Ongoing Sidama - Tigray Debate on the Abolition of the ‘Ethiopian’ Tyranny

Having noticed an immense interest in the debates published thus far, I draw the conclusion that my initiative to reply in public to my Eritrean Tigrinya speaking reader, Mr. Eremias Woldemikael, was very positive, as it brought to surface a much needed debate. I understand that when ideas and arguments clash, the rhetoric can be scorching, but I am also glad to notice that personal attacks have been avoided in any direction.

Quite contrarily to the Amhara calamity of insults, not a single debate participant addressed personal attacks thus far, and I am absolutely convinced that politeness and noblesse are also part of the Tigray culture – that has been so disappointingly misrepresented by the cruel thugs around dictator Zenawi.

I want to express here the hope that we will all keep it like that in order to mark a striking difference with the also ongoing Amhara debate (forthcoming article). I find the opportunity propitious to thank all the readers for their interest and time, and even invite them to further participation in this online debate that helps all understand one another better.

I am sure we all agree that, originating from either Ethiopia’s Nile Valley, Yemen’s mountains or the Mediterranean coasts, we all search for Truth and strive for Justice, having far more to share than to conceal.

In yesterday’s article, I answered to Mr. Eremias Woldemikael (Continued Debate on Abyssinia / Ethiopia, History, and Human Rights / http://www.buzzle.com/articles/continued-debate-on-abyssinia-ethiopia-history-and-human-rights.html).

Today, the Sidama National Liberation Organization (SNLO) Chairman, Mr. Kambata Xola will defend his positions, replying to Mr. Eremias Woldemikael’s letter.

The latter contains comments and annotations pertaining to Chairman Xola’s earlier text, which was published under the title ‘Sidamas Reject the Inhuman Monstrosity of Tyrannical, United ’Ethiopia’ (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sidamas-reject-the-inhuman-monstruosity-of-tyrannical-united-ethiopia.html).

The present article contains Mr. Woldemikael’s letter and Chairman Xola’s reply, with some comments added by me at the end.

Mr. Eremias Woldemikael comments on SNLO Chairman Kambata Xola’s text.

Dear Mr. Xola,

Let me first completely reject your conviction that I am a TPLF architect, agent, or a hire of Meles Zenawi. However, as a person who has lived under and read about former Ethiopian rulers, I am one of those who believe that TPLF/EPRDF-led by Meles Zenawi is a major improvement for Ethiopia. Yes, they are not perfect or the best, but an improvement. To observe this, all one has to do is look further north towards Eritrea. Some 16 years ago, we all were in the same sinking boat called Ethiopia. While we are stuck in jungle (Sahel) laws, Ethiopia seems to be making continuous progress in all sectors especially in the economic sector. I will write about Eritrea's condition in a different article. For now, I will proceed to adress some of the points you raised.

By making such statement, I do not think that I am being uncaring or believing any less in justice and equality than any other person or am trying to keep my "Authoritarian regime while others suffer." By comparing Meles with others and speaking in relative terms, I am trying to be realistic about the possible progress. 1

In your article, you make a sweeping generalization about the character of Sidama and Abyssinian peoples. I think that is wrong. There are good and bad individuals, as well as oppressed peoples in all societies. 2

You also seem to think that I and other "Abyssinians" do not want Sidama people to progress or injustices against them to come out. To the contrary, I am happy that information is being shared about Sidama and other peoples of the world.

My only objection to Dr. Megalommatis' writings is that instead of pointing fingers at ruling elites as you have sometimes done so, he seems to think that the entire Abyssinian population is responsible. Any fair minded person will tell you that some random peasant in Semen (Gonder) or Sheraro (Tigray) probably has nothing to do with possible injustices against Sidamas. 3 Most likely, that peasant is too busy earning his living that he probably will never see or meet a Sidama person in his lifetime much less oppress him.Yet, when Dr. Megalommatis writes he uses a "big brush" such as Abyssinian, Amhara or Tigre to paint a picture of oppression which includes those innocent peasants as the perpetrators. 4

In regards to your experience with CUD supporters, I am sympathetic to you. I am sorry you had such experiences. I cannot say much about them since they are quite a new party and the core of it seems to be a splinter of the "Mela Amhara" All-Amhara party. They may not have had the opportunity to form a coalition with other peoples and parties of different regions and ethnicities. I have also heard the same complaint from a Somali (Ogadeni) friend of mine.

As far as lack of knowledge about Sidama issues and peoples by other Abyssinians, I will freely admit to you that I had never been to anywhere south of Addis Ababa. In fact, any interaction I had with an Amhara or other peoples of Ethiopia during my childhood was with those who had come to Eritrea as Derg's Soldiers. They all spoke Amharic and with few Oromo as exception, I thought all Ethiopians and Ethiopian soldiers with the exception of Tigrinya speakers were Amharic speakers.

Worse yet, I thought all Eritreans were Tigrinya speaking. I doubt you or most other Ethiopians also knew about the Nara, Hidareb, Billen, Rashaida, Saho, Kunama, and more importantly the Tigre (30%) [Not to be confused with the Tigrinya-speaking Tigray- Tigrinya people] people of Eritrea .

Since then, I have had mature friendships with Amhara, Oromo, Harari, and Ogadeni people as immigrants in the USA.

I suspect the lack of knowledge about Sidama people and their issues by other Ethiopians is probably the result of geographic distance and lack of interaction than lack of concern for their fellow citizens. 5 I do not want to make excuses for others, however as far as I am concerned, if you bring me a genuine, credible complaint, I will campaign with you against it.

When I was referring to Sidama and Oromo relationship, I was using the term "Sidama" in a historical sense. Historians use the term "Sidama" to refer to peoples that lived South of and including some part of Shewa. The term "Sidamo" is used to one of the ethnic groups of those peoples. As you may know the region was conquered by the Oromo during their expansion in the 16th c. For further information on the distinction between Sidama and Sidamo, see J.S. Trirmingham's Islam in Ethiopia pp. 179-185 and Mordechai Abir's Ethiopia: The Era of the Princes pp.73. By making this distinction, I hope you do not feel like I am trying to lecture you about your culture or ethnicity. I am simply trying to explain the context of my discussion. 6

Now, I understand you are concerned only about the Sidamo people who still very specifically use that term for their ethnicity. I have read some about them but I am open to any new information you can contribute to my knowledge of the people and their issues.

As far as my comparison of Ethiopia with the USA and your response to it, I need to remind you that America was not the way it is today. Native Americans and Blacks were still being oppressed even after US independence. This is illustrated by the numerous violations of treaties signed between Native Americans and the USA which eventually led to incidents such as "Trail of Tears", Civil War, Jim Crow Segregation, forced migration, Reservation, battle of little big horn etc. Now, Americans seem to be relatively reconciled although it could still be improved. Ethiopia is not even close to it yet, but through education and understanding that is something Ethiopians need to aspire to reach.

You have also decided to include me with those who favor amalgamating the southern peoples together. I am just as pleased if each one of the 45 ethnic groups of the current region has their own region as they have their Zones now. The practicality of such reorganization however is a different matter.

Finally, in the late 19th c., my people (Eritrea's Tigrinya) were separated from their kin people in (Tigray) and put under Italian rule with people of other ethnicities (9 of them), while Oromos, Sidamas, and many more ethnicities of today's Ethiopia were being put together under the Ethiopian empire.

History is complicated in such ways. Even those people whom you critisize as Abyssinians have not lived in one country. For some reason, History has evolved that way although we may not like it. It turned out as the Oromos were dominant in Southern Ethiopia during their expansion from the 16th to the late 19th centuries, Amhara (Shewans) became dominant in the 20th c. both in the South and North of today's Ethiopia. The elites of those days had not been great rulers to all the people in their domain, including the Sidama or Sidamos.

What happens now? 7

Now, I believe what Ethiopians need is acknowledging that past, learn from it, and reconcile to move forward under one country. I think you should do your part to facilitate and be part of that reconciliation.

Thanks for your time,

Sincerely,

Eremias Woldemikael

P.S.: I am impressed by your use of the words " Obdurate and obfuscate".

Sidama National Liberation Organization (SNLO) Chairman Kambata Xola responds.

Dear Eremias Woldemikael,

Thank you for your nicely worded email response. I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of expression of all kinds, and above all in constructive dialogue, criticism, and intellectually rigorous debates based on facts, not fallacy as your Abyssinia’s dogma. Thus, my criticism remains intact as long as the never changing, cruel Abyssinian policies of destruction are being pursued, despite the fact that they have become reason of ruin the lives of millions people who belong to various oppressed Ethiopian nations.

Successive Abyssinian rulers failed to bring forth a visionary leadership able to set objectives compounded with unity of purpose for the good of all the Ethiopians. That is why, instead of going ahead with global development and progress like so many other countries, the empire’s nations are suffering abject poverty and rampant human right violations.

Thus, whatever you discuss needs to be based on the ideals of Freedom, Liberty, Justice and on Democratic Principles. You need to accept that this rotten Neo-Nazi Abyssinian brutal system, based on depersonalizing various colonized nations, needs to be replaced by young nations able to formulate their destination and to devise their own future.

Dear Eremias,

To do this, I humbly beg you to stand firm with Dignity, Principle, Pride and Courage in your Belief as a fully accredited member of a worldwide association of fair and just-minded individuals - all-those who aspire for the Common Good of the Humanity. Otherwise, my suggestion, to you and your comrades, will remain meaningless!! With this understanding, I will address your concern in the following manner.

Yes, you may not be from Tigray. However, as long as you support their ideology and policy of oppressed nations’ depersonalization and praise their inhuman and cruel acts against the basic rights of the colonized nations of the empire, including the Sidama, I don't need more proof for your being an accomplice. If you believe that Meles's regime improved the lives of all the empire's nations, you must be living in the world of deceit, and as you were impressed by my use of the word 'obdurate', you are living entrapped in what seems to be tantamount intellectual suicidal!!

Do you think that I am telling you lies when discussing about the Sidamas? Not at all!! Rather, it is you and your likes, the Abyssinians who hallucinate in the daylight, the Amhara chauvinists such as Abebe Gelaw. As I have precisely mentioned in my previous response to you and to Abebe Gelaw, I narrate the truth that is prevailing in the Sidama Land, throughout our regions. In principle, I don't want to see any one’s basic rights crushed, and I don’t want to see peoples dehumanized and depersonalized under any pretext whatsoever - either by Abyssinians, mighty Americans, Europeans or anyone else in the world.

All human races deserve Dignity, Respect, Liberty and the Choice to decide on their issues without being lectured by anyone else!!

Contrary to this principle, you are trying to lecture me that the Sidama Nation is better off in Meles's regime than it was in Derg and Haile Silassie's regimes.

Although I believe that they all are the same in their entirety, equally I know that the Sidama Nation, as well as other colonized nations, were better off prior to Meles’s regime - at least in terms of having single bread a day. During those periods, as they all lacked vision, the Abyssinian rulers were allover the country, with the mere focus of filling their belly and brutalizing other nations of the country.

I fully believe that they did not have clear and specific objectives even for developing their own (Abyssinian) regions; all turned around the principle of dehumanizing other nations. They all aspired to achieve their goals by brutalizing their fellow human beings.

However, I would like to tell you that both former regimes were not as smart as Meles's regime in dismantling Sidamas’ all round lives, including all socio-political, cultural and economic spheres of activities, and thus strategically incapacitating the nation in order to ultimately harness and ensure their subservience. The former regimes were as cruel as your Meles, but they were not equipped with sufficient deceit in the way your comrade is. Their lack of focus was due to two reasons:

1, They didn't think that anyone else except the Abyssinians (Tigray and Amhara) would have the potentiality to know and understand what happens outside Ethiopia in order to be able to mobilize a form of resistance against their cruel systems. And, they didn’t think that their empire's ruling nations (Tigreans and Amharas) can compromise their successive authoritarian regimes as long as both of them are on power interchangeably. Therefore, they were focused on expanding their territory and gripping onto power by undermining and dehumanizing other nations.

2. Their goal was based on 'One Ethiopia' unlike your comrade’s. Tigrean national Meles’s aspiration was primarily to establish an independent Tigray state (obviously with Eritrea) after liberating it from the former Abyssinian rulers. Therefore, the former rulers lacked clarity of objectives and vision, although they all were based on crippling other nations of the Empire. As a result, they weren’t smart enough to duly deceive the international community whilst acting otherwise.

In case of Meles’s Tigrean regime, after they gripped onto power, they learnt new techniques on how they can exercise their power by adopting their predecessors’ cruelty and adding smart methodology to it in a brilliant way. As they assumed their rule, they started exploiting other nations’ resources in order to enrich their region, and depersonalize other nations by using their own surrogates, whilst talking otherwise in the international arena where they deploy an effort to hoodwink the global community.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that both, Isayas Afeworki and Meles Zenawi were regarded as angels, and were praised by the West for their best governance until their democracy decorated ugly faces were overtly exposed in the 1998-2000's border war that claimed about 100,000 innocent lives from both sides, being simply due to their common desire to prolong their cruel rule without opposition. You can’t deny, if you’re a humane and conscious man, what Eritreans as well as entire Ethiopian nations are undergoing under these suppressive, repressive, brutal and cruel regimes.

In your email, you have also mentioned that '16 years ago we all (Eritreans and other nations of today’s Abyssinian Empire) were in the same sinking boat called ‘Ethiopia'. If you think that Eritrea was in a sinking boat called Ethiopia 16 years ago, why are you lecturing us that the only way forward for the empire is sticking with 'one Ethiopia’? You were 16 years ago in the sinking boat called ‘Ethiopia’; but we're in it to date. Does it itch you whether we, Sidamas, Oromos, Ogaden Somalis, and the rest colonized nations claim this, until we get rid of the sinking Abyssinian boat?

Your and all the Abyssinian chauvinists’ arguments and comments are ludicrously full of hypocrisy, as you lack the courage to swallow the only truth.

Your blatant judgments on basic rights and economic prosperity of the country in general, and the Sidama Land in particular, also obliges me to say more. I would like you to know that the Sidama nation didn't experience in its history such deliberately orchestrated effort o lead us to abject poverty in our own land, with is the realm of natural abundance and the ever green environment.

The Sidama Land had never been infested with settlers pushing the natives out of their ancestors’ land as it has happened over the past 10 – 15 years. Our nation never suffered such injustice; a kind of that is prevailing today under the pretext of representation: not more than 40 surrogates out of above 5 million nation. Prior to Meles’s rule, the Sidamas had not been lectured about democracy; and under the Meles Zenawi regime, the Sidamas have been slaughtered in the streets by the governmental security forces while they attempted to exercise their supposedly legal right of manifesting. I can explain to you more about this fact on the ground, without involving hallucinations like those of your successive rulers.

In fact, the Sidama people have been slaughtered by all three past Abyssinian regimes in different forms. None of these regimes can be possibly considered as democratic, and they are not in a position to lecture the Sidama people on what to decide about their national issues.

All these cruel regimes, from Menelik II to Derg, have mass massacred the Sidamas, reproaching to them support of the opposition, and plots against the governments. However, the current regime is particularly smart in telling the various oppressed and brutalized nations that they can act based on the Ethiopian bogus constitution that is designed to deceive donors, the world’s international bodies, and human rights activists and NGOs.

This is precisely what happened on May 24, 200 at Looqe (near Awassa) where a massacre of hundreds of Sidama unarmed civilians was perpetrated because they protested asking respect for their right to regional autonomy – something that had been granted to other Ethiopian nations, such as the Hararis, who do not exceed 400.000 people in their totality.

Confronted with all these realities, how do you evaluate the situation? To follow your comment, we have 'To be realistic about possible progress'', supposedly made by Meles's regime! This is your relativistic judgment. That is why your successive regimes and their elites - like you - lack fairness, as this doesn’t exist in your nature.

Your following comments about your knowledge of Sidama nation emanates from the specific Amhara / Tigray policy of methodic and systematic marginalization of our nation. It is read as follows: ''In fact, any interaction I had with an Amhara or other peoples of Ethiopia during my childhood was with those who had come to Eritrea as Derg's Soldiers. They all spoke Amharic and with few Oromo as exception, I thought all Ethiopians and Ethiopian soldiers with the exception of Tigrinya speakers were Amharic speakers".

Dear Eremias,

That is what I, all the genuine Oromos, the entire nation of the Sidamas, the Sumali people in its totality, and other colonized nations are emphatically rejecting. That's what, I am unequivocally telling you, happens today under the pretext of the so-called ‘Regional Autonomy’. Instead, you try to lecture me what you have been told by your comrades other than the reality on the ground. You also have said that you will be happy to see more information shared about the Sidamas as well as others at the level of the international arenas. Sadly, you have – thus far – failed to acknowledge that the Sidamas are the only entitled to present, discuss, deliberate and negotiate about their issues, not being lectured by Abyssinian chauvinists – and above all, the unrepresentative ‘Ethiopian’ embassies, diplomats and ambassadors.

Bear in mind that the Sidama Nation wasn’t allowed for the past several decades to talk about its national issues within the empire, let alone at international levels.

Actually, there is no Sidama media in the country. This is the only decade Sidama issues started being posted online for the first time, and this makes the entire Abyssinian elites pretty restless.

Beyond any doubt, I believe that Amharas and Tigrenas at the grassroot level are innocent. I do not generalize including them. However, the historical fact that you failed to understand is that in any society, any nation to which ruthless rulers belong are fully or partly responsible for their acts when these acts violate other peoples’ basic rights. And the perceptions your elite and the wider Abyssinian society hold remain the same. You all label the non-Abyssinian nations of the country as backward and second-class citizens. So what is difference between yourselves and Nazism?

About ten years ago, I remember that one Orthodox priest called me "Pagan" 8 after he failed to convince me about the relationship between Religion and State in the History of the Abyssinian Empire. I don’t actually care for his obdurate stance. If one person originating from Gojam and Gonder goes to earn money, by whatever means, in the Sidama region (where he is still received with respect as human), he tells his family and neighbors that ‘he is going to the pagans’ country’.

Generally, this demonstrates that there are irreconcilably significant differences separating the peoples of the ‘Ethiopian’ empire from one another. In contrast with the aforementioned, if one person originating from Sidama, Gedeo, Kambata, and Oromia goes to the Tigray or Amhara region, they don’t label the destination region in the same way; despite their noblesse, they are considered as alien by the indigenous Tigray and Amhara people, who – notice this carefully – do not duly respect them.

You have also emphasized that there are good and bad people in any society. You’re right. I am not discussing individual issues. My discussion is on the wider picture that lingers for centuries. It is about the destructive policy of your Abyssinian regimes.

Sadly, you are not discussing these fundamental issues that are affecting Sidamas, Oromos, Ogaden Somalis, and so many others colonized nations simply by walking around the bush without catching your target.

The fundamental problems I am referring to are caused by the Abyssinian malignant cruelty that dehumanizes other nations of Ethiopia, including the Sidama Nation.

In my previous responses I made crystal clear that the Sidama Nation, totaling more than 5 million people, don’t have regional autonomy, and for this reason many Sidama nationals are languishing in prison to date, as they have allegedly opposed governmental policies designed for the erroneously regrouped together ‘Southerners’.

By the way, I have mentioned in my previous article about the Keficho and the Shekicho peoples’ sufferings while traveling above 1000 km to contact administrations; it is above 2000 km to travel from their villages to Jimma, from Jimma to Finfinne, thence to Awassa and then – finally – back to their region. This happens only in order to satisfy their colonial masters’ strategic needs for politico-economic prevalence achieved by means of an extraordinary amalgamation in southern Ethiopia.

Thank you for the following information. Your suggestion is read, ‘When I was referring to Sidama and Oromo relationship I was using the term "Sidama" in a historical sense. Historians use the term "Sidama" to refer to peoples that lived South of and including some part of Shewa. The term "Sidamo" is used to one of the ethnic groups of those peoples. As you may know the region was conquered by the Oromo during their expansion in the 16th c. By making this distinction, I hope you do not feel like I am trying to lecture you about your culture or ethnicity. I am simply trying to explain the context of my discussion’.

In your account of knowing Sidama people, you’re right; however, you or the writers who pretend to know about the distinction between Sidama and Sidamo are completely wrong.

This is simply so because first, the people writing about the Sidama History were foreigners aided by the Abyssinian translators, who were also foreigners and definitely not ready to tell the truth.

Secondly, the Sidama were not allowed to send their children to schools, and schools simply did not exist in the entire Sidama region until as recently as 1974. The few existing before the Derg regime were exclusively used by Amhara and Tigray settlers.

For the children of the Sidama Nation it was strictly forbidden - by the Abyssinian immoral, fascist settlers - to take part in any educational sphere.

The term Sidamo started being used since the conquest. Before that time no one called the Sidama people ‘Sidamo’.

As you have mentioned the Sidama nation as one of major Kushitic peoples of North-Eastern Africa, not only they used to inhabit around today’s southern Shewa, but also the Sidama kingdom was integral part of those eras’ civilizations that antedate the Abyssinian conquest, and the Axumite kingdoms in the north, including the region you are inhabiting. Therefore, the name Sidama was the only used by the Sidama people, whereas the derogatory term ‘Sidamo’ was given to us by Menelik’s soldiers who invaded our land back in the 1890s.

Therefore, I strictly advise you not to use any historical accounts written about the Ethiopian nations without the involvement of natives. Most of those compilations were written by falsifiers who can’t - and don’t want to - pronounce correctly our name, calling the Sidamas as "Sidamo".

Consequently, I would like to kindly ask you not to use the name Sidamo anymore, as not a single Sidama native accepts being called by this distorted name; if you happen to encounter a rare case of a Sidama native with subservient spirit who accepts the Abyssinian rulers baptize him like this, do not take him into consideration!

Your comment about the various extant nations of Eritrea and your lack of knowledge about their presence is pretty naïve!

This comment clearly demonstrates that your ethnic group is the dominant over the others within the Eritrean context. It also shows that other nations’ issues are not discussed in the schools and the media, and that no historical significance is attributed to all these peoples as you have explained it; this may be the cause for your lack of knowledge.

However, this doesn’t justify your argument that some group can be dominant with all the other just following and not shaping developments in the 21st century.

This shows how correct we are when declaring that the rotten Abyssinian fascist regimes need to go to Hell!!

This corroborates our dedication to the principles of Human Values, and explains very well why we strongly insist on that all human races deserve Dignity, Pride and Self-Confidence; no one merits denigration machinated by destructive cruel systems that have survived too long. And this is the reason I used the words ‘obdurate’ and ‘obfuscate’ for your behaviors and political ideology. In the 21st century, they simply don’t have any place.

Even if you find these realities regurgitating, there is no remedy unless you consult History experts, especially those who are equipped with a sense of humor and humanity, such as Professor M. S. Megalommatis who can help you understand this reality in its critical and historical contexts; not distorted myths anymore! Because your should remember that your ancestors taught you a distorted version of the Truth!!

Peace, Liberty, Democracy, and Justice for All Human Races!!

Kambata Xoola

Personal Comments and Thoughts on Both Texts (numbers refer to commented excerpts in either texts)

Point 1.

Comparing two absolutely evil in nature regimes is truly pointless; what would be the conclusion if tyranny A caused great damage in Oromia and tyranny B provoked worst disasters in Ogaden? Deeds reflect ideas under implementation; so they cannot be the epitome of a judgment criterion; the overall governmental policy and Human Rights violations must be primarily considered. Of course, it is a progress (if compared with the Haile Selassie years) to have a nominally federative system; but in true and absolute evaluation it is not, because we do not live in 1960 but in 2007. The supposed ‘improvement’ is not due to Meles Zenawi, but to the changes occurred throughout the world!

Point 2.

‘There are good and bad individuals’: this is the funniest statement in the world! It means everything, as correct, and it means nothing, as wrong. What do you suggest, Eremias? If you had lived in 1945, would you have said to a Jewish German, who had lost all his relatives in concentration camps, that ‘there are good and bad individuals’ in Germany? Your sentence is a real offense, not personal but national and human. In addition, it is out of context; it is as if I ask you what the time is, and you answer "a student did not perform well in an exam given in a school of a city in Mongolia"!

Of course there are good and bad individuals, but anyone tolerating an evil regime is an accomplice; there is no place for cowards in this world anymore! If you are a ‘good’ Tigray today, when criminal gangster Meles Zenawi burns the entire land of Ogaden, deploy all possible efforts to inform the world, to denounce the Tigray tyrant, and to liberate Ogaden from the Abyssinian inhuman pestilence. You do not do so; then, you are an accomplice; a ‘good’ accomplice if it pleases you, but an accomplice whatsoever!

Point 3.

‘Some random peasant in Semen (Gonder) or Sheraro (Tigray) probably has nothing to do with possible injustices against Sidamas’!

Really?

Who taught you that imaginative stories have any value in political debates? Don’t you understand what you are saying? There is no ‘random peasant’ you can call upon to save your argumentation; you are bound to the precise, the concise, the succinct; otherwise you can narrate any inaccuracy you want, say that all the problems of Abyssinia are due to an unknown witch who flies every night over the mountains! The absolute truth is this:

Your ‘random peasant’ does not exist!

Do you know him? You will say ‘no’! So, you cannot mention him, in the same way you cannot mention, within a political debate, any person, item, situation of which you are unaware. We speak and debate only – I repeat: ‘only’ – about the known, the deciphered, the interpreted, the understood and the precise; the unknown does not exist within a debate. If you find this strange, then you should tell me how you would find my statement if I said that there had been a German doctor who administered a strange injection to the Amhara ruling classes at the end of the 19th century, turning them all to inhuman beings, and that this is the reason they caused all these problems, and that precisely for this reason we had to eliminate them all! You would say ‘irrelevant and inane’, and you would be right. You know why? Because this story would not have any precision and evidence to support it. It would be precisely like your inexistent ‘peasant’ whom you definitely cannot present as evidence.

Beyond this point that evolved around the need for precision, the eventuality of you and any other person knowing truly a specific ‘good peasant’ in Semen changes nothing as regards the Amhara group responsibility for the inhuman and lawless deeds of their elites.

Your supposedly ‘good peasant’ should have a ‘good’ behaviour to a Shekacho coming to work in Gondar! He should have advised his own children to be righteous soldiers when serving in the south; his eventual righteousness would have been a shock for Amhara authorities, especially if he defended a Shekacho as absolutely equal with an Amhara, and he would have faced problems with them that would have been made him known in public.

I would be ready to accept that such a person existed; simply I will wait until the absolute reconfirmation arrives. If it does, I would say that even in Sodom and Gomorrah there was a righteous family that almost in its entirety was saved, simply this family did not save the perverse and abnormal, squalid inhabitants of the two cities who got lost – all! Even if real, the righteous peasant from Semen cannot save the Amharas.

How I would be convinced that the Amharas do not bear collective responsibility

Eventually you could come up with an idea to convince us; go back to Tigray and Amhara, as well as among Tigray and Amhara living in Finfinne, and undertake an entire research project! Visit every village, hamlet, town and city! Speak with all the local people! Narrate to them a long list of atrocities carried out by the Abyssinian regimes and lasted over 120 years – a list that Shekachos, Afars, Ogadenis, Gambellas, Sidamas, Oromos and others will help you establish! Write down the names, addresses and comments of your interlocutors / interviewees; if you get in more than 50% of the comments suggestions of full condemnation of the Amhara and Tigray rulers, acceptance of the other peoples’ right to secession and national independence, admittance that Amhara and Tigray have to pay for their iniquitous deeds the due amount of money for recompense and reparation, plus a call for an International Court of Justice to condemn Meles Zenawi to Death, then I will immediately accept that the Tigray and the Amhara peoples are not the sinful accomplices of their murderous and criminal elites.

Point 4.

There are no innocent people; these people you do not know, so you cannot refer to them. Assuming they are innocent is assuming a lot! Considering collectively an entire population as ‘innocent’ may be pertaining to philosophical discussion or to ideological approach, but it is certainly not part of a political discussion.

Point 5.

No, you are absolutely wrong, Eremias! Your lack of knowledge is due to the criminal and inhuman deeds of the Amhara and Tigray bogus academia and pseudo-intellectuals, who are integral part of the criminal elites that ruled your country for so long. They did not have any desire, they did not find as imperative duty for themselves to open your intellectual, cultural and educational horizons by turning you and your generation, the previous and the subsequent generations too, to an outer looking attitude where the most important thing for an Amhara and a Tigray would be to learn other cultures and other civilizations, Yemenite, Egyptian, Kushitic, Assyrian – Babylonian, Greek, Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, Persian, Indian, Islamic, etc.

Do not tell me now that this was not done in Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Somalia; the only thing that matters for one person, for one country, is what is done by that person, by that country. Stay focused!

These ‘academia’ did not bother to collect the valuable Sidamic, Oromo, Shekacho and other traditions, to translate them to Amharic and Tigrinya, to write down all the religious rites, concepts, and poetry of the Sidamas and the Oromos, and the reason they did not do all this was their barbarism and racism.

They viewed all these people as inferior, whereas truly speaking, nothing is more useless and self-contradictory as the incomprehensible beliefs of your heretic debteras who are laughed at by authoritative Western Christian theologians, because of the erratic and fragmentary way Christianity has tortured as belief and distorted as faith among Abyssinians.

Point 6.

For Colonial historiographers, remember: timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!

Point 7.

Now, my dear, it will be the End of fake ‘Ethiopia’; you may not believe it, in the same way Andropov, Tshernenko and Gromyko did not expect in 1983 that the Soviet Union would collapse in just 7 years, but it happened! Nothing can help the world’s most loathed and most dangerous tyranny survive!

Even not the Anti-Christ, whom the Satanic Abyssinians priests identify with their false and erratically awaited Jesus! Contrarily to their assumptions, they have nothing to offer him. They are absolutely useless – even to him!

Point 8.

Is a Sidama ‘Pagan’? Well, said from the mouth of an Abyssinian priest, this is quite an indictment!

At this point, it will be profitable to all to have here an accurate evaluation of the baffling Christianity of the Amhara debteras.

I therefore re-publish here, in guise of Epilogue, several excerpts from the authoritative New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia (entry Abyssinia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01075e.htm):

"Moreover, even the converted provinces retain, despite their Christian faith and Christian morality, many traces of pagan and Judaic atavism. Even in the nineteenth century, idolatrous superstitions, fetishism, serpent-worship, and the cult of various jinns, Jewish practices, rest on the Sabbath, and the custom of vowing children to the keeping of certain religious observances till the age of puberty are still active almost everywhere. In the sixteenth century, King Ghelaodieos found them so deeply rooted in the national habits that he tried to justify these in the eyes of the Church as purely civil customs in no way contrary to the laws of Christianity".

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"he Catholic apostolate in Abyssinia must always exercise a courageous discretion and an unfailing mildness. The missionaries will have to contend for many years against the Eutychian fanaticism of the monks, and the quarrelsome nature of the inhabitants. Moreover, the frequent political revolutions of the past give little hope of settled peace and continued security".

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"he chief distinction between the Abyssinian Church and the Catholic Church is the erroneous doctrine that there is but one nature in Christ, the divine nature and the human nature being in some manner unified by a species of fusion. It was in Mary's womb according to some, or at the baptism of Christ according to others, that the Holy Ghost effected this union. Then assuming that the two natures in Christ, human and divine, form but one, Mary is the mother of the divine as well as the human nature of her Son, and becomes by that very fact, almost equal to God the Father. To these, so to speak, original errors of the Monophysites, the Ethiopian Church added some of its own: e.g., the belief that the faith of the parents suffices to save their children that die unbaptized; the wholesale repudiation of all Ecumenical Councils held since the council of Ephesus, and the belief in traducianism as an explanation of the soul's origin. Moreover, they still retain in full force various practices of the primitive Church which have long since fallen into desuetude elsewhere: e.g., abstinence from the flesh and blood of animals that have been strangled; Baptism by immersion; the custom of administering Communion to little children under the species of wine; resting from work on the Sabbath, and the celebration of the Agape. It may be added that no church has kept to this very day a more visible imprint of the Jewish religion. Children of both sexes are circumcised by women two weeks after birth. They are then baptized, girls on the eightieth and boys on the fortieth day. As in Judaism, they distinguish by the term "Nazarenes" children dedicated by their parents to the observance of certain practices or prohibitions, such as drinking hydromel and shaving the head. The canon of Scripture admitted by the Ethiopians comprises, besides the books accepted by Catholics, certain apocryphal works, such as the "Book of Enoch", the "Ascension of Isaiah", etc.".

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Indicative are also the following excerpts (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05566a.htm):

"On the one hand, the Walda-Qeb ("Sons of Unction", as they are nowadays called), hold that the most radical unification (tawahedo) exists between the two natures, such being the absorption of the human by the Divine nature that the former may be said to be merely a fantasm. The unification is the work of the Unction of the Son Himself according to the general teaching of Walda-Qeb. Some among them, however, known as the Qeb'at (Unction), teach that it is the work of the Father. Others again, the Sega-ledj or Walda-sega (Sons of Grace), hold that the unification takes place in such a way that the nature of Christ becomes a special nature (bahrey), and this is attributed to the Father, as in the teachings of the Qe'bat. But, as the mere fact of the unction does not effect a radical unification (for this schools rejects absorption), the unification is made perfect, according to them, by what they call the adoptive birth of Christ -- the ultimate result of the unction of the Father. In effect, they recognize in the incarnation three kinds of birth: the first, the Word begotten of the Father; the second, Christ, begotten of Mary; the third, the Son of Mary, begotten the Son of God the Father by adoption, or by his elevation to the Divine dignity -- the work of the Father anointing his Son with the Holy Spirit, whence the name Sons of Grace. However, while rejecting absorption, this latter school refuses to admit the distinction of the two natures. Both schools, moreover, assert that the unification takes place without any blending, with change, without confusion. It is contradiction itself set up as a dogma.

The difficulties following from this teaching in regard to the reality of the Redemption, the Monophysite Church calls mysteries; her theologians confess themselves unable to explain them, and simply dismiss them with the word Ba faqadu; it is so, they say, ‘by the will of God’".

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"Notwithstanding the native claims, their Old Testament is not a translation from the Hebrew, neither is its Arabic origin any more capable of demonstration; Old and New Testaments alike are derived from the Greek. The work was done by many translators, no doubt, and the unity of the version seems to have been brought about only by deliberate effort. At the same time as the Solomonian restoration in the thirteenth century, the whole Bible was revised under the care of the Metropolitan Abba Salama (who is often confounded with St. Frumentius), and the text followed for the Old Testament was the Arabic of Rabbi Saadias Gaon of Fayûm. There was perhaps a second revision in the seventeenth century at the time of the Portuguese missions to the country; it has recently been noticed (Littman, Geschicte der Aethiopischen Literatur). But, just as the great number of translators employed caused the Bible text to be unusual, so also the revision of it was not uniform and official, and consequently the number of variant readings became multiplied. Its canon, too, is practically unsettled and fluctuating. A host of apocryphal or falsely ascribed writings are placed on the same level as the inspired books, among the most esteemed of which we may mention the Book of Henoch, the Kufale, or Little Genesis, the Book of the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth, the Combat of Adam and Eve, the Ascension of Isaias. The Hâymanotâ Abaw (Faith of the Fathers), the "Mashafa Mestir" (Book of the Mystery), the "Mashafa Hawi" (Book of the Compilations), "Qérlos" (Cyrillius), "Zênâ hâymânot" (Tradition of the Faith) are among the principal works dealing with matters moral and dogmatic. But, besides the fact that many of the quotations from the Fathers in these works have been modified, many of the canons of the "Synodos" are, to say the least, not historical".