled; where the usual mechanism of regime stability is not pulling up, but pushing out, as many voices as possible; and on the other hand, where the ruled do not aspire to bring about a culture of loyal opposition in the country but one of unbounded rebellion; where they refuse to see a possibility for change coming with the least cost, but with the excesses of violence; where being an anti-system is seen as the only way of making the system work better; where the anti-regime movement itself becomes exclusivist and narrow—in a society where these are the noted manifestations of its political culture, democratic culture will have really hard times to foster. Such has been the problem with the political culture of Ethiopia. I hasten to add here that I’m not necessarily and generally blaming the anti-government forces in Ethiopia or elsewhere for operating as rebellious folks, as radicalism may be justifiable in some senses and in certain cases. What I’m offering here is a general tool for understanding the elements of a political culture that is unfavorable to the flourishing of sustainable democracy. It can also help us to question the “natural-ness” of human endeavors (reactions to oppression, for example) by putting things in a cultural context. Finally, in the specific Ethiopian case, it can slightly account for the never- ending replacement of political exclusion by itself.

It is my belief that the current Muslim rights movement has gone an unprecedented distance in transcending this dichotomy. Under fire from a highly exclusivist regime much frequently and for so long, neither the leaders of the movement nor the major actors in it have (yet) developed a (n ultra) radical consciousness or behavior. It is simply surprising—but perhaps explicable– for any seasoned observer of Ethiopian politics that people in their millions, from so diverse backgrounds, consistently demonstrating so loudly every week for over a year, and receiving all sorts of brutal reactions from government forces, would be so consistent in their demands and conduct. There has so far been no evidence of radicalism, disorganization, or confusion in the ranks of the protestors. The unflinching obedience they have showed to their leaders’ injunctions before the latter’s arrest, and the unwavering commitment to their last words after their arrest should appear as something baffling to those who have always witnessed the opposite in the political history of Ethiopia. The movement has been consistently demanding for the protection of democratic and constitutional rights and nothing more or less. It has couched its demands in the most legal and legitimate manner, and has staged perfectly non-violent rallies. It has never, on the one hand, asked for, or worked towards, the realization of religious interests beyond or independent of the constitutional framework, nor, on the other hand, has it demanded, or sought, the displacement of that framework by a new secular system. This is very significant for the development of an inclusive and non-violent democratic culture in the country, as I will further elaborate later.

The government, just like its predecessors would, has responded to the opposition in an exclusivist manner, trying to relegate the voices of dissent to the margins. The voices, however, refused to be marginalized. The barrage of formal and informal, overt and covert, physical and verbal pressures that have been put on the protestors to keep them silent and endure all that comes from the government have been blatantly rejected. The movement has kept going— unabated—for so long despite the cravings of an otherwise highly repressive regime.

But the fact that it has rejected the call to be silenced is just the first instance of saying no to marginalization. The movement has also refused to be plunged into the margins by taking a radical turn. Radicalization is a gamble with very high stakes. It might succeed to bring on board many people, or end up alienating many. It is something uncontrollable especially during its early stages, and might not have the stability or the sustainability that proper mass recruitment requires. It is also liable to be defeated as government violence is usually more refined, more disciplined, and more brutal than that of its opponents. The Muslims’ movement in this sense refused to commit suicide by transforming itself into what the government wants it to become: a supra-constitutional “pariah”. It has been very critical of the government, but very respectful of the constitutional order at the same time. This doesn’t mean that it has been supportive of the ruling party or of its policies in other areas. It simply means that its aim has been the full realization of democratic and secular order with the minimum cost that may come along constructive change, but with the maximum effort that such a change requires. This is a very economic use of mass power against the state.

In echoing a loud and critical, but non-radical, voice, the movement has contributed a lot to the development of a new stream of culture in the politics of this country. First, it has helped us to assess the possibilities and potential outcomes of a non-violent democratic struggle for constructive change in Ethiopia. Bearing the brunt of a set of violent responses from the government, the Muslims’ movement has taught us that at least a strong public sphere that aspires to change the status quo can be established with or without the existence of a repressive state structure. Part of this contribution is that it has widened our horizons to, and raised our hopes in, finding solace in peaceful struggle against dictatorship. Yes, a very unique Ethiopian non-violent struggle is unfolding before our eyes, and we’re being forced to re-think some of our assumptions about the way we understand the mechanisms of effecting political change in Ethiopia.

Secondly, it has also helped us to understand the vulnerability of authoritarian rule. Apart from its vulnerability in the sense I mentioned towards the beginning of this paper (forced to shed its “democratic” face), the regime in Ethiopia has also failed in keeping under control the momentum of the opposition it has been facing for about fourteen months. Contradicting the academic assertions that accord undue historic value to state power against the people, the Muslim struggle has proven to us that state violence is not always effective in putting an end to opposition. This won’t really be congratulated as new information for those of us living in the age of the Arab Spring, but I think it is quite unique in Ethiopian land. Someone might pose the disagreement that counter-regime movements have succeeded in Ethioipia’s past, too. My rejoinder is that, yes, they have succeeded in ending regimes, but they have done so only by either carrying arms or getting the military on their side or both. Nothing of these things have been happening in Ethiopia for over a year now. There hasn’t been a violent Muslim– anti- regime or even rights’ –struggle in Ethiopia, nor has the security apparatus of the state showed any sign of siding with the civil rights movement. Be that as it may, the quest for freedom has been loud and rampant, frustrating the wishes of the government from coming into fruition.

The maintenance of a loud quest for freedom at the face of state repression also means something else. The Muslim activism, by demonstrating authoritarian vulnerability, has taught us that all marginalization is self-marginalization. Many structuralist accounts on this topic have contributed a lot to our understanding of the wider forces in play on our societies, but some of them have been unfairly neglectful of subjective and agential forces that are otherwise very important in explaining political outcomes. As already mentioned, the Ethiopian government has always required that no opposition “disturbs” its “proper” functioning, and its response to the Muslim demands has been underpinned by the same logic. But all the efforts at silencing people have failed to bear fruits. While the power of the state should indeed be considered in accounting for the muting of opposition, we need to consider as well the will of the receiving end of that power. Power resides not just in the state, but also in the subjectivities of the individuals whom the state targets. In other words, the locus of power is not to be sought just in the material, mundane objects of repression, but also in the minds and souls of the forces of anti- oppression. If an opposition (in this case, in the form of mass movement) to a state rule becomes silent, it may not only mean that it has been silenced by the government; it may also mean that it has silenced itself. The will power of individuals comes in between the repression of the state and the act of being silent. State-centric accounts of power mislead us from this very important fact.

The Muslim activism is therefore very significant in affecting the political culture of the country. It has brought about a strong, consistent and yet moderate opposition to dictatorship. Most importantly, it has relocated our focus of the paraphernalia for building a democratic state. We have been, in the past, fixated on changing exclusivist systems, but ended up bringing/witnessing other exclusivist ones. This time around, perhaps we need to be fixated on democracy itself—the idea, the culture, the way of life. When the ultimate and major goal of activism is changing regimes or changing territorial borders—however much democratically couched the discourses for those ends could be– there is no guarantee that the new regime or the new country will adopt a democratic system. But I think when the ultimate goal, and the way towards that goal, is democracy, equality, inclusion and freedom; and when the masses behind such a massive change are thoroughly democratized in mind and spirit; and when retaliation has no place in the minds of the wider public, I think we are a step closer to bringing about the system we have cherished for long. I think Ethiopian Muslims have offered us a lesson in this regard by democratizing their discourse and behavior, in remaining steadfast in both aspects for so long, and saying no to radicalization. At the same time, they have effectively morally defeated the Ethiopian regime by forcing it to become the darkest it can be. By volunteering to risk their precious lives, they have experimented (and are experimenting) the different alternative paths to democracy—alternatives we Ethiopians are not very much used to. Ethiopian Muslims have charted for all of us a new path towards a new Ethiopia.

3) Became an the alternative location of democracy

I have already discussed the implications of the Muslim struggle in both exposing the nature of the Ethiopian government, and in showing an alternative way towards building a culture of democracy, or, more strictly, an alternative way towards setting up a democratic framework through the establishment of a culture of democracy. In the following lines, I will take the second point further, and argue that the Muslim rights movement has not just demonstrated a different way towards democracy, but it has itself become perhaps the most reliable venue for democratic outburst in Ethiopia. At this rather bleakest moment of the EPRDF’s era, the civil rights movement has remained to be the foremost locus of democracy.

Struggle for freedom and democracy has not been new for Ethiopians; many have been doing it at least since the second half of the 20th century. But the struggles, among other things, have felt short of developing a critical mass and sustainable Ethiopia-wide public that can act as dependable reservoir of democratic crucible in the society. They have been either non-pan- Ethiopian, or unsustainable and/or authoritarian, or any combination of those. Some freedom fighters have fought just to save their ethnic groups from government brutality; some Ethiopia- wide movements couldn’t succeed in their peaceful struggle, and hence have had to go underground, thereby (usually) developing clandestine non-transparent, centralized, structures that have rendered them authoritarian themselves. Or when they have escaped the establishment of a clandestine centralized rule, they have faded away from the public and couldn’t remain strong refuges of democracy. The fact that nothing of this sort has yet developed with regards to the Muslim activism is worth-noting. By its very nature, the Muslim activism has been trans-ethnic and trans-regional, and hence it has had a modicum of pan- Ethiopian trait (despite the obvious limitation of its being religion-based). But it has been not only pan-Ethiopian, but also “Ethiopia-centred” in the sense that its discourse-framing, its actors, its visions etc have been very Ethiopian, not international or regional. The government’s accusations notwithstanding (which are not to be taken seriously by any sober observer), there hasn’t been any trace of foreign involvement in the struggle.

The democratic activism has not only been Ethiopia-centred, but, as already mentioned elsewhere, also has been sustainable for so long. This is indeed an indication that in a country where NGO’s have been severely crippled, press freedom dying out, religious institutions tightly controlled, and professional associations effectively co-opted– in short, where civil society is in grave danger of extinction, there has been one starkly different arena of visible democracy: the arena of the protesting Muslims. They have been the last –but interestingly the most vibrant– bastion of democracy in the country. Their voice has been the only remaining dependable, independent and loud voice of liberation–uncontrolled and uncontrollable by the government. Their unsubduable behavior has created an immensely empowering political climate in the country. Their unshattarable unity has given many a good reason to imagine a post-divided Ethiopia. Their freedom-induced fury and chaos-phobic discipline are the very marrows of democracy. The Ethiopian Muslims are coming out of this year-long journey as a new brand of strong, assertive, post-violent, and unified locations of anti-authoritarian force.

Conclusion: A Plea

I have raised a few, but broad, points by way of showing the democratic implications of the fourteen-month old civil rights movement of Ethiopian Muslims. I have considered it to be of phenomenal significance in the socio-political history of Ethiopia. But I also believe that it will play its full potential only when two actors join it wholeheartedly: the rest of Ethiopians, and the international community. By the former, I specifically have in mind Ethiopian Christians in Ethiopia. It is true that many of them have disclosed their support for the Muslim rights movement, and have helped in sheltering, feeding and morally supporting the elements therein. But total democratic transformation requires more than this. The struggle for democracy in that country has gone through several stages, and has now reached one of its most promising ones. As such, I don’t see it wise at all to leave this struggle just to Muslims, and by doing so, deliberately limit the fruits of a potentially far-reaching and holistic transformative experience. Christians should join the movement bringing with them their own demands for freedom from government interference in religious matters (that they have a lot to complain about), and later on jointly escalate the democratic demands, chanting for those great ideals that all self- respecting humans have always called for throughout history. I think most of us who have supported the Muslim struggle should from now on expand on this proposal—the need for it, the challenges to it and the mechanisms of doing it.

Another proposal is to the big players on the world stage. My message here is deliberately short since I prefer to reserve the elaboration for another piece of mine and others’ to come. I’d now say, paraphrasing Condoleezza Rice, many of you have dreamt of and at times have sought to help (create) what you thought were forces of stability even at the expense of democracy, and as a result have failed on both accounts. One path towards realizing both valuables is to stand by and protect non-radical, massive, persistent and daring forces of unity and anti- authoritarianism from below. Start with the protesting Ethiopian Muslims!

M. Zuhdi Jasser|Commissioner at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)

From Somalian anarchy to Eritrean and Sudanese tyranny and civil strife, the Horn of Africa has long been a turbulent region. A notable exception has been the nation of Ethiopia. That might be changing.

From December 15 through December 19 of last year, I was in Addis Ababa heading a delegation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). We met with a wide range of people, from the American ambassador to Ethiopian government officials, religious leaders and nongovernmental human rights and interfaith representatives.

Prior to our trip, we had seen reports about violations against Muslims, especially since July 2011. This was when the Addis Ababa government first sought to change how Islam was practiced in Ethiopia and began to punish those resisting its new policy. Our findings confirmed the assaults on religious liberty and their negative impact—both as a human rights issue and a potential security matter.

Until July 2011, Ethiopia’s government largely respected the religious freedom of its people, including Muslims, who are mostly Sufis and comprise one-third of the population. Article 27 of Ethiopia’s constitution guarantees religious freedom and “the independence of the state from religion.”

Four factors have fueled a shift away from honoring this right. First, in neighboring Somalia and Sudan, violent religious extremists pose a security threat. Second, within its own borders, Wahhabism—imported from Saudi Arabia—also poses a danger. Third, Ethiopia’s policies have undermined civil society. Its government has imposed draconian limits on foreign funding for human rights, democracy promotion and conflict mitigation, leaving many NGOs with stark choices. They can work with the government—foregoing their independent status and drastically curtailing their activities—or they can close up shop. Consequently, there are no independent groups in Ethiopia that can monitor religious freedom or undertake interfaith cooperation or intra-faith conflict resolution activities. Finally, Ethiopia’s government is perpetrating religious repression, purportedly in response to Wahhabist threats.

Starting in July 2011, Ethiopia’s government decided that the way to fight the Wahhabism of some Muslims was by limiting the freedom of all Muslims. It imported imams from Lebanon representing the al-Ahbash movement within Islam and compelled Ethiopia’s imams and Islamic educators to embrace and mirror their teachings. The government began dismissing dissenters by firing imams and closing their schools. This effort was conducted not only through Ethiopia’s government but also through the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (EIASC).

When it was launched, EIASC’s members had been appointed by the government rather than elected by the community, thus depriving Muslims of a recognized, independent voice. By December, the attempts to impose al-Ahbash triggered protests outside of mosques.

In the spring of 2012, an Arbitration Committee of 17 Islamic scholars was created by the protesters to negotiate with the government about respecting religious freedom guarantees such as ending the imposition of al-Ahbash, reopening schools and restoring dismissed imams and administrators. The Committee also asked for new EIASC elections.

By the end of July, negotiations had failed, protests increased and the government began conducting house-to-house searches. The government arrested 1,000 protestors, along with all 17 Committee members, eight of whom it later released.

In October, the government charged 29 protestors, including the nine Committee members it was still holding, with terrorism and attempting to establish an Islamic state. Thus far, it has offered no evidence that these people are terrorists.

We met with attorneys for 28 of the 29 who reported that their clients were tortured and that they’ve had trouble meeting with those imprisoned. The government prevented us from meeting with any of the prisoners directly.

Meanwhile, officials denied any role in the al-Ahbash trainings, rejected our concerns about foisting a particular belief onto a religious community, insisted that they do not meddle in religious affairs unless “red lines” are crossed—a which term they neglected to define—and blamed the EIASC alone for the al-Ahbash trainings, even though EIASC members were initially government appointees and remain entirely sympathetic to the government.

In our meeting with newly elected EIASC members, they reiterated the government’s talking points supporting separation of religion and state while labeling the demonstrators “terrorists,” even though some of its members had joined in protesting. Members kept deferring to the Council’s vice president, whom we learned is close to Ethiopia’s ruling party. We also learned that the Council’s president previously served in senior governmental postings. Finally, the EIASC members ominously said there would be no divisions within Ethiopia’s Muslim community and that dissenters would be “brought into the fold.”

What does this all mean?

While Ethiopia’s government fears violent religious extremism from Somalia and Sudan and the influence of Wahhabism, the way to counter religious extremism is not with religious repression but through religious freedom. It is not by manipulating outcomes in the marketplace of ideas, but supporting a marketplace that encompasses all ideas, including religious ideas. It is by trusting in the common sense of its people, believing that most will reject not just government repression but religious extremism and the totalitarian control it seeks over them and their families.

Indeed, across the world, study after study affirms that where there is religious freedom, there is stability, harmony and prosperity, and where religious liberty is lacking, so are these blessings.

Thus, the only way the radicals can win is if governments, in the name of fighting these extremists, repeatedly abuse their people’s freedom.

In Ethiopia, as elsewhere, freedom, not just for the sake of human rights but for peace and security as well, is the antidote to extremism.

M. Zuhdi Jasser serves as a Commissioner at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

Helen Epstein|New York Review of Books

AFP/Getty Images

Workers at a Saudi-owned rice farm in Gambella, Ethiopia, March 22, 2012

In 2010, the Ethiopian government began moving thousands of people out of the rural villages where they had lived for centuries to other areas several hours’ walk away. The Ethiopian government calls this program the “Commune Center Development Plan and Livelihood Strategy” and claims it is designed to bring scattered rural populations closer to schools, health clinics, roads, and other public services. But the Commune Center program has been marked by a string of human rights abuses linked to government attempts to clear huge tracts of land for foreign investors. According to testimony collected by Human Rights Watch and other groups over the past two years, the relocations have involved beatings, imprisonment, torture, rape, and even murder. In many of the new “villages” the program has created, the promised services do not exist. Deprived of the farms, rivers, and forests that once provided their livelihoods, many people fear starvation, and thousands have fled to refugee camps in Kenya and South Sudan.

Such mistreatment by the government is nothing new in Ethiopia, an essentially one-party state of roughly 90 million people, in which virtually all human rights activity and independent media is banned. But what makes this case particularly outrageous is that the Ethiopian government may be using World Bank money—some of which comes from US taxpayers—to finance it. If so, this violates the Bank’s own rules concerning the protection of indigenous peoples and involuntary resettlement. In response to complaints from human rights groups, the Bank’s internal watchdog recently conducted its own review of the Commune Center program—commonly known as villagization in Ethiopia—which confirmed the human rights allegations and recommended that the Bank carry out a full investigation of its activities in Ethiopia.

However, it’s unclear whether the Bank’s executives are prepared to accept these findings. After all, this impoverished country—which has received some $15 billion in foreign aid over the past decade is now being held up as an international development success story, and it also happens to be an important US military ally.

The World Bank is the world’s largest development organization, with an annual budget of over $30 billion provided by Western governments and Wall Street investors. Ethiopia, which hosts a US drone base and has US backed fighters in Somalia, has been a particular target of the Bank’s largesse. Since 2006 the Bank has spent more than $1.5 billion alone on a program known as Protection of Basic Services to pay the salaries of schoolteachers, health workers, and other civil servants throughout rural Ethiopia. Bank managers involved with the Protection of Basic Services project deny that it has anything to do with villagization. They also maintain that villagization is voluntary and that there’s no evidence of coercion.

But refugees who recently fled Ethiopia say that many of the very same civil servants who are supported by the Bank are now being forced to round-up and move people under the government’s villagization program. Soldiers have also used beatings and threats to make people move. “Anybody and everybody on the payroll of the government have to do their part,”—even teachers—one informant told the human rights group Inclusive Development International last year. “And people who are opposing it, they will be detained. They will be jailed or taken to the military camp.”

One man who refused to relocate to the new “village” explained in a letter to the World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia in 2012 that the soldiers who beat him knocked out two of his upper front teeth. “My brother was beaten to death by the soldiers for refusing to go to the new village,” he wrote. “My second brother was detained and I don’t know where he was taken by the soldiers.” A woman reported that because the promised services weren’t available in the new village, she and her daughter returned to their old village to get food. “One of my relatives was also there retrieving the maize he was forced to leave behind when we moved. Suddenly soldiers came and accused us of feeding rebels and shot our relative dead. They beat me and my daughter and raped us both.”

The human rights groups’ investigations have focused on Ethiopia’s Anuak, Nuer, and other ethnic groups, who reside in the sultry, fertile region of Gambella, and now number several hundred thousand people. The Anuak in particular have long had a tense relationship with other ethnic groups favored by the government, and many Anuak have vivid memories of the December 2003 massacre in which Ethiopian military killed more than 400 Anuak men, women and children and destroyed hundreds of homes. Breaking up existing villages might be part of a government strategy to uproot clandestine Anuak rebel groups.

But the government may have another motive in pursuing the villagization strategy against them. Over the past four years, the government has leased or marketed some 3.5 million hectares of fertile land across Ethiopia—an area equivalent in size to that of the Netherlands—to investors from Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries to grow food for their own populations and for the global market. In all, the government plans to relocate some 1.5 million people across Ethiopia by 2015, and the regions affected are the same ones in which huge tracts of land have been designated for investment.

AFP/Getty Images

A man on his plot of land in Kir, a resettlement village in Gambella, Ethiopia, March 22, 2012

These disturbing revelations have caused an internal battle among the World Bank’s leadership, according to Bank documents. In internal reports on the Gambella controversy, the Bank’s managers dismiss the human rights groups’ findings, claiming, for example, that the villagization program isn’t “synchronized” with its own program, Protection of Basic Services, even though the official objectives of the programs are the same and the people carrying them out appear to be identical and are being paid by the same budget. The managers also maintain that while the villagization program has faced “implementation challenges” it’s not abusive. They cite the findings of a group of officials from the UN, the US Agency for International Development and other organizations who have visited the new villages twice in the past two years. They say they found no evidence of coercion. However, the human rights groups point out that these officials gathered their information through group interviews. Although no government officials were present at the meetings, I know from my own experience interviewing people in rural Ethiopia that government informants were almost certainly there, monitoring everything that was said and who said it.

The Bank’s staff have never visited the Anuak refugees in the camps outside of Ethiopia where people can generally speak more openly. But in September, Human Rights Watch arranged for five refugees to visit the managers in their offices in Nairobi. During the meeting, according to people who were present, a World Bank official asked one of the refugees, who had been a teacher before he fled Ethiopia, whether he would prefer that the Bank not pay his salary. “Would that solve the problems with the villagization program?” she asked. The man reminded the official that he was no longer a teacher, but a refugee, and that there were no teachers at all in some of the villages where the Anuak people were now being forced to live.

Last fall, the California-based human rights group Inclusive Development International submitted a complaint on behalf of a group of Ethiopian Anuak refugees to the Bank’s Inspection Panel, an internal watchdog group that determines whether Bank projects violate its own regulations. Following this complaint, the Inspection Panel members carried out a preliminary review to determine whether a full investigation was warranted. They interviewed refugees in Kenya and South Sudan as well as officials of the Ethiopian government and the World Bank itself. In February, the Inspection Panel issued its findings, confirming that there was sufficient evidence to be concerned about abuses in the villagization campaign and about the overlap between it and the Bank’s Protection of Basic Services program. Now the Executive Board of the World Bank must decide whether to follow these recommendations and conduct a full investigation, or continue to do nothing. The Board is scheduled to make a decision about the Inspection Panel’s report at a meeting on March 19.

During the past decade, the US and other Western donors have supported many fine projects in the developing world with inspiring goals like saving lives, educating children and ending poverty. Since Ethiopia’s Protection of Basic Services project began, for example, independent surveys have found improvements in some crucial measures of development such as child mortality (though it’s worth noting that the improvements have been most pronounced in Ethiopia’s three major cities, and in Tigray, the region that happens to be home to the ethnic group of the nation’s highly autocratic and repressive leadership).

But in twenty years working in this field, I have long since lost count of the number of projects I’ve visited that turned out not to be doing what their project documents claimed they were doing. The only way to find out whether development funds are being spent as they should be is to listen to the intended beneficiaries or—in repressive countries like Ethiopia where people are often afraid to speak out—the human rights advocates who represent them. That the World Bank managers have until now ignored these voices does not inspire confidence in their willingness to ensure that our tax dollars are being properly spent.

If anyone has the wisdom to figure out what to do about this mess, it is Jim Yong Kim, who succeeded Robert Zoellick as president of the World Bank in 2012. A medical doctor, former Harvard public health professor, and World Health Organization director, Kim is considered a kind of hero by some. Dying for Growth, a 2001 essay collection he edited described in great detail how the World Bank’s past economic policies had harmed the health of the poor throughout the developing world. It should be obvious to him that the Bank’s support for politically repressive regimes may do the same. Kim and the other Bank executives finally have a chance to restore the organization’s reputation by showing that all human rights abuses are impermissible in its programs, even those committed by governments their most generous donors happen to favor.

March 14, 2013, 10:15 a.m.

Written by– Libah Leencoo

Contributors– Jawar Mohammed and Jilcha Hamid

His given name is Abdulkariem Ibrahim Hamid. But he is well known by his nom-de -guerre “Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa”. He is a great grandson of Ibroo Shaxaa, one of the ministers in the last Raabaa Doorii of the Afran Qalloo Oromo which was on power on the eve of the Egyptian occupation of Harar (1875-1885).

Jaarraa was born in 1936 in the village of Mudir Gorro which is found in Gara Mul’ata plains of Hararge province. He attended Islamic education within his family. He started modern education thereafter and completed his secondary school in the city of Harar in early 1960s. In his stay in Harar, Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa helped found the first Oromo students union in history. The union was very instrumental in the renaissance of Oromo culture and the use of Oromo language. Jaarra then joined Harar Military Academy but left shortly when the academy’s administrators prohibited him from exercising his faith freely.

Jaarraa went to Assabot (in Carcar, the current West Hararge zone) to farm on his family’s land in the mid 1960s. There, he could see the miserable life of the Oromo tenants very closely. His heart was filled with a great sorrow; he understood that the cause of the misery was the prevailing “Gabbar” system and the remedy to end that misery was seeking the independence of his nation by all possible means. The incidence had a tremendous effect on the young Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa that his life journey totally changed thereafter; on that spot he decided to immerse himself in his half-century old quest for Oromo freedom.

In 1966, Jaarraa Abba Gadaa and his few men went to join the armed revolt of the Bale people which was lead by famous patriots like Waaqoo Guutuu, Waaqoo Luugoo and Aliyi Cirrii.  There, Jaarraa demonstrated his bravery earning respect from his compatriots at the battle of Laga Dhare. Until 1968, he would travel back and forth between Somalia and battlefield taking part in such combat missions as the battle of Eela Rooji where the Ethiopian military attacked Oromo fighters using warplanes.

As the Ethiopian government forces started to get upper hand over the Bale people’s revolt, Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa made up his mind that the military training and modern armaments were important to have a meaningful contribution in the struggle. Hence, he and his followers crossed the border and entered Somalia to seek the training and the weapon.

*****************

Jaarraa and his men were welcomed by the Somalis at first. And on the advice of the Somalis and the Oromos in exile, they grouped themselves under the infamous movement of the time called Liberation Front for the Somali West (LFSW). Apart from using the name “Somali West” and the immense Somali morale and material supports, the movement was purely devoted for the cause of the Oromo people and the Ogadenis in South east Ethiopia. But short time later, when the dictatorial regime of General Mohammed Ziad Barre came to power, the Somalis totally changed their long tradition of supporting the Oromo freedom struggle; the newly created government started to advocate a policy claiming that the Oromos of Hararge, Bale and Sidamo were actually Somalis even though they speak a different language. Further, the Somalis re-organized the LFSW in accordance with their new expansionist dream. The organization was renamed Western Somalia Liberation Front (WSLF, popularly known as “Somali Galbeed”) and all Oromos except few were removed from high position in its leadership. And it was declared by the Somali government that only WSLF had a legitimate right to free the provinces of Hararge, Bale and Sidamo and all fighting units must be organized under it.

Few Oromos accepted the new Somali plan. But Jaarraa and most of the Oromos in Somalia decried it as an act of self denial and totally rejected it. From the latter group, more than a half left the idea of undertaking the armed struggle and returned back to the homeland. But Jaarraa and few people crossed the Indian Ocean in order to seek another way of continuing the Oromo national struggle. On the help of some brilliant Oromo individuals living in Yemen such as Hassan Ibrahim (popularly known as “Elemoo Qilxuu”), and Bakhar Yusuf (Bakharee Galo) , they were gathered at the port city of Aden (the then capital of Yemen People’s Democratic Republic a.k.a. “South Yemen”) to lay down the foundation of a new organization fully determined for Oromo freedom.

******************

When the Oromos in Yemen were about to start discussions on the foundation of the new organization, another delegation of Oromo elites joined them. The delegation was lead by Hussein Mohammed Ali (popularly known as “Sheikh Hussein Sura” or simply “Hussein Sura”). Hussein was the Secretary General of WSLF at the time; but he was being frustrated by the new Somali policy which denied the Oromo freedom. On the order he got from the Somali government, he came to Yemen to recruit fighters for his organization. However, the morale and determination of Oromo nationalists he saw in Yemen caused him to change his course. So he abandoned WSLF and joined the Oromos in Yemen. Learning this, the Somali government send to him a death threat which had little effect on bringing him back.

***************

The Oromos in Yemen agreed on the objectives and strategies of the new organization. But a very hot debate erupted over its naming. Hussein Sura and few people favored using the name “Ethiopia” for the organization; Elemoo Qilxuu, Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, Bakhar Yusuf and many others argued that the name of the organization should indicate the Oromo people for whom they would fight for. However, both groups agreed to postpone the naming and to focus on the launching of an armed struggle. And for that, Hussein Sura, Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, Elemoo Qilxuu and other leading figures of the nationalists in exile went on diplomatic missions that took them to Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus. The Iraqi and Syrian governments agreed to provide them some weapons. And the Palestinian Fighters (based in Damascus, Syria) agreed to train the personnel that would launch the armed struggle.

It was also about that time that the flag of Oromia (Alaabaa Oromiyaa), which has been used by almost all Oromo political groups, was developed by those fathers of Oromo national struggle. When they did so, they primarily referred to the “Oda” (sycamore tree) which had long been used as the logo of the Macca Tuulamaa Self Help Association (MTSHA); it is said that Haile Mariam Gammadaa, one of the founders of MTSHA, proposed the use of “Oda” as the symbol of Oromo unity, ancient history, integrity and dignity. The Oromo nationals in exile took this symbolism of “Oda” and made it the center of the flag; they added the two red colors, the central green color, the rising sun and the red start.

***************

The arrangements over the armed struggle went according to the plan; the training and the equipping were accomplished. And 37 of the trainees were selected to be included in the unit that would be dispatched to the homeland to start the armed struggle. Jaarra Abbaa Gadaa was assigned as the commander of that historical military unit which was named “Qeyroo Ganamaa”. The combatants in the “Qeyroo Ganama” group were mostly the Oromos who had been in Somalia and fled to Yemen. The following is the list of the members of the “Qyeroo Ganamaa” group.

Jaarraa and his “Qeyroo Ganamaa” unit started their journey. They crossed the Gulf of Aden by boat and few days later, they offshored on the northern Somali coastal area known as Bulhaar which is found near the port city of Berbera. According to the plan, they had to travel to the Gara Mul’ata Mountains of Hararge and launch on the armed struggle. But when they were about to start their long journey, the Somali troops surrounded them and opened a fire instantly. A combatant named Ramadan Husseen Khalil died from the Qeyroo Ganamaa group and the rest of them were imprisoned at Mandheeraa (now in Somaliland).

Jaarraa and his comrades were detained for five years. But that was not without a cost; they passed through a serious torturing and starving. Later on, the Somali government started to show amnesty to them in order to amalgamate them with the poisonous ideology of “Somali Aboo” which was a generalization of the Somali expansionist doctrine on the Oromo lands. However, the Oromo detainees didn’t retreat an inch from their stance. They were lastly freed in 1975.

***********

When Jaarraa was released from Mandheera prison, many things were already on the scene; Hussein Sura split with his comrades over calling the exiled Oromo political organization “ENLF”, the Haile Silassie regime fell down and replaced by the military junta called “Dergue”, and Elemo Qilxuu was martyred in Carcar along with Ahmad Taqii (Hundee) and other comrades. Jaarraa took some time to analyze the situations of that period and he made up his mind that an armed struggle must be launched in Oromia. To that end, he and his long time fellow Mul’is Gadaa traveled from Somalia to Sharif Khalid, a rural village in the south of the town of Awaday, and stayed there for months. With a help of different networking channels, Jaarraa could reach many underground Oromo study cells that spread from Finfinne to Dire Dawa and Harar and gave them necessary directives on the course of the struggle.

While Jaarraa was undertaking the political activities in Hararge, the Oromo nationals in Finfinne invited him to help them in the proclamation of a new Oromo political organization whose establishment activities were already started in late 1973 when Elemoo Qilxuu visited the capital. Jaarraa went to Finfinne and stayed there for some time on the works of laying the foundations of the new organization. But when the Oromo comrades serving in the Dergue regime were made busy by the state in the formation of the Union of Ethiopian Marxist Leninist Organizations (UEMLO), he assigned his representatives in Finfinne and went back to Hararge to perform another equally important activity. This was the foundation of an independent Oromo fighting unit with clear objectives and directions.

Jaarraa recruited many nationalists who would be included in the fighting unit intended to be established. With the help of some Oromo nationals, he could get two AK-47 guns and some bullets which were buried in Carcar by Elemoo Qilxuu and Ahmad Taqii. And with those arms, he traveled to the valley of Gobelle and disclosed the foundation of the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA); and it was there that he accomplished the resurrection of the armed struggle of the Oromo people which was buried following the death of Elemoo Qilxuu and his comrades. Many Oromos joined the new struggle from all directions. And within short period of time, OLA got wide popularity throughout the nation.

***********

When the Dergue regime proclaimed a mass killing campaign known as “Red Terror”, many Oromo nationalists, including the OLF leaders disguised in the state’s higher positions, escaped the assault and joined the OLA in Gara Mul’ata. But some time later, schism was created in the organization. The cause of the schism was still unclear; some people assume that it was caused by a power struggle, and others think it was a mere factionalism which was motivated by regional differences. But in the sight of this writer, it seems that it was a spilt driven by the international political order of the time that bisected the old and pragmatic leaders who put more trust on practical armed struggle from the young theoretically stimulated leaders who gave more weight for the struggle assisted by ideological warfare. Consequently, older leaders like Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa and Mul’is Gadaa break away from their younger fellow and went on their way. Both groups used to call their organizations “Oromo Liberation Front” until 1985 when Jaarraa and his fellow men renamed their organization “Islamic Front for Liberation of Oromia” (IFLO).

OLF and IFLO coexisted in east and south east Oromia until the fall of the Dergue regime. The two parties fought each other many times. Efforts made to bring reconciliation between them turned fruitless. But in 1991, the organizations settled their dispute once and for all. This resolution was turned to the formation of the Union of Oromo Liberation Forces (ULFO) in 2000.

The IFLO lead by Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa was the participant of the transitional government of Ethiopia which was founded in July 1991. And the organization opened its offices in many towns of Oromia for the purpose of undertaking political activities. The head quarter of the front was located in the town of Bisidimo (20 kms east of Harar) where Jaarraa delivered his highly revered speeches to the public. But in 1992, a disagreement with EPRDF (the main actor in the transitional government) forced him to an exile again.

In 2005, the IFLO was renamed Front for Independent Democratic Oromia (FIDO). And Jaarraa continued to lead the struggle with his newly reorganized front. But on March 3/2013, after spending four decades for the freedom and sovereignty of his nation, he died of kidney complications in the city of San’a, the Capital of Yemen. Jaarraa was married to Mariam Jamal and fathered two boys.

=========///===========\\\==========///===========\\\============

By Girma Tadesse

Introduction: 

This is an imagined dialogue among monuments, real and unreal(at least for now), of some controversial figures, most of whom are related to Ethiopia(Abyssinia). They are gathered at the inauguration of a new monument somewhere in Addis Ababa/Finfinne. Some references in this piece may be vague especially for non football/soccer fans; hence I briefly introduce the characters and expressions used below.

MZ – Perceived monument of Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s deceased prime minister, hailed as a ‘visionary leader’ by his party and ethnic group but ‘ruthless dictator’ by others

AF – Sir Alex Fergusson’s monument, erected at Old Trafford, home of Manchester United FC, which he still manages

RG – Monument of Rodolfo Graziani, considered to be the ‘butcher of Ethiopia and Libya’, erected for him by a city council in Italy

PP – Monument of Patriarch Paolos, erected for the former patriarch by the church he lead while he was still alive

AG – Monument of Ahmed Gragn or Ahmed Gurey, considered to be a ‘hero’(by some) for spreading Islam and a ‘villain’ for destroying churches and lives, erected for him somewhere in Somalia

MII – Monument of king Menelik II, considered a ‘hero’(by some) for expanding Abyssinia’s rule to the South but a ‘villain’ for the massacre and enslavement of the South people, especially the Oromo.

Scouse – reference to the people of Liverpool, England whose football club is considered to be the historic rival to AF’s Manchester United

Anfield Road – Home of Liverpool Football Club

Noisy Neighbors – reference to supporters of Manchester City FC another rival club in the same city as that of AF’s

Kaliti – is one of the prisons in the Ethiopia where thousands of  political dissidents and journalist are jailed, the overwhelming majority of whom are Oromos

Waqeffata – a follower of an Oromo indigenous religion, Waqeffanna, which literally translates to ‘worshiping God’

Apart from MZ, every other monument exists in reality as of today.

The council begins its meeting …

PP – welcome everybody, this is in recognition of our newest member Meles Zenawi to the council of the monuments.

AF – so you’re not going to start with a blessing, father?

MZ – shut up you old …oops I thought I was in the parliament

AF – so you spoke to your people like that?

MZ – who are my people?

AF – (confused) where’s Abebe Bikila?

MZ – hasn’t got one (leans towards PP’s ears and whispers ‘whoever invited this guy, how does he fit the bill?’ to which PP replies in the same manner ‘your son asked for him’ and MZ says ‘kids’)

AF – are you kidding me?

MZ – why would I kid you? I don’t kid the Brits after Tony Blair made me world famous

AF – what do people say when you are getting erected and Abebe Bikila doesn’t have one. Are you not scared of the papers?

MZ – hahahaha, you really are a fool Fergie. What paper are you talking about? You need to learn a lot here and you need to learn fast. First, there are no papers that will oppose me; well, there were but not anymore. Second the people have no say.

AF – what did you do to them?

MZ – that’s another thing you need to learn. You don’t ask these questions.

AF – I wish the UK papers were like yours. They’d be writing my glory and none of the Scouse and these noisy neighbors

MZ – you need BS in the information department

AF – what?

MZ – Bereket Simon, he’s a guy who helps so much in the information ministry that the ministry is named after him. BS ministry.

AF – doesn’t BS mean…

MZ – (interrupting) I know, I know. But they are the same. By the way you ask more questions in 2 minutes than my former ministers did in 2 decades. The sooner you leave the better.

AF – or else?

MZ – you’ll be sent to Kaliti

PP – but Fergie doesn’t speak Afan Oromo

MZ – Bekele Gerba will teach him. But wait… you’re worried that Fergie is gonna sympathize with the Muslims and Waqefatas there, aren’t you?

PP – hahaha …you got me. That’s why I like you. You should have been a lawyer, you know?

MZ – I thought about that but found that being the law is better than being a lawyer

AF – what are you guys talking about?

RG – hi everyone…sorry I’m late; I was watching out for some street protesters

AF – ciao Grazziani; how come you don’t look scared around these guys?

RG – why would I be scared?

AF – you murdered their citizens a while back!

RG – hold on here; first of all I didn’t murder them I only gave the order after I got an order.  Second, that’s a long time ago, 77 years. You guys still live in the past? Why don’t you ask these two, they executed and enslaved their own citizens yet still stand tall?

AF – who do you mean?

MZ – RG is trying to point fingers at me and MII. Listen to me old master, I didn’t murder my own citizens; there are no citizens of mine in Gambella and very few outside Tigray. I’m pretty sure Menelik didn’t massacre or enslave his ‘own people’ either. So get your facts straight.

RG – (Looking at AG and MII as if seeking approval but finding them uninterested) I understood that when I was here before; but I thought things would change

MZ – change has no place here my friend; why change something that suits you?

AF – what about those people that ‘no change’ affects?

MZ – to those people you tell them that there’s a change

AF – you’re not bothered that you’re lying to them? May be one day they’ll wake up and realize what you’re doing?

MZ – why do you make it look like I invented lies around here? Everyone and everything is lies. If you want to know, the motto is ‘deception is the best policy’. So you expect me to be a saint? And to those people that may wake up; we’ve never seen them do something, so why bother?

RG – and what surprises me the most is that your people are asking for my removal in Italy far away from where I committed the murder; oh sorry I meant to say ‘gave the order’, but you two are standing right in the middle of them.

MZ – how many times do I have to tell you who my people are? Plus, I made sure that those that care are locked up, chased out or vanished; whatever is left of them are either an ignorant bunch or  those scared to death to ask anything. Except my people, of course. If you’re concerned about the protesters against you, then my people will take care of them.

RG – good; now we’re friends. By the way, have you considered asking Ahmed Gragn to move to one of the monasteries in the North? That would even everyone’s pain, don’t you think?

PP – good idea, I second it.  That’ll also help deflect attention away from my successor.

AF – (murmuring to himself) when I return to England I am going to demand to be erected right in front of Anfield Road, where I can do damage. Or…maybe I should ask to be moved to the backyard of our noisy neighbors? Nah, I’ll just order another one of me, one for each venue.

RG – I heard that Fergie, but a nice thought. I’m also looking for a place around 6 Kilo.

By Jilcha Hamid

“There are two men named Muhammad Ahmad in the Harar provincial administration. The one known as “Caffee” (Chaffee) is a snake. The other one is him.” said my uncle to his younger brother. “He is our man” he said, pointing at a burly tall man walking in the street in the town of Malka Rafu, East Hararge. Muhammad Ahmad Imar, better known as Kormooso was the head of the Farmers Union in the province of Harar in the late 1970′s. After spending 5 years in prison in Somalia as part of the Qeeyroo Ganamaa unit led by Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa, he was released in 1975 and returned to his country where he headed the Farmers Union in the new administration.

During this time the Afran Qallo movement had spread to all sectors of society and there was a growing fear amongst the political elite that the growing social and political awareness amongst Oromos was a threat to the status quo. In March 1978 when the Somali army retreated and the Ethiopian army retook all the territory it had lost the previous year, their main concern was to exact revenge on those who they believed had allied with the Somali army, as well as to disarm the population. The OLF led by Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa and Mullis Abbaa Gadaa had established themselves in the mountainous regions and were a primary concern for the Derg in the province after the Somali army had withdrawn. The policy of disarmament was central to re-establishing control. The governor of Harar province, Colonel Zeleke Beyene, was tasked with defeating the insurgency, and most importantly disarming the population. After the Somali invasion and the outbreak of the war, weapons had become abundant in the region. A province wide disarmament campaign was launched, sending government cadres around urging the people to turn in their weapons.

Muhammad Ahmad (Kormooso) as head of the Farmer’s Union was given the order by Colonel Beyene to lead the campaign. But he disagreed with the regimes policy, and disagreed with them on every one of their discriminatory policy towards Oromos. He believed that the crimes committed against the Oromo population by the Ethiopian army as well as the Somali militias during the Ethio-Somali war was a result of the population being unarmed and defenseless. In addition to that the targeting of Oromo community leaders and intellectuals was another discriminatory policy he was opposed to. So Kormooso, being familiar with the bias and hatred towards Oromos from the regimes cadres, used his position to counter these policies. For example people who were imprisoned for simply for being socially and politically conscious Oromos were released en mass. During the disarmament campaign he spoke with District administrators in Harar and made sure that they did not disarm the population. He believed that being armed was part of their right to self-defense. His policies, although done covertly to avoid direct confrontation with the Amhara establishment in the regime, gained him popularity in the province but equally gained him many enemies in the regime, most notably Colonel Beyene. Beyene regarded Kormooso as a cancer and attempted on many occasions to catch him in violation and have him killed. He attempted to build a legal case against Kormooso, using other cadres to testify against him. When this approach failed he gave up on that approach and took extra-judicial action.

Kormooso commuted to his office in Harar every morning, and by evening would return to his home in Ganda Sharo, Kombolcha district where he felt safe. This was located just north of Harar town. One evening he was held for a meeting called by Colonel Zeleke Beyene. The next morning it was announced on the radio that Kormooso had hung himself. The population refused to swallow the news. The farmers union from Kombolcha district, heavily armed, immediately headed to Harar to see Kormooso. The administration was hesitant to release the body, insisting that they had nothing to do with his killing and that Kormooso had hung himself. The body was hand over, riddled with bullet holes to the abdomen. Kormooso was buried in his home district. The regime, humiliated by the farmers show of force in Harar and the exposure of their lie, followed the situation carefully. At the funeral government agents approached the local farmers union leader to intimidatingly remind him that he was giving a respected burial to a state criminal. The threat was ignored and tension continued to grow between the union and the regime. Colonel Beyene found his new target in the head of the Kombolcha district union, Aliyyi Usman. He organized a tribunal in the district attended by the military top brass as well as his loyalists in the local administration to testify against Aliyyi, accusing him of abuses of his power, aiding rebels and so on. The local farmers union rejected the Colonel’s allegations and reminded him that they were free to choose their own leaders and would not accept the Colonel’s appointees. “If you do not remove your stinky hands from our district” said an influential local, you will be responsible for what happens next”. The regime backtracked, accepted the farmers demands and ended the tribunal.

The killing of Kormooso sparked anger throughout the province and fueled anti-regime sentiment. The role played by certain district and farmers union officials such as Musa Alisho of Haromaya, Abdurahman Bilu of Kombolcha and Muhammad Ahmad “Kormooso” during the “Red Terror” period is often forgotten. But the role played by these men was key during the Oromo socio-political awakening. They used their positions to serve their people at the expense of the regimes oppressive agenda which cost them their lives.

Barreessaan: Eebba Coqorsaa

Ilma tokko garree
ilma abbaan dhalche
kormee abdii sabaa
jirtaa akkam oolte?

Jirra ree silaa jirraa
jennee faa’n mammaaknuu
obsinee jiraachuu
filannoon nuqabnu!

Jijjiirraan jireenyaa
dabareefi hiree
turree lama’n dhabnuu
abdii qabdna egeree!

walaloofi waloon
jiruu keessaa maddaa
akkamiin callisa
inni garaa madaa!!

kennaa jirra EEBBA
lubbuun guyyaa malee
inuman dabarree
hindhageenye dheengadda
isa jaarra lolee
sabni bahee awwaale?

eebbaafi abaarsa
lameenutti barree
lama dhabuu kana
wanti nuuf’n galle?

gaaffiin bara wahii
gaafatamaa ture
abjuu tee’n hafuu
dhaloonnii hegeree

qaqallattu wayyaa
furdattu sun gurraa
jiraa biyyi beekaa
du’atuu fokkora!

yeroon dibbee mitii
kan itti ragadan
garaa guuttatanii
maagaan maqaa aadan!

gabrummaan kun maali
isa garaan yaaduu
gabroome kan jedhu
yoo nyaanni isa didu!

argaa jirra seenaa
kan fagoo fakkaatuu
inni kalee turee
Jubuutiif keeniyaan
dheefaaf enna kaatu!

Baasaan gaarii turee
kan nama albaasuu
gaafa fincaan didee
qaallittin nu baase
hindanda’u naasuu!

haa daldalu jarrii
gabaatti baratee
nucallifne laalaa
warra garaa gante
gurraafi afaan kee
lilmoon walitti hodhii
garaa kee guutadhuu
gaaf hirrate maqi!

nyaanni qaama namaaf
soorata lubbuutii
si waakkatin malee
dhalli dhala keeti

hayyuu hedduu turee
warri byyaa tolu
kan biyya jijjiiru
dukkanatu dhoksee
biyyeetuu daangsee
jarreen sabaaf oolu

jireenya maal qabaa
inni adda galuu
gaadidduu hinqabuu
kan halagaan dhaalu!

hadhaa afaanii caalaa
kan garaa dadhabnee
bakka keette’n jiru
inni kalee keenne

boonni maali jiraa
kan waliin boonaniin
booyuun hafaa jiraa
awwaalli waldaani

Ilma tokko garree
ilma abbaan dhalche
kormee abdii sabaa
jirtaa akkam oolte?

Jirra ree silaa jirraa
jennee faa’n mammaaknuu
obsinee jiraachuu
filannoon nuqabnu!

Jijjiirraan jireenyaa
dabareefi hiree
turree lama’n dhabnuu
abdii qabdna egeree!

walaloofi waloon
jiruu keessaa maddaa
akkamiin callisa
inni garaa madaa!!

kennaa jirra EEBBA
lubbuun guyyaa malee
inuman dabarree
hindhageenye dheengadda
isa jaarra lolee
sabni bahee awwaale?

eebbaafi abaarsa
lameenutti barree
lama dhabuu kana
wanti nuuf’n galle?

gaaffiin bara wahii
gaafatamaa ture
abjuu tee’n hafuu
dhaloonnii hegeree

qaqallattu wayyaa
furdattu sun gurraa
jiraa biyyi beekaa
du’atuu fokkora!

yeroon dibbee mitii
kan itti ragadan
garaa guuttatanii
maagaan maqaa aadan!

gabrummaan kun maali
isa garaan yaaduu
gabroome kan jedhu
yoo nyaanni isa didu!

argaa jirra seenaa
kan fagoo fakkaatuu
inni kalee turee
Jubuutiif keeniyaan
dheefaaf enna kaatu!

Baasaan gaarii turee
kan nama albaasuu
gaafa fincaan didee
qaallittin nu baase
hindanda’u naasuu!

haa daldalu jarrii
gabaatti baratee
nucallifne laalaa
warra garaa gante
gurraafi afaan kee
lilmoon walitti hodhii
garaa kee guutadhuu
gaaf hirrate maqi!

nyaanni qaama namaaf
soorata lubbuutii
si waakkatin malee
dhalli dhala keeti

hayyuu hedduu turee
warri byyaa tolu
kan biyya jijjiiru
dukkanatu dhoksee
biyyeetuu daangsee
jarreen sabaaf oolu

jireenya maal qabaa
inni adda galuu
gaadidduu hinqabuu
kan halagaan dhaalu!

hadhaa afaanii caalaa
kan garaa dadhabnee
bakka keette’n jiru
inni kalee keenne

boonni maali jiraa
kan waliin boonaniin
booyuun hafaa jiraa
awwaalli waldaani

Ilma tokko garree
ilma abbaan dhalche
kormee abdii sabaa
jirtaa akkam oolte?

Jirra ree silaa jirraa
jennee faa’n mammaaknuu
obsinee jiraachuu
filannoon nuqabnu!

Jijjiirraan jireenyaa
dabareefi hiree
turree lama’n dhabnuu
abdii qabdna egeree!

walaloofi waloon
jiruu keessaa maddaa
akkamiin callisa
inni garaa madaa!!

kennaa jirra EEBBA
lubbuun guyyaa malee
inuman dabarree
hindhageenye dheengadda
isa jaarra lolee
sabni bahee awwaale?

eebbaafi abaarsa
lameenutti barree
lama dhabuu kana
wanti nuuf’n galle?

gaaffiin bara wahii
gaafatamaa ture
abjuu tee’n hafuu
dhaloonnii hegeree

qaqallattu wayyaa
furdattu sun gurraa
jiraa biyyi beekaa
du’atuu fokkora!

yeroon dibbee mitii
kan itti ragadan
garaa guuttatanii
maagaan maqaa aadan!

gabrummaan kun maali
isa garaan yaaduu
gabroome kan jedhu
yoo nyaanni isa didu!

argaa jirra seenaa
kan fagoo fakkaatuu
inni kalee turee
Jubuutiif keeniyaan
dheefaaf enna kaatu!

Baasaan gaarii turee
kan nama albaasuu
gaafa fincaan didee
qaallittin nu baase
hindanda’u naasuu!

haa daldalu jarrii
gabaatti baratee
nucallifne laalaa
warra garaa gante
gurraafi afaan kee
lilmoon walitti hodhii
garaa kee guutadhuu
gaaf hirrate maqi!

nyaanni qaama namaaf
soorata lubbuutii
si waakkatin malee
dhalli dhala keeti

hayyuu hedduu turee
warri byyaa tolu
kan biyya jijjiiru
dukkanatu dhoksee
biyyeetuu daangsee
jarreen sabaaf oolu

jireenya maal qabaa
inni adda galuu
gaadidduu hinqabuu
kan halagaan dhaalu!

hadhaa afaanii caalaa
kan garaa dadhabnee
bakka keette’n jiru
inni kalee keenne

boonni maali jiraa
kan waliin boonaniin
booyuun hafaa jiraa
awwaalli waldaani

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