Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
March 18, 2007
As the Horn of Africa situation deteriorates and is about to become an Islamic Terror avalanche from Somalia to Mauritania, we find necessary to offer space to Oromo political leaders, who are the only guarantee for the West in the explosive volcano Abyssinia.
The paranoid dictator Meles Zenawi launched a supposedly anti-Islamist expedition to Somalia last December and January, and the result has been so far detrimental to all the African peoples who aspire to Democracy, Freedom and Progress, as well as to all those concerned with the Islamic Terror expansion. The deeply hated dictator proved to be good enough to generate a situation in which every oppressed people of the Horn of Africa is by now pushed to the hands of Islamist terrorists who - unhindered and calm - position themselves as ‘fighters’ for Africa’s Independence and for the end of the Western Colonialism.
To avoid an equation of the type “Islamists = African liberators”, America and Europe have to cooperate with the forbearers of African Democracy, the Gada system practicing Oromos, who make more than 40% of Abyssinia’s population and fight for independence. As the Oromo culture reflects the values of the traditional African spiritual wisdom and monotheistic religious system Waaqa, Oromos are the only sizeable African nation that has not yet been caught by the winds of religious fanaticism.
The rise of Oromos in supremacy at Finfinne (Addis Ababa) would bring forth the most effective break wave, as traditional African tolerance permeates also Christian and Muslim Oromos. Eliminating the reasons of dissatisfaction, oppression, stagnancy and misery remains the key to success in averting the East African Islamic Terror volcano that was created not by the Islamic Courts of Justice but by the Abyssinian tyranny and involvement in Somalia.
Mr. Aman Kedir Kamsare and the Front for Independence of Oromia will be among the Western World’s best interlocutors in tomorrow’s free Ethiopia that under Oromo leadership will generate great progress for the entire continent. We will publish Mr. Kamsare’s interview in two parts, the first focusing on aspects of the Abyssinian tyranny and the second referring to the present situation.
An Interview with Mr. Aman Kedir Kamsare, Vice Chairman of the Front for Independence of Oromia
- Aman, you belong to the leadership of the Front for Independence of Oromia, one of the most influential Oromo political fronts. What pushed you to get involved with politics? When did you start your political activities, and what are the aspects of your commitment to Oromia’s independence and national self-determination?
- A tremendous and shocking experience record consists in the main reason that pushed me to political involvement and activism relatively early in my life, at the age of 18.
Since my adolescence I lived in a very marked way the fact that my motherland, Oromia, and my people had fallen under the inhuman and barbaric Abyssinian colonialism. This life experience formed me and ultimately led me to the world of politics. In the beginning, it was not politics in the strict sense of the term, involving party activism; it was a real matter of survival, the ultimate choice between Life and Death.
To your surprise, my vision of an independent and prosperous Nation of Oromia does not emanate from academic analyses and university discourses. My parents were the first to instigate in my heart a real political vision; they were tragic victims of the Abyssinian colonial slavery. As a matter of fact, my mother and father played a great role in the formation of my independent political thinking. During my childhood, I experienced – immensely, strikingly and painfully - the burden of the abominable Abyssinian colonial yoke in all its ramifications: psychological, cultural, political, linguistic, and economic.
My parents were obliged to pay land rents in kind, hard labour and money, to the Abyssinian colonial nafxaynaas, who had enslaved the Oromians and our motherland by monopolizing the power of modern firearms.
When in the Primary School, I was called ‘Gallaa’ by the children of Abyssinian colonial settlers, and this term is definitely derogatory, tantamount to slave. I was looked down upon by the children of a foreign people that had invaded my country. I was despised by them because I was an Oromo, belonging particularly to the Arsi Oromo populace.
My identity as Arsi Oromo was the reason for humiliating treatment and flagrant discrimination against me during my early school life. “Shirrixaam Gaallaa” and “Shirrixaam Arusii” are the dehumanizing, insulting words that still echo in my ears. They bear witness to the unforgettable stigma and the absolute alienation that have been cast upon the Oromo people by the Abyssinian invaders, and they make me recall all the horrors of the Abyssinian colonial oppression that I experienced since those days.
Due mainly to these extreme experiences, I was left with no other choice than to choose between slavery and freedom, and to opt for either colonial domination and eternal humiliation or national dignity. It was only normal that I decided to be a free and independent person rather than a slave in the hands of Abyssinian masters. I decided to die a noble death rather than living a meaningless and humiliated life. That is why I joined the Oromo National Movement for Independence 30 years ago.
As it could be expected, my active participation in the Oromo Movement for Independence ended up with my imprisonment. I was detained for no less than 12 years without facing a trial.
In addition, I spent most of this space of time in maximum security cells. In a summarizing way, I should say that I experienced a lengthy and tortuous journey in the abyss of the Abyssinian colonial empire. It would take me months and years to narrate what the gangsters of the Abyssinian tyranny attempted in order to deprive me from my personal integrity and Oromo national pride.
- Would you introduce yourself to our readers? What is your connection to the Oromo national movements? Where have you been born? In what part of Abyssinia have you spent your childhood and adolescence? To what extent has your formation been influenced by your family background?
- I was born in Oromia, in the Arsi administrative region, in Arba Gugu province, in the Ciniinaa-Waragu village. To be honest, I do not know the exact date of my birth; this sounds strange in the Western world but it is a common story in obscurantist, backward Abyssinia. My parents were illiterate; they could not read and write; even today, Abyssinia’s miserable record of illiteracy is one of the highest in the world. I never got any written public document specifying the exact date of my birth. I personally decided on this for the first time, when I came to Norway as a bona fide political refugee with the help of Norwegian immigration office.
During my preliminary interview at the premises of the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), I was asked when I was born, and I answered ”I do not know”. The constable went on, asking me when I would like to be born. I said that I would like to be born on the day I first stepped on the soil of Norway which is January 9, 1999. It was then that real life of free human being started for me.
As a matter of fact, I was born to a destitute family who could not make ends meet. My parents were an average Oromo family of cattle-breeders. We owned a small lot of land that could not cover our life needs, and as a consequence my father was obliged to work. He was the tenant farmer of one of the fiefdoms established by Abyssinian feudal lords in the Colle district of our colonized country, Oromia.
- What are your educational background and your cultural preferences and hobbies?
- I attended the Primary School of a Catholic mission, located at the village Waragu Daka Diima, in Arba Gugu province, Gololcha district. I then continued in the Secondary School of Cholle Qulullicha, another town in the Arba Gugu province.
I then enrolled in the Finfinne University (falsely called by the Abyssinian invaders as ‘Addis Ababa University’), Bahar Dar annex. There I took Pedagogical Science and English Language and Literature. Eager to advance, I pursued my studies at a later stage, and I got a B.A. degree in Socio-linguistics from York University, Great Britain. Last year, I completed my Masters’ degree studies in African English Literature in Tromsø University, Norway. Willing to continue, I have applied for Ph.D. level studies, and I am currently seeking ways to finance my studies (grants, scholarships, etc.). For the time being, I am working as English teacher in a High School supervised by Tromsø University, Norway.
Studying, reading and writing have become my inalienable parts of myself. Books and dictionaries are my closest companions and most intimate friends. I enjoy reading books on Oromo History; I also read much about various national liberation struggles. If I happen to disappear from my buddies for some time, they all know that I must be somewhere in a library buried among books! Yet, I do not see myself as a bookish person! I need all these data, and all the detailed information I get because I want to use them as a compass to direct myself, through the correct road map, to the Independence of Oro-biyyaa (Oromo Country).
When it comes to hobbies, I like sports and gymnastics. I do exercise myself every morning. Physical exercise has therefore become part of my daily life.
- Would you give our readers an outline of your professional experience?
- I am English language teacher, and an author focused on Oromo related subjects. As I settled in Norway and learnt Norwegian, I felt obliged to break ground, to make my language known to more people, and to compile a trilingual, English-Norwegian-Oromo dictionary. I believe this helped a lot in raising global awareness and in diffusing Oromo culture at a global level. In addition, I have composed an Oromo Grammar, a book that is the first of its kind so far.
- Today how do you evaluate the presentation of the Oromos and the Oromo Ethiopian culture within the Primary and Secondary Education in Abyssinia?
- The Abyssinian rulers have been working indefatigably to eradicate the Oromo national existence and identity since the early days of the colonization of Oromia. First, they occupied our country with the help of European military might, intelligence, and financial and logistical assistance. The completion of Oromia’s occupation was followed by subsequent extensive massacres, a real genocide that still remains quasi-totally unknown by the rest of the world. It was an intentional act bearing all basic aspects of Genocide. To give you an example, during the Amhara Abyssinian invasion of Oromia (1880 - 1890), the Abyssinian army, accompanied by gangs of thugs and pillagers, perpetrated horrible acts as following: they amputated hands and breasts of Arsi-Oromos who gallantly and heroically resisted the colonial invasion, besieged in a Aanole, a great historical place.
Facing barbaric occupation forces led by Menelik II of Abyssinia, the Arsii-Oromo martyrs paid with their blood their national Oromo pride and their willingness to preserve their freedom and independence. Thus, was written at Aanole one of the bleakest moments of African History. During a single battle, around 12000 Arsii-Oromo fighters, men and women, were mercilessly murdered.
Unique mass grave of such size throughout Africa, Aanole Cenotaph is the place where 12000 people were buried collectively by the Abyssinian criminals; the act consists in one of the most abominable deeds ever carried out in Africa.
The Aanole act of ethnic cleansing is a pale competitor of many other murderous acts perpetrated by the all-committed Amhara Abyssinian invaders of Ethiopia. The Gullalle and Abbichuu Oromos in the central Oromia were met with the same anti-human attitude of the Amhara Abyssinians, who have always been an alien element in Oromia. Aged and adolescent Gullalle and Abbichuu Oromos were burned alive, locked in their homes, by the rejoicing Abyssinian invaders who wished to clear Ethiopia from its indigenous population, when trying to complete the master plan of the Abyssinian invasion.. Great Oromian Heroes like Tufa Muna and Birraatuu Gole fell in that battle, becoming the best personification of Diachronic African Soul.
The African Genocide has its own Geography; following the battle of Calii Calanqoo, in the eastern part of Oromia, extensive massacres of defenceless Oromians generated rivers of blood that testify to the real nature of the intentional murders perpetrated by the alien Abyssinian invaders.
The perpetration of Abyssinian genocide of Oromo Cushites was complimented by further acts and policies targeting the total extinction of the Oromo Cushitic Nation; these criminal deeds were cultural and linguistic of character.
Immediately after the Abyssinian invasion of Oromia, the invaders launched the Amharization project, which was part of the plan to eradicate the Oromo Cushitic National Identity. In doing so, the illiterate generals of the barbaric and obscurantist Kingdom of Abyssinia tried to destroy the Oromo Gada socio-political system, which bears witness to authentically African concepts and practices of Democracy, having nothing to envy from Pericles’ Athens.
The Amharization / Abyssinianization plan advanced in parallel with another project, namely the diffusion of the heretic, monophysitic version of Christianity among the Cushitic Oromians. This heresy has nothing in common with Western Christian denominations, and many Catholic missionaries and explorers found unmerited death in the hands of the Amhara Abyssinian heretics. Read the Catholic Encyclopaedia in www.advent.org, entry Abyssinia, and you will get an introductory picture….
As a matter of fact, they dictatorially imposed changes of thousands of toponymics, and attempted to enforce change of personal names of Oromo Cushites. To give you an idea, Biqilaa became Bekkele and Marga was turned to Eshetu.
In addition, the Abyssinian invaders and their barbaric Debteras attempted to amharize Oromo national names, names of important historical places, names of Oromo religious places and holy shrines; at the same time, they desecrated these places and sanctuaries.
Then, Finfinnee, the historical capital of Oromia, was renamed as Addis Ababa, and Bushooftu was turned to Debra Zeit; Hadaama was disfigured to Narerth, Abboomsa was transvested to Tinsae Berihan, and so on and so on.…
This is not the end of the story. The analphabetic Amhara invaders imposed tyrannically the so-called Abyssinian educational system, which is a form of perpetuating barbarism and analphabetism, Hatred for the ‘Other’, and ignorance. They try to do their best to prevent foreign scholars from reaching Gueze manuscripts, because they cannot read and understand them anymore, their tradition being mostly oral! This barbarism and targeted illiteracy they attempted to diffuse among the occupied Oromos, preaching the dictatorial concept of the supremacy of one religion, one language, and one ethnic group under the rule of the Abyssinian absolute monarchy ‘by the grace of god’.
Subsequently, they forbade the exercise of Oromiffa, the Oromo language, the Gada, the Oromo socially established system of Democracy, Waaqaa, the historical Oromo religion, an absolutely monotheistic and aniconic system of religion, and in general the Oromo culture, the Oromo way of life as a whole.
Speaking Afaan Oromo (as Oromiffa is also called), exercising Oromo ritual ceremonies, and practicing the Gada system as national institution became capital crime. They tried to physically exterminate the Oromo nation and to spiritually enslave all the survivors. In a nutshell, the Abyssinian predators and their analphabetic and barbaric bogus-Christian clergy left no stone unturned to annihilate our human essence and destroy our national identity once and for all.
They called us as they keep calling us ‘Gaallaas’, a derogatory term which means slave or cruel. This criminal project of dehumanizing, stigmatizing and obliterating our human and national existence – this ongoing African Genocide – has been intensified and carried out in a far more sophisticated way down to the present day.
The present Abyssinian educational institutions are the authentic continuation of all the tyrannical practices of the Abyssinian monarchy or Communist tyranny. From Menelik to Haile Selassie, and from Mengistu to Meles Zenawi nothing changed, except the product wrapping has been updated. Every system changes to adjust itself to a new environment; Abyssinia can hardly carry out this sort of change, and this does not pertain to the antihuman, barbaric and criminal nature of the invaders’ regime that remains untouched..
In today’s Oromia, the educational system is the regime’s key tool in promoting the ideological, cultural, social, political and economic and ideological dominance of another variant of the Abyssinian ruling elites (i.e. the Tigray ethnic groups’ ruling elite led by the anachronistic, quasi-monarch Meles Zenawi). Never forget that the Tigrays do not represent more than 12% of the country’s population! The present day educational curricula in Oromia’s primary and secondary schools are a mere photocopy of the traditional, century-long Abyssinian colonial policy.
The Abyssinian educational system is genuinely totalitarian of nature, as it inculcates in the minds of the schoolchildren a forced concept of unity that is not accepted by all the oppressed peoples of Abyssinia, and a fake idea of ‘democracy’ that involves undisputed acceptance of the regime’s bogus-historical dogma. The creators and the beneficiaries of the current educational system are the newly settled Tigray colonial class and their surrogate organizations, the PEDOs. The people at the head of educational pyramid are exclusively Amhara-Tigray debteras and their puppets. The system does not accept genuine Oromos instructors and native teachers belonging to other non-Abyssinian, oppressed peoples who would challenge the officially imposed dogma.
I saw two of my neighbours get killed - I'm not going to stay here anymore 
