Saturday, August 31, 2013

Singer Eebbisaa Addunyaa was gun down by Woyyaane 17 years ago, August 30, 1996

Jafar Abafogi/facebook | August 30, 2013
eebisaa_adunyaIt has been 17 years since Eebbisaa Addunyaa, the famous revolutionary Oromo nationalist and patriotic singer was murdered by Woyyanee security forces on the street of Finfinee. The extremely fearless and vocal advocate of the Oromo people, was gunned down in his home, along with his friend – Tana Wayessa, on August 30, 1996. “Today, Friday August 30th, we mark the 17th Anniversary of the his Execution. Eebbisaa is an inspiration to all of us. Not only because he changed the Oromo nation with his music, but for the fact that he “did not give up or give in” no matter how bad the oppression got. He continued to be a voice for the voiceless people until his last breath. They killed Eebbisaa; but they will never kill his work or the cause for which he was martyred for. sirboota eebbisaa keessaa amma yoonatti kan sammuu dhalataa oromoo keessaa baduu dide yeroo hunda kan yaadannoo ta’ee argamu duuti eebbisaa amma yoonatti kan dhugaa hin fakkaatne keessaa geerarsa isaa keessatti**Yaa bunaa hin daraarinii amman harree bitutti yaa du’aa nan waaminii yaa biyyee nan nyaatinii amman bilisummaa ija kiyyaan argutti** kan jedhee geerare amma yoonatti sammuu ilmaan oromoo keessaa kan hin haqamne ta’ee argama . Ebbisa was born in Dembi Dollo, southwest of the Western Wallaga region of Oromia. With two younger brothers and three sisters, Ebbisa was the eldest son in his family. He was a very talented and respected young person. He attended Oliiqaa Dingil Primary School, Qellem High School, and then passed the national examination for Higher Education to attend a university. 
In 1991, while waiting for admission to an university, the military regime of Ethiopia was overthrown by OLF, TPLF, and EPLF forces. In Ebbisa’s hometown of Dembi Dollo, OLF forces had set up a strong military base. At that time, Ebbisa was very aware of the deteriorating Oromo condition and the need for self-determination for the Oromo people; hence, to support the Oromo struggle for national determination, he joined the OLF. He was trained to be a cadre (Dabballee), and being exceptional at that, he became a Dabballee/cadre trainer in the Dembi Dollo OLF military camp. But beyond his abilities within the military, Ebbisa was also musically talented; he played many instruments and was a gifted vocalist. Because of this, he joined the OLF music band and played a significant role in pushing forth Oromo culture, music, and identity.
Throughout 1991 and 1992, Ebissa travelled through various regions within Oromia (the south, southwest, center, and western) to perform and sing; his songs were not only cultural, but they were revolutionary. They were songs that strongly emphasized the sufferings of the Oromo people and ways through which the Oromo people should demand justice. On a personal level, Ebbisa was a very kind person; he truly loved and cared for the Oromo people. He provided his assistance and care to individuals, his relatives, his sisters, brothers, etc. to anyone who needed help or were having troubles. Ebbisa was a very popular, well-admired, nationalist musical artist. Ebbisa was also known to be a very brave individual. Even after the OLF went underground and its leaders where banished from the country, he continued to sing about the criminal activities that the Ethiopian government was heavily engaging in. He was extremely fearless, daring, and publically vocal about the Ethiopian regime’s terrorist tactics against the Oromo people and continued to also support the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA).
Because Ebbisa was so courageous, so openly vocal about the murders and injustices that the Ethiopian government was committing, he himself became a large target of the Ethiopian government. According to the Oromia Support Group Press Release No 17, a 26 year-old Oromo who was a friend of Ebissa and who was helping him by transporting him to performances recognized clearly that Ebbissa was under government survelliance and was being monitored by government agents. On August 30th, 1996, Ebbissa Addunya was assassinated in his own home by woyyanee security agents in Finfinne. The following is an account from the Oromia Support Group Press Release No 14 in October 1996: Oromo nationalist singer Ebbisa Addunya and his friend Tana Wayessa were shot dead by government gunmen on August 30th [,1996]. They were at Ebbisa’s home in the Shiromeda area, No 094, Higher 13, Kebele 01, north of the American Embassy in Finfinee, when gunmen burst in.
Eyewitnesses claim the bodies were dragged from the house and put in a Land Rover with a government license plate. The security men who carried out the murders first cleared the street. Residents who looked out of their houses after the gunfire were told to get back indoors. The bodies were recovered [the] next day from the morgue at Menelik II hospital. But even after Ebbisa was murdered, Ebbisa’s family became a target as well; they were repeatedly mistreated in the hands of OPDO security agents in Dembi Dollo due to their relation to Ebbisa. His brother Ashanafi has been repeatedly imprisoned by Wayyene and OPDO agents. May his soul rest in peace, he will never be forgotten. Qabsoon itti fuffaa*** !!

Aayyoo Makka remembers the battle of Dhombir

makkabariso
by Abdullatif Dire
(OPride) – “It was a grievous experience,” said Makka Bariso somberly recounting her unspeakable ordeals under successive Ethiopian rulers starting with emperor Haile Selassie.
Makka — or as she is affectionately called Akkoo meaning grandmother in Oromo — is the oldest wife of the late Hajii Adam Jilo Webo, a prominent figure in the Oromo struggle for freedom. Webo died in exile in 2005 after decades of resistance against three Ethiopian regimes, including the current one.
Aayyoo Makka, who came to the U.S. in 2007, now lives with her grandson in Minneapolis, thousands of miles away from her homeland, which she profoundly misses. Born sometime in 1910s in the Bale zone of Oromia region, Akkoo spent her early childhood herding cattle when not tending to house chores. Like most women of her generation, Makka, who did not attend school, married Webo at an early age. She led a good and happy life amid her extended family network, since they had a lot of cows, camels, and goats – thanks to the abundance of grazing land in the area.
I spoke to Akkoo as part of upcoming plans to tell the untold stories of many unsung heroes and heroines in Oromo struggle during a commemoration of the 50th year anniversary of the onset of Oromo people’s armed resistance against Ethiopian tyranny.
“I never even told these stories,” said Makka as her face glowed and her voice sank. “Now, I am ready to use the rest of my life to tell them, if God willing, so that your generation will finish what your forefathers started a half century ago.”
In early 1960s, conflicts began to pile up over grazing land rights, unbearable taxation, land inheritance and classification, and religion between indigenous Oromo farmers and armed Abyssinian settlers in the Bale region. The Oromo were dispossessed and systematically impoverished while corrupt and incompetent Ethiopian elites expropriated their land. Estimated at over 40 million, the Oromo are Ethiopia's single largest ethnic group.
Absent a democratic means to channel their grievances, a gallant son of Oromo, General Waqo Gutu Usu, began to clandestinely mobilize locals to check exploitations and repressions of the Ethiopian empire through a language the empire understood best – armed resistance. He subsequently went to Somalia and acquired military training and arms giving him some firepower. This movement, sometimes dubbed the Bale Oromo rebellion or uprising, paved the way for Oromo people’s ongoing quest for self-determination by putting up the first most serious challenge to the Ethiopian empire. Waqo and the movement he helped inspire remain the beacons of Oromo resistance. He died in exile in 2006.
During a recent visit, Makka told me her near-death ordeal in one of these battles, when Ethiopia’s mechanized army raided her village with dreadful war machines like jets and tanks – to “punish,” for once and all, mindless nomads, as the empire then pejoratively referred to a peasant army that confronted it with outdated rifles acquired from Somalia.
Makka vividly recalls a scene of mayhem during this battle when helicopters came making a reconnaissance and suddenly began bombing the villagers as they prudently tried to escape. “It was a little before Thuhur [the noon prayer] when we ran to the bushes grabbing only things that were at our sight as helicopters hovered over us to map the area and then jets came to unleash their death dealing weapons,” said Makka.
She serenely looked up at the sky, raised her hands to a level of her chest and said, “Galanni ka Rabbiti, hanga hardhaa ka na jiraachise” –Praise be to the Lord who let me live till this day.
“I took my two youngest kids and run as fast as I could into the bushes. The helicopters flew above us once to capture photos and then, returned to destroy whatever was captured,” said Makka as sadness took over her face. “I cuddled up the kids and laid on top of them to hide as the firings rattled the area.” Makka talked about one incident she still regrets as tears gushed down her cheeks. She remembers leaving behind a young woman who had given birth just few weeks before this date. The woman was later found dead hugging her child after the mayhem.
Makka said her survival was almost miraculous as bullets torn the trees around her. She remembers confused and terrified neighbors coming from their hideouts when the jets were gone. Some cried for their loved ones killed during the aerial bombardment while others began desperately searching for those missing. I was amazed by how the distant memories of trepidations and tribulations of a nonagenarian woman from a war torn country continues to prevail.
A series of battles during this period are famously known as Weeyra Dhombir – named after the assault rifle used by the Oromo fighters. The first battle took place at Malka Anna near Ganale River in 1963 – sowing the seeds of Oromo people’s armed resistance against the Ethiopian empire – and this year marks its 50th anniversary. To remember this landmark event, a celebration will be held at Saint Thomas University in Saint Paul, Minnesota on Oct. 20, 2013.
Makka never dreamt she would leave her country, let alone crossing an ocean to live in a country where she now finds herself a perfect stranger. Prior to her resettlement in the States, the only thing Makka heard about America was that Haile Selassie’s fearful military machines came from America, a country that humbly welcomed her family. Makka, who spent over a decade at a Kenyan refugee camp, highly appreciates the freedom she has in the U.S., even if adjusting to the American lifestyle has not always been so easy.
“Back home people knew their neighbors, and you’d go talk to them for hours,” she said comparing the two worlds during my visit on a recent Sunday afternoon. “Here, you don’t know your next door neighbor’s name. Even, if I do I can’t talk to them because I don’t speak English.”
Makka valued speaking in Afaan Oromo as we conversed in the Arsi dialect. Language remains one of her biggest challenges in the U.S. as she still struggles to speak English. She loves talking to younger kids but can’t always understand them, as many Oromo children born in the diaspora do not speak Afaan Oromo very well. Although she enjoys the luxury of her new life, Makka said, “Biyya teenna baay’ee yaade”— I miss my country so much.
Despite these challenges, Aayyoo Makka remains positive and jovial. She has strong spiritual and emotional connection to Oromia. She was delighted to see pictures from my recent trip to the homeland, including some of Mada Walabu, her place of birth. With most of her peers long rested, Makka hopes to visit home soon so as to ease her protracted homesickness and smell the scents of Oromia once more.
--
* The author, Abdullatif Dire, is a third-year Physiology student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. He’s the recipient of 2011 Gates Millennium Scholarship [OPride’s profile here]. He can be reached at aadire2015@gmail.com.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Letter to US State Department Ethiopia Desk-Foreign Policy: Death of Engineer Tesfahun Chemeda

Dear US State Department
Ethiopia Desk
During a 2009 speech given by President Obama, preservation of human dignity was stated as core US policy objective. A portion of the speech was documented by the Congressional Research Service in a July 22nd, 2011 article titled Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa.
“When there is genocide in Darfur or terrorists in Somalia, these are not simply African problems, they are global security challenges, and they demand a global response…. And let me be clear: our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold on the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa, and the world.”
Although the African Command goals include “confronting common challenges” of Genocide and terrorism, the question remains why US Government provides military aide to States (including African) that practice “State Terror.” Support of “State Terror” often results in oppression, human rights violation and Genocide, as history has proven repeatedly. Such was the case in Iraq where US Foreign policy, initially supported Saddam Hussein’s regime during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The Foreign policy was instituted despite the fact that the Saddam Hussein persecuted occupied people such as Kurds and other segments of the Iraqi population. Support of Saddam Hussein at that time emboldened the regime to use brutality to suppress Kurds and Iraqi people in general, as well as neighboring Kuwait. Operating with impunity caused the death of untold numbers of Iraqi civilians. Similarly, support of the Ethiopian Government has resulted in extrajudicial imprisonment and deaths of many civilians, including Oromo, Ogaden, Anuak, Sidama and Southern Nations.
Further analysis of Ethiopia reveals the African colonial nature and desire for perpetrators (Abyssinian elites) to retain the colonial empire as the root of conflict in the Horn of Africa. The Northern ethnic groups (Amhara and Tigray) have occupied Oromo, Ogaden and Southern Nations for over 120 years. Throughout the occupation, brutality, Ethnocide and Genocide have been part of the Abyssinian policy for controlling the occupied territory through leveraging International conflicts and ideologies. The policy of ethnocide extended to cultural and linguistic domination by a population (Amhara), who constitute less than twenty percent of Ethiopia.
    • While Amhara ruled Ethiopia, the Oromo language was banned in public places. The founders of Macha Tulama Self Help Association in Ethiopia, a civic organization made of Oromo professionals and leaders1, attempted to counter the repressive regime, resulting in many of the leaders imprisoned and or killed. Attached is a 1977 Amnesty International Press Release that reported on the execution of Mecha Tulama leaders, General Tadessa Birru and Colonel Haile Regassa. Colonel Alemu Qixxessa was arrested and served 10 years in prison for being one of the founding members of Mecha Tulama. http://www.amnesty.org/es/library/asset/AFR25/007/1977/en/60527fe6-4fba-45eb-a44a-922648490a70/afr250071977en.pdf 
    “In some such trials in early 1976 defendants were allowed their own lawyers or state legal aid, and relatives could attend the trial. however, in general, trials were in camera, defendants were denied legal representation, and judgements and sentences appeared to be arbitrary. In one well-known case in 1975,two Oromo officers, General Tadesse Birhu (whose case had been taken up by AI in the 1967′Calla 2rial’) and Colonel Haile Hagassa were sentenced to prison terms by a military tribunal, on charges of joining a counter-revolutionary organization but the terms were changed to death penalties by the chairman of the Derg, and both were executed. ” – Amnesty International 1977
    • Under the current Tigrayan regime, Oromo was included as a state, but our language and culture was suppressed including Waaqeffannaa, an indigenous Oromo religions. As was the case during Amhara regime, our founding organization in Ethiopia offices were looted and closed by Government of Ethiopia. http://www.amnesty.org/fr/library/asset/AFR25/008/2004/fr/91c51157-d5ae-11dd-bb24-1fb85fe8fa05/afr250082004en.html
    • Arbitrary arrests of Oromo were documented in 2007 by Amnesty International http://www.amnestyinternational.be/doc/spip.php?page=imprimir_articulo&id_article=11649
    • Oromo Support Group Australia letter on Oromo Prisoners of Conscience including Mecha Tulama members and leaders http://www.gadaa.com/OSGAStatementSept2011.pdf
    Although the War on Terror is critical, sacrificing of occupied people such as Oromo in Ethiopia sends mixed messages to the World. An underlying message is that our Government allows aligned states to commit human rights violations and Genocide, under the guise of State security. The inference is that our Government stays “neutral” as long as the aligned nation supports the current Global initiatives such as the War on Drugs and War on Terror. It sets a standard for other Nations that the World accepts policies that vilify civilian populations in order to carry out a mission to suppress dissent, occupy neighbor states, Genocide and or Ethnocide, further weakening the core objectives of the United Nations.
    One recent consequence of “Neutral policy” towards human rights violations and genocide by the Ethiopian empire is the death of Mr Tesfahun Chemada; an Oromo professional who was killed in Ethiopian Kaliti prison this past week.
    Mr Tesfahun Chemeda fled Ethiopia to Kenya because of persecution of Oromo professionals. In Kenya, Mr Tesfahun approached UNHCR and filed for protection. UNHCR gave him a mandate based on confirmation that Mr Tesfahun was persecuted in Ethiopia. Tragically, the Kenyan Government arrested Mr Tesfahun along with another Oromo, Mr Mesfin Abeba, for interrogation before refoulment to Ethiopia. According to sources:
    “The two innocent victims Tesfahun and Mesfin were handed over to the Ethiopian authorities who took them hand cuffed and blind folded at 2:00 AM local time on May 12, 2007, purportedly to have them investigated for terrorism at the JATT Main Investigation Branch in Finfinne (Addis Abeba)…… From Apr. 27 to May 12, 2007, before handing them over, they [Tesfahun Chemeda Gurmessa and Mesfin Abeba] were interrogated at the Kenyan National Bureau of Investigation near Tirm Valley by American Agents and Kenyan Anti Terror Police Unit. The Kenyan officer Mr Francis, who led the investigation, concluded the innocence of these two victims and requested the Kenyan authority to immediately let them free. However, another Kenyan CID agent Ms Lelian, who is suspected of having close connection with the Ethiopian agents, opposed the decision and facilitated the handing over of these two innocent victims. “
    Kenyan Government actions were in violation of international obligations and norms. The standards that Kenyan blatantly violated include:
    • 1465 U.N.T.S 185, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment2
    • and Article 3 of the Convention against Torture. 3
    As a result of these violations, Mr Tesfahun Chemeda was martyred as an Oromo; having been tortured and killed in Kaliti prison in Ethiopia. The tragedy is that the case of Mr Tesfahun Chemeda is much too common for Oromo.
    Attached are letters by Oromo Support Group to Minister in the UK and Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa, which provide a great deal of detail on Mr Tesfahun Chemeda.
    http://gadaa.com/oduu/21413/2013/08/27/open-letter-of-osga-to-hon-kevin-rudd-australian-pm-on-the-death-in-ethiopian-custody-of-engineer-tesfahun-chemeda-after-refoulement-from-kenya/
    http://humanrightsleague.com/2013/08/ethiopia-the-government-is-accountable-for-the-death-of-a-political-prisoner-at-an-ethiopian-jail/
    We urge the US Government to reform US Foreign policies to protect all human rights. The consequences of “neutral policies” have created vast suffering of civilian populations around the World, including Oromo.
    Sincerely,
    Mardaasa Addisu
    Secretary of Macha Tulama Cooperative and Development Association
    http://www.machatulama-usa.org/

    1. Journal of Oromo Studies Association on Mecha Tulama Self Help Association http://www.oromostudies.org/josfiles/JOS%20Volume%204%20Numbers%201&2%20%281997%29.pdf
    2. Under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1465 U.N.T.S. 185), the obligation not to return a person to a place where they will face torture or ill-treatment.
    3. Article 3 of the Convention against Torture provides: No state party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds to believe that they would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
    Analysts question morality of double edged partnerships with Ethiopia
    http://www.cfr.org/ethiopia/us-ethiopia-double-edged-partnership/p13922


    Thursday, August 29, 2013

    Press Release of Oromo Community in the Netherlands on the killing in prison of Eng. Tesfahun Chemeda

                                                                                                                        August 29, 2013
    When Would the Specter of Heinous Persecution Against Oromos End? We members of the Hawasa Oromo in the Netherlands are stunned by the death of Tesfahun Chemeda Gurmessa in Ethiopian dungeon on the 24th of August 2013.  
    Tesfahun Chemeda was exemplary activist in Oromo student movement while he was studying in Finfinne/Addis Ababa University. After graduating in Civil Engineering, Tesfahun had served his people in his professional capacity as civil engineer for more than four years in Arsi, Ilu-Abbabora and in Wallaga.
    More and above all, Tesfahun was a man of high sense of justice, vibrant voice and strong advocate of freedom for the Oromo people. For mere reasons of these activisms, he was made one of the prime targets of  persecution by the Woyane authorities and forced to flee to Kenya to escape the imminent danger from the perpetrators of the day. While in exile in Kenya, Tesfahun sought international protection and granted refugee   status by the UNHCR; and continued in his advocacy for freedom and justice among Oromo refugees in that country.
    Irrespective of the international protection granted to him in accordance with relevant international instruments, here again, he came up against the ghost of persecution he left behind. There, along with his fellow national-Mesfine Abebe, he was arrested by Kenyan authorities and handed over to his persecutors.
    In the hands of his persecutors Tesfahun suffered all and every inhuman and degrading treatment: he was handcuffed, blindfolded and coercively taken back to Ethiopia; was  victimized by kangaroo court verdict: detained in Maikelwai, the center that frequently houses political prisoners and is known for brutal abuse of detainees, including torturing during interrogations; was denied medical treatment and held in solitary confinement for  more than a year in darkness that resulted in  sight  problem  until and up to his death.
    The death of Tesfahun Chemeda Gurmessa in such a situation  is a case book  of the current  circumstances of the Oromo people. On the one hand, it casts a long shadow of historical injustices. On the other hand, it reveals the continuity of cruel slaughter of our people in contemporary time by the perpetrators of the day.
    Here,  it suffice to recall the recent massacre in Asasa, Garba (Wallo) and  Kofale under a blanket banner of the so-called  terrorism. In such testing time and circumstances, Oromos as people and their organizations as key players  must pose the question; when would the specter of heinous persecution against Oromos end? Not only posing,  the questions needs appropriate and timely answer. To this effect, we call upon our people-organized and unorganized to get prepared up to the challenge of the time.
    In due course, the Hawasa Oromo in the Netherlands extend its condolence to the family of Tesfahun, to his relatives and friends and pray to have strength at this hours of grief.  
    Hawasa Oromo in the Netherlands Executive Committee Amsterdam/ The Netherlands

    Frequent loss of lives in Moyale unacceptable

    August 29, 2013 (Standard Digital) — It is inexplicable that innocent lives are being lost in Moyale in a country that prides itself as being peace loving. Or could the local anecdotes that the residents of the border town do not belong to Kenyabe true?
    Surely, it is not beyond the ability of the police and other law enforcement departments to end the on-going bloodletting that has already cost six lives in as many days. The genesis of the regular conflicts should be well known to the local leaders as well as those in the national government whose raison d’être is to protect lives and property.
    Ethiopian militia
    As expected, many explanations have been offered for the recent violence ranging from a fight over land and water sources to a row over the seats in the County government. Others have attempted to argue that theEthiopian militia from Ethiopia is to blame because of its frequent incursions ostensibly in pursuit of fighters from the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which is battling its government forces in a secession bid.
    But irrespective of the reasons behind the recent clashes, the national government has a duty and a mandate to protect its people at all times throughout the country that it cannot shirk or devolve to any other entity. It is not enough for police to assureKenyans that normalcy has been restored while evidence on the ground suggests otherwise.
    Destruction of property
    A reasonable expectation would be that new police reinforcements would have been rushed to the area as soon as it was clear the forces on the ground would not be able to cope with the escalating situation.
    Yet, contrary to these expectations, violence is still raging on the seventh day and there is no telling when it will be brought to an end. Worse, lives are still getting lost and the destruction of property continues.
    Perhaps, it may not be too much to ask that the police do whatever is necessary to end the violence and then go after the perpetrators. For it cannot be overemphasised that the practice of individuals and groups attempting to get their way through violence will not be tamed until perpetrators are brought to book.

    Wednesday, August 28, 2013

    Why The Designation, Oromia or Cushland, Instead of Ethiopia?

    The allergic rejection of the name Ethiopia by most of the Oromo nationalists and some others in the Empire is going on. I personally came to the conclusion that, eventhough political business is possible using this trademark, trying to sell it to the Oromo is almost the same to inflicting injury to the already existing wound. I tried to show in my last articles why this name should be changed, if we opt to build certain democratic union of free nations in the future. That is why I suggested the name Great Oromia for such possible true multinational federation. But it sounded in the ears of many as something unachievable, illusionary, untimely, without historical support and detached from the existing reality on the ground. Just leaving other variables to side, let’s look at the following article for the sake of finding the historical and/or mythological ground to justify the designation as Great Oromia at best, as Cushland at least. Mind you, in every history there is myth and in every myth there is history. I made certain minor modifications in the article to clarify and rectify very few contradictions observed and I took out certain parts for the sake of brevity. I hope this will not be interprated as plagiarism, but as representation of some one’s work: http://oromianeconomist.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/oromia-untwist-the-twisted-history/ . The article clearly shows that the whole nations and nationalities in the present geography of Ethiopia (the Cushites, the nilotic Cushites, the omotic Cushites and the semetized Cushites) are descendants of the Oromo, which is considered as the proto-Cush. Read here the important parts of the article, with slight modification of the content and form.
    *Beginning of the article!
    Oromia: Untwist the Twisted History
    The topic is about Oromia’s location in space and allocation in humanity and society. It is concerned with Oromia’s physical position in terms of geography and relational to issues of economic conditions, social justices, cultural values, political history and destiny. Civilisation, colonisation and underdevelopment are presented in historical and geo-political perspectives. They capture both the space and time perceptions. They are also representing the economic and social conditions and positions. The portrayal we procure the present of the Oromo nation, the core of the Cush (Cushite/Kemet)/Ham (Hamite), the children of Noah, in North & East Africa in past age from the phantom of the Solomonic dynasty, the history thought in Abyssinian high schools, their text books and elsewhere in the invaders’ literature, abusive literary and oral discourses is that they were savages and that, though Abyssinians and Europeans overrun their lands and have made mere subjects of them, they have been in a way, bestowing a great favour on them, since they have brought to them the benisons of Christian Enlightenment.
    With objective analysis, however, this paper obliterates and unmakes that inaccurate illustration, wanton falsifications, immorality, intellectual swindle, sham, mischievous tales, the bent and the parable of human reductionism. Hence, it is the step to delineate an authentic portrait of a human heritage, which is infinitely rich, beautiful, colourful, and varied in the retrograde of orthodox misconceptions. The paper is not only a disinclination itself but also a call for and a provocation of the new generation of historians to critically scrutinise and reinvestigate the orthodox approaches to the Oromo history and then to expose a large number of abusive scholarship authorities on the Oromo and Cushitic studies and it detects that they do not really know the intensity and profoundness of the history of these black African people and nations and the performance these Africans registered in the process of creating, making and shaping the prime civilisations of human societies. The study acknowledges and advances a strict contest to an orthodox scholarship’s rendition of Egypt as a white civilisation, which arose during the nineteenth century to fortify and intensify European imperialism and racism. Depending on massive evidences from concerned intellectual works from linguistic to archaeology, from history to philosophy, the study authenticates that Egypt was a Cushitic civilisation and that Cushite civilisation was the authentic offspring of the splendid Upper Nile/Oromian legacy. The Greek civilisation, which has been long unveiled as the birthplace of Western philosophy and thought, owes its roots to the Cushites thoughts and achievements. The original works of Asfaw Beyene (1992) and F. Demie (in Oromia Quarterly, 1998 & 2000) are giving motivations and also greatly acknowledged.
    The study also expresses that radical thinkers and multi-genius African historians such as Diop (1991) have not given due attention to the epic centre of Cushitic civilisation, Oromia, the land after and Eastern and South Eastern to Nubia, pre-Aksum central Cush, Aksumite Cush and Cushites civilisation southern to Aksum, etc. The method of enquiry is qualitative and the eclectics of formal and the informal sources, rigorous, casual and careful scholarship argument. Oral history and written documents on history, economy, sociology, archaeology, geography, cosmology and anthropology are based on as references. The paper studies the Oromo history and civilisation in horizontal approach and challenges the reductionist and Ethiopianist (colonialist, racist) vertical approach (topsy-turvy, cookkoo). It goes beyond the Oromo Oral sources (burqaa mit-katabbii) and Africanist recorded studies and western civilisational studies. The approach is to magnify, illuminate and clarify the originality of humanity and civilisation to this magnificent Cushitic (African) beauty.
    The Origin of Humanity
    When and where did human life first surface on our cosmos? Who contrived the original and prime human culture and civilisation? Ancient Egyptians contended that it was in their homeland, the oldest in the world, the God modelled the first of all human beings out of a handful of ooze soddened by the vivacity of the life giving sanctified and blessed water, the Nile (see, Jackson, 1995). One of the oldest Cushites histories to account for the origin and early development of man and his culture survives in a Greek version of the thesis advanced by the ancient Cushites, Oromians and the rest. This marvellous people paraded in golden times in the region called Kush (Punt) in the Hebrew Scriptures and stamped on the present-day upper Nile Oromia (see, Jackson, 1995). Diodorus Siculus, wrote that the Cushites were of the opinion that their country was not only the birthplace of human race and the cradle land of the world’s earliest civilisation, but, indeed, the primal Eden where living things first appeared on Earth, as reported by the Scriptures. Thus, Diodorus was the first European to focus attention on the Cushites asseveration that Upper Nile (Oromia) is the cradle land of world’s earliest civilisation, the original Eden of the human race. Whether by almighty (God) or nature/evolution (Darwin’s natural selection and survival of the fittest), Oromia was not only the birth place of man himself (e.g., Lucy) but also for many hundred years thereafter is in the vanguard of all world progress (see Diop, 1991 in his African Civilisation; Martin Bernal, 1987). These are also authenticated by the present archaeological inferences in Oromo tropical fields and rivers valleys.
    The original natives of Egypt, both in old and in the latter ages of development, were Cushite and there is every raison d’être for the discourse that the earliest settlers came from upper Nile Oromia. The original homeland of the Oromians and other Cushites including Chadic, Berber, Egyptian, Beja, Central Cushitic, East Cushitic, South Cushitic, Omotic and Nilotic was the present day upper Nile Oromia. It was from the original Oromo (Madda Walaabu) that the rest of humanity descended diffused to other parts of the world. This can be understood in the analogue of the diffusion of two Oromo families (Borana and Barentuma). While those who expanded to other regions latter taken new family names like Macha, Tulama, Karayyu, etc and those who stayed in original place kept the original name such as Borana. In terms of linguistic, like most scholars, we believe that it is impossible to judge between the theories of monogenesis and polygenesis for human, though the inclination is towards the former. On the other hand, recent work by a small but increasing number of scholars has convinced us that there is a genetic relationship between European, Asian, and African and Cushite languages. A language family originates from a single dialect, proto Cushitic/Oromo. From such language and culture that must have broken up into Africa, Asiatic, and European and within them a very long time a go. Professor Bernal (1987, in Black Athena, p. 11) confirmed that the unchallenged originality of Oromians and other Cushites nativity to the region and put forward that the latest possibility for initial language break up would be the Mousterian period, 50- 30,000 years Before the Present (BP), however, it may well have much earlier. He further observed that the expansion and proliferation of Cushitic and other Afroasiatic as the promulgation of a culture long pioneered in the East African Rift valley (South Eastern Oromian) at the end of the last Ice Age in the 10th and 9th millennia BC.
    According to Bernal (1987, p.11) the polar ice caps caged the water within itself, which was during the Ice ages, thus water was significantly less than it is nowadays. He reports that the Sahara and Arabian deserts were even bigger and more inhospitable then than they are presently. In the centuries that ensued, with the rise of heat and increase in the rainfall, greatly the regions became savannah, into which adjoining peoples voyaged. The most successful of these were, the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic from upper Nile Oromia. Bernal further confirmed that these people not only possessed flourishing and effective skills and techniques of hippopotamus hunting with harpoons but also had domesticated cattle and food crops. The following is quoted from Black Athena: ‘Going through the savannah, the Chadic speakers renched lake Chad, the Berbers, the Maghreb, and the Proto-Egyptians, upper Egypt. With long-term desiccation of the Sahara during the 7th and 6th millennia BC, there were movements into the Egyptian Nile Valley from the west and east as well as from the Sudan. A similar migration took place from the Arabian savannah into lower Mesopotamia ‘(Bernal, pp.11-12).
    The Origin of Civilisation
    There are many things in the manners and customs and religions of the historic Egyptians that suggest that the original home of their human ancestors was in the Upper Nile region and the biblical land of Punt/Kush (Cush) or Oromia which include the present day of Cushitic North and East of Africa. Hence, historical records showed that the antiquity of upper Nile Cushitic Oromian civilisation had a direct link with the civilisation of ancient Egypt, Babylonian and Greece. Hence, the Egyptian and Babylonian civilisations are part and parcel of the entire Cushite civilisation. As it is described above, there is wide understanding that Cushites = Egyptians + Babylon + Oromo+ Agau + Somalis + Afars + Sidama + Neolithic Cush + other Cush. There is also an understanding that all the Cushites are branched out (descended) from their original father Oromo which can be described as Oromo/Cush = Egyptian + Bablyon+ Agau + Somali + Afar + Sidama + Neolithic Cush + other Cush. Boran and Barentuma, the two senior children and brothers were not the only children of the Oromo. Sidama, Somali, Agau, Afar and the others were children of the big family. Wolayita and the Nilotics were among the extended family and generations of the Cushite. As a hydro-tower of Africa, the present Oromia is naturally gifted and the source of Great African rivers and hosts the bank and valleys of the greatest and oldest civilisations such as Nile (Abbaya), Baro (Sobat), Gibe, Wabe, Dhidhesa, Ganale, Wabi-shebele, Omo, and Awash among others. Oromian tropical land, equatorial forest and Savannah have been the most hospitable ecology on the earth and conducive environment to life and all forms of human economic and social practices.
    According to Clarke (1995), many of the leading antiquarians of the time, based largely on the strength of what the classical authors, particularly Diodorus Siculus and Stephanus of Nabatea (Byzantium after Roman colonisation and Christianisation), had to say on the matter, were exponents of the vista that the Cushite, the ancient race in Africa, the Near East and the Middle East, or at any rate, the black people of remote antiquity were the earliest of all civilised peoples and that the first civilised inhabitants of ancient Egypt were members of what is referred to as the black, Cushite race who had entered the land as they expanded in their geographical space from the their birthplace in upper Nile Oromia, the surrounding Cushite river valleys and tropical fields. It was among these ancient people of Africa and Asia that classical technology advanced, old world science and cosmology originated, international trade and commerce was first developed, which was the by-product of international contacts, exchange of ideas and cultural practices that laid the foundations of the prime civilisations of the ancient world. Cushite Africa and also of the Middle East and West Asia was the key and most responsible to ancient civilisations and African history. It must also be known that there were no such geographical names, demarcations and continental classification at that time. As a whole, Cushite occupied this region; there was the kernel and the centre of the globe, the planet earth, and the universe. African history is out of stratum until ancient Cushites looked up on as a distinct African/ Asian nations. The Nile river, it tributes, Awash, Baro and Shebele or Juba, etc., played a major role in the relationship of Cushite to the nations in North, South and East Africa. The outer land Savannah, Nile, other Oromian rivers with it Adenian ecology were great cultural highways on which elements of civilisation came into and out of inner North East Africa. After expansions, there was also an offshoot, a graft, differentiation, branching out, internal separation, semi-independence and again interactions, interdependence and co-existence of the common folks. Cushites from the original home made their relationships with the people of their descendants in the South, the North, East and the West, which was as both good, and bad, depending on the period and the regime in power they formed and put in place in the autonomous regions.
    Cushite Egypt first became an organised autonomous nation in about 6000 B.C. In the Third Dynasty (5345-5307 B.C.) when Egypt had an earnest pharaoh named Zoser and Zoser, in turn, had for his chief counsellor and minister, an effulgent grand named Imhotep (whose name means ‘he who cometh in peace”). Imhotep constructed the famous step pyramid of Sakkarah near Memphis. The building techniques used in the facilitation of this pyramid revolutionised the architecture of the ancient world (Clarke, 1995). Of course, independent Egypt was not the original home of these ancient technology. However, it was an extension, expansion, advancement and the technological cycle of the Upper Nile Oromia, Nubia, Beja, Agau and other Cushites. Ideas, systems, technologies and products were invented, tested and proved in upper Nile then expanded and adopted elsewhere in the entire Cush regions and beyond. Bernal (1987, pp. 14-15) has identified strict cultural and linguistic similarities among all the people around the Mediterranean. He further attests that it was south of the Mediterranean and west to the Red Sea’s classical civilisation that give way to the respective north and east. Cushite African agriculture of the upper Nile expanded in the 9th and 8th century millennia BC and pioneering the 8th and 7th of the Indo-Hittite. Egyptian civilisation is Cushite and is clearly based on the rich pre-dynastic cultures of Upper Egypt, Nubia and upper Nile, whose Cushite African and Oromian origin is uncontested and obvious.
    …It should be understood that, while the achievements of Cushite Egypt were one of the best, these are not the only achievements that Cushite Africans can claim. The Nubians, upper Nile, central and eastern Cushites (the Oromo, Agau, Somalia, Afar, etc) were continue to develop many aspects of civilisation independent of Cushite Egyptian interactions. These nations and states gave as much to Egypt as Egypt give to them in terms of trade, ideas and technology as well. There was also a considerable Cushite dominion on what later became Europe in the period preceding Christian era. Cushites played a major role in formative development of both Christianity and Islam. Both the Holly Bible and the Holly Quran moral texts are originated from the Oromo and other Cushite oral and moral principles, beliefs, creeds and teachings. There is a common believe and understanding that Abraham, a seminal prophet, believer and recipient of a single and eternal God was from Central Cush of present Upper Nile Oromia. The Oromos believed in a single and eternal God, Black God (Waaqa Guri’acha) also Blue God according to some scholars who translated the oral history – Waaqa also Ka. While the Oromian faith, social structure and policies were the prime and the origins of all, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were all the derivatives and originated from the Black God. Waaqa in Oromo is the original, the single, the omnipotent, the prime and the greatest of all the great religions. All aspects of the present day Christian churches were developed in Cushites. One of the more notable of Cushite contributions to the early church was monasticism. Monasticism, in essence, is organised life in common, especially for religious purposes. The home of a monastic society is called a monastery or a convent. Christian monasticism probably began with the hermits of Cushite Egypt and Palestine about the time when Christianity was established as a licit religion (Clarke, 1995). Oral tradition and Arabian records confirm that Bilal, a tall, gaunt, black, bushy-haired, Oromo, was the first High Priest and treasurer of the Mohammedan empire. After Mohamet himself, the great religion, which today numbers upwards of half a billion souls, may be said to have began with Bilal. He was honoured to be the Prophet’s first neophyte. Bilal was one of the many Cushites who concurred in the founding of Islam and later made proud names for themselves in the Islamic nations and expansions.
    …Unlike the western Sudan and in Egypt, the people and nations of upper Nile had lost written records of their ancient times and medieval history. These were destroyed and burned during war of conquests. The early travellers to these areas are also mostly not yet known. Notable kingdoms, republics and states did rise in this part of Africa and did achieve a high degree of civilisation of their time. Scholarly undertakings show that Cushite Africans such as Oromos were the first in human history to invent and implement democratic institutions (e.g. Gada system or Gadaa system), democratic forms of government, elections and unwritten constitution. Democracy was first invented in upper Nile Oromia then to Athens, Greek and to the rest. It was not the other way round. Gada, an accomplishment of Oromian social genius in socio-political organisation is one of the most complex, the world wonder and by far superior to so far other humanity’s social and political imagination and civilisation. Gada in its vector of values constitutes, political institution, the power structure, governing constitution, the ideology, the religion, the moral authority, the economic and the whole way of life of the public, the collective, the social and the private individual. Gada is the social civilization of the Oromo in the Nile civilization. Gada is an atonishing and complex social evolution in human social transformation and an Oromo social perfection. In old Egyptian (Cushite, oromo) dialect it means Ka Adaa. Ka means God. Adaa (law). It means the law of God, the law of waaqa (God). It also symbolizes the dawn of not only civilization but also human freedom as civilazation.
    …Sewell (1942) said that the science, which we see at the dawn of recorded history, was not science at its dawn, but represents the remnants of the science of some great and as yet untraced civilisation. Where, however, is the seat of that civilisation to be located?” A number of scholars, both ancient and modern, have come to the conclusion that the world’s first civilisation was created by the people known as Cushite (Oromian) and also known by Greeks as Punt (Burnt Faces). The Greeks argued that these people developed their dark colouration since they were adjacent to the sun than were the fairer natives of Europe. In terms of the sources of well-informed modern authority, Herodotus describes the Cushites as in Lugard (1964) as: “the tallest, most beautiful and long-lived of the human races,’ and before Herodotus, Homer, in even more flattering language, described them as ‘the most just of men; the favourites of gods.’ The annals of all the great early nations of Asia Minor are full of them. The Mosaic records allude to them frequently; but while they are described as the most powerful, the most just, and the most beautiful of the human race, they are constantly spoken of as black, and there seems to be no other conclusion to be drawn, than that remote period of history the leading race of the western world was the black race.”
    Alexander Bulatovich (2000, p.53) of Russia in his 1896-1898 travels in Oromia described the Oromo, which is akin to Herodotus’s description as fallows: “The [Oromo] physical type is very beautiful. The men are very tall, with statuesque, lean, with oblong face and a somewhat flattened skull. The features of the face are regular and beautiful. The mouth is moderate. The lips are not thick. They have excellent even teeth; large and in some cases oblong eyes and curly hair. Their arm bones are of moderate length, shorter than the bones of Europeans, but longer than among the Amhara tribes. The feet are moderate and not turned in. The women are shorter than the men and very beautifully built. In general, they are stouter than the men, and not as lean as they. Among them one sometimes encounters very beautiful women. And their beauty does not fade as among the Abyssinians. The skin color of both men and women ranges from dark to light brown. I did not see any completely black [Oromo].” According to Homer and Herodotus, the Cushites were inhabited in the Sudan, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, present Ethiopia, Western Asia and India.
    …The identification of the Cushite Oromian civilisation with the present Abyssinia Amhara-Tigre under the name of Ethiopia made by the post civilisation Abyssinian priests translators of the Abyssinian version of the Bible in the 5th and 6th century or some other time, has been a cheating and misrepresentation of true human history. Those Abyssinians who were stealing the history were relatively recent migrant (conquerors) of the region. They occupied the present day Northern Ethiopia (central Cushitic of Agau and Oromo) long after the first human civilisation already originated and advanced in the area and spread to the rest of the world including to Arabia and Mediterranean Europe. The native residents of the region are the Cushite African people (Oromo, Agau, Somali, Sidama, Afar, Beja, Saho, etc). Ethiopian Jews (Falashas) are also Cushite Oromo and Agau who accepted Jews religion. Abyssinian tribes have fabricated their own myth and false history to claim legitimacy to the region and then established a regime truth through continuos fable story, phantom, indoctrination and falsification of the real Cushite history. Semitic immigrants did not found Aksum but the Abyssinians resettled among the Cushites cities and commercial centres in which Aksum was one and latter dominated the ruling power in this very centre of the civilisation of the central Cush. Ge’ez was invented as a language of the centre and latter used as the official language of the church and the colonising Abyssinian ruling class. Ge’ez was initially developed from the mixture of Cushitic and Greek elements that was facilitated by the Cushite trade links to the Greek world.
    There was also Greek resettlement in Aksum and the surrounding central Cush commercial towns with primary contacts with endogenous Cushite. The earlier rulers of Aksum and Christian converts including Ezana were Cushites. Though Ezana was the first convert from the above (the ruling class) to Christianity, he did not give up his belief in one God (Waqa) (Cushite/ black God). He was also not the first Cushite to be a Christian. In their linkages with a wider world, it is also highly likely and very logical and possible that there were Christians among the civilian Cushite trading communities who had already disseminated their new faith, as so many Oromo merchants were to do latter in the expansion of Islam. The splendid Stella, towers of solid masonry, with non-functional doors and windows at Aksum was not the earliest materialisation but it was the continuity in the manifestation of major indigenous Cushite tradition of monumental architecture in stone, which also later found expression in the rock-hewn churches of the Cushite Agau kings (see also Isichei, 1997 for some of the opinions). Abyssinians were the rulers. They were not the engineers and the builders of the stone monuments. It was the original product and brainchild of Cushite technologist. Of course, their advancement was thwarted with the unfortunate coming of the Abyssinians.
    Almost all of the original studies of the origin of Cushite civilisation could not penetrate far deep into regions south east to Nubia (Mereo) and could not dig out the other side of the twin, the close link and vast primary sources in present day Oromia. Though the British Museum has collected vast sources on Nubian, it has not kept on or linked any to the sister and more or less identical to the civilisation of the Oromo. For me, as native Oromo with knowledge of oral history and culture, as I observed the Nubian collection in British Museum, what they say Nubian collection is almost identical to Oromia, but in a less variety and quantity. I can say that Nubian and other Cushite civilisations were extensions (grafts) of the vast products of Oromo. I may also be enthused to the inference that the people whose manners and customs have been so thoroughly capitulated by Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo Pliny and other were not Abyssinians and other Black people at all, but the natives of Upper Nile, Oromos, Agau, Somalis, Afar and the rest of Cushitic people of the present Horn of Africa. Sir Henry Rawlinson in his essay on the early History of Babylonian describes Oromos as the purest modern specimens of the Kushite. Thus, Oromo is Kush and Kush is Oromo.
    …The system of writing, which they brought up with them, has the closest semblance with that of Egypt; in many cases in deed the two alphabets are absolutely identical. In the Biblical genealogies, while Kush and Mizrain (Egypt) are brothers, from Kush Nimrod (Babylonian) sprang. With respect to the language of ancient Babylonians, the vocabulary is absolutely Kushite, belonging to that stock of tongues, which in postscript were everywhere more or less, mixed up with Semitic languages, but of which we have with doubtless the purest existing specimens in the Mahra of Southern Arabia and the Oromo. The Greek alphabet, the script of English today, is based on the Kemetic alphabet of Ancient Egypt/Kemet and the Upper Nile Valley of Ancient Africa. Ancient Egyptians called their words MDW NTR, or ‘Metu Neter,” which means divine speech. The Greeks called it, ‘hieroglyphics”- a Greek word. The etymology of hieroglyphics is sacred (hieros) carvings (glyph). The Oromos (the Kemet of modern age) called it Qubee.
    * End of the article!
    I just re-presented this article to show how interrelated are the nations and nationalities in the present Ethiopian empire and what sort of the leading position the Oromo (Proto-Cush) had in the past and can have in the future. Unfortunately, I had to take out certain part of the article; those readers who are interested in the whole article and the references given there can read the original from the link I already gave at the beginning. Those Oromo nationalists, who are the believers in and fighters for “only an independent Golden Oromia”, should not misunderstand my intention here. I have never been against this noble goal, but I always try to show that also the alternative (an integrative Great Oromia) is not wrong idea, which we should not have to discard as “a plot of the collaborators, defeatists, revisionists…etc”. Both groups of the Oromo nationalists (the independencists/Golden Oromianists and the unionists/Great Oromiainists) can struggle together for the common good/ground, i.e for bilisummaa/freedom; and then leave the decision on the two options, regarding the type of sovereignity we want to have, for the Oromo public verdict per referendum. Self-determination on its own future destiny is a God-given and Man-made right of every nation, whatever its past history might be. Yet the unionists can trade with the name “New Ethiopia”, whereas the whole Oromo nationals at the community level should re-name the whole country as Great Oromia because of the reasons given till now in my hitherto opinions. May Rabbi/Waaqa help the Oromo to differentiate the game at the political level from the move at the community level!
    Galatooma!

    Tuesday, August 27, 2013

    WWDO: DC – Hagayya 30 – Sagantaa Yaadannoo Qabsaawaa Inj. Tasfaahun Camadaa fi Oromoota Arsii Kofaletii Ajjeefamanii

    Waldaan Walgaragaarsa Dargaggoota Oromoo (WWDO), Jaarmiyaan Hawaasa Oromoo fi Ijaarsi Dubartoota Oromoo Adduynaa (IDOA) wal ta’uudhaan sagantaa guca ibsuu goota Oromoo Injiinar Tasfaahun Camadaa fi Oromoota magaalaa Kofaleetti mootummaa abbaa irree fi faashistii Wayyaaneetiin ajjeefaman yaadachuuf qopheessine irratti Oromooti naannoo Washington, DC, Maryland fi Virginia jiraattan akka irratti argamtan waamicha lammummaa isiniif dhiyeessina.
    Guyyaan: Jimaata Hagayya 30, 2013
    Sa’atiin: 6:00w.b. (6:00pm)
    Bakki: Oromo Center
    811 Upshur Street, NW
    Washington, DC 20011
    Gadaa.com
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