What unites us is more durable than what divide us.

The long history of Ethiopia has been challenged by the Woyane and its leader Mr. Zeanawi. He has made Ethiopia landlocked by giving away Ethiopian coastal and maritime territories and interests. That constitutes treason of the worst kind. He has taken part of Gondar and Welo, and has murdered several families and individuals in order to annex those regions to Tigrey. That is genocide committed against Ethiopians by the Woyane and their leaders including Mr. Zeanwi. He has invented an Oromia State making several Oromos fight for the purposes of that invention, and has pitted them against the multitude of Ethiopians that belong to other linguistic groups. He has invaded Somalia to increase the ire of all Muslims within and outside of Ethiopia so that the name Ethiopia would be hated by them. He has imprisoned the leaders of Ethiopia after the May 15, 2005 elections and thereby has showed that he will not surrender power to the will of the Ethiopian people. Since his activities are financially supported by the USA administration, some have suggested that Mr. Zenawi and his financier the American government have brought more havoc to Ethiopia in the 21^st century than had Ahmed Gragn and the Ottoman Empire in the 16^th century. Irrespective of the role taken by the USA, the Woyane and their leader Mr. Zenawi are deadly and sworn enemies against all Ethiopians. Accordingly, opposition to Mr. Zenawi and the Woyane and the actions that they had taken on behalf of Ethiopia are the unifying causes of all Ethiopians.

The enemy of Ethiopia, the Woyane and their leader Mr. Zanwi, were confronted with bare hands by Kinijit, which was led by seasoned, highly experienced and educated Ethiopians. The Kinijit galvanized the Ethiopian public by seeking non-violent means of struggle and by championing a non-ethnic-based politics. The ruthless Woyane imprisoned the elected leaders of Ethiopia who were unarmed and were peacefully expressing their mandate from the people in Addis Ababa . Clearly, the Woyane have presented to Ethiopians the condition that they may be removed only by means of armed struggle. It is likely that Ethiopians will rise to that challenge and will remove the Woyane that way. However, the non-violent Kinijit struggle would still have potency. Unfortunately the potent non-violent Kinijit movement is facing serious problems from the leadership in the Diaspora as well as from the Woyane and its financiers. Unlike the seasoned and experienced Kinijit leaders who are imprisoned in Kaliti, those in the leadership position in the Diaspora leave much to be desired. Some of the leaders do not subscribe to simple and basic precepts of democracy. They acquire leadership to the democratic movement without being elected to that position. Others in the leadership form alliances without the rank and file having been apprised of the alliance. The net result of the work of some of the leaders in the Diaspora is to cause friction within the body of Kinijit. Add to this the work of the Woyane and its financiers who had divided Kinijit within Ethiopia, and we have a non-violent movement which is under severe stress. Yet, Kinijit can survive if the majority of its subscribers want it to. However, before the multitude flock to Kinijit again, a few Kinijitians would have to do the right thing, namely they have to attempt to right the wrong committed by the Diaspora leadership.

As the old adage has it, a people deserve their leaders. Those in the Diaspora deserve the Diaspora leadership. The Kinijit support chapters in the Diaspora ought to know that they have the right to elect their executive committee. If they fail to do so the mistake is theirs, and they should not turn around and blame their leaders. For example, representatives of Kinijit support chapters in the USA had met in January, March, July and then August. They have met a total of four times, and each time they never elected leaders from among them to run their meetings. They never elected their own term chairperson, treasurer, secretary, etc. The meetings were managed by a group of individuals who are appointed leaders, and lately by a group which says that they have been appointed to be Kinijit International Leaders (KIL). The Diaspora leadership has perpetuated itself and has thus created a little history for itself, which will cause some people to support it. Consequently, the KIL should be left to operate as it sees fit, while the democratic Kinijit movement should elect its own executive committee. There is no need to antagonize the KIL. Let it be. However, the democratic Kinijit support units should be unafraid of themselves and should have the courage to elect individuals as their leaders.

Another major problem created by the Diaspora leadership is the so-called alliance (AFD) entered between the Kinijt and some ethnic-centered political entities such as the OLF. The Diaspora leadership entered into that alliance on behalf of Kinijit Ethiopia. Yet, the practices by Kinijit Ethiopia, and the written documents of Kinijt Ethiopia are at odds with the actions taken by the Kinijit-Diaspora leadership. As a non-violent movement Kinijit has nothing to hide from friends and foes. Kinijit Ethiopia always engaged the populous and went through several discussions before it took actions. In contrast to the well-established Kinijitian practice, the Diaspora leadership was secretive about the so-called alliance until it brought it to the fore in June. Certain “favored” individual were given a so-called heads-up indicating that Kinijit is talking with the OLF but without sharing the content of the agreements. That ploy was apparently taken to “buy” the support of such “favored” individuals into supporting the alliance regardless of its content.

Several results, some positive many negative derive from the AFD. On the positive side, since many do not read the content of the alliance, all that they perceive out of the alliance would be that the Amhara and the Oromo are now working together. That will send chills down the cursed spines of the Woyane and bring joy to all Ethiopians. On the negative side, there are many problems in the AFD alliance. The first problem is that the alliance does not set out to do any recognizable, knowable and doable activity. The only thing it purports to want to do is to call for a national conference. Unfortunately, the documents (the so-called Memorandum of Understanding -MOU, and Statutes) do not indicate what was wrong with the first National Conference of 1991 in which the OLF, the EPLF-TPLF/EPRDF and others had participated. The other major points mentioned in the documents include language, constitution, friendship with neighbors, and respecting the politics of member parties, all of which are issues that ought to be left for the people of Ethiopia to determine. Because of the irrelevancy and ill-defined nature of the documents of the alliance foes can point to anything in the document and hold it as an affront to them, and friends might read into them materials that have not been stated at all.

Some had hoped that the alliance would be a rallying cause around which Ethiopians including OLFite Oromos could discuss among each other and explore their Ethiopian-ness. Some people had reported to me that such indeed has occurred at some conferences. However, at called conference where Diaspora Kinijit leadership had been sent to provide rationale for the alliance the report received is one of utter disgust at the inability of the delegates who seem to be unable to share anything worth hearing, whereas the OLF delegates hit the points for their brand of ethnic–centered politics. Some possible solutions are quite apparent. One of this is that Kinijit should rescind the MOU and Statutes, and agree with the other AFD members to work for the release of political prisoners from the Woyane jails. The other is for Kinijit to send Ethiopians other than those in the Kinijit leadership to address unifying causes such as the desirability of all Ethiopians to work in unison, and to cast the alliance in that light. Meanwhile Kinijitians should work on Kinijtian projects of helping and supporting Kinijit Ethiopia.

Before, I close I want to underscore how wonderfully Ethiopians of all parties worked in unison to deny audience to Zenawi’s messenger, Ato Adissu, to the USA in August, 2006. Demonstrations were organized and acted upon by individuals of all parties and others that did not belong to any party. The unifying cause was an aversion to the despicable effort by the Zenawi’s messenger to divide Ethiopians along ethnic lines, by pretending to speak to one ethnic-group only. Zenawi sent a shameless messenger, and his message was rejected. We must learn from that united effort. The lessen we abstarct is how Ethiopians respond favorably when they work for the casue of Ethiopia instead of for the glory of any party or party leaders.

HG; 9/3/06