Abiy Ahmed’s erecting Memorial Statues for genocidists of the Oromo for Menelik II and Haile Selassie

December 10, 2023

Leenjiso Horo

   This article addresses the issue of the Oromo failure to erect memorial statues and Museums for the genocide committed against the Oromo people by Menelik II, Haile Selassie, and the TPLF government while allowing Abiy Ahmed renovate Menelik’s Palace and unveil statues of Menelik II and Haile Selassie, who committed genocide against the Oromo people. Statues have been erected throughout history by different nations for different purposes. Among the purposes include patriots, heroes, and heroines, and another reason is to remember those who suffered from the injustice committed against a nation, for example, genocide. Taking into consideration the reasons for the erection of statues in general, the question one may ask is why PM Abiy Ahmed constructed memorial monuments for the commemoration of Menelik II and Haile Selassie, who committed genocidal annihilation against the Oromo people and yet failed to erect for those whom genocides committed against, the Oromo people. Menelik II, Haile Selassie, and Meles Zenawi committed genocide against the Oromo people in Oromia. Abiy Ahmed is an Oromo national; he became PM in the name of the Oromo people, representing the OPDO on the victory of the Oromo youths over the TPLF fascist genocidal regime. Abiy Ahmed has been pro-Amhara since his childhood. He strangely became a prime minister; first, he joined the circle of Oromo and Amhara known personalities, then he kept manipulating them with his falsely cunning smile and talk and appearing with them in public until it became politically advantageous for him to build his image. Having achieved this, he staged a political coup and elevated himself to the position of prime minister. Here, the question is, is or was or were there a leader or leaders known in history who ever erected a statue for the enemy or enemies who committed genocide against their people? Unquestionably or with certainty, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is the only one in history to do so.

   The second question is regarding the reason for his doing it. Here, there are two versions of the answers given to this question; the first one is that his action is in reward for the Amhara, who overwhelmingly came out expressing support for him, for his glorification of Amhara nationalism, their voodoo political narrative of “three thousand years of independence,” and so for his scheming promise of returning “Ethiopia to its glorious past” and for his aspiration to return to the rule of the kingdom, the Abyssinian tradition and his promising for resuscitating the dead kingdom system, giving voice to the mute Amhara aspiration of 1974 to resurrect their former image as apostles of the empire, to restore the power and prerogative that had for so long been pretended to have or assumed by their fathers and grandfather come to life, the aristocracy, since the colonization of Oromia. Since 1974 the empire has moved from an aristocracy system to an autocracy system. That is from aristocratic rule to autocratic rule. The Amhara have gotten this. Abiy Ahmed told them he wanted the kingdom system to bring back aristocracy. For these reasons, Amhara came out supporting him, singing and waving their old plain flag, “Abiy is our Nabiyyi, Abiy is our Moses,” dancing to high heaven with open hands as he became Prime Minister. Simultaneously, on the contrary, he took an action step for revenge on the Oromo people for their failure to come out to support him overwhelmingly in the majority, as Amhara did. At the same time, the Oromo people did not like his wish to be a king since they wanted to return to their Gadaa system, the egalitarian popular democracy, which Abiy Ahmed deeply hated because of its term limit without any chance of holding office again. The reasons seem correct. But Abiy Ahmed, by seizing the prime minister position in the name of Oromo and yet attacking the Oromo people, began the darkest chapter in Oromo history. Abiy loves political power; there is absolutely no political will to leave office; he wants to stay in political power by any means, following the policies of dictators who appeared across the world. For this, he wants to impose his will of maintaining the Ethiopian empire, the empire of Menelik II, on the Oromo people. Among them General Carlos Arana Osorio and General Efrain Rios Montt of Guatemala etc. In 1970, President Carlos Arana Osorio of Guatemala, while fighting against the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity front, the Marxist political organization, declared his intention to annihilate the organization and the population supporting it in these words: “If it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetery in order to pacify it, I will not hesitate to do so.” It was a statement of committing genocide against the people, and in fact, he did. Under his direct order, it has said, over 440 villages were destroyed, meaning wiping out completely Mayan areas of the map in Guatemala. Some years later in 1982, following him, General Efrain Rios Montt, who became president, made the likewise chilling comment in these terms: “The guerrilla is the fish. The people are the sea. If you cannot catch the fish, you have to drain the sea” borrowing the phrase from Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s principle of guerrilla warfare: “The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.” Both President Carlos Arana Osorio and President General Efrain Rios Montt committed genocidal extermination against the Guatemalan people, especially against the Mayan indigenous population of Guatemala. The administrations of both presidents were supported, armed, and financed by the United States of America (USA). The actions of these two Guatemalan presidents should remind the Oromo of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s talk on the 9th of December 2020 in Kenya, asking Uhuru Kenyatta for cooperation in exterminating the OLF from the Horn of Africa. His statement is as follows: “Because peace is a foundation for everything that we are aspiring to transform the life of our people if we could eliminate Al-Shabaab and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) from this region, you can see how these people can transform into one family, one country, and one people.”

   Immediately following PM Abiy Ahmed’s talk with Uhuru Kenyatta, Obbo Fiqaaduu Tasammaa, the egomaniacal buffoon and ruthlessly demented tyrant Head of Oromia Prosperity Party (PP) in the Oromia State at Oromia Caffee meeting, copying of General Efrain Rios Montt in his speech in the Caffee Oromia regarding fish and draining sea to exterminate the Oromo people had to say this with indescribable cruelty: “The way to eradicate it[OLA] is to deal with it like fish…you will not able to gather all the fish of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean; to completely get rid of them, you will need to dry the oceans.” Roughly translation of Oromo language/Oromiffaa to English. Listen to his speech in the Oromo language in the video below. The Oceans needed to dry out, which meant the Oromo people. It meant to exterminate the Oromo people. As it is clear, what Abiy Ahmed, Fiqaaduu Tasammaa, and their likes want to eradicate or do away with is the OLA or the Oromo freedom fighters and their supporters, the Oromo people. The goal is to annihilate both.

   In human history, no leader or leaders has or have ever declared genocidal extermination on their people. For instance, Menelik II of Abyssinia did not wage a war of extermination on the Abyssinian people, but he did against the Oromo people; neither Hitler against the Germans, but against the Jews, nor Carlos Arana Osorio and Efrain Rios Montt of Guatemala against Spanish Guatemalan but against Mayans, nor Ottoman Turks against the Turks but against the Armenians, or Juneval Habyarimana of Rwanda not against his Hutu people but Tutsis, the TPLF did not against the Tigrayan people, but against the Oromo. In December 1996, PM Meles Zenawi, in his Parliament speech, laid out a policy stating that “the majority can be made a minority” about the Oromo people. Then, following this with the publication of the declaration in the TPLF’s official party journal, HIZBAAWI ADERA, Volume 4, Number 7, in December 1996. It reads as follows: In order to have the lasting solution to our problem, we have to break narrow nationalists in Oromia. We have to defeat narrow nationalism to the bitter end to smash it in a very decisive manner. We have to fight the higher intellectual and bourgeoisie classes in a very extensive and resolute manner. The standard bearers of narrow nationalism are educated elite and the bourgeoisie. We must be in a position to eradicate all narrow nationalists.

   It was a policy that the TPLF followed with the extermination of Oromo people across Oromia until 2018. Since then, this policy has been followed with its proxy, with the PP/OPDO.

   On the contrary, Abiy Ahmed and Fiqaaduu Tasammaa and their Party, being members of the Oromo people, did declare a war of genocide on their Oromo people. Of course, the world has witnessed that throughout history, there have been cruel leaders at all times and ages, but of all, the barbaric and ruthlessness of Abiy Ahmed and Fiqaaduu Tasammaa toward their native Oromo people surpasses that of all in human history.

Figure 1. Fiqaaduu Tasammaa in Oromiyaa Caffee

Now, pay attention to this. That is, no leaders in history have ever committed genocide against their native people except Abiy Ahmed and his cliques. The hostility, cruelty, and savagely of these men towards their Oromo people is simply unbelievable. In its action, the OPDO sees itself as an alien, an outsider a drifter who had arrived in Oromia by accident in masquerading as Oromo. The action Abiy Ahmed has been taking against the Oromo people since he became prime minister testifies to this. Here, never forget the hidden drought in Borana and Gujii that consumed 4.5 million livestock, and a million people perished from the peoples of the country and the international communities. Such a deed fulfills the definition of the genocidal condition that states “deliberately inflicting on the group condition of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Not only this but now the denial of medication for people for treatment of Malaria diseases in Wallagga and the genocidal wars in Wallagga, Shawa, Wallo, Borana, Gujii, et cetera were acts that Prosperity Party (PP) has been committing with intent to destroy the Oromo people in the regions since 2018. Again, this also fulfills the definitional condition of the genocide that states: “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” These genocidal wars of extermination of Oromo in Wallagga, Shawa, and Wallo are in alliance with Fano, the Nazified Amhara paramilitary militia. Coupled with these, in Oromia, the regime suppressed political and civil rights and restricted on the freedom of expression and information, movement and assembly.

   The second tragedy that has been continuing is the negotiations of the Oromo political leadership with the successive genocidal colonial regimes of the Ethiopian empire. In particular, OLF negotiated with TPLF, the genocidist Ethiopian colonialist government, seven times while TPLF was in power and the OLF was listed as the terrorist organization by TPLF. OLF also negotiated one more time after TPLF was defeated and returned to Tigray. The first negotiation between the OLF and TPLF was held in 1991 as the Dergue regime was overthrown and then as the two formed the Transitional Charter Government. While OLF was still in Transitional government in 1992, a second negotiation in 1992 was held in Mekele town in Tigray between the TPLF and the OLF to negotiate running a peaceful fair and free election. In this negotiation, both OLF and TPLF agreed to encamp their armies. The OLF did, but the TPLF renegad on the agreement made under the pretext of safeguarding peace and order as a transitional state army. So, TPLF did not encamp its armies. Then, TPLF and EPLF forces encircled the OLA in the camps annihilating 20,000 – 30,000 OLA combatants.  TPLF’s intimidation, harassment, and attack was not limited to OLF fighters. Civilian Oromo suspected of supported OLF were also attacked, murdered or jailed. For example, As BBC contemporaneously reported, “At the demonstrations in Harerghe, in eastern Ethiopia, in April 1992, the soldiers of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Force (EPRDF) killed 200 civilians and wounded 300 others during a peaceful demonstration.” After this, the OLF withdrew from the Transitional Government. The third negotiation with TPLF regime in which Ambassadors from Germany, Sweden, Norway, and the USA participated was held in Asmara, Eritrea in 1992. Following this, as it is well-known, subsequent negotiations were held in 1993 in Paris, France; in 1994 in Atlanta, under the sponsorship of former USA President Jimmy Carter at the Carter Center; in 1995 under the auspices of USA Congressional Task Force led by the chairmanship of Congressman Harry Jonson; in 1997 under the German government sponsorship chaired by Ambassador Winkelmann held in Berlin, Germany; from 1999 to 2005 at various times under the Christian Michaelsen Institute sponsorship, negotiations were held, in Norway, while the TPLF was committing genocide against the Oromo people. Yet another negotiation took place in 2018 in Asmara, Eritrea. What makes this negotiation different from other negotiations preceding it is that this one was negotiated between OLF and OPDO, not between the OLF and the TPLF. In fact, the negotiators from the government side were Lemma Megersa and Workineh Gebeyehu the then president of Oromia regional state and the then foreign minister of Ethiopia respectively. Despite this negotiation’s success in coaxing the OLF to return home and participate in peaceful political process, this negotiation too was ultimately a failure and as such an exercise in futile like many other negotiations before it.

   Again, after this genocidist fall from power or out of political power with the struggle of the Oromo youths, the leadership of OLF/OLA formed a unity with TPLF/TDF in 2021 creating The United Ethiopian Federalist and Confederalist Forces (UEFCF). All that struggles, bloodshed, sufferings, and sacrifices of the patriotic Oromo youths between the years 2014 and 2018 in overthrowing the fascist TPLF for THIS! UNITY with TPLF/TDF! It is strange and a tragic comedy. It was uncalled for and another disaster establishing an alliance with one that committed genocide over 27 years against the Oromo people. Being the freedom fighters of the Oromo people fighting against those who committed genocide against the Oromo people and yet, at the same time, forming unity with the group that committed genocide is unprecedented in history. Not only did this, but the TPLF, as its history shows, once again threw out betraying the OLA as it entered into negotiation with the Prosperity Party (PP) in 2023. Instead of making unity with TPLF/TDF, the leadership of OLA should have called for the erection of a Memorial Statue in memory of 5000-6000 Oromo youths and 20,000- 30,000 Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) members that TPLF annihilated in the camps and thousands of the Oromo nationalists who were disappeared without any trace of their whereabouts under the TPLF/TDF genocidal fascist regime. During this period, TPLF/TDF murdered 5000-6000 Oromo youths.

   Even worse, the 2018 negotiation with the TPLF proxy, the OPDO, failed to materialize. The eighth negotiation was in late April and early May of 2023 with the party of the Ethiopian colonial empire, the former proxy of the TPLF, while it was waging a war of genocide against the Oromo people. All attempted negotiations had failed because the successive colonial regimes had been unwilling to hear, give value, and entertain the Oromo question. All Ethiopian Empire colonial governments wanted the Oromo people to give up the colonial question and the right to self-determination. Even the TPLF/TDF had abandoned the OLF/OLA as it accepted negotiations for peace with its former proxy hodgepodge party, the Prosperity Party (PP), to go to Pretoria, South Africa. Recently, the ninth one began in the beginning of November 2023, while the colonial government was still committing genocide in alliance with Fano, the Amhara fundamentalist, religio-political radical paramilitary militia Nazified terrorist movement against the Oromo people had failed after two weeks of negotiation. This negotiation is also an insignificant dance as those before it, not the revolution the Oromo people have been expecting or waiting for. It changes nothing, for nothing can change in Oromia until the Oromo colonial question and right of self-determination of the Oromo people is recognized, accepted, and implemented. As shown in the above paragraph, since 1991, there have been twelve series of peace negotiation talks, and all failed. It is clear history has repeated itself because we learned nothing from it; as a consequence, the twelfth negotiation also failed.

   Furthermore, the information is already out that the OLA is ready and willing to go for the thirteenth negotiation if the colonial regime offers it. It is madness and uncalled for to do so; this is a slide on a slippery slope road downhill. This seems the “Agenda for Peace of 1999” of Daawud Ibsaa Ayyaana written to Meles Zenawi that factionalized the OLF is back again. Stating differently, the leadership of OLA has kept on asking for the 13^th time negotiation after failing 12 times, now while the colonial regime engaged in propaganda and military genocidal war campaigns against the OLA, the OLA leadership neglected or avoided propaganda, political, and diplomatic work, the primary forms of struggle, to galvanize the Oromo population to struggle. The leadership seems to have reached the end of an era of struggle. If this leadership continues on this slide on a downward slippery road, its action will eventually result in the slow death of the liberation struggle, and in fact, the willingness for another negotiation indicates a symbolic death of the organization itself. Once again, the question is why the Oromo political leadership has miserably failed to learn from history. In this regard, George Santayana had to say, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Indeed, this lack of learning history led the Oromo leadership to fall into endless negotiation traps, and yet genocide continued. This time, the OPDO is committing genocide in the name of Oromo in alliance with Nazified Fano against the Oromo people. This raises a fundamental question: Now, where to go from here is the question to ask. This 12th negotiation should be the last to engage with the regimes of the Ethiopian colonial empire; if it continues to deny the Oromo people their inalienable legitimate right to self-determination and independence and refuses to give up Oromia voluntarily, it is then up to the Oromo people to remove it from Oromia by all possible means available, including the use of force.

   With the failure of the Dar es Salaam, Tanzania negotiation for a peaceful political settlement in Tanzania, the proxy colonial regime of Abiy Ahmed has promptly fully intensified both propaganda and military genocidal wars against the Oromo people and OLA. Please note, the negotiation in Tanzania is not a reconciliation/araaraa negotiation, as some Oromo Media are wrongly presenting it, but it is a negotiation for a peaceful political settlement. Both are different and solve different problems. The methods of seeking solutions are also nonidentical. Hence, the argument that a solution for the colonial question can found through reconciliation/araaraa negotiation is an amateur politics, in the extreme. Now, after the failed talk in Tanzania, the colonial regime has entered into a new wave of propaganda and military all-out war campaign for the total annihilation of the Oromo people and OLA, as it promised. The ocean being the Oromo people. At this point, the Amhara and OPDO have joined hands in gloves. As explained above, the Amhara political elites and activists have been calling for the “destruction of Oromummaa.” In addition to this, the OPDO has declared that “to completely get rid of OLA, it will need to dry the oceans.” The ocean is the Oromo people, the support base of OLA. Now, expeditiously, the leadership of OLA needs to do the following things to abort it.

   First, strengthen the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) more than ever before, that is, build a superior military force in quantity and quality to protect the population, defeat the enemy, and secure liberation. Such is the way to go to enable the Oromo people to drive the Imperial fascist regime out of Oromia and establish the independent Democratic Republic of Oromia.

   Second, the leadership and members need to uphold the clear political objective, clear goal, and clear mission of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), with which the struggle commenced in the first place. The OLF launched a people’s war for national liberation to restore independence to Oromia. So, any talk with the colonial regime, the fundamental right of the Oromo people to determine their own future and political status, should be part of the negotiation. Avoid unprincipled alliances. They are costly politically and potentially harmful to the goal of struggle, to the national unity, and the unity of the nationalists. Example the alliances with CUD, Ginbot 7, TPLF/TDF et cetera.

   Third, establish National Central Command leadership. Appropriately follow-through mechanisms include the establishment of military command Centers across Oromia to effectively fight in every inch of land in Oromia to defeat the enemy. As it is often said, an army fighting everywhere is weak everywhere. The colonial army can indeed be weakened and liquidated across Oromia. Hence, comes an end to the colonial genocide against the Oromo people and ushers conditions for the Oromo people the opportunity to decide freely their future destiny through the mechanism of the inalienable right of the people to self-determination.

   Fourth, immediately engage in superior political propaganda against the colonial regime. In this Oromo struggle, a propaganda campaign against the colonial government has been missing; propaganda has been left only to the colonial regime since the 1999 OLF leadership change. As a result of this, for the last many years until the present, the colonial regime has been hammering OLA with propaganda without a response in kind from the leadership of OLA. Such is political weakness and danger; a propaganda campaign is as equal as military warfare, no less. Hence, the leadership needs clarity on what should change to prepare attractive narrative that is popular with the people to inform, organize, and galvanize the Oromo population to rise up against this autocratic colonial regime. The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) began this struggle as a protracted people’s war strategy with armed struggle as the primary or main form of struggle- armed, propaganda, political, and diplomatic struggle as all the Liberation Fronts in the world. The OLF is a politico-military liberation front organization. It is not a secret that the objective of the OLF is to establish an independent republic of Oromia. Now, people are asking what the political strategy of OLA is (armed struggle vs peaceful negotiation) and its political objectives (independence vs. political concession within Ethiopia). By wavering between armed struggle and peaceful negotiation with the empire on the one hand and between independence of Oromia and political concession within the Ethiopian colonial empire on the other, OLA can never liberate Oromia from the Ethiopian colonial occupation. Pinning hope on peaceful negotiation with the cruelest empire in history is looking into a death sign mirror, and it defangs the organization.

   The OLF clearly stated its goal of struggle as stated above in its political program and campaigned for it. OLA leadership of today is dancing around not stating its clear political position on the Oromo question and for what it is clearly struggling for. For this, it is hard to distinguish between OLA and KFO. The Oromo question is a colonial question and hence the struggle is for total independence of Oromia and establish independence republic of Oromia. The ultimate decision belongs to the Oromo people and the Oromo people alone after having established independent Oromia whether to rejoin Ethiopia in the form of federation or confederation or autonomy or remain independent republic of Oromia through referendum.  No one can decide for the Oromo people like KFO and OPDO have been doing for years. Both have even failed to call on the Article 39 of the constitution of the empire for referendum. It is time, therefore, to establish networks or media like Radio et cetera to reach out to the public with information through propaganda and political campaigns. It is impossible to reach out to the larger Oromo population without propaganda work. Without sufficient propaganda and political work, it is hard for the people to join the armed struggle. In the absence of national political leadership and organizational structure, clear political strategy and political objectives leading the national liberation struggle to its conclusion is impossible. Furthermore, to defeat the colonial regime and render its Oromo reactionary allies impotent, the organization must have a revolutionary perspective informed by the concept of revolutionary national liberation struggle. A liberation front without such a perspective will fail to defeat the enemy.

   On the other hand, being under colonial occupation, the Oromo have also failed to construct statues or memorial monuments and museum centers in Finfinnee and across Oromia for the commemoration or remembrance of 5000-6000 Oromo youths TPLF massacred between  the years 2014-2018; of five million Oromo people who lost their lives during the Menelik II genocidal war of conquest in the late 19th century and over two million exterminated by Haile Selassie at Ashalamoo in 1941 in Rift Valley in West Arsii as well as for the Oromo heroes, heroines and the patriots who martyred in defense of Oromia against Menelik II’s campaign of conquest and for those who martyred in the struggle for the liberation of Oromia since the colonization of Oromia. As usually spoken, statues symbolize the root identity of a nation through which its history passes, connecting the present, the past, and the future generations. The demand for erecting Memorial statues and establishing the Oromo Genocidal Memorial Day must be integral to the Oromo national liberation struggle.

   The failure of erecting genocidal memorial statues and museums to commemorate the fallen Oromo has been and is the failure of the Oromo elites. The Oromo politicians, scholars, political elites, religious elites, traditional cultural elites, political activists, and the youths have failed to unite and rally the Oromo population to collectively force Abiy Ahmed and the OPDO to erect the memorial statues for the five million Oromo exterminated by Menelik II during the war of conquest and colonization of Oromia and over two million annihilated by Haile Selassie in 1941 upon his return from exile at Ashalamoo and failed to demand of him to take down or demolish the Menelik II’s statue erected in the Finfinnee city center by Haile Selassie at Piazza Square and failed to force him not to construct the new ones at Unity Park for Menelik as well for Haile Selassie. Not only these, but they also failed to compel him and the OPDO to erect the Memorial Statues for the 5,000 to 6,000 Oromo youths genocidal slaughtered by the TPLF regime between 2014-2018. This failure of the Oromo elites and people has become an encouragement for Abiy Ahmed to do whatever he wishes to do.

   Sadly enough, coming to political power in the name of the Oromo people as a member of OPDO, PM Abiy Ahmed Ali erected memorial statues for the genocidist of the Oromo people, Menelik II and Haile Selassie, in Finfinnee, the Oromo capital city and the heart of Oromia. One may ask why he did this after a century and a half while most countries have been and are taking down or demolishing the statues of those who committed crimes. The straightforward answer is that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed wants to administer the empire the way his predecessors did since Menelik II, to use force. For this, he wants to hide the colonial history of past horrible, violent, and genocidal extermination committed against the Oromo people to ensure that the new Oromo generation will not fully understand the past. Such politics amounts to denying the new Oromo generation the past truth, a denial of histories of what had happened to their ancestors; such a denial is the removal of the new Oromo generations from the history of their ancestors. It is rubbing the memory out of the minds of children, meaning to de-historicize the genocidal extermination crimes of the monsters Menelik II and Haile Selassie committed against the Oromo people. This action of his is to memoricide. Memoricide is also known as the killing of memory or destruction of memory, targeting wiping out past and present. Here, what one has to note is, as mentioned above, Menelik II mutilated the breasts of Oromo women and hands of Oromo men, and so following Menelik II, Fano mutilated or cut off heads in Wallagga and by following them, PM Abiy Ahmed’s administration has engaged in the mutilation of the memory of the new Oromo generation.

Abiy Ahmed, the brainchild of Menelik II, Haile Selassie, and Meles Zenawi

   Here, when one talks of Ethiopia, one has to note that since Meles Zenawi held the position of Prime Minister (PM), the Ethiopian Empire political system has become constitutionally a highly centralized parliamentary unitary autocratic political state. It has been a one-man-rule empire state. Here, the Prime Minister is the most powerful one, and the whole executive branch of government, including the other government bodies like legislative and judiciary branches, as well as the regional and local governments, have been under the Prime Minister. The Prosperity Party (PP) itself is not independent; it is officially an extension of the office of the Prime Minister. PM is the chief executive and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. All intelligence and security are under the Prime Minister; hence, in Ethiopia, every crime starts with a direct order from the Office of the Prime Minister of PP. Since 2018, the Prosperity Party (PP) has been following the policy of its predecessors in the killings of the Oromo, especially that of the TPLF, targeting the Oromo youths, intelligentsia, and the larger population. In this, PM Abiy Ahmed primarily turned his swords towards the annihilation of the Oromo youths as EPDRF and surpassed it in its attacking action against the Oromo people. 

   PM Abiy Ahmed is scared of the Oromo youths because he thinks they may turn against his PP and overthrow it in the like of his former EPRDF/TPLF, and because of this since he became to position of the premiership, he has been cutting off the life of the Oromo youths, depriving the Oromo people future generation. Under his government in Oromia, arbitrary arrest, incarcerations, torture, maiming, extrajudicial killings, summary executions, mass murders, kidnappings, and disappearances are more common than any previous regimes of the Ethiopian empire. Among his government’s victims is the brutal murder of public execution of Amanuel Wondimuu, a 17-year old teenager, in Dambi Dollo, a town in the Kellem Wallagga zone of Western Oromia, in 2021. On a false accusation that he was an OLF-Shanee member, the government force tied their handgun around his neck, tied his hands behind his back, tortured, beaten, and publicly shot to death. In this way, the PP cut his life short; in so doing, Abiy Ahmed’s Property Party (PP) has undertaken the cutting of the future generation of the Oromo people. He started with youth memoricide- the destruction of memory by erecting Memorial statues for Menelik II and Haile Selassie, physical killings, and burning of the bodies of those Oromo kids killed by his army. The Oromo people are the target of this dangerous policy. Those Oromo nationals who call Oromo PP the Oromo government support it and stand by it must be careful. Recall that Germany used to exterminate six million Jews in Europe by using the Jews themselves, and TPLF used OPDO itself for seven years in the extermination of the Oromo people for seven years. Abiy Ahmed is the same member of OPDO who had been serving the TPLF for twenty-seven years.

   The crimes of PM Abiy Ahmed are not only genocide but also murder and Crimes against Oromo humanity. His administration ordered the murder of Amanuel Wondimu, an innocent school kid, taking him out of the family home while he was working on his school assignments, falsely accusing him of being a member of the OLA. He was murdered in public while his mother, relatives, and neighborhood pleaded and begged the Oromia Special Force to spare his life, but to no avail. The soldiers could not spare his life because the order comes from above. Lie and disinformation have been the character of all Ethiopian successive colonial regime throughout history; of them, Abiy Ahmed’s is the most extreme. As in all other cases, the murder of Amanuel Wondimu was coordinated by Oromia Special Forces, Ethiopian Defense Force, and Oromia local police in forcing the public to watch the brutality of their murder of Amanuel Wondimu. Here also the murders of Amanuel Wondimu, the Oromia Special Force Soldiers standing by waiting for the order from Authorities. The watching public were swallowed with flood of sad emotion and grief at this murder of an innocent Oromo youth.

Figure 2. Amanuel Wondimu execution in Danbi Dollo May 11, 2021

Here is his mother, broken with sadness, stricken with heartbreaking grief, engulfed in great pain and suffering, and continuing crying ever since losing her loved son at an early age. Such is the cry of all Oromo mothers and the Oromo nation. The insidiousness and the cruelty of Abiy Ahmed’s government against the Oromo teenager, Amanuel Wondimu, is unappalled in history and is appalling.

   Similarly, in November of 2023, in Arsii, his army killed innocent kids, accusing them of supporting OLA. At his order, the corpses were taken to the town of Abomsa, damped on the gravel road in the middle of town for people to see, and then set on fire in public. Such is murder and a crime against humanity. In Aannolee, Menelik II cut off the breasts of women and the hands of men while leaving them alive. In contrast, in Abomsa, Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of the Ethiopian Empire, came up with a new method, killing youths and setting on fire the dead bodies. The saddest of all is that the regime forced the school kids to see the corpses on the ground and then to watch while the bodies were set on fire and burning, turning into ashes. It was shocking to the kids to witness such abhorrent cruelty and psychological effects on their lives. Besides, such disgusting and harmful evil goes against human decency and international norms and laws. The Geneva Convention of 1949 is clear on the treatment of the dead. It instructs that the dead be treated with respect and honor. The convention further prohibits, under any circumstances, outrage against personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment. What happened in Abomasa, Arsi is indeed humiliating and degrading the corpses of the Oromo youth by the Ethiopian government- a crime against humanity.

Ethiopian criminal code of 2004 article 275 under dereliction of duty towards enemy states, “whoever in times of war contrary to international law and humanitarian convention: mutilate a dead person; or … orders the above acts is punishable with rigorous imprisonment or in case of exceptional gravity, with life imprisonment or death.” Despite having such law on paper, one does not expect the Ethiopian government to punish those who had committed such acts of depravity on the dead. However, the Oromo people will not forget such cowardly and heinous crime committed by Abiy Ahmed against our dead, and the Oromo people will not rest until justice is found for all victims of Abiy Ahmed’s genocide.

From Crime of Menelik II at Aannolee to Abiy Ahmed’s at Abomsa:

Figure 3. Bodies of two Oromo youth on display in middle of Abomsa City November 2023

The goal of PM Abiy Ahmed in erecting statues for Menelik and Haile Selassie, as he told Professor Berhanu Nega, was to make the new Oromo generation forget what they learned in the past and think in a new way that Menelik II and Haile Selassie were great leaders. So, his goal is to erase from the current and new Oromo generations their collective memory of genocidal exterminations Menelik II and Haile Selassie committed against the Oromo people and also to erase the collective memory of this Oromo generation of their Oromo past and present and wants to plant in them or construct their memory in the image of Amhara perception to facilitate the acceptance of Ethiopianization/Amharanization, the greatness of Menelik II, and Haile Selassie. As it is often said, the past creates the present, so a Society looks at its past through the lens of history, through memory, to struggle to determine and shape its future as to what type of society it wants to be. The fact is generation cannot go forward if it forgets or does not learn what happened to it in the past. The past lays the foundation for the future. However, a lack of understanding of this means people will not fully understand and comprehend the things happening to them today. For instance, if we, the Oromo nationalists and people, do not know about the genocide committed against the Oromo Generations by Menelik II during the colonization of Oromia and then by Haile Selassie in 1941, we might fail to understand the genocide going on in Oromia or what has been happening in Oromia to the Oromo people today in the 21st century to unite and to fight for the liberation and independence of Oromia.

   Today, the Oromo people are sadly observing Abiy Ahmed’s erection of Memorial statues for Menelik II and Haile Selassie despite their deadliest genocidal extermination committed against the Oromo people. Menelik II exterminated five million Oromo during the early conquest and colonization of Oromia, and Haile Selassie over two million at Ashalamoo in Rift Valley West Arsii in 1941 upon his return from exile after the Italian occupier of the empire left. Here are the Statutes the PM Abiy Ahmed built for the geonocidists Menelik II and Haile Selassie.

  Menelik II         Haile Selassie

Figure 4. Portrait of Menelik II and Haile Selassie Commissioned by Abiy Ahmed.

   In total, over seven million Oromo people. The blood spilled at Azulee, Chalanqoo/Calanqoo, Aannolee, and other five million by Menelik II, and the over two million Haile Selassie annihilated at Ashalamoo are still crying to the high heaven at Abiy Ahmed’s erection of Memorial statues for Menelik II and Haile Selassie. Erecting memorial statues to commemorate the genocidist of the Oromo people for Menelik II and Haile Selassie by the Oromo national Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is the darkest chapter in Oromo history. His actions are unforgettable and unforgivable. He has committed a disgraceful and unpardonable historical crime in the eyes of human beings by constructing Memorial statues for Menelik II and Haile Selassie, who committed genocidal crimes against the Oromo people.

   As has been observed throughout history, there have been and are phases of genocide committed against the Oromo people, in general, against peoples. The first phase is dehumanization genocide. Dehumanization is ideological aggression against the people one hates. Dehumanization means denying or refusing to accept humanness to other human beings. For example, Amhara referred to the Oromo people as Galla- a derogatory, dehumanizing name and Ottoman Turks called Armenians infidels; Germans called Jews vermin and subhuman, dirty Jew pig, and Hutu referred to Tutsi as cockroaches and snakes, et cetera. These perpetrators used all these terms to deny the people they hate their humanness. Hence, dehumanizing human beings, taking them outside of being humans, or depriving people of being human is one phase of genocide. The Amhara Nazified elites and activists have been shouting sloganeering Oromo enmity incitement dehumanization phrases like Oromummaa is Nazification movement, Oromummaa political culture is bloodletting, Oromummaa politics is fascism, and Oromummaa must be destroyed, since 2018 for the physical genocidal extermination of the Oromo people. It was under these dehumanization names that some people committed genocide against other peoples, including against the Oromo people. As all have been watching for the last five years, the Amhara nationals have been singing the slogan, “Oromummaa must destroyed.” It is the declaration for the final stage of committing genocidal extermination of the Oromo people, cultural heritages, and institutions. This genocidal annihilation implementation against the Oromo people has been underway since 2018.

   The second phase of genocide is the physical genocidal extermination of the people based on dehumanization following enmity or hate incitement. In the Oromo case, the extermination of the Oromo people by Menelik II and Haile Selassie followed the dehumanization of Galla with the extermination phase. Abyssinian colonization is different from the European colonization of the rest of Africa. Abyssinian colonization of Oromia is a settler colonialism. They came to Oromia to overtake it and own it as theirs. As Patrick Wolf stated, “The settler colonizers come to stay,” and not only has this, he wrote, “Settler society required the practical elimination of the natives in order to establish itself on their territory” (Wolfe, Patrick. Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native). Hence, for the stated reasons, Abyssinians committed genocidal extermination against the Oromo people to take ownership of Oromia. Oromia has become a lucrative place of privilege. They freely breathe while the Oromo people have choked.

   The third phase is a denial of the perpetrators or the Amhara aggressors and their later generations’ denial of the existence of any physical genocidal extermination crime committed against the Oromo people. Even today, we are seeing the Amharas, their elites, and activists denying that Menelik II and Haile Selassie committed genocidal extermination against the Oromo people. Still, despite seeing the Statue at Aannolee for the mutilation of the breasts of women and the hands of men, the Amhara elites and activists are crying to the high heavens, asking PM Abiy Ahmed to take it down. Such shows the longstanding, deeply seated enmity between Amhara and Oromo.

   The fourth phase of committing genocide is erecting Memorial Statues for the victimizers, those criminals who committed genocidal crimes against other people. Here, what led PM Abiy Ahmed to erect the Memorial Statues for Menelik II and Haile Selassie is his denial of the genocide committed against the Oromo people. So, erecting Memorial Statues for the Amhara leaders Menelik II and Haile Selassie, et cetera, are committing genocide crimes.

   The fifth phase of genocide is memoricide; it is genocide against the members of the new generation whose ancestors were victims of genocidal extermination. The purpose of this is to make the new generations forget the history of genocide committed against their ancestors in the past, intended to influence them to accept, praise, glorify, and exalt the genocidaires like Menelik II and Haile Selassie. As stated in the previous paragraph, memoricide is the killing of memory or destruction of memory. It is wiping out the past and present acquired knowledge from the minds of the new generations and instilling them with information contrary to their previously learned knowledge. It was for this purpose that Abiy Ahmed told Professor Berhanu Nega about his erecting Memorial statues for Menelik II and Haile Selassie. All in all, his goal of memoricide of the Oromo youths is a part of his broader political grand strategy aimed at systematically destroying all traces of memories of the crimes of genocidal extermination of the Oromo people from the minds of the Oromo youths not only that of Menelik II and Haile Selassie in the past. It also includes the horrors, massacres, and mass destruction that had been committed against the Oromo farmers by the Amhara successive feudal aristocracies and their settler colonizers across Oromia since the colonization of Oromia, including the erasing of the Oromo heritage from the memory of the Oromo youths. For example, denying flying the Oromo flag over Finfinnee, singing the Oromo anthem in Finfinnee, refusing to change the name Addis Ababa to Finfinnee, failing to legislate the Oromo language, the language of majority official language of the empire, et cetera, are integral strategies of memoricide. Scholars of colonialism studies have argued that empire buildings and settler-colonization projects of place renaming as memoricide affects the historical and cultural heritage of peoples and regions. For example, here are Oromo names renamed to the colonizers Amhara names: Tuulamaa to Shewa, Finfinnee to Addis Ababa, Hadaamaa to Nazareth, Bushoftu to Debra Zeyit, Ambo to Agere Hiywot, Adoola to Kibre Mengist, Bulee Hora to Agere Mariam, Abomsa to Tinsa’e Berhan, Ciroo to Teferi Berhan et cetera. From here, it is clear that the colonial methods of memoricide and erasure threaten Oromia with the destruction of the diverse historical and cultural heritage of the land and people. Scholars of genocide further argue that the inner logic of Settler colonialism was and has been taking and owning land and eliminating the native population. In this regard, Patrick Wolf stated, “The logic of elimination strives to replace indigenous society with that imported by the colonizers.” Since the colonization of Oromia, the colonizers have been at the top of the economic and political pyramid in the conquered and occupied Oromia, including the south. Finfinnee has become the center of Amhara political and religious power of the empire in Oromia. Examples are the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ethiopia, et cetera. Then, they accuse the native organizations that resisted the settler occupation of their land as terrorists by campaigning and disseminating a false terrorist narrative worldwide against them. The Ethiopian genocidal settler-colonial imperial state has been doing this to the Oromo nationalist organizations since Haile Selassie, including the Prosperity Party of Abiy Ahmed. The Ethiopian genocidal settler-colonial imperial state has been doing this to the Oromo nationalist organizations since Haile Selassie, including the Prosperity Party of Abiy Ahmed.

   Today, the descendants of Menelik II and Haile Selassie and their collaborators’ admirers are and have been purposefully and maliciously denying that genocides did not happen to the Oromo people. PM Abiy Ahmed accepted this Amhara narrative, followed by the erecting of Memorial Statues for genocidist Menelik II and Haile Selassie at Unity Park as honorable, great leaders, beloved heroes, and patriots. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali of the Ethiopian colonial empire committed the last three genocides against the Oromo people. First, he denied that Menelik II and Haile Selassie committed genocide against the Oromo people; second, he erected Memorial statues for these genocidaires and, third, for engaging in memoricide of the Oromo youths to influence them to see Menelik II and Haile Selassie as the patriots, and heroes, and great leaders needed to loved, glorified, exalted, praised and honored. These are what Abiy Ahmed has done in favor of the Amhara genocidal colonial conquest of Oromia and their narratives of the genocidal extermination of the Oromo people. Here, what is strange and unhistorical is that PM Abiy Ahmed committed these against the interests, wishes, and aspirations of the Oromo people. He got the position of premiership as an Oromo national, in the name of the Oromo people, representing the OPDO, and yet committed himself to harmful actions against the Oromo people and their interests. PM Abiy Ahmed should have erected Memorial Statues and Museums for the five million and over two million Menelik II and Haile Selassie, respectively exterminated, including the five thousand to six thousand Oromo youths genocidal annihilated by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government between 2014- 2018, and for those thousands disappeared under its government. Not only these, he should have also established the National Memorial Day for commemoration or remembrance of those five million and over two million exterminated Oromo at the hands of Menelik II and Haile Selassie, respectively, including five thousand and six thousand who perished under the genocidal extermination of the EPRDF government.

   Here, what is historically registered is that the colonialist people erect Memorial Statues not for those whom they committed genocide against- not for the victims of their genocide and not to the heroes and heroines of a nation who fought against genocide, but for their genocidaires- the perpetrators of genocide. While in Canada and America, the Memorial statues of the colonial area have been taking down, for example, in the USA the Memorial statues of General Robert E. Lee is removed from the U.S Capitol, Washington, DC, and replaced by civil rights activist Barbara Johns. Over a hundred seventy statues have been removed in the USA. And yet, PM Abiy Ahmed erected statues for the genocidaires, Menelik II and Haile Selassie. In this case, another absurdity, ahistorical, and mystery is that Abiy Ahmed erected Memorial statues for those who committed genocide against his own Oromo people. Why he did this was the question in the minds of every person.

   History has shown time that the World History witnessed that people erect statues to commemorate their fallen patriots, heroes, and heroines, to pass the beliefs, values, and history, to represent nationhood, and to preserve cultural heritage. However, Abiy Ahmed failed to erect Memorial Monuments for the Oromo patriots, heroes, and heroines who were martyred in the defense of Oromia against Menelik II’s conquest and colonization and for those who became victims of Haile Selassie’s genocidal extermination at Ashalamoo in Rift Valley in West Arsii in 1941 after his returns from exile. Not only these, but Abiy Ahmed and Shimalis Abdiisaa have also failed to erect Memorial statues to commemorate the genocide and massacres of the 5,000-6,000 Oromo innocent gallant youths who lost their lives while resisting the TPLF Oromia robbery, genocidal slaughtering, persecution, disappearance of Oromo nationals, and its fascistic administering Oromia and its Finfinnee Master Plan policy from 2014 to 2018 upon whose OPDO took advantage to rise to the pinnacle of power in 2018 to where it is today.

   Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of the Ethiopian empire, considers the criminals Menelik and Haile Selassie as gallant, heroic figures and admirable, glorified and exalted them to the high heaven by erecting memorial statues for them by overlooking their involvement in genocidal extermination at Azule, Chalanqoo, Ashalamoo, and mutilation of breasts Oromo women and girls and hands of men at Aannolee and ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, massacres, land theft, and oppression and exploitation of the Oromo people. OPDO, the creation of colonial power, understands that the Oromo people are for the political right of self-determination of the colonized nations and nationalities and siding with the Oromo Liberation Front; to restore Oromia to its true self. For this, the OPDO began a campaign of genocidal mass killings, crimes against humanity, persecution, and disappearances of Oromo people since its creation in 1989 by the TPLF. The genocidal violence that Menelik II began a century and a half ago against the Oromo people continued in the present under PP/OPDO’s PM Abiy Ahmed’s administration against the Oromo people. Here what Abiy Ahmed added to the list of history of Ethiopian empire is in addition to Menelik II’s mutilated of Oromo women’s breasts and hands of men, Fano’s cut-off heads of Oromo men and women and to these Abiy Amhad added memoricide of the whole Oromo generation of today and the tomorrow- that is cut-off the memory of the Oromo youths from history of their ancestors.

   In sum, genocide began with conquest of Oromia and since then, the committing genocide against the Oromo people continued, especially with intensity under the Abiy Ahmed colonial administration of the Ethiopian empire. The reason has been to interrupt and suffocate the Oromo national liberation struggle. Oromo’s struggle has been, and is to restore, the Gadaa system and the independence of Oromia that was interrupted and fought against by the Amhara colonization of Oromia in the late last quarter of the 19th century and since then. Gadaa system had been the uninterrupted historical continuity of the system for millions of years until and up to the conquest and colonization of Oromia; it has been and is the source of Oromummaa that enshrined political, social, cultural, economic, traditions, and values functions. The struggle is to restore it and to preserve and transmit its legacy to new Oromo generations. It is time for this Oromo generation to establish Oromo Extermination Memorial Day, Memorial statues, and Museums for these nationals whom Menelik II and Haile Selassie committed genocidal extermination against. The Oromo elites and intelligentsia must take sole responsibility for these. The problem with the Oromo struggle has been that the Oromo elites and intelligentsia have been aloof from their people’s national liberation struggle by abandoning their people. They have been and are individualistic both in attitude and practice, clearly showing contradiction to the elites and intelligentsia of other nations. To the Oromo colonial question, the Oromo elites have become deaf voluntarily, not want to hear, blind, not see, dumb, not speak, and folded their hands as if they are handicapped- unable to write, and so choose to remain in a position of a nonparticipating observer. The source of such abandonment of people is political assimilation, amalgamation, and resocialization to the political center of the empire. The Amhara elites and political activists found this weakness with the Oromo elites and intelligentsia and consequently have been dancing all over, attacking the Oromo people and their institutions. It is time for the Oromo elites and intelligentsias to come to their sense to join the struggle of the Oromo people to take collective action for the common cause that affects the Oromo people collectively. It is time to lead the Oromo national struggle for independence, including forcing Abiy Ahmed to terms with the Oromo nationalists and people to establish the Oromo Genocidal Memorial Day and erecting Memorial statues and Museums for the victims of Menelik II, Haile Selassie, and Meles Zenawi of the EPRDF/TPLF. One can achieve these with unity.

   Furthermore, as it is known throughout history, all peoples that went through the colonial struggle, pain, and suffering as the Oromo people did, and against whom the colonialists committed genocide, as against the Oromo people, have created national memorials to remind themselves of their fellow patriotic men and women who sacrificed their precious lives for their respective countries. However, the Oromo people have failed to do so. Now, it is time for the Oromo people to erect Oromo national Memorials, Museums, Monuments, Statues, and Memorial sites to remember and honor the bravery of the Oromo fallen gallant sons and daughters, the heroes and heroines and establish the Oromo Genocidal Memorial Day for the victims of Menelik II, Haile Selassie, and Meles Zenawi. Not doing so is tantamount to hiding or suppressing the Oromo history and genocide against our people particularly when Abiy Ahmed is assiduously working to legitimize Menelik II, and Haile Selassie, the perpetrators of the genocide on the Oromo people, by erecting them Statues. Moreover, not honoring our fallen heroes and heroines by establishing memorial statues and Memorial Day for them plays in the hands of Abiy Ahmed’s “Grand Narrative.”

   The term Grand Narrative was coined by the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard. According to Lyotard, Grand Narratives is a theory that attempts to give comprehensive and totalizing accounts of various historical events and experiences to social and cultural phenomena based upon the appeal to universal truth and universal values. Recently, Abiy Ahmed unveiled his “Grand Narrative” in his condescending seminar presentation to senior government officials, cabinet members, and prominent officials from regional states. Abiy Ahmed states that the purpose of his “Grand Narrative” is to foster “positive interaction” and create a shared national identity, stating: “It is something that helps us stand together and usher in prosperity. It is the foundation for a strong, united Ethiopia and a top priority.” Abiy’s Grand Narrative is Ethnocentric as it attempts to suppress the history of the Oromo people and other oppressed peoples in the empire. By presenting Habasha-centric history, Abiy deliberately attempted to present what he perceives to be true history and hoodwink us and the Oromo generations to come into believing the Abyssinian history and, at the same time, dismissing or suppressing the true history of the people oppressed and victimized by Abyssinian colonizers. It has to be recalled that a protégé of Abiy Ahmed, Addisu Arega, at the OROMIA conference held in 2019 in Ambo, denied that Harma Mura and Harka Mura Aannolee, the cutting off breasts of women and hands of men at Aannolee, did not happen and dismissed this significant Oromo history as well as Yeburqa zimta by Tesfaye Gebrab as fiction. Both Abiy Ahmed’s “Grand Narrative” and Addisu Arega’s presentations were designed to legitimize the false narrative of the Ethiopian empire by erasing the colonial people’s history. Therefore, the only way we can prevent our history from being erased from the annals of history is by memorializing our ancestors, the heroes, and heroines with statues, museums, and Memorial Day.

   The Oromo people have the truth. They have been struggling for this truth since Oromia fell under the colonial occupation of Abyssinia a century and a half ago. The fact is, they are a colonized people and need liberation from colonial occupation. No doubt, the truth ultimately will triumph. Hence, with the Oromo unity, strength, and struggle in the unity, this force of truth forces accepting the words right of nations and nationalities to self-determination, the establishment of the Oromo Genocidal Memorial Day, and removal of the statues of Menelik II and Haile Selassie from the unwilling lips of Amhara colonialists of Oromia and their Oromo proxies. 

Oromo Unity is Power!

Oromia shall be free!

ave been cruel leaders at all times and ages, but the barbaric and ruthlessness of Abiy Ahmed toward his native Oromo people surpasses that of all in human history.ave failed to construct statues or memorial monuments and museum centers in Finfinnee and across Oromia for the commemoration or remembrance of five Oromo people who lost their lives during the Menelik II genocidal war of conquest in the 19th century and over two million exterminated by Haile Selassie at Ashalamoo in 1941 and for the heroes, heroines and the Oromo patriots who martyred in defense of Oromia against the Menelik II conquest and those who martyred in the struggle for the liberation of Oromia since colonization. Statues symbolize the root identity of a nation through which its history has been passing, connecting the present, the past, and the future generations. The Oromo have failed to construct statues or memorial monuments and museum centers in Finfinnee and across Oromia for the commemoration or remembrance of five Oromo people who lost their lives during the Menelik II genocidal war of conquest in the 19th century and over two million exterminated by Haile Selassie at Ashalamoo in 1941 and for the heroes, heroines and the Oromo patriots who martyred in defense of Oromia against the Menelik II conquest and those who martyred in the struggle for the liberation of Oromia since colonization. Statues symbolize the root identity of a nation through which its history has been passing, connecting the present, the past, and the future generations.For example,  people constructed  statues  to 

commemorate their patriots, heroes and heroines, to transmit mythical histories, to represent a nationhood, to preserve cultural 

heritage, to beautify cities and to legitimize authority. For  these and  other  reasons,  the  history and  values 

me  country.  For instance,  Kigali  memorial  monument 

and  museum  center  in  Rwanda  is  constructed  for  the 

commemoration  of  people  who  lost  their  life  during  the 

genocide

  same  country.  For instance,  Kigali  memorial  monument 

and  museum  center  in  Rwanda  is  constructed  for  the 

commemoration  of  people  who  lost  their  life  during  the 

genocide

  same  country.  For instance,  Kigali  memorial  monument 

and  museum  center  in  Rwanda  is  constructed  for  the 

commemoration  of  people  who  lost  their  life  during  the 

genocide

olitical groups,  classes, gender, ethnicity, religion and  etc in 

the  same  country.  For instance,  Kigali  memorial  monument 

and  museum  center  in  Rwanda  is  constructed  for  the 

commemoration  of  people  who  lost  their  life  during  the 

genocide. 

Statues  are  also  constructed  based  on  the  incident  of 

external  conflict,  when a  country  or a  nation struggles  

olitical groups,  classes, gender, ethnicity, religion and  etc in 

the  same  country.  For instance,  Kigali  memorial  monument 

and  museum  center  in  Rwanda  is  constructed  for  the 

commemoration  of  people  who  lost  their  life  during  the 

genocide. 

Statues  are  also  constructed  based  on  the  incident  of 

external  conflict,  when a  country  or a  nation struggles  

For  instance,  for  an  ‘act’  of 

genocide, massacre,  ethnic cleansing or terrorism, statues are 

erected  to  harness  memory  of  victims  and  to  learn  lessons 

from the past act in an effort to avoid repeating it. At the same 

time, statues are constructed to commemorate innocent people, 

militants  or  gallant  war  leaders  who  lost  their  lives  in  a 

conflict/war. In short, statues  are  material sites that depict an 

image  of  people,  animals  or  events that  have  values  for  the 

society  in  particular  and  county  in  general.  Therefore,  this 

paper  critically  reviews  several  literatures  and  analyze  the 

histor

For  instance,  for  an  ‘act’  of 

genocide, massacre,  ethnic cleansing or terrorism, statues are 

erected  to  harness  memory  of  victims  and  to  learn  lessons 

from the past act in an effort to avoid repeating it. At the same 

time, statues are constructed to commemorate innocent people, 

militants  or  gallant  war  leaders  who  lost  their  lives  in  a 

conflict/war. In short, statues  are  material sites that depict an 

image  of  people,  animals  or  events that  have  values  for  the 

society  in  particular  and  county  in  general.  Therefore,  this 

paper  critically  reviews  several  literatures  and  analyze  the 

histor

For  instance,  for  an  ‘act’  of 

genocide, massacre,  ethnic cleansing or terrorism, statues are 

erected  to  harness  memory  of  victims  and  to  learn  lessons 

from the past act in an effort to avoid repeating it. At the same 

time, statues are constructed to commemorate innocent people, 

militants  or  gallant  war  leaders  who  lost  their  lives  in  a 

conflict/war. In short, statues  are  material sites that depict an 

image  of  people,  animals  or  events that  have  values  for  the 

society  in  particular  and  county  in  general.  Therefore,  this 

paper  critically  reviews  several  literatures  and  analyze  the 

histor

For  instance,  for  an  ‘act’  of 

genocide, massacre,  ethnic cleansing or terrorism, statues are 

erected  to  harness  memory  of  victims  and  to  learn  lessons 

from the past act in an effort to avoid repeating it. At the same 

time, statues are constructed to commemorate innocent people, 

militants  or  gallant  war  leaders  who  lost  their  lives  in  a 

conflict/war. In short, statues  are  material sites that depict an 

image  of  people,  animals  or  events that  have  values  for  the 

society  in  particular  and  county  in  general.  Therefore,  this 

paper  critically  reviews  several  literatures  and  analyze  the 

histor