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Ogaden: Whardheer Massacre: The Highest Price of Freedom |
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  Whardheer Massacre: The Highest Price of Freedom
By Abdullahi Hassan
Feb. 22, 2013
Today, Feb. 22, is the 19th anniversary of Wardheer massacreandit’s a day that captures one of the many painful moments in our history. It’s a day of remembrance,reflection, and rejection of tyranny, aggression, and imperialismin any form or shape.
On this day, we come together to remember, commemorate, and pray forthose 85 innocent and defenseless men, women, and children who were brutally massacred___in cold blood___by the blood-thirsty Ethiopian military forces in Waardheer district on Tuesday Feb. 22, 1994. We also recognize the other countless victims who were maimed or injured in that gruesome massacre.We drew inspiration from them, because the greatest act is to speak truth to an oppressor.
Being a Martyrs’ Day, we alsohonor, recognize, and pay tributeto all our great heroes and heroines, in the past and present, whose sacrifices represent the indomitable spirit of our people, struggle, and resistance against the Ethiopian colonial occupation.
We also come together to enhance awareness on our struggle and to renew ourresolveand commitment to our just cause until we achieve our inalienable right to self-determination as a people and nation.
It’s also a day in which we strongly condemn, once again, the Ethiopian regime’s blatant, barbaric, and inhuman acts of oppression and terrorism against our people on a daily basis.
The Wardheer massacre also conjures up the living memory of one of our founding fathers, the late Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla, who devoted his entire life to the emancipation of his people. May the Almighty God give his soul eternal restin paradise. He survived the massacre.
The Wardheer massacre was all about our freedom and nationhood as it came against the backdrop of our first and last democratically elected parliament’s historic resolution for our national emancipationthrough referendum. They refused to sell their people into slavery and perpetual servitude and we are grateful to them, too, for their patriotism and services to their country and people.
The inherent right of our people to self-determination is warranted by history and not by our oppressor’s constitution: Colonial constitutions don’t really uphold the rights of their colonial subjects and the so-called Ethiopian constitution in not any different!
The aim of Ethiopia in that despicable atrocity was to kill off the resolve and the patriotic spirit of our people, but it has failed miserably in its wickedcolonial ambitions. Instead, it recharged our a vowed determination. Not only did it infuse our struggle with a new-found spirit, but it became a turning point in our history whichmarked the end of our people’s peaceful advocacy for a referendum and self-determinationand the beginning or rather the resumption of the armed struggle. It has also underlined the resilience of our people who withstood all kindsof intimidation, persecution, and penury.
However, as might be expected from an oppressor, the TPLF led imperial regime in Ethiopia has chosen to maintain its colonial rule by the force of arms and hence the struggle between us continues.
To My people
Freedom is not a pie in the sky. It’s determinable, but the path to it is laden with ruins and ossuaries, pain and anguish, yet it’s a noble and edifying path; it’s the defeat of imperialism, tyranny, and injustice.
No oppressed people have ever achieved their freedom withoutresistance and sacrifice, pain and tears, patience and perseverance. All the previously oppressed peoples in the world have faced similar or more worseconditions than we face today, but once they fought their oppressors to their knees and tested the fruits of their long struggle, they forgot all thetribulations and torments in which they went through.
As the great Tunisianpoet and nationalist Abu al-Qasim al-Shabifamously said:
/ فلا بــدّ أن يستجيب القــــدر/ ولا بـــدّ للقيـــد أن ينكســــر/ ولا بدّ للــــيل أن ينجلــــــــــي. " إذاالشعب يوماً أراد الحيـــــــاة”
So, if we have to redeem our selves from the bondages of colonialism and throw off the yoke from our neck, we have no choice but to remain steadfast and be patient in our struggleuntil the last hurrah. There are rays of hope and we are nearing the completion stage of our long and painful history of struggle against Ethiopia.
We must also safeguard our unity and culture which are the most potent weaponry in the arsenal of a people under occupation. That is why our oppressor is striving so hard, day and night, to fragment ouroneness, culture, and resistance.
Finally, the struggle of the Somali people in Ogaden is one of the glorious pages of African nationalism in the struggle against imperialism and colonial oppressions and I am very optimistic that honor will be conferred to our people, sooner or later.
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#1 |
on February 21 2013 16:59:41
#2 |
on February 21 2013 17:13:06
#3 |
on April 08 2013 22:04:07
#4 |
on April 15 2013 04:16:50
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