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Gondar ain’t your mama’s fool no more |
| By Aklilu Abreha
I would like to extend my best wishes to all Ethiopians at home and abroad. May this New Year bring peace and prosperity to all of you and to our beloved country Ethiopia!
I live in America. And as you can imagine, it has been a very busy last couple of weeks for me. I am sure those of you who have a large family including little children would understand the hectic nature of the Christmas holiday season. On January 2, 2006, I had a break and started to enjoy a relaxed schedule. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I logged on to the internet and started browsing websites to catch-up with developments from Ethiopia.
I am sure, since the elections, most of my fellow Ethiopians are engaged in a similar activity on a daily basis. Obviously, to facilitate faster site navigation, I have bookmarked Ethiopian related news websites, including Ethiomedia, Aiga, Ethiopianreview, Waltainfo, Ena.gov.et, Nazret, Ethioindex, Awate (Eritrea), Shabait(Eritrea), kinijit.org, and a few more others. Upon navigating to Ethiomedia.com, I cannot help but notice the leading news item of the day. It was titled “Five students killed in Gondar”. My heart sank, and I thought, here we go again. It is the content and the spirit of this “news” item that I read on Ethiomedia.com that prompted me to write this article. Come to think of it, the last time I wrote a politically inclined article was about 12 years ago on a network of Ethiopians called EEDN. I wonder if it is still around. At that time, I have to confess, I was a fierce opponent of the EPRDF government.
You see, dear readers, I am what you call a Gonderie (Kebraraw Goderie, just kidding). My father is from Semien Ambaras and my mother is from Debretabor. I myself was born in Ambesamie, a rural small town in the proximity of Woreta and Hamusit, both located on your way south from Gondar and a few kilometers before you get to Bahir Dar, the current capital city of Amara Kilil. My parents and I moved to the city of Gondar proper when I was about two years old. I attended elementary school and graduated from a high school in Gondar. And the first and last time I left Gondar was when I escaped to the Sudan and became a political refugee. Please allow me to reminisce. Though a belated reaction, one of the reasons for my escape from Gondar was what happened a long time ago. It was the day when fourteen of my friends from Kebele One (Ambajinie) were murdered by Melaku Tefera’s Special Forces.
On that un-fateful Friday, back from school, fifteen of us worked as day laborers and packed Ghesho into a huge two meter by one meter size container sacks. For those of you who do not know, Ghesho is a plant leaf that is used to brew local Ethiopian beer known as Tella. Local merchants around Aba Gerima neighborhood purchase Ghesho from peasants coming from the surrounding farms. The farmers sell their Gesho and use the proceeding to buy and take home salt and cooking oil. The Ghesho leaves are dry and need to be compressed and packed tightly into sacks to make it easier to transport. The Ghesho merchants hire us, young students in our school off hours, to do the packing and paid us $0.75 per sack. Once finished with our task, we got paid and retired to relax and drink a few Mankorkoria (a tea keetle shaped Tella container a bit bigger in size) Tella our selves.
One thing led to another, and some of us got a little inebriated while a few of the older guys started to sing some EPRP revolutionary songs. Among the songs, the ones I remember included Wega Belew Tew Wega Belew and Asimba Meda Lay Wedikie. Sometime later, the group made a decision to go to another Tella Bet (local brew house- a Tavern or a pub- if you will). That is when I asked the group to give me my share of the left over money and begged to be let to go to my home. I reasoned, my father was very strict with me and wanted me to be present at home when he got back from work. My request was denied. I was sad as the money would have amounted to $0.25 cents or more, believe me, it was a good some of money at the time.
The group decided that the only choice I had was to join them at the other Tella Bet. Fortunately, I declined the invitation and decided to go home. I did not realize how fortunate I was until I woke up the following day and found out that all fourteen of them have been murdered by Melaku Tefera’s Special Forces. Their corpses were left on the side of a major street of our neighborhood. Left there for all to see and serve as a deterrent for anyone thinking about opposing the government. The dead bodies of my friends were being exhibited up and down the street. All of the fourteen friends of mine were laying facedown, executed mercilessly, and the infamous Red Terror campaign slogans pasted on their backs.
Time permitting in the future; I will give a full account of what transpired that unfortunate evening. Since that day, I lost my desire to live in Ethiopia. This tragic and heinous act by the Derg regime forever tainted my young and fertile mind (some that know me may not agree on the fertile part of this statement). I waited for my chance to throw the proverbial “Tikur Dengay” and get out of Ethiopia. Again, for those of you who do not know, a well known axiom in Amarigna is that as you leave a place you never again intend on visiting, you throw a black stone (Tikur Dengay) towards it. Superstition guaranteed that your wish will be granted. I got my chance to leave Ethiopia when I turned eighteen years old, and graduated from Fasiledes High School.
On June 27, 1984, I literally walked out of the city of Gondar at the break of dawn, walked through a nearby small rural town called Robit, and then Lay Armachiho. When I got to Tach Armachiho the next day, I met up with other Ethiopians on a similar journey to the Sudan. We trekked together until we came across a TPLF guerilla fighter camp. We stayed at the camp for three days or so, and most of us got treated well. I believe one or two guys whom the TPLF fighters suspected as Derg spies or something like that were held and may got treated differently. When the condition were right to continue our journey, some TPLF fighters accompanied us for half a day long distance and made sure the Armachiho bandits did not bother us. After walking on foot for fifteen rainy days, we arrived on the border of the Sudan on my birthday July 12.
It was like I was born again, this time figuratively speaking, of course. That was twenty one years ago. Now, I am found educated, professional, and living comfortably in America. I am enjoying the fruits of a democratic political system with which my motherland was never able to afford me. I acknowledge and adhere to the responsibilities that come with being a democratic society citizen. Thank God and may Ethiopia be blessed with such a political system.
Now let me take you back to the intended point of this article. I sincerely believe that the above anecdotal, OK, a bit longer than intended, account of my background qualifies me as Gonderie, and I hope you the reader agree with me as well. With your consent and my qualification, I think I am better positioned to critically analyze the article about Gondar posted on Ethiomedi.com.
Most of the time, I get the impression that Ethiomedia.com serves as a medium to express the opinion of the opposition. It is a commendable effort when conducted in a true spirit of opposing a policy and presenting a better alternative. In general, during a contentious struggle for political power, and in particular in the African experience, standing as an opponent to a ruling government is not an easy task. An opposition media can suffer from an overwhelming feeling of fear and intimidation for ones own safety, and worse, one can become debilitated with a hair rising fear of putting ones family and relative in harms way. To a limited extent, the Ethiopian government has been one of the exceptions in this regard. It has permitted the free flow of ideas, and to the best of my knowledge, the government has not been accused of an attempt to inhibit freedom of expression. Recently, however, the government has been compelled to take action when the opposition resorted into ethnic cleansing tactic and the free press served as a fuel fanning the flame.
As the genuine opposition mediums effort deserves to be commended, with no less vigor, it deserves to be equally despised when it corroborates and becomes an instrument to disguise and spread maliciously fabricated propaganda as news.
You can imagine how agitated I was when I read the article titled “Five students killed in Gondar”. I was extremely saddened when all those poor children died in Addis Ababa for no good reason at all. After all, the opposition has won Addis Ababa, the political capital of Africa. Did the opposition understand the magnitude of that victory and how to capitalize on it? Did they realize it as an opportunity to demonstrate good governance and gain invaluable legislation experience? Well, I am getting side tracked again. I apologize. After the June and November unfortunate incidents in Addis Ababa, I was hoping things were turning for the better and peace was prevailing. But according to the Ethiomedia “news” item, I was wrong.
To substantiate the truthfulness this news item, as I always do, I immediately pointed my web browser to the other opposition and pro-government websites to no avail. I could not find any other news source website with similar item. I was relieved, and I immediately started to get suspicious about the authenticity of the “news”. I went back and read it again, and, this time, I scrutinized it leaving my emotion by way side. And the “news” started to fall apart. I will tell you what I found:
The item claims that “The Voice of Ethiopian People (VOEP) said the funeral of Fikirte - a young female student who collapsed after she was gun-butted on her breast, was conducted at Qusquam Mariam Church last week. She died after days of treatment in hospital.”
Wait a minute. For the life of me, neither when I was growing up in Gondar nor since I left Ethiopia, have I ever heard of a memorial service being conducted, let alone a burial service, at Qusquam Mariam church.
What I always heard is that Qusquam Mariam church primarily serves as a sanctuary to mummified corpses of royalty from the time of Fasiledes reign. It has been decades, if not centuries, since a funeral or burial service ceased to be conducted at Qusquam Mariam church. The physical site where the church is located doesn’t lend itself to this blatant lie either. The church is located at a higher elevation, almost at the top of one of the cascade mountain that encircles Gondar. Even if the “news” was to be believed, one is left to wonder why Fikirte’s relatives would want to trek and climb up a mountain, with a corpse on their back, to bury their beloved daughter while there are other 44 churches available where the burial ceremony can be conducted with ease and convenience.
May be I failed to get the hidden message in the article, as Ethiopians are famous for their double meaning as described in “Wax and Gold”. May be she is a blue blooded Ethiopian by the way of her distant relation to Atse Fasil. May be the opposition has a plan for her to be mummified at a later date as a royal family and martyr, of course, after the liberation of Gondar from EPRDF. One is left only to speculate. Then the item follows “Student protests erupted earlier last week at Emperor Bakafa School but later spread to other schools, including Meseret, Zadiku Yohannes and Hibret.” Mind you that Emperor Bakafa (Atest Bekafa) is a middle school while Meseret, Zadiku Yohannes (Tsadiku Yohannes) and Hibret (formerly Lilt Tenagne Work, my own school) are all elementary schools. The ages of the students at these elementary schools ranges from five years to eleven years old, youngest to oldest, respectively. I am not a child development expert, but as I said, I have a couple of children of my own. It is extremely unlikely and out of the realm of possibility for an Ethiopian five year olds to be involved in a political protests. To give you an example, the only time my five year old American child protests, he is a well developed and exposed child by all accounts, thanks to all the cartoons shows and video games, is when I tell him to cut down on his game play time and to go and read a storybook or to study a little math. His famous, albeit ineffective, mode of protest is to not speak to me for about five minutes. He never run out to the street and protested against the measures I took. I am inclined to believe that a similar age Ethiopian child would fall in the same category and behave accordingly. May be my imagination is failing me, but I have a difficult time envisioning five year old Ethiopians wrapped head to toe with an Ethiopian flag and carrying “down with Meles” and “Free Hailu Shawel” slogans and marching down the street. Oh, let us also not forget imagining the children carrying the Premier's effigy with a pair of red horns sticking out of his forehead and the swastika, a Nazi in sigma, printed in the background. Come on, get real. Let us continue further. The item claims “...Observers said the student protests began when TPLF troops stormed Emperor Bakafa School, and students started protesting against the presence of the armed men in their school compound. “ Upon reading the above statement, I have had enough, and contrary to the decree issued by the opposition, I called a friend of mine who is from Tigray. He happens to own a convenient store. He is a good friend. We have been friends since our refugee days in the Sudan. Once he came online, we shared the latest jokes going around town about Kinijit, EPRDF, Primier Meles, Eritrea, Isaya Afewerki, and OLF. Then I told him that I needed a phone card to place a phone call to Gondar, Ethiopia. He asked if things were well with my family, I thanked him for his concern and told him that I have some information about Gondar that I needed to verify. He read for me the 800 number and associated pin number printed on the phonecard over the phone. I told him to put it on credit book (Ye dubae debter) and hang up. I hope my Kinijit readers will pardon this second transgression of the decree that advised Ethiopians not to conduct any business with supporters of EPRDF, as I know my friend is one supporter. Lately, I know my friend and a few others Ye Tigray Lijoch have become staunch supporters of EPRDF. Most of them don’t use to be like that, or at least not to that extreme. I wonder what happened to them. Again, one is left only to speculate. Then I proceeded to place a call to one of my younger sisters in Gondar. After exchanging pleasantries, I told her about the news article I read and mentioned to her that I am disturbed about the government killing elementary school children. I asked her to tell me what was happening in our hometown. Suffice it to say that she asserted my suspicion that the “news” item was a propaganda designed to provoke people into taking to the streets of America. She told me that there were no protests in the mentioned elementary schools. She also told me, however, that there was a protest in Fasiledes High school. Verbatim, she told me that the high school students protested because the government recently changed the college admission score to 3.0/4.0 from whatever lower score it required before. And the government was seeking approval from students before implementing the changed college admission policy. The protest was neither at Emperor Bakafa School, nor it had anything to do with supporting the opposition, nor was it started by the presence of armed men on Bakafa campus, as there were no armed military men present at Atse Bakafa middle high school I have my own reservations about the government’s education policy, and this is not the purpose of this article. But if the government saw it necessary to change the college admission policy, I am not sure why the government sought approval from the students after it came up with the changed policy. If any input was needed, the consent of students and/or their parents should have been solicited while changing the admission policy was being considered, and certainly not after. Let me pick on one more piece of the article and we will call it a day. Here goes: “...In Gondar, where opposition to the Meles Zenawi regime runs deep… Many of the young suffered multiple injuries, including bone fractures. Eye-witnesses said the beatings were meant to kill the students, and many were left for dead in the streets.” I have been to Gondar three times within the last 14 years. The first time I went there was in 1995. Had the above statement claiming deep opposition to EPRDF was published eleven years ago, I would have believed it. During my visit in 1995, I myself was utterly disappointed at the state Gondar. I saw dilapidated buildings, people were destitute and beggars were everywhere. It felt to me like Gondar and its people have died and there was no one around to lower the coffin to the ground. The proverbial last nail was waiting to be nailed. And at that time, rumors were rampant about the malicious intent of TPLF to destroy Gondar. Apparently, the rumor had it, EPRDF wanted Gonderies to pay dearly for putting resistance against the advancement of EPRDF army to Addis Ababa. My second trip back to Gondar was eight years later in Nov 2003. The difference I saw between my first trip in 1995 and 2003 was as light and day. Gondar was booming and becoming a port city of a land locked Ethiopia. My third trip was when I went back in May 2005 and had a chance to witness the election firsthand. I saw an ever prospering Gondar. Before my trip, I didn’t even know elections were to be held in Ethiopia until an Ethiopian friend called me and advised me to change my travel plan to a date preferably long after the election. I appreciated his concern for me and dismissed his apocalyptic prophecy. I do not want to take your time counting all the recent developments in Gondar and how the city’s resident population enjoys an improved living standard. Go to Gondar and see for yourselves. Last time I tried to count the visible developments in Gondar to a fellow Ethiopian, he accused me of being a “Woyane” and a selfish “Hodam Amara”, a glutton someone who is concerned only after his self interest. I was just about to dare him to see a copy of my three year tax return, which makes me drool when I look at it myself. Truthfully, I don’t have all the money shown on my tax return, but my yearly income looks beautiful on paper. I wouldn’t change that for the world. One thing I have to say here is that the Ethiopian government has failed and lost the propaganda war. It should do a better job of informing the Diaspora about the economic and political development in Ethiopia. But it seems to me that the government is bent on dismissing some of us living outside of Ethiopia as puppets of the opposition and not worth an iota of an effort. We hear from the rumor mill that government representatives have come to town, and left after holding a meeting at Tigray community office. Why an Ethiopian government would do that? How about notifying other Ethiopians to come and attend meetings with government official? Is it that the Ethiopians abroad are not worth courting unless they are card carrying supporters of EPRDF? Here I am not talking about political organizations, including TPLF/EPRDF. They have the prerogative to held meetings wherever they think they can get the most support. But a government representative should reach out all Ethiopians regardless of their political persuasion. Getting sidetracked, take two. Sorry. In conclusion, I like to say that the old days of empty rhetoric are gone. I am afraid the magician has to look for a different trick in his hat. Trying to instigate Gonderies by using false propaganda designed to exploit their emotion and their love for Ethiopia won't work. Gonderies have wised up. Comparatively speaking, through its action, the incumbent administration is a government which exceeded our dream of what Gondar can become in a short period of time. Haile Sellasie had his personal grudges and political problem against Gondar. If my memory serves me right, Haile Sellasie visited Gondar only once throughout his reign over Ethiopia. Mengistu followed suit as well. Not only he visited Gondar only once, and filled the air with empty promises of making Azezo the new Gondar, he ended up sending his henchman Melarku Teffera to unleash unprecedented massacre against the residents of Gondar. For the first time since the reign of Atese Tewodros, Gondar is becoming an economically vibrant city. And time is on Gondar side as it is positioned to become an ever important trade center. The opening of Ethiopia’s trade relationship with the Sudan should make that a reality sooner than later. Gonderies are learning that mutual economic benefit should be the guiding principle for making political alliance. And I am convinced, Gondar is better off strengthening its alliance with the current government. The opposition, on the other hand, never relented from to instigate the people of Gondar. It blames Gondar when the going gets tough, and it calls on Gondar when the struggle calls for a sacrifice. During the first years of EPRDF rule, we have heard opposition members blaming Gondar for giving EPRDF an easy passage to Addis Ababa. And recently, we have heard that some opposition members are disappointed with Gondar because Gonderies didn’t join their planned protest. A street demonstration designed to antagonize one ethnic against the other, chaos on the street architected to build a power ascension ladder with the dead bodies of poor Ethiopians to be used as climbing steps. And every now and then, the opposition comes up with fabricated propaganda of Gondar starting armed struggle, and the government killing little children, and so on and so forth. Guess what, we have had enough. For a long time, just like our Tigrayan counterparts, we have been at the receiving end of the brunt of whatever the ruling class has perpetrated. Gondar has served as a safe heaven for every kind government oppositions guerilla fighter, may be this was because of Gondar’s geographic location including proximity to the Sudan. Or may be it is because Gondaries are highly emotional and foolishly jump up at every mention of nationalism and Ethiopian unity. We ain’t your mama’s fool no more. We are content with where Ethiopia is at this juncture. Good times will be rolling soon. The future is so bright Gondar has to wear shades. We, including myself, no longer consider anyone less Ethiopian just because he/she does not carry conversation in Amarigna. We do not despise anyone ruling over Ethiopia just because he/she is not Amara. We do not think of everyone that is not Amara as a sellout or not holding the interest of Ethiopia at heart. All we require is qualification and fair handedness in a working economic policy, not an alternative economy policy based on “personal connections”. And in time and with full participation in due democratic process, Gondar and the rest of Ethiopia will become economically vibrant places. To that end, we will work for peace and democratic governance with full participation in the parliamentary system. Keep in mind, Rome was not built in a day. Nor was the American democratic system built in five years, but it took more than two hundred years and it still is not perfect. We have started a long and difficult journey and we are marching forward without a chance to look back. Join us if you will. But please do not be a speed bump and try to distract us with your venomous propaganda. May all the fortune stars shine on Ethiopia. As she has started a journey to peace and equality. |
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