This
was my first visit to Ethiopia in 5 yrs. I took Ethiopian airline, right
away I felt home when I saw the flight attendants wearing the traditional
Ethiopian dress /zuria/. I arrived at AA international airport around 11:00AM.
For the first time in 5yrs I saw military personals carrying AK47s. To
tell you the truth I was a little scared.
I
found AA to be a lot better than I expected it. Teenagers seemed well dressed
and seriously americanized. On the other hand there were also so many homeless
folks on the streets of Addis. Most of them came from "kiflehager" like
Gondar, Gojam, and mostly of off Tigray.
After
a few weeks stay in Addis, I flew to Mekelle. It wasn’t like what I expected.
In Addis everyone talks about how Tigray has shown a serious development
in the past 10yrs. everyone in Addis thinks every resource in Ethiopia
is being taken to Tigray. There is even a famous quote that says "Tigray
Merkeb betihon nuro tsemt neber" (If tigray was a ship it would have sunk)
and also everyone talked about how much freedom tigreans have.
I
wish all those things were true. I think there is no FREEDOM in tigray
at least for the ordinary everyday people. Freedom is in Addis and it’s
surroundings.
It
is true all the key positions are held by Tigreans all over Ethio. But
how about the people of tigray, who lost their sons, daughters, uncles
etc during the struggle against the dergue regime? What are they getting
now?
Yes
now there is electricity, water, telecommunication even in the small cities
but most Tigreans can’t afford to pay for that kind of luxury. They travel
miles and miles to get water because they can’t afford to pay 5 birr a
month.
I
cant’ deny it this is in fact a serious development. But is this too much
for Tigreans after what they have went through? What did tigreans want
any way when they first started the revolution? Could it be to be the leaders
of Ethiopia or just to gain freedom? I think the whole point of the struggle
was to become free. Unfortunately, "there is no freedom in Tigray".
I
think freedom is what makes one nation great. Freedom for Tigreans in the
Diaspora and for tigreans that live in tigray has a different meaning.
For us getting a freedom means getting released or rescued from being mentally
and physically bound, or from being confined, imprisoned, etc. But for
our brothers and sisters back home freedom means being able to walk on
their streets by keeping their heads down because if they ever look up
something they can’t resist would come down on them.
Mekelle
and all south of Tigray is covered by MPs /military police/ or wopa/. Imagine
not being able to walk on the streets after 8 or 9pm with your friends.
The MPs have no mercy what’s so ever. You wouldn’t want to get on their
hand. They carry Ak47 and a short thick stick. They break up people that
walk around in groups of three or more. Talking to them back in tigrigna
is like talking to some Mexican guy in Vietnamese since they are all from
south of Ethiopia.
To
give you one example, it was around 9pm. I stayed out with my friends from
junior high and I couldn’t believe what I saw. I still can’t take those
boys out of my mind. I saw a couple of MPs beating up on two probably high
schoolers because the boys were horse playing and the MPs thought they
were drunk and fighting. They boys were severely damaged. One of the boys
lost two of his teeth and they both were bleeding allover. The sad thing
is that no one is responsible for this entire "incident" unless the boys
happen to be from a rich family or have someone from their family with
a good position on the current govt.
Another
thing is you can never talk back to a policeman. If you do it’s simple,
you get arrested! A couple of my friends and I were walking when a police
stopped us. They asked us a few questions. My friends know how the system
works so they cooperated with the police. On the other hand, I started
asking questions as to why they stopped us. My friends kept telling me
to shut up but I didn’t so we ended up going to jail and was arrested for
a few hours with out a reason.
So
what do you guys think? Would you want to live in this kind of situation?
Well our brothers and sisters are.
Tigreans
are living in a situation where they are forced to leave tigray and live
on the streets of Addis Ababa. And our ‘saviors’ are not doing anything
to make the life of tigreans easier rather they are making it worse and
worse.
The
problems in tigray seemed endless yet not as hard to solve except no one
is trying to solve it. Around Raya, which is found in south of Tigray,
officials were burring wheat that was donated by NGOs because it had expired
while in the storage room and at the same time people were starving to
death.
To
sum up my point, the struggle of our people only seems to help individuals
and families of government officials not the entire tegaru. It is sad to
say but it seems our "saviors’ have betrayed our poor nation specially
our Tigray. I am sure this wasn’t what our parents wanted when they started
the struggle. Because of TPLF leaders, tegaru are seen as poison all over
Ethiopia. My fellow tegaru be afraid what might happen to Tegaru if our
"saviors" fail and hand Ethiopia to another party. God knows what they
will do but lets please pray for our poor people and nation.
By Merrir-Rayatay