Fact 3
“In 1843 Sahle Sellasie went on one of the predatory raids, he
usually conducted twice and often three times a year, into the
Tuulama Oromo territory bordering on the kingdom of Shawa.
Major W.C. Harris, who was sent on a diplomatic mission,
leading a British delegation, to Shawa and followed Sahle
Sellasie on several of his raiding expeditions against the Oromo
during the 18 months he stayed in the country, reported what he
witnessed in his book The Highlands of Aethiopia (1844, Vols. I-
III) …
“‘Hundreds of cattle grazed in tempting herds over the flowery
meads [meadows]. Unconscious of danger, the unarmed
husband man [herdsman] pursued his peaceful occupation in the
field;his wife and children carolled blithely over their ordinary
household avocations; and the ascending sun shone bright on
smiling valleys, which, long before his going down, were left
tenanted [occupied] only by the wolf and the vulture.’
“Harris noted that, after conferring for a while with an Orthodox
priest acting as his father confessor, Sahle Sellasie ordered the
expectant army to ‘carry fire and sword through the land.” What
followed was exactly what the king ordered his forces to do.
“‘Rolling on like the mighty waves of the ocean, down poured the
Amhára host among the rich glades and rural hamlets, at the
heels of the flying inhabitants—tramping under foot the fields of
the ripening corn, in parts half reaped, and sweeping before
them the vast herds of cattle which grazed untended in every
direction. When far beyond the range of vision, their destructive
progress was still marked by the red flames that burst forth in
turn from the thatched roofs of each village; and the havoc
committed many miles to the right by the division of Abagáz
Maretch, who was advancing parallel to the main body, and had
been reinforced by the detachment under Ayto Shishigo, became
equally manifest in numerous columns of whites moke, towering
upwards to the azure firmament in rapid succession.'”
(Source: Mekuria Bulcha; ‘ A Decade after the Aborted Oromo
Eviction from Finfinnee: A Persistent Story of Expropriation,
Humiliation & Displacement ,’ 2013 – quoting W. C. Harris’ book
‘The Highlands of Aethiopia (1844, Vols.I-III),’ Vol. II (pp.
185-198))
Fact 4
What Tedla Haile, who was a Minister of Education, proposed
in the late 1920’s, as it was quoted in Bahru Zewde’s Pioneers
of Change, :
“Tedla goes back to classical Rome to demonstrate how the
army has always been a factor for assimilation, be it through the
intermarriage of garrison troops with local women or the
recruitment of subjects people into the imperial arm. Likewise,
all other facts of government policy – administration, justice,
economic organization – should be regulated by the policy of
assimilation. Provincial boundaries need to be redrawn to
facilitate the policy. Oromo numerical predominance in the
southern provinces should be tempered by a policy of Amhara
settlement. Tigreans too should be encouraged to settle in the
southern provinces, as they are great assimilator by virtue of
their religious fervour and their inherent weakness in learning
non-semtic language.” (Source: Bahru Zewde; ‘Pioneers of
Change,’ 2002 (pp. 132-133))
Fact 5
The introduction of the Ethiopian Constitution of 1931 reads as
follows (emphases below are mine to show the two classes of
citizenship in the Ethiopian Empire; the first-class citizens are
the ‘natives’ while the second-class citizens are the
‘subjects.’)
Chapter I
The Ethiopian Empire and the Succession to the Throne
Art. 1. The territory of Ethiopia, in its entirety, is, from one end
to the other, subject to the government of His Majesty the
Emperor. All the natives of Ethiopia, subjects of the empire, form
together the Ethiopian Empire.
(Source: The Ethiopian Constitution of 1931 )
Dec 06, 2020