By Kaafi Y. Ali
The myth of “Ethiopia rising“-which is designed to mask widespread human rights abuses-is falling apart. This was confirmed recently by a new report by Human Rights Watch about the largely peaceful Oromo protests which indicates that over 400 people have been killed, thousands injured, tens of thousands arrested, and hundreds have been victims of enforced disappearances. This systematic and official violence is not only against the Oromo people. For the past three decades, Ethiopia’s repressive policy has been felt in almost every household of the Somali region. To camouflage the oppression, Ethiopian government adopted a misleading and ostensible development narrative in the region.
Development narrative is both a perplexed and largely misunderstood subject. Throughout the region, designated as development issues, thousands were killed, humiliated and their belongings confiscated without due process of the law. As such, inequality has aggravatingly grown so fast that it paved the way for the poorest of the poor in society to become even more vulnerable, disadvantaged and neglected.
Scrutiny of the politicized development narrative shows an in-depth rotten corruptive behavior, inefficiency and close-mindedness, which has a long lasting negative effect on the region in the years to come. The leadership that steers to this destination is an inept, incapable and less educated class of aficionados. Selection process of the group is neither based on the will of the people and merit nor qualification and representation, but on the basis of their unreserved loyalty to the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
What is more worrying is not necessarily how these folks came on to the stage, but the intention of TPLF which is to supersede the traditional communal leaders and knowledgeable intellectuals who had a clear perspective on development and administrative issues of the region. Similarly, the development narrative in the region lacks comprehensible prioritization. Thus, it surfaced not only as a cliché ridden mantra, but also as a new tool of marginalization-to bury the inevitable rights of the people. More importantly, because it was made by an authoritarian government, the speed does not respond to pressing problems, needed solutions or growth on the ground.
A series of mishaps led Somalis under Ethiopian rule to become vulnerable to development narrative adopted by the Ethiopia’s current regime. Historical marginalization of the region is a major contributor to the unquestioned current development narrative spearheaded by the regime.
Development Camouflaging Oppression
The atrocities committed by TPLF against Somali-Ethiopians have been rampant, since TPLF consolidated its power in the center. For Somali-Ethiopians of my generation under TPLF rule (those in their early thirties), we have known nothing but gruesome disappearances, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions and forced relocations across the region.
On the 5th of June 2016, in Jaamac Dubad village near Gaashaamo, Ethiopian Liyu Police wantonly massacred over 25 civilians. The massacre that took place in Jaamac Dubad, however, is neither an isolated nor the worst trauma to be carried out by the Ethiopian security forces. However, the incident in Jaamac Dubad taught us a powerful lesson: the focus of the massacre is not only on the center and a particular Somali tribe in the region, but Somali tribes and members of extended family living in either side of the imaginary boundary between Ethiopia and the Republic of Somalia are not spared from the notorious act of Liyu Police security force too. Beneath the development narrative, therefore, hides oppression, massacre, humiliation and human right abuses of unimaginable proportions.
Euphoric Welcome
In 1991 when TPLF fighters came down from the bush and mountains of Northern Ethiopia, they were received as angels from the sky who had come to liberate us from the Derg repression. However, significant number of Somalis questioned whether a soldier from the highlands of Ethiopia will ever be a real representative for our long sought grievances. Nonetheless, Somalis under the Derg oppression were euphoric and much appreciative for TPLF’s arrival. But that period of hope quickly degenerated, exposing the true face of the TPLF. We gradually discovered that they would not be the solution to our problems.
We gave the TPLF an opportunity not necessarily that we liked them as angles, but because we believed that decades of colonization by the mainly Amhara highlanders was the greatest obstacle to our collective aspirations. We believed that TPLF could at least be better-certainly not worse.
Traditional leaders and officials who served under the Derg regime have, however, been in better position–in terms of honor, decision-making and participation–than the current officials working under the TPLF government in the Somali region of Ethiopia. For instance, when a camel herder is arrested on the basis of suspicion, the then Somali officers of the Derg had the power to release him from military custody in a matter of hours. In contrast, Somali officials serving the TPLF will only do so when there is extraordinarily apparent consent of military personnel and lower-ranked security officers. Therefore, it is not surprising to argue that for Somali-Ethiopians life under the Derg regime was more respectful and better off than the TPLF. A sober analysis comparing life under the two systems has recently been provided by Ahmed Ugas Yusuf under the title: For Somali-Ethiopians, life under TPLF rule worse than DERG regime.
We now come to the conclusion that the TPLF doesn’t operate under international law or even in their own token constitution. The current politicians in the Somali region are nothing more than puppets. They don’t serve the people; instead, they are used as a tool to facilitate repression against the civilians that they claim to represent.
Kaafi Y. Ali
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