As you can see in the Attached letter, I submitted the word "FENJIREGATCH" to the "Board of Editors - Oxford English Dictionary" hopefully it will appear in the next edition. My foremost hope is the word "FENJIREGATCH" will become permanent reminding blot of Woyanie for all the evil deeds they did to all the innocents, Eritreans as well as Ethiopians.

BTW, Meles Zenawi himself openly boasted how he sent peasants to expire gruesomely in minefield so that "others can pass." Witness what he has to say to Abraham Verghese, "Talk," magazine, "December - 1999 / January 2000": When asked who his heroes are, Meles said,

"I Learned the most from the peasants who fought with me, many of whom died along the way. I had the misfortune, for example, TO ASK FOR VOLUNTEERS TO CLEAR MINEFIELDS SO THAT OTHERS COULD PASS. And I knew personally some of these individuals who volunteered. I try to measure up to them. I try to remember them when I make a decisions."

And mind you folks, in Meles parlance, remembering the multitude of "FENJIREGATCHS" is to reject peace and to create more "FENJIREGATCHS."

Folks, I hereby ask you to help me spread my message to "Board Of Editors - Oxford English Dictionary" everywhere. I have already sent to "The Editors of Merriam Webster" dictionary. On my behalf, please write to "www@oed.com" about the word "FENJIREGATCH." LETS MAKE IT A PERMANENT BLOT IN THE WOYANIE RECORD just as the "WORD-VANDALISM" is a remainder of the cruelty of the Vandals who destroyed Rome.

As always, thank you and God bless...

Selam Nerayo

Nov. 20, 1999
TO : Board Of Editors - Oxford English Dictionary
From : Selam Nerayo
Subject: 'FENJIREGATCH' - A New English Word on the Offing.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

In Simon Winchester's fascinating book (The Professor and the Mad Man) which recounts superbly about the "Oxford English Dictionary (OED)" starting point and development (circa 1850th), one finds the most heart warming encounter between the "lexicographer in chief," Dr James Murray and his equally able interlocutor, Dr W.C. Minor, the Connecticut Yankee who contributed the most entry to the OED. Praise be to Dr James Murray for his foresightedness in realizing early enough that for the OED, if it was ever to be something of value to every person of the English speaking world; the average citizen has to be full participant in its development. Hence, his famous invitation to all English language speakers throughout the World including those who live in the colonies, be it in the Caribbean or the Indian Subcontinent, to submit any word or phrase they wish to see it in the volumes of the OED. That noble call challenged the average citizen of the English speaking World everywhere as never before including the likes of Dr Minor, an asylum resident of England's mentally sick. And sure enough if it was not for the full participation of the likes of Dr Minor, the English language wouldn't have become a "lingua franca" of today's "Educational and Commerce World." While Latin, Greek, and French are the major contributors to the development of the English language, it has also borrowed from so many cultures, which space and time wouldn't allow me to recount them in this short letter. By the way, this inclusiveness, I am happy to say, shows the lightheartedness of the English speaking world.

That tradition of borrowing and adding new words to the English language as they occur in the daily interaction of the average citizens still continues needless to mention the recent common usage of the word "Yadi Yadi Yada", one of Hollywood's current offering that came via the sitcom, "Sinefeild." In Sub-Sahara Africa, the Oromos of Ethiopia in minor way contributed a word or two to the English language, coffee being one of them that took its origination from the province of Keffa. Others like the word "kosher" were recently added to mean "good and acceptable work" while the traditional meaning was religiously blessed "Jewish bread."

So then with the spirit of the communal progress in mind, I hereby would like to inform the OED Board of Editors that there is a new English word in the making and that word is "FENJIREGATCH." The creators of this word are none other than the ruling politburo of the current Ethiopian Government whose motto is "govern via the law of divide and rule based on tribalism." If it may please you, allow me to elaborate the background and origination of the word 'FENJIREGATCH'.

As an august and sovereign observers of all events of our messy and always evolving world, I am quite sure that the OED Board of Editors must have heard by now about the unjust and unwanted war that is being perpetrated by the current Ethiopian government over the state of Eritrea. So far, within one year, from June 98 to June 99, over 100,000 innocent people died and maimed in this unjust war. The majority of them were from the minority tribes of the Ethiopian State who were forcefully conscripted and sent to the battlefront to join the Ethiopian Army. Eritrea being a small nation with 3,000,000 citizens could not match Ethiopia in terms of population size, which is to the tune of 60,000,000. Therefore, to augment that kind of numerical deficits of population size. The Eritrean Armed Forces, although by any yardstick measurement, one of the best trained in Africa, prudently thought how best to defend the nation. And what came out of that thinking was to put enough landmines in all the areas where it is perceived to be a hole in the overall defense line of the Eritrean nation. The Ethiopian war planners were and still are fully aware that, man to man, they can not match the tenacity and courage of the well-trained Eritreans.

Most of the time, the Ethiopian army tries to circumvent the well trained Eritreans by sneaking through those areas that are weakly defended, human-wise, and yet the crossings are full of landmines. Here is the catch: The tribalist Woyanie government did no want to see a single of their own Tigrean tribal men to die in those landmines. In every battle they waged against Eritrea throughout the past year, they routinely sent troops, all of them, from the defenseless and disenfranchised citizens of Ethiopia such us the Oromos and many of the minority tribes such as Benshanguls and Wollaittas, ahead of the main tank battle forces that are exclusively driven by Tigreans officers. If any of those troops who were allocated to be 'FENJIREGATCH' (human minesweepers) were ever to look back ward, the Tigrean Officers routinely shoot them down right on their temples at a point blank range. Hence it is no exaggeration if one has to say that the ordeal and tragedy of the many thousands of 'FENJIREGATCH' was far bleaker than the fate of Lot's wife.

This inhuman landmine clearing business has been reported widely by Western reporters from BBC, Reuters, AFP, AP, Duetche-welle, CBC, and many others. In the recent ferocious carnage of the battle of Tseronna in March 1999, that was visited by BBC, Reuters, and Duetchwelle while the battle field was still fresh, the correspondents counted more that 300 bodies in an area that even less than half the size of a football field. The carnage of the dead bodies, many on top of each other, that was witnessed by those Western correspondents was so horrendous that, Ethiopia, conservatively estimated, lost more than 10, 000 men in a single battle of three days, which of course 80 percent of them were from the powerless and defenseless tribes of Southern Ethiopia. And sad to say it, the criminal government of Ethiopia is still using this mode of landmine clearing by its wanton use of defenseless minorities. Here is an excerpt from Alexander Last (Of Reuters and BBC) in an article that appeared in the Sunday Times (London) under headline, "Africa Forgotten Wars."

"The terrible hallmark of this war has been the human-wave tactics of the Ethiopian Army. Sheer weight of numbers seemed to work in February, dislodging Eritrean forces from the disputed border town of Badme, but with huge losses.

"When the tactic was used again in March near the Eritrean border town of Tsorona, the results were predictably horrific. One Sunday morning 50,000 Ethiopian soldiers were launched across a 5km section of the frontline, backed by tanks, artillery, helicopter gunships and MiG fighters. They advanced across 3km of mined no man's land into a hail of gunfire.

"Yordanos Habte, a young Eritrean female fighter, said she put her Kalashnikov down and simply watched, dumbfounded, as the first Ethiopian soldiers ran into the mines and were thrown into the air, sometimes landing on other mines to be blown up again. 'I never believed in Hollywood films until I saw this battle,' she said."

Mr Last went on saying,

"Captured Ethiopian soldiers explained that they were shot at from the rear if they did not advance. Others said it was like being on a demonstration, with no space to move or to fire. Eritrean mortars timed to explode in the air decapitated ranks of Ethiopian soldiers as they came closer. The fighting continued for three days and nights. Some brave Ethiopians reached the Eritrean trenches, only to be killed in hand-to-hand fighting."

What happened at the battle of Tseronna was also recounted with harrowing manner by David Hirst of the Guardian, London, in his 18 May, 1999 article:

"The Ethiopian commanders' strategy was simple. Deploying tens of thousands of barely trained recruits along a 3-mile front, they drove them forward, wave by upon wave, with the sole mission of blowing themselves up on minefields until they had cleared a path to the Eritrean front line for better trained infantry, mechanised forces and armour. In the third and fourth wave, about 5,000 peasants came with their mules and donkeys. It did not work. The doomed men hardly raised their weapons, but linked hands in a despairing communal solace in the face of certain death from four sources: mines, perfectly aimed artillery, the trenches and their own officers in the rear, who shot them if they turned and run. Oromo peasants were selected as human minesweepers, and Tigrayan officers who shot them from the rear."

More than any thing, that single expression of the Eritrean female fighter tells it all about how the word "FENJIREGATCH" was born. The idea of using human beings to clear landmine to make way for the selected tribe of Woyanie Tigrean troops was so abominable and inexplicably inhumane that it is only fitting for Ms Habte to put aside her Kalashnikov in order to witness the Woyanie crime with open eyes and to see for herself the final agony of the Ethiopian 'FENJIREGATCHs,' so that the story of their final hour on earth will have a fare hearing in the World tribunal. And indeed their agony was told to the rest of the World, loud and clear, in one simple and painful sentence. "I never believed in Hollywood films until I saw this battle," said Ms Habte. By invoking this simple sentence, at least in the first phrase, Ms Habte gave humanity the benefit of the doubt that we, human beings, are incapable of doing such crime. Yes, there is this Cain over Abel story but, hey, that was longtime ago hence the main reason why Ms Habte didn't believe all the sadistic acts of crime exhibited in Hollywood films. But once she saw the horrific display right in front of her eyes as the mingled limbs of the Ethiopian innocents were thrown into the air again and again, she found herself dumfounded by the carnage being exhibited by Woyanie Officers including the pointblank execution of those unfortunate 'FENJIREGATCHs' who refused to step over the landmines. And alas! For once, Ms Habte perceived her personal safety to be of secondary importance, thus she stopped firing at the enemy who was coming her way to erase her every existence and instead she set aside her Kalashnikov in order to directed her full attention to the witnessing of the Woyanie crime which was unfolding in full-view. In that very sad moment of witnessing all that landmine explosions that took the young lives of thousands of innocents lies the weight of the second phrase of her sentence where the Woyanie crime and by extension that of man, came into full-view with horrific detail. That simple phrase of "until I saw this battle" says it all that Ms Habte's happy and innocent world of the past came to an abrupt and terrible end; that man, as exemplified by the evil Woyanie, is "CAPABLE" of doing such wanton crime; that in this messy world, one has to watch with ever wary eye not only the beastliness of the enemy but the beastliness of follow countrymen too as the picture of the Woyanie crime testified unambiguously; that horrific deeds are not the exclusive venue of Hollywood film makers but they are also deeds of an egomaniac mind of the European Nazis and their Woyanie type African imitators; and finally, what is true in Hollywood films is also true in real life, thus, as the saying goes "art indeed imitates life".

The bantustan Government of Ethiopia borrowed the tactic of clearing landmine front through the use of innocent people from revolutionary Iran of Imam Khomeini's times. It is to be remembered that during the Iraq-Iran war, Imam Khomeini zealots went from village to village summoning poor rural folks to send their sons for the duty of Islam with the promise that incase something happened to them, the parents were assured that their beloved sons will go straight to heaven. Thousand came forward voluntarily and hundreds of thousands others were forced to join in, which many of them were underage of 13 and 14 years. This teenagers which in the Iranian language called the "Vahid-e Basij-e Mustazafin (Unit of Mobilization of the Deprived)" or in short, the "Basijes," were remorselessly sent to clear well defended Iraqi landmines to make way for the advancing Imam Khomeini's regular revolutionary army, the Pasdaran. The underage Iranian kids just like their Ethiopian 'FENJIREGATCH' counterparts carried the brunt of the Iraqi fire power, landmines, and yes, the nerve gas. Here is how historian Sandra Mackey explained the fate of those innocent teenagers at the many front-battles the Iranian waged against Iraq.

"The Basij-es," said historian Mackey, "were primarily the products of poor, religiously devout families from rural areas where some volunteered and many were forced to do a duty for God's war. At the front, a Basiji could be identified by his tattered leftover uniform and mismatched boots (often picked up on the battlefields), the bright red or yellow headband stretched across his brow declaring God's or Khomeini's greatness, and the large, imitation brass key, the key to paradise, that hung around his neck. The Basijis gained fame as human minesweepers in the massive assaults that characterized the 1982-84 phase of the war. Boys as young as twelve, shaped by the fanaticism of the revolution, walked across minefields to clear the way for the advancing Pasdaran, followed by the army. Thousand joined the ranks of the dead. Many now lie in those seemingly endless graves." (See "The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of the Nation," page 323)

According to the cruel dogma of the bantustan government of Ethiopia, life and the dignity of a human being is always cheap, insignificant, and expendable. Thus no wonder they have yet to tell the citizens of Ethiopia about the fate of the multitude of "FENJIREGATCHs." To the contrary they even denied the battle of Tserona ever happened as gruesome as it was. The sad thing is, thousands died and in fact, in one of his interviews, President Clinton estimated the dead and maimed to be upward of 70,000. As was witnessed by International reporters, the bodies of some of the "FENJIREGATCHs" were so mingled that one can hardly say the limbs came from two persons or three persons. One can find three hands but no heads and the similar repetition goes on and on. The epitaph, as the old "First World War" British saying goes, "the many unrecognized unto God" is apt in this case.

The inhumane act of sending thousands of innocents as "FENJIREGATCHs" and their subsequent horrific death become know to the general public of Ethiopia via the international mass-media such as the BBC. Majority of Ethiopian citizens were numbed by the calamity of the death-toll. In fact the sheer fact of the calamity and the very word itself have steered such fascination in such sordid way that the citizens of Addis Ababa were witnessed using the word to mean different things in different applications. Mother prayed daily by saying "Dear God, protect my son from ever becoming a Woyanie's 'FENJIREGATCH.'" Businessmen were heard retorting to each other by saying "Please don't use me as your disposable 'FENJIREGATCH' for I am not ready to sign another contract, which I don't comprehend fully." Then the office girls started to use the word in their daily gossip saying-- "So and so is sleeping with the boss-- Oh! He is using her as his temporary 'FENJIREGATCH.'" In no time the word evolved with such speed that it ended up having its own life.

In Amharic, the main Ethiopian language, "FENJIREGATCH" is actually two words. "Fenji" stands for "landmine" and "Regatch" stands for "one who steps into something." When the two words are combined, it stands for "a person who is forced to step on a landmine to clear the way for others to pass." In all the wars that Ethiopia waged against her neighbors, innocent minorities were always forced to become cannon fodders by variety of Abyssinian warlords. This much is well known in the folklore of the Ethiopian highlands. What differentiates today's warlords from their forbears is their cruelty of routinely forcing boys from the defenseless and powerless tribes to step on the landmines of their enemies while they consciously keep their own kind in the back. The last eight years the Woyanie ruled from the throne of Emperor Haile Sellassie, people always suspected them that their government is full of racists and tribalists. What no body has imagined for years is the Woyanie could turn their habitual racism into high art of cruelty in a mind-numbing magnitude where 10,000 innocent souls were forced to experience death as 'FENJIREGATCH' in one single battle of Tseronna. And what is even more beyond imagination was the Woyanie government denied the battle ever happened in total disregard of the humanity of the thousands who died. As the word "Vandalism" originated from the mayhem of the barbaric Vandals who destroyed Roman civilization, so is the fascination of the word 'FENJIREGATCH' in the mind of the average Ethiopian citizens particularly those who live in the capital city of Addis Ababa. What started as mothers' prayer ("Dear God protect my son from ever becoming a Woyanie's 'FENJIREGATCH.'") was transformed over night into serious political expression as can be seen in the following three examples, courtesy of the streets of Addis Ababa.

1. In a letter to a family friend, an Oromo politico and an underground resident of Addis Ababa, expressed his dislike of the noted Ethiopian Historian, Bahru Zewde, as follows. "Immediately after the tribalist Woyanie came to power, they were looking to find a trustworthy man that will help them generate a list of their ideological enemies at the University of Addis Ababa. Once Bahru Zewde compiled his list, the Woyanie government dismissed them, left and right, from their jobs, be it professors or administrators and in some cases classroom cleaning ladies. The Oromoian dismissively said, "They found their man in the personality of Bahru Zewde as their main 'FENJIREGATCH' in a similar fashion that Torquemada was used by Queen Isabella of Spain during the inquisition of the Spanish Jews and other heretics in 1490th."

2. One avenue the bantustan government of Woyanie used in their war to discredit Eritrea was to make the Eritrea economy look worthless and thus advance a farfetched claim of making Eritreans to seem as if they are always dependent upon Ethiopia to achieve decent livelihood. Here is how a Somali resident of Addis Ababa recounted the story all the while using the word 'FENJIREGATCH': "The Ethiopians tried very hard to discredit the Eritrean economy. And one of the tricks they used was to send one of their famous Philosopher, a guy by the name Edrias Eshette, to a seminar being held at ECA (Economic Commission For Africa), a branch of the UN. In his speech, the so-called philosopher came with all kinds of half-truth and innuendoes that parallels the ethics of a supermarket tabloid, simply put, equivalent to "National Enquirer's Hay-Martha." But the audience knew better, the fact that the Eritrean government is well organized to face any challenge and if any misfortune is to ever happen, they could always count on their Diaspora brothers and sisters to fill in the gap. That being the case, my impression was, the poor Philosopher was used as a willing 'FENJIREGATCH' in an untested political water by ill-informed Government propagandist."

3. An American who recently visited Ethiopia related the following comment to his Ethiopian friend: "The Amhara are hard at work encouraging the Woyanie to do more fighting with the Eritreans on the hope that they will eventually will be decimated and thus they in-turn will be able to come to power without any opposition." Retorting in the strongest voice, the American visitor said, "I guess the Amhara are using the Tigreans as their main 'FENJIREGATCH' in a similar fashion the Woyanie are using the Oromos to clear the landmines of Eritreans."

The most amazing thing is, what the average person in the Streets of Addis Ababa used as quip quickly migrated to Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and the United States. First it was exclusively used by Ethiopians, Eritreans, Oromo, and Somali communities in the United States and elsewhere. Before long the word (FENJIREGATCH) migrated to the daily language usage of other communities particularly those customers who frequent restaurants and shops owned by Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Oromos. Here are six samples how 'FENJIREGATCH' is being used at this moment as supplied to me by my friend, "Lady Alabama", which, I must say, all praise be to her for her ever present dexterity in philology.

1. In the parlance of Washington DC politics, a lawyer was heard saying the Following. "In his battle to impeach and remove President Bill Clinton from the presidency, chief prosecutor Kenneth Starr used Linda Trip as his main 'FENJIREGATCH' meaning what Starr investigator could not achieve in their hotel room interrogation of Ms Monica Lewinsky, he used Linda Trip to do the dirty trick of wire-taping the conversation of Ms Lewinsky and the President.

2. A Latino inner-city community worker was heard cursing Colombia Drug Lords in the following manner. "The drug Lords have penetrated what is conceivably impenetrably and police protected suburban America. They are doing it thanks to their skillful recruit of Black and Latino inner city kids as their devil-given 'FENJIREGATCH' which means the drug Lord collect the money and yet the punishment by police is almost always meted out on those Ghetto kids."

3. An exasperated and irritated British businessman was caught saying the following against the Euro-dollar: "The Euro-dollar is a masterful design of the Germans to control the soul of Europe. What Hitler Wehrmacht failed to achieve, today's Germans are using all these multitude Euro-dollar users as their dedicated 'FENJIREGATCH' in the serves of the German industries' market control of the European commerce, which, needless to say, is pretty well executed so far."

4. This one from an Indian expatriate comments about Atal Bihari Bajpai, the recently reelected Indian Prime Minister, and his collective ego of Hindthuva. "Bajpai skillfully used Hindthuva (the inner meaning of Hinduism) as springboard to attack Islam thereby gain the vote of the uneducated and the downtrodden Hindus. He routinely and commonly uses them as his unfailing "FENJIREGATCH" which, among other things, one of the disastrous act was sending them to destroy the Mosque of Ayodaha."

5. A recently laid-off American high-tech worker recounted his misfortune like this. "We worked 12 hours every day clearing all the technical hurdles of a new product before market introduction and on the way, we made the bosses very rich. Then one morning, out of the blue, we were informed that all the manufacturing aspect of the product that includes part of the R&D department would soon be transferred to Malaysia and Korea. These criminal bosses, they supremely used us as their unsuspecting 'FENJIREGATCH' to develop the product in a record time and once they got what they want, they threw us into the street."

6. One concerned father informed his daughter about his dislike of her classmate whom she was dating. The daughter answered with this funny quip. "Oh Father! Please lower your temper. After all, I am only using him as my temporary 'FENJIREGATCH' and when a more greener and acceptable personality shows up, I will dump him and move on."

1. Disposable person whose humanity is of no concern to the powers that be hence he or she is openly used in every possible way even as evil and lawless act as clearing landmines of an enemy defense.
2. One who is used from sunrise to sunset in the farming fields or household chores without being paid a penny.
3. A temporary usable person who performs all manners of dangerous activities, big and small, where the main actor himself or herself doesn't want to face the hazardous act for fear of body harm or psychological damage to ones personality self esteem.
4. Unsuspecting person or persons who are exploited by a shrewd operator for the advancement of the operators radical philosophy or commercial benefit.
5. A person who is forced to provide temporary gratification.

Lastly, I would also like to inform the OED board of editors that the tribalist government of Ethiopia refused to enter into negotiation even-though the government of Eritrea made many concessions that has been accepted by the OAU, the UN, the European Union, and not to mention "Her Britannica Majesty" government and the Government of United States as viable and legitimate peace overture. The latest word that is coming out from Ethiopia is, the Tribalist government has again readied upward of 300,000 forced "FENJIREGATCHs" which they will most likely end up in more calamitous death all in the hope of destroying the government of Eritrea.

So then here in lies the reason and fascination of the word "FENJIREGATCH" why it was quickly migrated to mean different thing to different people. I hope the esteemed editors of the "Oxford English Dictionary" will see to it that the word "FENJIREGATCH" is put in the current "watch" list of the "OED" hopefully it will be included in the next edition. By taking to heart what is offered here, you serve humanity's future in the up coming millennium, hopefully the next generation will learn not repeat the present tragic war.

Always with affection to the "OED", I remain sincerely

Selam Nerayo