The Triangular ATO (Amara, Tegaru & Oromo) Elites Learned Bitterly in Turn What National Humiliation Means?
By Fayyis Oromia*
How good to see in our life time that the elites of the three main nations in Ethiopia could experience turn by turn what national humilatiom means. During the fascist Derg, Amaras were not persecuted because of their national identity, thus Amara elites couldn’t understand the misery of Tegarus and the Oromo based on their national belonging. Under the fascist rule of Woyane, Tegaru elites forgot all what they went through preveously and became oppressors of Amara and Oromo. Now, in this fascist rule of Biltsigina, the Amaras further experienced how it really feels to be persecuted because of national identity. I hope from now on the elites of the ATO triangle know very well what it really means to be discriminated, oppressed and persecuted due to one’s ethnic identity. This is the best prerequisite to come to our sense and find common win win solution for this century long problem of national oppression. It is the high time for democrats of the triangle to come together, find common denominator and fight in unison against the encumbent in order to foster common democratic country in which we all can live in liberty with equality and fraternity.
I just took the nice and wise axpression in the picture above from Benjamin Franklin who said: “Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb contesting the vote!” This saying is really very catchy! A lot of people, specially Ethiopian (Oropian) elites from two groups of “Wolves” (supporters of assimilationist Amhara elites and bantustanist Tegaru elites) talk about unity, justice, democracy, stability, peace, etc just to justify their ambition for having the Lamb (resources of oppressed peoples, specially that of the Oromo and that of the oppressed part of Habesha people) as their lunch. The cry of assimilationist Amhara elites for unity is not different from that of TPLF; thanks to God, both are now de-potentiated Wolves; they were fighting in Finfinne in the name of democracy on the rich resource of Oromia and others, of course the Lamb (the subjugated people) also voted with the Wolves. This is the true relation between them in the last more than hundred years. Both of the Wolves noe seem to be powerless singe 2018. Till 1991 the powerful Wolf was the assimilationist elites, since 1991 of course the powerful Wolf was TPLF, the bantustanist. N.B all oppressed peoples of Ethiopia including those of the two Abyssinian nations are part and parcel of the Lamb, which now at last won the contest.
Since many years, Oromo people (part of the Lamb) demanded to have first our liberty, and then talk about the unity demanded by the two Wolves. Liberty was the only end we should die for, not unity without liberty. Accordingly, we differentiated between two types of unity: unity as means for achieving liberty (tokkummaa for bilisummaa), which should have been fostered among all liberation groups as soon as possible and a union between the concerned free peoples in the region as a result of liberty (based on free will). We prefered6 to accept and promote unity for liberty (unity as the means for liberty) among all Oromo groups of liberation movement and then after achieving our liberty, we can now be ready to decide on Yes vs No to union with other nations in the region. For Oromo and other oppressed nations, this principle was really productive and interesting; it was worthy to die for our liberty just to save our self from the Wolves. Even Amhara and Tigrai masses should have followed this trend and demand their own liberty, before trying to forge union with the Oromo. We should have been able to say in unison, NO to any sort of unity at the cost of our liberty. Even in unity among individual persons, leave alone among nations (like unity of Oromia with Abyssinia), liberty comes first. When ever Abyssinian elites (the two Wolves) try to prescribe unity as the best remedy from our calamity, we Oromos needed to ask: before or after liberty?, which was a similar question to what most patients ask their doctors: should I take the pill of remedy before or after a meal? Somebody (I forgot who) also must have said: “A society that puts unity before liberty will get neither; a society that puts liberty before unity will get high degree of both.”
We believe it or not, Ethiopian politics is mostly affected by the vision different parties have for the fate of Oromia in the empire:
1) vision to dismantle Oromia (wish of the assimilationists, but at the moment powerless Wolf): most of these unitarist elites want the non-existence of Oromia, they just want to dismantle Oromia, the step which they consider as a measure to be taken in order to safe Ethiopian unity. Most elites rallying behind all “multi-national” parties like the ECS (Ethiopian Citizens for Social justice) do support this move.
2) the existence of fake autonomous Oromia (an act of the powerful neo-nafxanya Wolf): TPLFites and their few opportunist allies from both Amhara and Oromo including few from other oppressed nations, who live only for their own personal interest at the cost of liberty to their respective nations support the policy of EPRDF and want to keep the status of pseudo-autonomy in order to deceive Oromo people and control Oromia dictatorially just to loot the resources and build Tigrai further.
3) a vision for Oromia’s autonomy (wish of one part of the Lamb): few unitarist Ethiopians (probably some in Ezema) and some federalist Ethiopians have understood the necessity and improtance of the genuine right of nations to self-determination in Ethiopian context and they want to realize genuine autonomy of Oromia. Very few Amharas, some Oromos and those from other nations rallying behind Medrek have this in mind and it is the most practical and acceptable vision for all sides, at least temporarily.
4) a vision for Oromia’s independence (wish of other part of the Lamb): some Oromos do strive for this end, even though it is very difficult in context of the current global geo-political situation. The super-powers want to see a strong Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa to instrumentalize the country for their fight against Arab aggresion or “islamist-terrorists”. Liberation of Oromia in a sense of independence without union do have almost no support from international community, but the vision of free Oromia within a union of nations seems to be tolerated. Inspite of the strong opposition, Oromo people pushes further to achieve our goal. Now Oromia is already free from the two wolves.
In general the 1st and the 2nd visions are actions of the two Wolves and the 4th possibility seems to be compatible with the 3rd vision. The centeralist, chauvinist, uniformist and unitarist group of Amhara elites (the first Wolf) should give up its vision of dismantling Oromia, whereas Oromo nationalists in the 4th group should join federalists to come first to the mid-goal together and then move on to their own position as the end-goal. The fascist TPLF (the second Wolf) is also already dealt with by the well-armed Lamb (all democratic forces and freedom fighters being supported by the mass from all nations). After achieving Oromia’s autonomy in federation or after getting our liberty for referendum, there can be a possibility to go for self-determination and vote on the type of sovereignity we want to have.
If Ethiopian democrats and freedom fighters agree to cooperate in Medrek and PAFD, then the struggle will be between EPRDF and the future implicit cooperation of Medrek-PAFD. The Lamb should be promoted to be in a position to contest the vote. For Medrek and PAFD to be stronger, Ethiopian democratic forces, who unproductively want to dismantle Oromia and Oromo freedom fighters who wanted to acheive liberation of Oromia without a possible union needed to come together and accept the third version of Oromia’s fate, as a common ground. This was the only way imaginable to challenge TPLF together. Otherwise TPLF had a political card to play by instigating the polarized Amhara centeralists and Oromo “separatists” against each other and to rule further by balancing these two opposite powers. The democrats from each side, who moved to creat such big opposition alliances like Medrek and PAFD were on good truck. This trend must have grown to get more support of the rest from each side. Both sides (“centeralists and separatists”) needed to be pragmatic and come to the third version, they should have not lived further as rigid puppets to be manipulated by TPLF (the powerful Wolf).
As far as the power strugle was concerned, Ethiopian politics was cristalizing very well. The opposition camp against the fascist TPLF, which wanted to take over power was devided in to two: 1) the backward camp of unitarist elites (the powerless Wolf) is the rival to the regime to take over the position of domination and wants to forge unitary Ethiopia of one language, one people, one culture, one religion, one ethnic dominance and one flag under one God and 2) the forward oriented unionist elites and oppressed nations including the oppressed part of Amhara and Tigrai peoples (the camp of the Lamb), who want to form union of free peoples in Ethiopia. where both individual rights and collective national rights will be respected. Accordingly, the word unity also has got double meaning. Unitarists want to hide behind the word unity in order to keep the domination system, eventhough the true unity is the free union of all citizens and nations based on free will after dismantling the domination system, what the unionists try to achieve. Surely, the backward conservative unitarist group will lose, whereas the elites in the progressive unionist group must still be smart to cooperate and coordinate their efforts in order to keep away the fascists from Finfinne palace. TPLF (the powerfull Wolf) was very much terrified because of the unionist opposition camp in form of Medrek and PAFD, that is why they used to support camp of the unitarist elites, eventhough their policy differs very much. Fact is that a Wolf doesn’t eat its kind, but kills and eats a Lamb. Therefore, it is not surprising that at the unitaris were taken by TPLF as the hopefull saviors of their fascist government by trying to neutralize or eliminate the unionist camp (part of the Lamb).
But, now, it seems that the unitarist elites (the powerless Wolf) were also in helpless situation for they knew that they could not take power again from the powerfull Wolf, so they preferred to be on the side of TPLF. That is why leaders of the Unitarist parties were sympathising with TPLF and fighting against the unionist camp (camp of the Lamb) during the 2010 election. They were almost becoming second TPLF. The best solution would have been the transformation of unitarists in to unionists (can Wolf be transformed in to Lamb?) in order to have only one opposition camp (Lamb camp) against the TPLF (Wolf camp). I think the transformation is hard, it needs supernatural force. But there is part of the Lamb (Amhara and Tigrai mass and democratic elites) which potentially can serve the Wolf; this part should come back to camp of the Lamb (people’s camp). That means, people supporting unitarist parties should stop dreaming and talking about bringing back the old unitarist Ethiopia and they should accept the possible new union of free peoples in Ethiopia. This could unite all the opposition groups under one umberella to fight against the system and keep away the fascist TPLF. Hopefully unitarist elites will come to their sense to do this, otherwise they are the dying species in Ethiopian future politics. On the other side, fortunate to the TPLF, both unitarist elites and unionists seem to continue doing the same mistake repeatedly. As an example, during election 2005 the TPLF was challenged from unitarists aka Kinijit, but was saved being passively supported by unionist elites to some extent. In election 2010, the TPLF was under big challenge from unionists aka Medrek and the saving handskake was given from the unitarist elites. The handshake was in fact an agreement of the two Wolves on how to have the Lamb as their lunch. Was TPLF, the powerfull Wolf, not lucky in having such support of its rival?
Actually, the main effect of the Meles-Hailu-handshake was specially division of Amhara polity in to two. The activity of Ezema made many Amhara elites to look at Asmara as focus of the struggle against TPLF. Because of this move some Amhara elites including two generals (Tefera and Asaminew) were suffering under prison and torture. Some Amhaa leaders moved to Meqele as supporter of TPLF instead of going to Asmara, of course taking their supporters with. Amharas rallying behind Ezema percieved this as a major betrayal, whereas Amharas supporting Maqale sang an obsolete song of the old unitarist and amharanized Ethiopia. Specially, it wa very interesting to observe the very conservative Amharas, who used to despise and insult the Woyane, changed their view and started “good job” of submission to the TPLF. I know the main thing which made them to submit was struggle of Oromo people to liberate Oromia from the domination system of both Nefxenyas. Because of the division made by TPLF canning fox, even the unitarist elites were devided among themselves. So, we can see that in general TPLF’s devide and rule method was running specially in three areas:
– polarization of Amhara forces and Oromo fronts
– disintegration of Amhara forces
– disenfranchisement of Oromia
In the last few years, both democratic forces and liberation fronts did a good job to counter act this devide and dominate game of the TPLF. Unfortunately, the TPLF could fool some of unitarist elites or they did the cooperation intentionally, so that they could cause further divsion among Amhara elites. All Ethiopian unionists in general and Oromos in particular (whole body of the Lamb) should have taken any election process as a means of struggle without expecting it to be fair and free. It was clear that the TPLF never allow it to be so, but the people should have been organized to use it as an opportunity to fight against tyranny, this way or that way. Specially, for the Oromo, it was part of our liberation struggle, as a complementary action to our armed struggle. The jailing and killing of the Oromo is going on, and this has been intensified during the elections. To be successfull inspite of the imprisonments and executions, the Lamb must habe been well armed through an empowering effective organization and unity of Oromo and all oppressed nations (including Amhara and Tigrai mass).This was what Benjamin Franklin described as: “…Liberty is a well-armed Lamb contesting the vote”.
I hope in the future not only the Oromo, but also other nations (part of the Lamb) will start to accept the value of liberty as a priority to unity. The pan-Africans including Tsegaye G/Medhin, who wrote the anthem of AU (African Union) advocated for both African liberty from colonialism and then African unity to defend the liberty and strive for common prosperity. Tsegaye wrote in the antehm as follows:
“…Let us all unite and celebrate together
the victories won for our liberation;
let us dedicate ourselves to rise together
to defend our liberty and unity…..”
In parallel to this vision for Africa, the problem of Ethiopia could have been solved only by achieving liberty of oppressed nations (the Lamb) from TPLF domination (the Wolf) and then forge union of free peoples for common benefit such as economical prosperity. That is why the so called unity with out liberty of nations has its appropriate name called slavery. Ethiopian “unity” from Theodros to Meles was thus slavery of oppressed nations. The future unity, for which all unionists do fight must be based on liberty of nations. It must be unity with liberty, not the same “unity” without liberty we had, which is slavery. To achieve such unity with liberty, the well-armed Lamb must have contested the vote, in which the wolves wanted it to participate! Thanks to Waaqa, both wolves lost the game and finally the lamb is victorious!
Galatôma!
Read more: https://orompia.wordpress.com/2019/06/05/4028/