A High-Tech Lynching

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Aklilu Abreha
Mar 29, 2006

In the American experience, an act of terror known as lynching was used as a means to spread fear among blacks, and served a purpose of maintaining white supremacy in the economic, social and political quarters. In the 19th and 20th centuries, lynching took place most frequently at the hands of a white ruling class resulting in the hanging, mutilation, and death of many African Americans living in the American Southern states.

During the last few decades, while lynching of the old type has been outlawed, the practice has transformed into a new equally devastating form. This new form of lynching uses mass media to accomplish what is commonly referred to as “hi-tech lynching.”

Just to cite an example, in 1991, Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court, decided to retire. Throughout his life, Justice Marshall epitomized an ideal of leadership in the legal fight for Civil Rights. In the 1950s, then lawyer Marshall led the historic lawsuit against racial segregation in what is commonly knows as the Brown vs. the Board of Education case. The lawsuit sought to eliminate the “Jim Crow” policy of separate but equal public schools. Justice Marshall successfully argued the case, and in May 1954, the Supreme Court Justices ruled that separate Black and White educational facilities were unconstitutional.

When Justice Marshall decided to retire, Republican President George Bush was in the White House and his replacement choice was Clarence Thomas, a then forty-three year old, conservative, African-American from Pinpoint, Georgia. President Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas was instantly controversial. Many African-American and Civil Rights organizations opposed the Thomas nomination. Despite these voices of dissent, the Thomas nomination was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings, and it immediately attracted the nation’s attention when Anita Hill, an African American law professor at the University of Oklahoma, came forward with accusations that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her. Apparently, the incident took place years earlier when Anita Hill worked for Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

For several weeks, media frenzy followed and her allegations became headline news on all forms of mass media. When Justice Thomas was called on to testify about the allegation before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he characterized the Senate hearings as "a high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks." The incident became his word against hers, but in the end, the Senate voted 52-48 to confirm Clarence Thomas as associate justice of the Supreme Court.

By the same token, within the Ethiopian Diaspora CUD leadership, this type of modern day lynching, with the ubiquitous internet serving as the hanging rope, executing individuals with a non-conformist view has become the norm, not the exception. Hurling insults of thug-life proportion and character assassination has become common place. Nothing is sacred anymore, family members, particularly vulnerable mothers, are targeted as fair game. It seems like the first paragraph in the opposition political leadership training manual is to blame the messenger, his mother and grand mother for the message, and not to look at the content of the message itself.

The behavior seems to have permeated into the community at large as well. Instead of using the internet and other public mediums to inform and educate each other, the Ethiopian Diaspora community, who has been fortunate enough to have unrestricted access, has been using it to defame individuals and discredit viable ideas. Instead of thriving in the rich tradition and high moral values we inherited from our homeland, the Diaspora community appears to have become a cultural nomad community that suffers unprecedented moral degeneration. By some twisted fate, somehow, the Western democracy has evolved us into thugs whose deceit and misrepresentation knows no bounds as long as support for the opposition political objective is guaranteed.

I am not sure if you had a chance to read an article written by a certain “Amoraw Ferede” purportedly to know my true identity. It was posted, albeit for a brief moment, on nazret.com and subsequently removed before me and many others had a chance to fully digest it. When I sent out an e-mail inquiring as to why it was made a headline news item and then hastily removed, the site admin informed me that the article was removed because it was found to be “tasteless.” I would have liked it to remain posted so that Ethiopians can see for themselves the kind of mentality that is pervasive and prevalent within the CUD leadership.

Had you had a chance to read it, and I am sure some already have, the writer of “who is Aklilu Abreha” would have you believed that I have been hiding my true identity. Nothing can be further from the truth, those who have read my articles are well aware that one need not be a private investigator or a welfare recipient with idle time to waste to figure out the real “Akilu Abreha.” I have, time and again, met and engaged Ethiopians in discussion; I have personally walked around Ethiopian business neighborhoods and distributed my articles; I even went further and asked people to send me an e-mail so that we can make an arrangement to meet at a place of our mutual choice. I have even volunteered to cover all expenses incurred.

Detective Amoraw would have done himself a favor if he would have just dropped me an e-mail. I know he would not dare, because, to begin with, I do not think Mr. Amoraw Ferede is a Gonderie, let alone a “son of a patriot” Gonderie.

Mr. Amoraw also proceeded to called me YeBuna Bet Lij and not worth an iota of credibility. He should have known that it was YeBuna Bet, YeTella Bet, YeAreki Bet, and YeTej Bet Lijoch of Gondar who were the rank and file members of EPRP; who enlisted in the Ethiopian army in mass to protect our territorial integrity; who were murdered by him and his Derg friends. It is the mother’s of those children who lost their only sons and daughters and are now left poor and destitute without a helping-hand in their old age. He should have known that it is neither his children nor the children of his royal friends who died and who are dying now; it was and still is YeBuna Bet Lijoch who are going out and dying to put him and his elitist friends in power.

The elitist Amoraw and his friends have it in their design to reign supreme over us by keeping us in-check. All they need to do is keep reminding us that we are YeBuna Bet Lijoch and we are not deserving of a voice in the affairs of Ethiopia. Our citizenry duty is just to praise their lordship and follow blindly their uppity, rich, educated leadership to the slaughter house. We are just to march forward, no questions asked, while they repeatedly sing for us praises of patriotism, like a broken record, recalling Atse Tewodros and Atse Fasil over and over again.

Well, I have news for him, those days are long gone. We will ask question why, for whom, by whom, for what, and when. And that is not all; we will, at the same time, work hard to open more schools and other institutions so that the future generation is afforded better opportunities. We will deprive him and others like him of the means to demonize our little brothers and sisters as YeBuna Bet Lijoch.

Mr. Amoraw dragged my beloved mother in to this as well. If only he knew her. If he only knew how she raised me and my five sisters in a one room house where half of it served as a Buna Bet and the other half served as our family home with a single bed for all the family. If he only knew how many nights I spent sleeping in our neighbor’s car because the single bed was not enough for all of us. That is the only business and home my family had for the last 35 years. And that is the house he spoke of when he said I got “permit to run a house with his sister.”

As for my mom’s politics, if he only knew how much I argue with her every week to persuade her not to blindly support Kinijit. If only he knew how much I fight with all my family in Gondar and here in America because of their unrelenting support for Kinijit. If he only knew, he would have been careful not to loose their and other Buna Bet family’s support.

Now that he has insulted all my family and my relatives all over Debretabor including Farta, Hamus Wonz, Zequin, Gelawdios, Dera, Hamusit, Anbesamie, by calling them Bands, I am forced to recount for him my maternal noble Bege Meder family:

My maternal grand mother side:

Altash Hailu (sister of Bitwoded Tedla Hailu) – Fitawrari Abebe Gered – Yeshiareg Abebe –Alemanch Belay (my grand mother) -Tewoda Gebeyehu (my mother).

My maternal grand father side:

Alitash Derar - Dejazmach Yimer- Fitawrari Tessema Yimer- Fitawrari Gebeyehu Tessema (my grand father) – Tewoda Gebeyehu (my mother)

Zhantilal Derar-Dinkitu Derar-Zhantilal Ali Boru - Zhantilal Asfaw-Etigae Memen Asfaw(wife of King Haile Sellasie)

As he can see here, the great great grand father of Etigae Menen, Zhantilal Derar, and my mother’s great great grand mother, Alitash Derar, are siblings. I will stand corrected if royal family tree experts were to find my information erroneous. I have recounted my family tree to the best of my recollection.

My maternal grand mother only came to Gondar once in her life to visit me when I was 4 or 5 years old, God rest her soul. But Mr. Amoraw called her a prostitute who serviced the Italians in Gondar. He could not have been more mistaken. My maternal grand mother’s husband, Fitawrari Gebeyehu Tessema, was a famous warrior of Bege Meder. I am proud of him, legend has it that he was a fierce warrior and an extremely generous individual. I haven’t collected it yet, but I have been told that he has left me, his favorite grand child, a riffle and a gold cloak at the church he built in Gelawdios.

Mr. Amoraw had the audacity to call me Mekonnen X. If only my father can witness this blasphemy. That is also what gave me a clue that Amoraw didn’t even know Gondar let alone to know me personally. As I have said in my articles, I estimated, at a minimum, more than half of Gonderies in North America know who I am. All he had to do was just ask around. They know that I am a son of a poor Sergeant who served in the police force for more than 30 years. He came all the way from Semien Ambaras and joined the police force in Debarq. He was first stationed in Dera Anbesamie, Debretabor where he met and married my mother. My father himself is the son of a poor peasant from Semien Ambaras. But my Noble Bege Meder grand parents were progressive enough to let him marry their daughter. I was a first born and before I turned two years old, my father was ordered to go and serve in Ogaden, Eastern Ethiopia. He brought my mother and me to Gondar and left us there for 10 long years, because, back then soldiers were not allowed to take their wives with them to Ogaden.

My father is a smart and a dedicated Ethiopian who served his country very well. Sadly however, because he was a Gonderie, and despite taking the promotion exams so many times, he was never promoted past a rank of a Sergeant. He always resented the police force for allowing individuals from Addis Ababa with less experience, skills, and service times get promoted and become his bosses. He finally took early retirement, and you will find him alive and kicking in Gondar.

In his futile attempt to make me look like a hired gun, Amoraw mentioned that I went to Ethiopia and stayed there for a long time and met with government officials. I have said that I went to Ethiopia three times in 21 years, and I have never spent more than four weeks in Ethiopia. I can show anyone a copy of my passport which has the entry and exit visas clearly stamped on it. My occupation does not allow me to take more that three weeks vacation per year, that is including personal holidays. Just so he knows. I do not think I would take a job with the Ethiopian government because I do not think the benefit package would appeal to me. I wonder if Ethiopian government appointment allows taking a vacation at all. I have never heard the Ethiopia Prime Minister taking a working vacation, you know, just like President Bush working out of his ranch in Crawford, TX. Here in America, we see President Bush taking several vacations a year, and some of them are longer than a month. Has Mr. Meles taken a single vacation in over 14 years?

Amoraw further insinuated that I may be a paid agent. I do not like to brag, but he got me in to it. I am not an embezzler Parking Attendant, nor am I a tax evader working at a business where most of it is conducted with hard currency. Every penny I earned is verified and documented. For anyone interested, as I said before, I can show my last ten year tax returns and Bank account activity. My lawyer has copies printed and ready. As one of my dear friend commented, my pay check has so many zeros one will want to use as a bath towel. I have a nice retirement nest egg as well. I have nothing to hide. Ask me and I will show you. You know, I wonder, does anyone of his leaders and friends can say the same thing about their income and accumulated wealth?

Amoraw also talked about a “free land” I was given by EPRDF. It was not mine and it is my mothers. She had to go to Mazegaja Bet every day for two years to get a chance to buy a land that was offered at the public auction. He can go to Gondar Municipality Office and ask how much she paid for that piece of land. For my family, poor Gonderies over and over, for me born from Begemeder and Semien families, what is it that he found sinister to own a piece of land in Gondar? Why would he even stoop down and accuse me of selling-out? Would he sell-out the safety of his people and the national interest of his country for a piece of land? What makes him think I would?

I do not think he knows the real exuberant Aklilu Abreha either. The real Aklilu Abreha is a person who is known to his friends as “Gosh Gondar.” His friends and others who know him usually refer to him as “Gonderiew.” If anything, Aklilu is accused of superiority complex. Not inferiority complex as he alleged. To my own detriment, I am embarrassed to admit, I suffer from an annoying overconfidence. As a kid in Junior Highschool, sneaking into the Cinema Bar movie theatre, crawling under the toilet room door, I use to sit among the Piazza Lijoch and translate the subtitles of the Indian movies for them. Ask all my friends from Gondar to Sudan to America and they will tell him how not only I learned to speak Arabic in short six months, but I was able to read and write it as well. They will tell him, if he were to ask them, for the first time in my life, how I befriended refugees from other parts of Ethiopia, including those from Eritrea while I was in the Sudan. I remember we had former ELF fighter neighbors in Jiref Sheta, Khartoum, at an apartment complex known as the “White House.” Even then, I was tolerant enough to engage those Eritreans and listened to their grievances, debated the independence issue, read English stories and translated it to Arabic for them, and in return, they thought me how to speak Tigrinya. I am forever grateful to them. One day during Ramadan - the Moslem holy fasting month – when I almost lost my sanity because of advanced stage Malaria, those Eritreans walked miles, begged the Sudanese pharmacy owner to sell them some tablets and got the much needed medication for me. That is how the Eritreans saved my life. I would have been one of the lost Gonderie just like others who perished in the Sudan. That is where I started to learn to tolerate differences. That is where I learned to empathize. That is when I became a true Ethiopian and started loving all people equally. That is when I shaked-off that a bully, know-it-all, chauvinistic Amara attitude. He should try it sometime. He will be surprised at how it changes his life. He needs to learn to speak other languages and befriend people outside of his immediate ethnic members. That is when he can fully understand the problem our country and our people are up against.

I am sorry I had to waste time at this juvenile and fruitless exercise. I understand you, the reader, and I would prefer to do other better things with our precious time. But I felt I had to respond to show him I am not ashamed and I cannot be intimidated.

As I have said time and again, I have nothing to hide and I have no hidden agenda. I only have what I believe to be an important mission: I won’t let my people of Gondar be used as cannon fodders again. I will do what ever I can to put a stop to our exploitation by the Central Highlanders. If my people choose not to listen to me, then at least I will sleep peacefully knowing that I have done my duty to inform them of the consequences.

No amount of hearsay and intimidation will stop me from fulfilling my mission. And I hope the other Gonderies who have heard my message learn a lesson and speak their mind and not be intimidated. We are the poor children of Gondar who died defending Ethiopia for millenniums but never benefited from it. It is us, the grand and great grand children of those patriotic Gonderies who are being called Ye Buna Bet Lijoch when we dared to ask question and voice our opinion. We should work tirelessly so that these types of labels are not given to our little brothers and sister who are growing up in Gondar. Let us work together to afford them better opportunities.

I would be lying if I were to tell you I did not get hurt. I cried when I read his profanity directed at my mother and my grand mother. I would have tolerated him if he insulted the day light out of me. I tell you, my fellow Ethiopians, I went through several iterations of this response to get back to him as well. But you know, I thought better of it; I decided to be the better person and have the moral high ground; I wanted him to learn ethics and manners from Ye Buna Bet Lij.

In conclusion, I tell you, I like the repercussion of Amoraw Ferede’s article to be the increased involvement of Gonderies with dissenting voice in politics. I like his article to act as a flash light that illuminated the aloofness of the opposition leaders who are aspiring to lead Ethiopia. Years from now, and looking in retrospect, I like Amoraw’s article to be remembered as one that sparked more debate about the interest of Gondar and the future of Ethiopia. I like his article to increase awareness of what is at stake in Ethiopia in general and Gondar in particular. My brothers, in my opinion, the economic viability our region and the future proud existence of our brothers and sisters is threatened. Let us work together to vanquish this threat.

God bless Ye Buna Bet Lijoch and give them wisdom to speak for the poor Ethiopians.

I can be reached at dnasmara1@yahoo.com

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