Tedla Asfaw
I attended yesterday, Feb. 24, an informal gathering of New Yorkers in a round table discussion with Eng. Hailu, chairman of Kinijit, Weizero Negist, member of Supreme Council of Kinijit and KIC chairman Dr. Taye. The two hours discussion briefly touched the past six months and mostly focused on where to go from here to fulfill the promise of the Kinijt movement where all Ethiopians of different nationalities, accepting grievances from nationalities, try to build Ethiopia which is democratic and equal for her citizens.
We saw that words do not mean anything in current Ethiopia under tyranny . Article 39 of the Ethiopian "Constitution" talks about the right of nationalities and what we saw is exploiting nationalities by organizing unaccountable organizations in the name of nationalities and foment hate and suspicion among Ethiopians going to the extent of declaring "Interhawe" in May 2005.
What did TPLF bring to the people it claims representing by putting itself as the only representative of Tigrayans and no other dare challenge its control of the people and the Geberu Asrat's new party is "illegal"l in Tigray and Kinijit has been accused as "Amharas" who would like to bring the past and the "number one enemy of the Tigray people".
The OPDO that claims representing the Oromo people has failed miserably to convince the Oromo people that OLF is their enemy and in fact is doing the dirty job of TPLF by harassing and killing many Oromo activists and starting communal war within the Oromo community and the case of the war in the Gugi in Oromia is well documented.
Kinijit is surely one of the forces to be recognized by foes and friends after it brought millions of its supporters in the May 2005 election and currently is preparing to convene its first general assembly. Eng. Hailu yesterday explained the process of calling the general assembly.Elected representatives of Kinijit from all zones through out Ethiopia will come together to decide the future path of the struggle.
Kinijit is peoples party and those who lectured us the impracticality of the call for general assembly failed to admit that imposing decision which matters to the millions of Kinijit supporters by few in Kinijit Supreme Council is not different than the TPLF or OPDO of imposing their will on the people, " I will deliver for You and do not worry". Ethiopians are worried for their future and they will not give their god given right of expressing their wish to live in a free contry be short circuited by few who scared to visit the masses in the first place fearing peoples power..
The ruling party and its affiliates know very well that the majority of Ethiopians rejected them in 2005 and now to bolster their future hold on power TPLF/EPRDFis claiming to have four million members of farmers and close to hundred thousands of students and of course one hundered percent of the Ethiopian army.
Kinijit knows this game and have to mobilize the masses that voted before and many that are waiting the call in the future possibly on the general election of 2010 according to Eng. Hailu. That is why the general assembly is a must for Kinijit to bring representatives from all regions of Ethiopia and the effort to paint Kinijt as "Amhara's" party will fail miserably as it failed in the 2005 election in multi ethnic cites like Addis Ababa that gave their support for Kinijit 99.9 percent.
I and others who attended the round table discussion were convinced that helping hand for our people is a must and we can not impose leaders on our people but help the elected leaders of Kinijit do their job to bring the dream of our people to live in a free, democratic and equal Ethiopia.
The Diaspora Ethiopians after the last six months confusions have reached to reasonable conclusion in the last few weeks in North America that the struggle is home and they will be behind the Ethiopian people and their democratically elected representatives unconditionally.
