Interview with Prof. Ezekiel Gebissa & Ato Achamyeleh Tamiru – part 2 /Hiber Radio/

Is this the same professor who penned an article a few months ago in which he cited some derogatory epithets he claimed our Amhara brothers and sisters say everyday about our Oromos? I am still flabbergasted how such a highly educated historian brings up such hate hatching trash that his only purpose might have been to drive every Oromo hate every Amhara. I was also wondering how was he able to gather such garbage? I am sure no Amhara came to him and insult him using those phrases. You can come to the same conclusion I have arrived about such bigots decades ago. They know Oromia is sitting on untapped natural resources. They know very well that more than 50% of the population is the youth. They think this youth is dumb enough to blindly follow them all the way over the cliff. Then they will be able to carve out Oromia as their newly independent fiefdom. When I did some digging to find out which Oromia region they are from it did not lead me to blink my eyes at the documented facts that their grandparents wanted to come into a union with Menelik willfully without even trying a token fight. At least my grandparents put up a stiff fight against Abu Shaitan who was the commander of Menelik’s army and at one point they beat the tar out of him that he had to turn around and run for his life. On the other side except our neighbors the Arsi Oromos every other Oromo leader in Shewa, Wellega and Jimma chose to put their John Hancock on the dotted line to come into a union with Menelik without any negotiation and without even the mildest complaints. He sent his messengers telling them to recognize his leadership otherwise he was coming to ‘see’ them. They all said ‘yes sir!!!’. But those gallant Arsi Oromos all what they said to Menelik was ‘Step right down! I ain’t sacred of you!!! Come on and try me!!!’ And they fought tooth and nail just like my own Itus. Am I making that up? No it is well documented. I am sure Menelik himself must have had nothing but admiration for the Arsis and my own Itus. But the ancestors of our modern day ‘liberation’ fighters shamed themselves in an unmanly ways. All those Oromo chiefs in Wellega, Jimma, Shewa and all the way to Illu Abaa Boraa were rushing to sign the instruments of surrender from Menelik. I am not making this up. It is documented. Now their grandchildren are trying to become the staunchest ‘freedom’ fighters trying to carve out territories that their grandparents willfully gave up. You cannot say that they were forced into submission. What are saying? Their ancestors were cowards and afraid to fight? Get outta here!!! What happened after they willfully came into a union with Menelik was that they had become some of the most zealous warriors for him. His military chief Abu Shaitan who my grandparents fought was said to be fluent in Oromifaa and all his horsemen warriors were Abichu, Leqaa, Wellega and other Shewan Oromos. That is enshrined in one of my Itu clan classic gerersaa. They went into Sidamo, Walaita, Keffa and all other southern and western non Oromo territories and became the new rulers. This one, I am not making it up either. Even in my lifetime the commander of the local police in my childhood village was an Oromo from Wellega. I know that because he used to come to our house to talk to my father and uncle in perfect Oromifaa. He told my father that he was an Oromo from Leqemt, Wellega. He had a monthly contract for fresh milk with my mom. And he was not the only Oromo in the police force there. Majority of them were Oromos from Shewa. You could see the level of trust the late emperor had with them that he was not afraid to put the most of modern weapon at that time in their hands. I mentioned this history many times to such bigots in the past the respond I got was not something I liked. They have a name for such Oromos like me. A neo-Gobena. To be honest with you, I don’t know what that really meant and still pertains to. To me the major issues of the national question have been amicably addressed since 1991. Period!!! What are denied are human and democratic rights. Oromos have been denied just as the same as the Afars, Somalis, Amharas, Tigres and every other human being in the old country. If an Afar is telling you that Afars are the only ones marginalized, he/she is up to something. There is one hundred percent chance that there is an ulterior motive to found some kind of a vassal tenant and he/she and their cabals being the landlord. If an Oromo is telling you that Oromos are the only one who have been marginalized, he/she is hell bent in carving out Oromia as a new ‘independent’ nation as his/her personal fiefdom. The same goes for any Amhara coming up with similar claim. The strangest common feature about all these modern day bigots is the fact that they are all highly educated. Many of them are missionary referenced ‘professors’ and technocrats. They know ‘everything’. I guess sometimes for such people going to college is not always what you learn there but matters most how you talk coming back. Ossie Davis, please rise up just one time for my sake and help me out here. You need to tell them the same. Purlie’s are everywhere here among us!!!! You know what I mean? I am sure you do.

I may add one more thing to add to my opinion about these modern day bigots. Just look how they worship pretenders who claim to know about the history of Oromos than the Oromos ourselves. Just look how that chameleon Isaias operative by the name Tesfaye Gebreab. This scammer was recently given a hero’s welcome in some communities here in the USA and other foreign places. He was here on a ‘much anticipated’ book signing tour where he did a lucrative business selling his book of fantasy he concocted during his hiatus in Piccola Roma(Asmara). He did a brisk business with fictionalized books about Oromia. He must have thought we Oromos are so illiterate that we will believe everything we hear from an ‘educated’ foreigner. And he got all what he wanted. Some of them may think he is The Almighty Our Creator. You can hear a pin drop when he starts opening his mouth. What the heck…He thinks he can even change his name to one of the most sacred and historic traditions of we Oromos. Gedaa, that is for Gadaa. That is right! His name is now Gadaa and nobody is daring to ask him how he dared!!! Who cares, right? In his world of mindset Oromos know diddly. And now there is another student of a bankrupted communist ideology. I meant to say a communist professor who has been so privileged by our own men who are well versed with our own long history. They have been feeding him our glorious history along with many that should not be told to a foreigner who always comes to us with ulterior motives. I have read some of the nonfiction books he wrote about our country. He was told everything including that can be considered a threat to our people under any kind of governance. I was saying ‘How did this foreigner come to know so many incidences that I did not know while living in the middle of it?’. How come how own historians did not come out to write about it? How? How? He knew how every incidence in Ogaden, Eritrea and the rest of Ethiopia and writes everything about them in various books doing a brisk business in the process. I call upon our own intellectuals to keep our history to yourself and write books yourself about it. Let such ‘experts in Ethiopian history’ stay out of our business. We know how to settle our differences peaceful in the absence foreign on lookers. We have proven to the rest of the world how to live in harmony and peace for more than 14 centuries since the two major religion took a foothold among us. If we had lost our ways during those centuries it was because hideous foreign elements took away our platforms. They told us tantalizing exaggerated stories about us. They managed to create a ‘wow!’ moment. They talked to our emotions than to our intellect. They aroused us on and on and on to a point we lost our reasons. They managed to control the minds of those many among us who were not sophisticated enough to look through what they were hearing. Then came the poisoning that begot violence. Such foreign elements will not rest until my Oromos and our centuries old neighbors Amhara brothers and sister go at each other’s throat. They do not want to see us settle our issues peacefully. For them the ‘peaceful way’ has been exhausted that it was ‘tried already and failed’. That was how they found well read students who graduated with their school of thought and barked nonsense like ‘Ethiopia out of Oromia!’. We should all understand that these wicked elements are trying poison the waterhole we all drink from. Then when they see us entangled in destructive conflicts they will belch with ‘I told you so!’.