Tedla Asfaw
I heard Washera on Ben's Internet radio posted on www.ethiopiafirst saying that the right to speak our birth language is a right our people got for the first time after TPLF came to power sixteen years ago. My father speaks Oromoifa and his mother tongue Amharic while my mother speaks Somali, Oromifa and her mother tongue Amharic.
No one told them which language to learn and use to go on their lives and to give credit for TPLF is absurd because my family learnt these languages long before TPLF went to bush to take power from Mengistu Hailemariam.
This is true for most Ethiopians and what TPLF did is that it exploited the language differences like the former fascist, Italy in its short occupation of Ethiopia to control Ethiopia by organizing language based "control zones".
The majority of Oromos support OLF not OPDO, the Oromo control zones of TPLF and ONLF is widely supported by Ethiopian Somalis and if we had believed Ato Washera why do these movements fight TPLF who gave them for the "first time to speak in their own language".
TPLF has no new philosophy in ruling Ethiopia like Washera is alleging. It is an elite Tigrayans click which has monopoly on Tigreans and rule the rest of Ethiopia/control zones by brute force. It controls the economy of Ethiopia by its own companies that were looted from the Ethiopian people and exploited 9/11 and brutally ruling Ethiopia with the help of USA and UK. This is hardly a new philosophy.
Washera has the right to support TPLF and worship his beloved leader/philosopher, Melese Zenawi, and respect our right to hold him accountable for what he has been doing for the last sixteen years.
Ethiopians in America are very critical of the USA policy and picking on Dr. Taye and accusing him of as a leader who preach the "USA and the West conspiracy against Ethiopia" is a smear campaign to show him as a bad guy in front of USA policy makers.
Whoever comes to power in USA in January 2009 we will put him or her on spot light regarding its Ethiopian policy and the diaspora Ethiopians will expose and fight the coming administration if they continue on the failed Clinton and Bush policy that finance and arm TPLF and force our people to live in deep poverty.
