What a slanderous response? (By Prof. Ayo Momina | October 15, 2010)

Mr Mukhtar Mohamed Omas response to Prof. Siyoum Gelays article is the usual liberation fronts’ propaganda pamphlets. His animosity towards Ethiopians in general and the Amhara people in particular is boundless. Ethiophobes do exist. As Franz Fanon said, Hate is not inborn; it has to be constantly cultivated to be brought into being.

On the eve of the Second World War, Italian fascists sow the seeds of hate to serve their colonial ambition in Africa. They used more than 60,000 Eritrean and 20,000 Somali Ascaries to avenge their defeat in the Battle of Adowa on March 1, 1896. To eradicate Ethiopia from the map of the world, they had devised self-determination for the oppressed tribes” in the ancient independent nation-state of Ethiopia.

 

  Ever sincethe different Somali clans got their independence from Italy and England, the government in Mogadishu claimed in 1960 that the Ogden region of Ethiopian territory on the basis of the fact that Somalis live there.
However, this grand plan of Greater Somalia was conceived by the British just to control the very important trade root of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The so-called Western Somalia liberation Front (WSLF) used to wage its proxy war from Mogadishu. The irredentist war of aggression resulted in the total collapse of the Somali state. In the wake of the Cold War and the establishment of Bantustan ethnic fragmentation in Ethiopia the soldiers and generals of Said Bare regime who were allies of the Tigrian People’s Liberation front (TPLF) and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) got the chance to run away from the civil war in Mogadishu and settled across the border in Jijiga and else were in Ethiopia.

These neo-fascists have demolished the statue of the famous anti-fascist Dedjazmach Afework Woldesemayat in the town of Jijiga. When they became a disgrace to TPLF, they gradually changed their name to Ogden people’s Liberation Front.

Currently these groups and individuals are echoeing the age old fascist propaganda slogan Abyssinian colonialism,” and are fanning the flames of hate politics against pan-Ethiopian persons. Ethiopia categorically rejects any territorial claims basing its position on the fact that the borders with Somalia were set by international agreement which was signed in 1908 between Ethiopia and Italy.

Above all, the drawing of an analogy between the kingdoms in Northern Ethiopia and the various pastoral clan elders by Omar and his likes is completely absurd. The Ethiopian state and nation was not created by European colonialists like Somalia and other African states.

Mind you the Somalis were sold to Italians by the Sultan of Zanzibar and colonized by England. What have they done to this act?

The Italian fascists during their occupation (1936-1941) and the so-called liberation fronts such as Oromo people Liberation Front (OLF) and Western Somalia Liberation Front (WSLF) tried to partition and delimit the territory of Shoa .The kingdom of Shoa was not in northern Ethiopia but in central and eastern Ethiopia which extended as far as the river Blue Nile in the West and in the South to Gurageland and to east as far as Awusa and the Gulf of Tajura. The British government of Queen Victoria has signed a trade agreement with the sovereign king Sahle selase of Shoa. So also the French government has made an agreement with the king of Shoa. Were the clans in Somalia sovereign? Emperor Johannes the IV (1873-1890), one of the pious kings of kings of Ethiopia was in the kingdom of Shoa. He ordered King Menlik to reconquer all the ancient provinces of Ethiopia in the south and southeast. In Europe for example, the Spaniards and the Portuguese have also reconqured their land from the Arab-Berber 700 years of occupation. Therefore, to say that Atse Yohnis did not know where Shoa was let alone Ogaden is sheer nonsense.

No wonder, for the bunch of self-called Liberation fronts history begins yesterday with reign of Emperor Menilik II. However, ancient Ethiopia s medieval frontiers extended as far as the Indian Ocean. Therefore, the Ogden region is an integral part of Ethiopia.

For anti-Ethiopian local agents and white supremacists, the Ethiopian medieval history does not exist and the seven Islamic Sultanates of Yifat and Adal including Zila and Berbera were not an integral part of Ethiopia. The self called Ogdens better stop your hate monger.

It is a waste time. Your self-determination is a masquerade for fragmentation and tribalism. In Ethiopia, all ethnic groups should be allowed more autonomy and proper participation in the national politics, but must not be encouraged to break up the ancient country into jigsaw puzzle of hostile, undemocratic and potentially warring territories. The different clans in the former Italian Somaliland have no capacity to self rule. They are in a worst anarchic situation, one clan against another clan and one warlord against other warlord!

Somali leaders such as the late Mohammed Said Barre, from the school of colonialism who was made by the Italians and the British a general, did achieved nothing in his perpetual anti- Ethiopian aggression. Our brothers the Isa (Esa), Gadabursi (Derbussi, Gadabirsky), Ishak, Awal; Haber Toljaala etc ethnic groups who are Ethiopians have nothing to do with the Ogaden different clans (Abaskul, Gelemes and Marehan). We do not want our citizens to be engulfed by violence and self destruction in disguise of self determination for Ogadenians. ONLF does not represent the Esa, Gadabursi and Ishak.

So also OLF is not the sole representative of the different Oromo clans such as the Nole, Jarso, Babile, Itu, Arusi, Jilee, Welega, Mecha, Tulama, Kereyu etc.etc. The so-called Liberation fronts are secessionist organizations supported by Americans, European and Arabs just only to destabilize a stable ancient nation state since the time of the called war. The truth of the matter is that the region had the dubious distinction of producing Africa’s most ruthless mercenaries massacring innocent lives for many years. They have brought havoc and great disaster to the region.

The people of the Horn and parts of East Africa

There was and there will be no Somali nation. There are only clans and tribes as shown here in the map. A homogenous Ogaden or Wogadin clan does not exist either. In fact there are sub clans namely Abaskul, Gelemes and Marehan. These pastoral tribes accepted Islam in the tenth century. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries expanded west and southward in the valley of Shebelle River by displacing ancient hunting population and the pastoral Oromo.

 

There was also no Oromo nation. There are only many different Oromo speaking ethnic groups. The Oromos are not indigenous people of Ethiopia before their invasion in the 16 th centuries. It is also not at all true that Ethiopians invaded and colonized Oromo lan. The contrary may be said to be true.

Oromo tribes who were living in the region of Hargessa (British Somaliland) were driven by the Somali clans towards the Juba valley. Desperately in need of pasture and land the nomadic pastoralists violently conquered and settled inside Ethiopia in the wake of Ahemed Gragn invasion of Ethiopia in the 16th century.

What is then a nation?

A nation is a historical community of people that comes into existence with the formation of a common territory, common economic ties, a literary language, a general character, and certain cultural features that constitute its defining traits.

Many African and Asian nations have developed during the struggle for independence and emerged on the territories that have been carved historically by west European colonial masters. A state is essential for the consolidation of a nation. In Europe nations emerged when the feudal fragmentation of society was being overcome and political centralization based on the development of capitalist economic system.

The Colonial scramble of East Africa

During the scramble of the African continent Italy had paid $72,000 to the Sultan of Zanzibar to buy the coastal regions including Mogadishu an area of 55,000 square miles.

After that 190,000 square miles was ceded by England in order to form the Italian Somaliland. Both Eritrea and Italian Somaliland were used as spring board to invade Ethiopia and establish the new Roman Empire in Africa. The existence of independent Ethiopia in Africa was a thorn in their flesh for all European colonialists. After the defeat of fascist Italy the British allowed and financed the formation the Somali youth club on May 13, 1943 in Mogadishu. The club had a pan-Somalism agenda. By 1947 it became the Somali Youth League (SYL).

The Pan-Somalism of the SYL was echoed in the British colonial governments grand plan of Greater Somalia. This was intended to consolidate British Colonial rule in North east Africa. After five years of resistance and victory on fascist Italy, Ethiopia categorically rejected the British attempt to colonize and consistently worked to restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

When the Mogadishu government became Independent on July 1, 1960 it began to broadcast anti-Ethiopian propaganda. In 1963 the Somali regular troops armed by the Soviet Union invaded Ethiopia. The invader was devastated by the Ethiopian army lead by general Aman Andom. After the revolution of 1974, general Mohammed Said Barre started again his subversive activities in the guise of a Front for the Liberation of Western Somalia. His adventure was turned into a nightmare. His troops were wiped out from the Ogaden. This was the beginning of the end of the Somali regime in Mogadishu.

At present the so-called Ogaden Nation Liberation Front (ONLF) is also sponsored and supported by all western intelligent services spear headed by CIA and MI6. It is not for democracy and the rule of law but for ethnocracy and abuse individual of human rights. Its bureau and self elected and nominated leaders are residing in western metropolis. The leader of the organization are working hand in hand with all foreigners who were and are anti-Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, culture, civilization and long history in the heart of Africa in the Nile valley.

Long live Ethiopia and Ethiopianism!!

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The writer can be reached at ayomomina@yahoo.co.uk

 

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