by Dejenie A. Lakew (PhD)

March 1, 2016

Yesterday, I was listening an interview ESAT made with a Gondare person from Welkaite Tegede who survived the savage attacks of TPLF and lived in Australia. I will put few of the points he presented during the long interview which you can hear it for your selves.

1. They learned Tigrigna from the people of Tigray and Eritrea who used to come to their places to work on seasonal basis but always went back to Tigray as a means of trade, not as a mother tong, which is Amharic.

2. The relief organization of Tigray run by TPLF which now is the sole Ethnic but financial giant in Ethiopia, accumulated wealth from raiding cattle and taking animals from the people of Welkaite Tegede or collected as punishments from them because of anti TPLF activities of individuals and neighborhoods and selling them for markets in Sudan and in local markets.

3. He outlined the TPLF settlement programs for the people of Tigray to Gondar regions of Humera, Welkaite Tegede and Telemt. TPLF settled several thousands of people of only Tigray origin, who were living in Sudan due to wars and drought, to different parts of Welkaite Tegede, Telemt and Humera and in subsequent years right after it entered Addis Ababa, as a policy, settled people of Tigray in to different parts of the region in batches, with 25 thousand people of each batch. TPLF gave lands of the region to several thousands of members of TPLF fighters who were retired and victims of decades of wars and others as investment. Since then TPLF setteled about 700, 000 to a million people from Tigray to Gondar regions of Welkaite Tegede, Humera and Telemt.

All these settlement programs were financed by the money and resources from Ethiopia, not only offering free lands, but giving them resources as well in order they established very well, which today the natural population of the region are treated second class citizens in all aspects of life, where their language is banned from their lands and forced to learn Tigrigna or leave the places. The person offered anecdotal accounts as to how TPLF started as a bandit to sneak in to their area at around 1980, and first as a necessary measure of future stability to their take away of the lands, they hunted down prominent personalities and elder people and eliminate one by one, by direct killing, ambush in the night and elimination with no traces and terrorizing the people in to submit ion. The story of TPLF and its actions sounded similar to that of Mussolini’s general Graziani, who was known for his savagery and inhumane killings of Ethiopians in order to make them submit to his colonization efforts.

TPLF was massacring the people of Welkaite Tegede in broad day light and gave orders not to take corpses from the places they were massacred and left, and any person who attempted to take and bury them would be executed as well. One time TPLF killed people and left them on the street and two priests were shocked to see that and said, “this is anti God and against the teachings of Jesus, not to be able to burry someone who is dead by any cause “ and buried them and later the two priests were executed by TPLF. The individual presented in several pages of papers, names of hundreds and hundreds of people who were killed, ambushed during darkness and whose whereabouts were not known until. The savage behavior we witnessed from TPLF as a lasting military strategy to take away the lands of Gondar, is that they do not keep people of those areas as prisoners, because they knew that, as long as they live, first they give hopes to the people and keep resisting their take away of their lands and second, they will be the future problems and dangers to them.

4. The last important thing the person mentioned is that TPLF purposely renamed places of local and historical values to Tigrigna names to make sure that no future generation reclaims the area as theirs. It is after these unbelievable crimes of a primitive type, and after TPLF changed the region in to residential places for the Tigray people by force, kicking the people of the region out, that they showed a demonstration of settled people of Tigray, saying, the people of Welkaite Tegede, Humera and Telemt came out and said they are Tigre people and the region is part of Tigray – the TPLF style of truth. The acts of the Tigray TPLF in a primitive style, as being non Ethiopian, but lived as a neighbor making a living by working from neighboring areas, but as a distant enemy and invader is beyond imagination.

This is the microcosm of the evolutionary history of TPLF how it began and continues to live more vigorously and boldly with absolute power of guns, to take anything in Ethiopia, as long as it is needed for their only existence, not being as Ethiopian but as an outsider, which ultimately faces open opposition and revolt to the extent of willing to die and get rid of it. It is an absolute necessity of existence and a belated but social imperative, to all Ethiopians, regardless of regions, religion, age, profession and gender, to be united and remove this cancerous short sighted ethnic animal group from Ethiopia in order Ethiopians live in harmony and happiness ever after in their own country. There is no more death than to fear death but die in abuse and fear continuously.

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N.B. Right after I wrote this article, I heard VOA interviewing elders form Gondar regions of Humera Welkaite Tegede and Telemt and a real Ethiopian from Tigray, the Govener of Tigray teqlay gizat during emperor Haile Selassie, Ras Megesha Seyum. They all said, including Ras Mengesha him slef that there was no time in the history of Ethiopia, that Humera, Welkaite Tegede and Telemt were administered under Tigray, but always and natural part of Begemedir teqlay gizat or now Gondar. These elders of age more than 80 years, who are natives of that region and Ras Mengesha seyum said that, what was true is that Tigray and Gondar lived brotherly as neighbors separated by the Tekeze river as a natural boundary between the two regions.

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Dr. Dejenie A. Lakew is an adjunct professor of mathematics at John Tyler Community College, USA