Abyssinia’s Tyrannized Sidamas: a Blooming Nation fighting for Independence

In earlier articles we presented various aspects of the Abyssinian tyranny, violation of Human Rights, deliberate forgery of History, and unprecedented Racial Discrimination. We emphasized the cases of the Oromos and the Ogadenis, due to the great number of the former and to Somali affinities of the latter. Yet, there are many other oppressed peoples in this unique cemetery of African peoples, relic Abyssinia that has been falsely self-proclaimed as ‘Ethiopia’ in order to please their colonial masters’ desires.

The Sidamas consist in a population larger than that of Norway, and live a surface larger than that of Portugal’s at the southwestern confines of Abyssinia. They total approximately 5 million people and dwell in their outright majority in rural areas, at the west of the Biyya Oromo (land) and in the south of the Amhara region. In some of the Sidama provinces, other peoples inhabit as minority among the Sidamas. The Sidamas are a Kushitic people different than the Oromos, although characterized by certain social and religious similarities with them.

The Sidamas have been particularly tyrannized by the imperial and the bogus-communist Amhara regime until 1991, and ever since by the Tigray pseudo-republican tyranny that superceded the earlier forms of dictatorial rule. The Abyssinian attempt to alienate and dehumanize the Sidamas reaches the level Genocide, involving Abyssinian intentions, but it has hopefully failed. Yet, few people allover the world have heard even some words about the criminal deeds of the loathsome Abyssinian relic against the great Nation of the Sidamas. Led by the SNLF, Sidama National Liberation Front, the Sidamas struggle today along with all the other oppressed and tyrannized peoples of Abyssinia, namely the Oromos, the Ogadenis, and the Afars. SNLF historical motto has been "Struggle for Freedom, Justice and Democracy". It struggles, among other things, for Sidama people's national self-determination.

In this introductory article about Sidama, we want to present an excellent edition that is not limited exclusively to the Sidamas, but comprehensively presents the unbearable burden of the peoples encompassed within Abyssinia’s most hateful regime. Edited by the leading Sidama intellectual, Mr. Seyoum Hameso, and Mohammed Hassen, the collective edition under the title "Arrested Development in Ethiopia" and the subtitle "Essays on Underdevelopment, Democracy and Self-Determination", was published by The Red Sea Press last year.

Seyoum Hameso, leading Sidama intellectual, and the Arrested Development

Seyoum Hameso and Mohammed Hassen are the authors of the introduction that focuses on the paranoia of the political discourse as carried out by the country’s totalitarian regime. As they state (p. 2)"

"The official Ethiopianist discourse evades the true dimensions of the existing order. Instead of articulating the problem in its colonial dimension with a view to its resolution, it prefers to disguise it under "nationality question." Since the discourse evades the problem, the Ethiopianist elite do not fully recognize the impact of their policies on the colonized peoples. They know full well that there was no such a thing as the "Ethiopian nation" before the late nineteenth century’s conquest save feuding armies and fiefdoms in the Abyssinian North. This being the case, subsequent regimes perceived the "colonial discourse" as a threat to the empire state and chose violent repression as a political means to prolong their rule, leading to the militarization of life and the subordination of society to militaristic ethos. The combined effect renders the contemporary Ethiopia being a mass of contradiction and contest revolving around the paradigms of oppression and liberation".

After the introduction, a Prologue written by the Oromo intellectual Hamdesa Tuso, under the title "The Tears of Generations" helps the reader get an idea of the indigenous approach to the dramatic events that characterized the peoples of Abyssinia over the past 16 years; with a tremendous life experience under totalitarian ‘imperial’ or ‘communist’ regimes, many expected to attest the cruel face of the current bogus-republican elite and their crimes against the various peoples of Abyssinia.

As the author narrates: "One evening, I was discussing these rapidly unfolding events with a young Oromo woman. I will call her Shaggitu. She was a refugee awaiting a decision from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service on her application for political asylum. All of a sudden, she broke into tears. I was lost as to what to say. She kept on crying, louder and louder. What confused me was the fact that she was, for all intents and purposes, an apolitical person. After sometime, I asked her why she was crying.

She calmed down and softly began talking. "You don’t understand, you don’t understand!" she replied. Her voice started to rise again. "You will never understand what will be happening to the people in Ethiopia," she added. "You are lucky; you were outside during the Red Terror!" she continued. Then she carefully explained to me her thesis. She said, "You see, the Derg was a minority political group. It was not accepted by the people. So in order to be accepted, it killed so many and destroyed so much. Then she went on. "You see, this group is another minority. So, they are going to kill so many and cause so much damage to impose themselves on the people."

Shaggitu had direct traumatic experience with the Derg".

The first part of the book follows, covering Social and Political History. We find there four excellent contributions about four different oppressed peoples of Abyssinia: the Stockholm based Oromo Prof. Mekuria Bulcha focuses on the Oromos ("Conquest and Forced Migration: An Assessment of the Oromo Experience"), Seyoum Hameso makes a comprehensive portrait of the Sidamas ("The Sidama Nation: An Introduction"), Abdurahman Mahdi reveals the details of "The Ogaden Past and Present", and Achame Shana sheds light on a marginal, and quasi-unknown people of Abyssinia, revealing the tragic circumstances of their experience of the Abyssinian criminal totalitarianism ("The Shekacho People: Untold Stories").

The book’s second part focuses on the "Contemporary Political Economy", and highlights its totalitarian character and nature. It features valuable articles by Seyoum Hameso ("Myths and Realities of the Ethiopian State"), Temesgen Erena ("The Politics of Underdevelopment and Militarism: The Case of Oromia"), Trevor Trueman ("Genocide Against the Oromo People"), and Hamdesa Tuso ("Oromo Problem and the U.S. Foreign Policy").

Then, a third part enlightens our view about Abyssinia’s tyrannized peoples’ Search for "Nationalism, Democracy and Self-Determination". Here, we deepen our knowledge about Abyssinia thanks to the essays presented by Seyoum Hameso on "Languages, Nations, and National Self-determination in Ethiopia", Mulugeta Daye on "Sidama Nationalism and National Identity Problems in Ethiopia", Mohammed Hassen on "The History of Oromo Nationalism: 1960s-1990s", and Asafa Jalata on "The Oromo Movement and the Crisis of the Ethiopian State". At the end, after the "Conclusions" (by Asfaw Beyene), the reader has an easy repertory thanks to a ‘List of Contributors’, a Name Index, and a Subject Index.

We can only agree with the perfectly well elaborated conclusion, namely that "the de-Amharization process, which determines the quality of a Southern struggle, must be the primary agenda of a Southern network designed for this purpose. Creating a network and launching the de-Amharization process as a complex mission and as a strategic task of the Southern struggle will most likely ease the bottleneck of the struggle for equality. But this does not mean ignoring other relevant areas of the struggle".

This book is key to pertinent understanding of the complexity of the present African Islamic Terror Volcano ‘Abyssinia’. It offers not only an academic approach but insightful views over Africa’s most anachronistic, dysfunctional, and totalitarian state.