He sought political appointment from Meles who did not give it to him. He did not take it kindly. He embarked on political revenge.
Under the pretext of unpaid economics lecturer at AAU, he incited students by educating them about human and democratic rights. He also taught same Addis residences in conference halls of hotels in Addis.
He then established the Ethiopian Economics Institute to revert the nationalization of land to private property which Meles refused.
After that he establushed The Rainbow Coalition to criticize Meles and unseat him from power. He angered Meles obviously. As an ethnicist, Meles felt his constituents were Gurages. So he executed the plan to minimize his base support by dismembering Gurage. To create political movements of sections of Gurage to say "We are not Gurage".
First, used OPDO to establish separate democratic organizations for Gurages who have Oromo minorities in border areas with Oromo such as Sodo Jida, Seden Sodo, Dacha, Kersa, Malima, Weliso, Tulu Bolo and Goro. Unchallenged and supervised by Gurage, these numerous so called democratic organizations run a referendum and declared they voted to join Oromo.
The second scheme was to take Silte out of Gurage. The Silte separatist actvists agreed with Gurage on expert opinion whether the ethnic identity of Silte was Gurage or different. The experts testified that the Silte identity was Gurage.
This was not a result the Silte separatists expected. They wanted the experts to say that because Silte was majority Muslim, it was not Gurage. They rejected the experts opinion and went for referendum. They told ordinary Siltes that they were not Gurages. That they were Muslims and instructed the people of Silte to vote they were not Gurage, translated, they were not Christians.
Birratu Baga, your political power ambition, your recklessness, costed Gurage dismemberment. The irony of it is that you don't care.
More dismemberment of Gurage came with the Properity Party.
Birratu Naga costed Gurage dearly
Last edited by Dama on 03 Feb 2026, 13:10, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Birratu Naga costed Gurage dearly
If he cared for the Gurage nation, 1)he would organize them to resist Meles divisiveness, or 2) at least condemn Meles for his collective punishment.