Week of 10/05/2008: Oromo's Indigenous Religion - Waaqeffannaa

(Picture: Morning Prayers to Waaqa.)

This week marks the height of the Irreechaa celebrations among Oromos across the globe. Irreechaa is a religious thanksgiving celebration. Oromo's original religion (Waaqeffennaa) considers the organization of human, spiritual and physical worlds to be interconnected phenomena, and their existences and functions are regulated by their creator, God or Waaqa.

There are three Oromo concepts that explain the organization and interconnection of human, spiritual, and physical worlds: ayaana, uuma (nature), and saffu (the ethical and moral code). Through each person's ayaana (spiritual connection), Waaqa acts in the person's life. Uuma includes everything created by Waaqa, including ayaana. Saffu is a moral and ethical code that Oromos use to differentiate bad from good and wrong from right. The Oromo religious institution is called the qallu; the qallu is the center of the Oromo religious view. Qallu leaders traditionally played important religious roles in Oromo society. Source: Waaqa.org

Week of 09/28/2008: To Boycott TPLF's Ethiopia or Not To Boycott? - Picture: A 1981 clip of newspaper reporting on a TPLF's call for boycott (TPLF was then a Marxist rebel group fighting against the socialist-military Ethiopian regime (Derg)) - 02/03/1981 - Daily Collegian, Penn State.

The Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the group of individuals that control the economic and political power of the Ethiopian empire, found itself on the other side of history when it seized power in 1991 from the ousted military regime, Derg. Even though a new era dawned in the Empire when a coalition of political groups, including the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), set up the Transitional Government in the summer of 1991, the promise for a brand-new Ethiopia crumbled when the TPLF group forced OLF out of the government in 1992.

Since then, the TPLF one-party government has managed to control all aspects of the economic and political power in the country. What used to be "public properties" during the Derg regime are now "party properties" of TPLF; TPLF has created business companies (collectively named EFFORT) that essentially took possession of the previous regime's "public properties" and turned them into "party properties." Today, in an economy where the TPLF-owned and TPLF-affiliated business companies control much of the wealth of the empire, the inflation rate is estimated to be more than 30%.

In the political front, the TPLF one-party government has set up "political subsidiaries" in order to make it seem that the government is of multi-party system. Collectively known as "EPRDF" (Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front), the TPLF-owned political groups include Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO) and the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), created by TPLF to represent Ethiopia's two largest ethnic groups. Whenever there were opportunities for political change, TPLF has resorted to brute forces to squash opposition groups and its own dissents. Today, the TPLF government is involved in various conflicts in the Horn of Africa, including the war in Somalia, a bitter border confrontation with Eritrea, and self-defense armed resistances of OLF & ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front).

Just like TPLF called for a boycott against Derg in 1981, in 2008 there is an active grassroots-level call for boycott of products and services from TPLF-owned and TPLF-affiliated business companies, which are responsible for the price hikes in Ethiopia by the mere fact that they control almost all of the wealth of the country. Read about the boycott call here.

Week of 09/21/2008: Renaissance or Deja Vu? - Pictures: On the left is the newly Woyane-built Blue Nile Gorge bridge called "Renaissance Bridge"; on the right is the original Blue Nile Gorge bridge built by the Italians during their brief occupation of the Ethiopian empire in the 1930's.

What's similar about these two bridges is not only their locations, but also their intentions. The Italians occupied the Ethiopian empire for 5 years starting in 1936. Immediately after they had seized this Horn of African country, they started an infrastructure-building frenzy. Almost all of the current roads and buildings of the Ethiopian empire were built by the Italians during that 5-year occupation. Their intention was not to help the peoples of Ethiopia, but to facilitate routes for their colonial loots.

About 70 years later, the Woyane colonialists now ruling over the Ethiopian empire have built yet another route for their loots. The Woyane ruling elites are selling their colonial scheme as "renaissance", but it should have been a "Deja Vu" moment as the peoples of Ethiopia had been there; the colonialists were never successful then, and they will not be successful this time around. Building bridges and roads is not a sign of democracy; come on, the British had the grand plan of building a railroad from Cape Town to Cairo, and democratizing the regions from Cape Town to Cairo was never what they had on their minds.

Instead of building escape routes for colonial loots, the government should have first provided basic needs to the peoples of Ethiopia. A fair government committed to human rights does not let its citizens starve until they surrender to its demands; a fair government committed to human rights does not pull out the plug on the only television station in Afaan Oromoo (by the way, the Woyane government took away Oromo's right to broadcast TV in Afaan Oromoo; the Italians were the ones who allowed the first radio broadcast in Afaan Oromoo during their occupation --- you be the judge), a fair government committed to human rights does not imprison its citizens because of their political views, and building a bridge to facilitate colonial repression does not make a government fair. The new bridge does not change the relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor.

Woyane Built Bridge (Blue Nile Gorge)	Italian Built Bridge (Blue Nile Gorge)

Week of 09/14/2008: The Audacity of Tyranny - Picture: During a drive from Dembi-Dollo, Oromia, to Gambella, vehicles are searched by government security forces without judicial warrants (driver and car license plate are hidden for obvious reasons). Away from the glitz and glitter of Finfinne (Addis Ababa), such human rights abuses by the government are never reported in the mainstream media even though these abuses are rampant. Just a couple of days ago, the government "announced" the pardon of close to 5,000 prisoners in the Oromiyaa region of Ethiopia. The government has the audacity of tyranny to announce the release of 5,000 prisoners of conscience after continually denying the existence of such prisoners. Why were these innocent civilians jailed in the first place? It is documented that Oromo prisoners of conscience constitute close to 85% of Ethiopia's largest prison (a.k.a. Qallitti concentration camp).

Week of 09/07/2008: People in the News - During a visit on August 30th, 2006 to a temporary tent settlement for people displaced by the 2006 floods in Dire Dawa, Oxfam America's Regional Director Abera Tola met with U.S Senator Barack Obama. The Senator was on a 15-day trip to Africa where he visited South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Chad. Recently, Abera Tola (himself a former OLF executive) was in the news alleging Tola and two other members of a mediation team met with executives of the two centrist OLF factions on behalf of the regime in Finfinne (Addis Ababa).

Previously featured "Picture of the Week"

Picture of the Week (Week of August 31st, 2008) -- In the first ever demonstration of freedom of speech since the dawn of colonization over Oromia, thousands of Oromo rallied in support of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) while OLF was part of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) in the early 1990's in Finfinne (Addis Ababa). Shortly thereafter, alarmed by this and other popular support of OLF throughout Oromia, the Meles-led TPLF/TGE forced OLF out of the peaceful political process.