As the title of the
book clearly implies, the book is an autobiography
but it is also about what the author wants to
write on what he knows and believes about the
Oromo, as he aptly puts it in the preface of the
book. Upon reading the book, I have come to
conclude that Bulcha Demeksa is honest and candid
in his analysis of the Ethiopian phenomenon. At
times he vents anger toward the oppressive
machinery that mistreated and exploited the Oromo
and other Ethiopian minority nationalities; unlike
other Oromo nationalists, however, Bulcha is very
much concerned about the Ethiopian nation as he is
very much interested in promoting the
self-determination of the Oromo people. In this
sense, thus, the book is more of advocacy for the
cause of the Oromo rather than solicit vision as
the subtitle of the book indicates.
While the author did a
superb job in delineating the condition of the
Oromo throughout the chapters in the book by
intermittently digressing from the central thesis
of a given chapter, he actually renders his own
experience in Haile Selassie�s Government. �I
write so much about public service,� says Bulcha,
�because it is where I served, worked, and
earned my livelihood. In the course of my public
service, I came across many people, some good and
some not so good. Ethiopia also stands prominent
in this document for the same reason.�
The book has twenty
chapters that illuminate Bulcha�s early
childhood life in Wellega to his final active life
as a leader of the Oromo Federalist Democratic
Movement (OFDM) and chair of the International
Awash Bank. Some of the chapters reflect the
author�s professional career achievements;
others depict his encounters, challenges, and
frustrations; and still other chapters demonstrate
controversies, some of which I endorse and some I
disagree with as I shall explain in the following
paragraphs. I personally like books that stir
controversy than books that hide truth and obscure
reality.
Chapter one is an
account of the early years of Bulcha�s life, but
what makes this chapter interesting is not so much
how it narrates when and where the author was
born, the passing of his father at an early age
and the responsibility shouldered by his uncle,
Gobu Senbetu, but it is because it reinforces the
narration by some anthropological themes that
could serve as introduction to the Oromo culture.
For instance, badu is homemade cheese; goderre is
cassava-like edible root; dabay means braided
hair; walla is a type of skirt soaked in butter;
qabdo refers to kissing; michu is a love partner;
indirinya is a flute; qoro is a title of an
administrator of a district; and ganda, which
sounds like the Tigrigna ganta, refers to a
district.
Throughout the book the
author makes references to Finfinnee, the old name
of Addis Ababa except on page 24 (and this is
probably a slip of finger inadvertently left
unedited) and I am unable to fathom the purpose of
a name that is not attributable to the capital of
Ethiopia and to which other non-Oromo Ethiopians
and foreign nationals cannot relate to. Although
it is politically correct to revive names such as
Bishoftu for Debre Zeit and Adama for Nazareth, I
don�t think readers will understand the
replacement of Addis Ababa by Finfinnee. One
meaningful option for the author would have been
to interchangeably us the names Finfinnee and
Addis Ababa. I believe the name �Addis Ababa�
is irreversible because it evokes the central
locus of the African Union headquarters as well as
the hub of international organizations, diplomatic
missions, and global trade linkages associated
with the name.
Bulcha Demeksa was
first educated at the university college of Addis
Ababa (UCAA) as Addis Ababa University was known
when it was first founded, and then pursued his
higher education at Syracuse University in New
York. In fact, he was first admitted at Cornell
but not knowing that the latter was an ivy league
he moved on his own volition to Syracuse, where he
says he �was happy to be in the company of my
Ethiopian friends.� Upon completion of his
studies, Bulcha goes back to Ethiopia and joins
the Ministry of Finance, a place he calls �destiny�
and he would work under the supervision of the
most professionally erudite Ethiopian Yilma
Deressa.
Many Ethiopians
including Emperor Haile Selassie share Bulcha�s
high regard for Yilam Deressa. Yilam Deressa, a
graduate of the London School of Economics, was
perhaps the only minister working in the right
place attributed to his educational background.
Bulcha says, �often, Yilma gathered staff to
prepare them for the campaign on correct budgetary
procedures. He spoke of budgetary �indiscipline�,
which the Ministry of Finance must strenuously
oppose,� and �he had the full support of the
Emperor in reforming the budget.� Most
important, however, is Yilma�s administration of
the Ministry of Finance based on merit and not on
ethnicity because as Bulcha states, �Yilma was
never biased on the basis of regional connection
or ethnic affiliation.�
Bulcha�s book in many
ways is similar to Seyoum Haregot�s book The
Bureaucratic Empire: Serving Emperor Haile
Selassie that I have reviewed, and this is not
surprising because both authors served the same
regime in similar capacities at about the same
time. In both books, revelations are made with
respect to outspoken ministers who were critical
of Haile Selassie�s government but whose side of
the story was unknown to the public. One such
encounter that comes as a surprise to me
personally is Abebe Retta�s disappointment in
regards to some policies and practices and Bulcha
captures it as follows:
�On another occasion
in the Council of Ministers, in the mid-60s, Abebe
Retta, the Minister of Health, who was from the
province of Tigray (present �regions� were
called �provinces� in those days), said to the
Council of Ministers: �You (meaning Government,
but more precisely, Aklilu Habtewold, the Prime
Minister) do not want �them� (people from
Tigray) to go through the school system and become
educated. You want them to be gardeners, drivers,
cooks, and guards. But they (Tigreans) will not
accept their fate quietly.� The background of
this outburst was that, in the province of Tigray,
in most districts, the primary school system was,
by tradition, under the administration of the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Government was
supposed to systematically disengage the Church
from the responsibility of running public schools
and bring primary school administration under the
Ministry of Education which had the wherewithal to
run proper schools. According to Abebe Retta, the
Government was deliberately dragging its feet to
change the tradition. Later on, the Government
took over the Tigray elementary school system.�
Bulcha gives credit to
Yilma Deressa for writing a book entitled
Sixteenth Century History of Ethiopia because at
least one chapter of the book deals with the
history of the Oromo. �The book was most likely
to fill a historical gap,� says Bulcha, �between
what the Portuguese priests and Abba Bahrey wrote
about the Oromo in the late 16th century, and the
Oromo situation at the beginning of the 21st
century.� Pages 71 to 79 of the book, thus, are
dedicated to Yilma�s book and the authentic
history of the Oromo.
According to Bulcha,
except for Yilma and Mohammed Hassen, all other
authors �presented the Oromo and its culture
with some anxiety and apprehension.� The author�s
misgivings, here, may have inadvertently ignored
the positive dimension of Abba Bahrey�s account
and Asmerom Legesse�s anthropological study of
the Oromo. While Asmerom has a distinct advantage
of writing verifiable empirical data on the Gada
of the Oromo, Abba Bahrey also would have a unique
advantage of an eyewitness account of Oromo
northward migration in the 16th century.
In relation to the
Oromo migration, one most valuable book is Richard
Pankhurst�s The Ethiopian Borderland: Essays in
Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of
the 18th Century. Chapter 24 of the book is
essentially about Abba Bahrey�s Zenahu La Galla
or History of the Gallas written in 1553.
Incidentally, Abba Bahrey was not from northern or
central Ethiopia; he was a monk from Gamo, now in
the Southern Ethiopian Peoples Region and his
treatise is a testimony of the Oromo migration
that he lived to witness. The most important
contribution of Abba Bahrey is the fact he
provided us with the structure and operation of
the Gada. He discusses the Oromo confederation of
the four (afur in Afan Oromo) clans, namely Hoko,
Chalya, Gudru, and Liban. Other clans composed of
three (sadaqa in Afan Oromo) clans were the Obbo,
Suba, and Hakako. The Luba, who are democratically
elected for eight years, in turn, lead all these
clans of four or three.
According to Abba
Bahrey, thus, the First Luba or Melba took place
between 1522 and 1530 when the Oromo crossed the
Wabi Shebelli into present-day Bale and this
coincided with the Ahmed Gra� incursions against
Emperor Libne Dingil and his son Emperor
Galawedewos. The Second Luba (1530-1538) is also
about a crossing of the Wabi Shebelli by the Oromo
and their settlement into southeastern Ethiopia;
the Third Luba (1538-1546) coincided with the fall
of Adal; in the Fourth Luba (1546-1554), the
Oromos took over the mini-states of Dawaro and
Fatigar; the Fifth Luba managed to defeat the Jan
Amora forces of Emperor Galawdewos; the Sixth Luba
(1562-1570) confronted and challenged Emperor
Sertse Dingil; the Seventh Luba (15701578) was
successful in occupying Shawa and also began
incursions on Gojjam; the Eighth Luba (1578-1586)
was more of reorganization of the Gada fighters
equipped with spears and �long shields made of
stiff ox-hide�; the Ninth Luba (1586-1594)
raided over Gojjam and also penetrated into
southern Tigray.
Abba Bahrey�s
testimony is essentially about the northward
movement of the Oromo, but after the Ninth Luba
and early 1600s the Imperial Ethiopian army
managed to contain Oromo movement and the latter
also suffered internal rivalry. However, by this
time, the Oromo have intermingled and intermarried
with other Ethiopians; some of them have even
played a vital role in Ethiopian politics during
the Gondarian period. For instance, upon
arrangements made by Empress Mentewab, Emperor
Iyasu married Princess Wubit, who was the
descendant of the Tullama clan and she gave birth
to Iyoas who succeeded his father to the throne
and became Emperor of Ethiopia from 1755 to 1769.
In it is in light of
the above account that we must examine how and
when the Oromo became part and parcel of the
Ethiopian social fabric. It would also help us
understand the complexity and intricacy of the
relationship of the various ethnic groups with one
another if we seriously consider what Gramsci once
called �unique historical conditions� instead
of finger pointing at this or that nationality as
oppressor and simply reminisce with
disappointment. We must be able to rationally
assess events that are historically constituted,
and what I mean by this is that we must view
national oppression or domination in the context
of the overall historical development that gives
rise to it. When the Oromo northward migration
took place in the 16th century, for instance, it
is due chiefly to the nature of Gada, a
politico-military system that is inherently
expansionist. The majority of the Oromo were
cattle breeders and out of necessity to find
grazing area and water for their cattle they had
to wander all over, and by doing so they would
encroach on sedentary farmers� lands as in
central and northern Ethiopia and conflict thus
would be inevitable. This is not unique to
Ethiopia; it happened virtually everywhere in
which two irreconcilable modes of productions were
unable to coalesce.
The oppression that was
directed against the Oromo in the 19th century,
though inevitable, was not justifiable and the
Habasha Ethiopians, in particular Amharas and
Tigrayans, who were dominant for thousands of
years, should have the courage to apologize to the
Oromo and other minority nationalities of
Ethiopia. On the other hand, Oromo brothers and
sisters must understand that historical events are
not always intentionally designed; as implied
above, they are governed by circumstances that are
sometimes understandable and sometimes
unpredictable. Sometimes necessity can drive
communities into undesired situations and make
them face unintended consequences.
Bulcha should have
included the above synthesis as part of his
admiration of Yilma�s account of Oromo history
and could have forged a solid vision for the Oromo.
But, his high regard for Yilma, by itself, is
interesting because most Ethiopians, especially of
the present generation, don�t know much about
Yilma Deressa, �a most interesting person to
work with� as Bulcha tells us. Eventually, Yilma
Deressa departed from the Ministry of Finance and
was replaced by �a flamboyant French-educated
bureaucrat who had always been around the place,�
but Bulcha does not say who this person is. �There
was a mutual distrust between me and the new
minister,� says Bulcha, �because the two
important persons the Minister and I respectively
worked for (Aklilu and Yilma), had become
political rivals in the late 1960s. This situation
did not help my relationship with the new
Minister. I personally like Aklilu, a polished and
erudite diplomat who was not arrogant, haughty or
authoritarian.� Seyoum Haregot made the same
evaluation of Prime Minister Aklilu in his book
that I have mentioned earlier.
With the departure of
Yilma Deressa and the irreconcilable differences
with the new Minister, Bulcha began �looking
toward overseas for survival� as he puts it in
Chapter Eight of the book, but some of his
colleagues were not going to be happy. Reinforcing
the concern of his colleagues, Bulcha put it as
follows: �A few of my friends, such as Dr.
Seyoum Haregot (an Eritrean but devoted to
Ethiopia at the time), Minister of State in the
Prime Minister�s office, thought that my
departure was a loss because of my accumulated
experience.�
Chapter Nine is about
the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 and Bulcha along
with his friends in Washington DC were hoping that
Oromo soldiers and officers as well as �such
individuals as Baro Tumsa and Abboma Mitiku and
others, would help them rise to the occasion��
May be Abboma was an Oromo nationalist (which is
perfectly all right) when I knew him in campus in
the early 1970s that I am not aware of, but the
Abboma Mitiku I knew during the heyday of the
Ethiopian Student Movement (ESM) was a colleague
dedicated to a pan-Ethiopian agenda. Incidentally,
I learned later that he became one of the founders
of the OLF, but it is also important to
acknowledge that he played a constructive role in
the ESM.
In relation to Lt.
General Aman Andom, Bulcha tells us a story that I
never knew before. He says, Aman �refused to
surrender and committed suicide after the army had
surrounded his house for two days.� The story
that I know does not involve suicide! First the
Derg tried to negotiate with Aman so that he
continues his chairmanship of the Derg that he no
longer wants to pursue, and the reason for the
latter decision was that Aman sought peaceful
resolution to the Eritrean problem while the Derg
wanted to employ force. Aman rejected the position
of the Derg and the army surrounded his house
where a shoot out immediately began. Aman was
fighting with some of his loyalist and he was no
match to the gunfire of the army, and although he
managed to kill some from the Derg soldiers he was
overwhelmed by them and they also overrun his
house by tanks and demolished it and the brave
Aman was buried under the debris of his own house.
After everything was over, my friends and I were
curious and we went to see Aman� house; it was
within the old Princess Tsehay Memorial Hospital
compound and it was completely flattened!
Chapter Ten is
dedicated to Bulcha�s work experience at the
United Nations/UNDP. What I found interesting in
this chapter is the author�s characterization of
the UN as an organization of favoritism and
racism. He unlocks the bizarre and unprofessional
operations within the world organization and this
is how he put it:
�In the UN, the staff
has to fend for themselves, and there is a great
deal of favoritism and nepotism. Usually staff
coming from common background support each other.
For example, an Irish man would support another
Irish man. This is true of friends also. African
staff, in general, are consciously or otherwise
treated callously in the UN, New York, where
decision affecting all UN professional staff
around the world are made. Africans are the most
neglected group. When African staff wants to see a
senior official, it would take him/her a long
time, whereas when a European staff wanted to see
the same official, he/she would just walk into the
office and chat�blatant discrimination and color
consciousness is so rampant.� I agree with
Bulcha�s assessment of the UN and I am not
surprised with his observations and encounters. I
myself have tried to get into the UNDP two decades
ago by submitting the proper application but I did
not get any response. Apparently, I had one
acquaintance at the UNDP and asked him to figure
out about my application, but to my chagrin,
instead of helping me, he facilitated the entrance
of his wife into the UNDP. Likewise, I applied
three times at UNESCO and no reply whatsoever; not
even courtesy response as some professional
organizations do. The UN is a highly politicized
gargantuan international organization.
While in Tanzania,
Bulcha thought Tanzania could have made �an 8%
rate of growth� because �at this time Tanzania
was following the World Bank/IMF adjustment
program.� Unfortunately, this is a wrong
assessment because the structural adjustment
program (SAP) initiated by the World Bank in 1981
was a disaster. The two Bretton Woods institutions
did not realize SAP�s negative impact on African
nations until 1997 when they openly declared the
significance of the role of institutions in
markets and the state in development that was very
much restricted by SAP.
Bulcha portrays
Tanzania as a failure state under Nyerere and
Kenya by contrast as a success story. His
rationale, however, is not persuasive enough to
warrant credible support. As per Bulcha, �Nyerere
looks imminent internationally, but he left his
country in poverty�His Arusha Declaration was
never translated into a better life for most of
the people, but in squalor and misery. At the same
time, it was refreshing to see Kenya, its
neighbor, achieve better economic growth.�
Bulcha was not critical enough to examine the two
neighboring east African countries in the context
of the Cold War. Moreover, while there is some
truth to his observations of Tanzania, his claim
of �better economic growth� for Kenya is
parenthetical because 1) in the 60s and 70s, Kenya
and Ivory Coast were portrayed by the Western
media as promising African countries because they
pursued the capitalist path to development, but
that was proved wrong in 80s and 90s; 2) the
negligible economic growth that Kenya exhibited
initially did not trickle down to the Kenyan
people, and on the contrary one could visibly
encounter �squalor and misery� in the slum
areas of Nairobi.
Chapter Eleven is about
�Light at the End of the Tunnel� that the
author himself considers illusory. The chapter is
also about the coming to power of the EPRDF (Bulcha
prefers TPLF/EPRDF). In this chapter, Bulcha
boldly asserts his assessment with respect to the
role of the United States in Ethiopian politics
and he also provides the reader with some
revelations that I myself was not aware of. Here
are some of the revelations:
�It is interesting to
note that the road from Bure (Godjam) to Neqamtee,
Wellegga, was constructed by the World Bank with
the pressure from the United States which had
already been committed to TPLF�s taking power in
Ethiopia�Some people know the Bure/Naqamtee road
as the �Paul Henze road��All along, it
seems, the US intention was not to bring together
all key political factions to share power, but to
ensure smooth takeover of power by the TPLF-led
coalition. The USA seems to have found TPLF around
1987as the most viable group to oust Mengistu
without leaving behind another mess similar to
Somalia.�
Furthermore, Bulcha
argues that it was Paul Henze and Herman Cohen who
�have had far-reaching influence on the course
of events in Ethiopia,� but he also questions,
�How can the destiny of a country be entrusted
to a couple of unaccountable and faceless civil
servants?�
Another interesting
revelation that Bulcha makes is in relation to the
question of Assab and Ethiopia�s outlet to the
sea. Before the EPRDF assumed power in 1991, in
the London Conference chaired by Herman Cohen it
was rumored that the EPRDF rejected the idea of
Assab as port for Ethiopia, but Bulcha now comes
up with additional information on this complicated
issue that other Ethiopians (outside EPRDF) have
indeed objected the idea of Assab as port of
Ethiopia. During the Addis Ababa Charter
conference, in which many organizations invited by
the EPRDF convened to initiate the new government
of Ethiopia, one of the organizations represented
to which Bulcha was affiliated but not a member of
was the Ethiopian National Democratic Organization
(ENDO). Since Bulcha could not represent ENDO at
the Charter Conference, Kifle Wadajo arrived from
London to takeover the responsibility. However,
some ENDO members �refused to talk to Kifle.
Their most serious attack on him related to his
�yes vote� regarding the relinquishing of
Assab to Eritrea.�
In spite of the
participation of several organizations in the
Charter Conference and the assumption of the
latter to establish a transitional democratic
government in Ethiopia, Bulcha argues, �In
retrospect, it seems that the TPLF/EPRDF had
discussed the matter with Herman Cohen of the US
State Department and had agreed that, during the
transition period, a small manageable group, just
for the image, should be formed as a Transitional
Council (Parliament). The real power was to be
exercised by Meles and his group, with the
Americans not too far from the center. In the
Conference, the Americans were intensely following
the discussions, sometimes nodding when the
Chairman made a remark which corresponded to the
agreement reached with US negotiators in London. I
was sitting next to a couple of military officers
who were visibly happy when a resolution to the
liking of the Americans passed.�
One other interesting
remark that Bulcha makes has to do with Isaias
Afewerki, the current president of Eritrea, during
the Addis Ababa Charter Conference: �Before the
agenda item concerning Eritrea came up, I went to
the seat of Isayas Afewerki and introduced myself.
He was seated in the section where observers sat.
I wanted to have an impression of the man at close
range, and also to try to have an idea what his
view was about Assab. Before I raised any issue,
he asked me what ENDO stood for as a political
party. I told him that my relationship with ENDO
was tenuous and in reality, my natural sympathy
was with those �people over there�, pointing
to the OLF seats in the Conference. But I also
told him that we had things to iron out with the
OLF�In any case, I did not go far with Isayas.
As there was too much going on in the Hall, my
impression of Isayas was that he was cocky, and
appeared unrealistically arrogant for a leader of
a small African country. I could not help
comparing Isayas with the many leaders of African
Liberation Movements that I dealt with in the 70s
and early 80s while I was in UNDP. They were not
as arrogant as Isayas.�
When Bulcha went back
to Dar-es-Salaam, he says he sent a document
pertaining to the SAP program to Meles Zenawi but
he never got any answer from the latter and in
regards to the unresponsive nature of EPRDF
leaders, Bulcha comments as follows: �When I
served in the World Bank as an Executive Director
representing Ethiopia, among others, I wrote
directly to the Emperor and got replies. I still
have those letters in my files. Now, who is
feudal? When a citizen writes to the White House
in the US, or to the Head of the State in
Botswana, or anywhere else, he/she gets a reply.
When I shared with some Ethiopian friends in
Tanzania about my sending of World Bank/IMF
documents to President Meles Zenawi and that I did
not get a reply, they said to me �Good! You
deserve the snub you got fro him.�
One other encounter but
surprisingly curious is Bulcha�s exchange of
ideas with the American ambassador in Addis Ababa,
which, by and large, reinforces the author�s
observations of US role in Ethiopian politics
mentioned above: �The Ambassador, a blunt and
razor-sharp diplomat, asked me to stay in Ethiopia
for a while, and �help�. I said, �who needed
my help�. He then said plainly: �Stay here and
join OPDO, and I think the Federal Government will
appoint you as Minister of Finance or Governor of
the National Bank.�
Chapter Twelve is about
Bulcha in New York, reading and writing but in
this chapter there are some controversies that
need resolution and some concepts that beg
redemption. On page 171, for instance, the author
says, �The phrase �rent seekers� is a
meaningless communist jargon and makes no sense to
people.� Bulcha is correct in saying that this
concept makes no sense to people and I personally
doubt it very much that the people who use this
phrase in Ethiopia understand its essence at all.
However, it is not a communist jargon; on the
contrary, it was David Ricardo who first
introduced the concept into the political economy
lexicon in the 19th century. The concept was
utilized then in reference to �privilege seeking�
feudal lords in Europe but somehow it was replaced
by �rent seeking� because the privilege
seeking lords were renting their lands in order to
make gains in politics. I have clarified the
problem of this concept in my new book, Ethiopia:
Democracy, Devolution of Power, & The
Developmental State.
One other remark made
by Bulcha that could be controversial but to which
I agree with is his commentary on the Ethiopian
Review: �While still in New York, I continued to
write in the Ethiopian Review on Ethiopian issues.
The Ethiopian Review, at that time (in the early
90s), was a serious critic of the EPRDF, but not a
narrow nationalist as it is today.� I share
Bulcha�s observation because I myself, out of
concern, emailed to Elias Kifle, the editor of
Ethiopian Review, to revive the old stance of the
magazine rather than engage in narrow
sentiments.
I don�t know what
Bulcha means when he states, �The Oromo of Wollo,
Gojam and Tigray are in the process of loosing
their language and culture, replacing them with
the language and culture of those who ruled them,�
when it is abundantly clear that these segment of
the Oromo were assimilated into the Habasha fabric
as soon as they came in the 16th century and
settled among the Amhara, Tigrayans, and other
ethnic groups. The Raya Azebo and Raya Kobo Oromo
of Tigray speak Tigrigna and they don�t speak
Afan Oromo and same hard fact applies to the Oromo
in Gojjam and Wollo.
What I fully endorse
and accept is Bulcha�s assertion of the
self-determination of the Oromo: �The Oromo are
a distinct people with their own linguistic
uniqueness and cultural identity. Therefore the
Oromo will not accept to be assimilated into the
cultures of other peoples. They will always
peacefully co-exist and intermingle with the other
peoples of Ethiopia, fight together any intruder
into our country (Ethiopia), but they still want
to be known as Oromo, with all their
identifications.�
On the corruption
charges made against Tamrat Layne, Bulcha states,
�no legislator could dare ask the Prime Minister
a single question when Meles said that Tamrat was
�overcome by candies� meaning bribe. He also
said that Tamrat�s moral depravity was
unacceptable.� Well, when Tamrat appeared with
Meles before the Parliament during this entire
political theater, he did not utter a word either.
He could have said something in his own defense.
Now, Tamrat is a free man and he can either tell
the tale or write a book and enlighten Ethiopian
readers.
Two misconceptions on
Tigray and Tgrayans that Bulcha by default shared
with the narrow nationalist Diaspora Ethiopians
are discussed in relation to �regional
administration that I found quite surprising, and
this is how he puts it: ��I noticed that lot
of people from Tigray, from Canada and the United
States were returning to their region. Later, I
found out that, in Tigray there was consensus
among the elite that they should develop Tigray to
ensure that that it would never again be subjected
to non-Tigrean domination and starvation. By
contrast, it became evident that it was not safe
for people of other regions to go back to their
respective regions without first becoming EPRDF
members and friends.���That would mean that
other regions will [would] lag behind in economic
and social development. In other words, while in
Tigray, it is possible for a person of that region
to go back and contribute to the development of
Tigray, it is next to impossible for a returnee
from abroad to go back to his region of birth and
participate in the development of his people, if
he/she wants his/her political independence.�
Bulcha is fundamentally wrong and he should
seriously rethink his assertions of Tigray and
Tigrayans that do not reflect the reality on the
ground, and to help him his claim in a much
broader context, I suggest to him to see the
transformation and development that have taken
place in Bahir Dar, Adama, Hawassa, and elsewhere
in Ethiopia.
Chapter Thirteen begins
with a fair and good statement in regards to
self-determination of the Oromo and the unity of
Ethiopia: �I also wanted to go to my own birth
place, Boji Dirmaji, to dialogue with the people
of my village about election of the members of the
Constituent Assembly, because I believed that the
Oromo nation should remain part of the Ethiopian
community as an autonomous and federated state and
as such, a modern, liberal, and accommodative
constitution should be drawn up. In such a set up,
the Oromo would play their democratic rightful
role which should be welcome by all reasonable
people whether they are Amharas, Tigre or others.�
What I found surprising
and curious in Chapter Thirteen is Bulcha�s
attempt to establish relations with the American
Ambassador in order to promote his interests
despite the fact that he was critical of the
American involvement and scrutiny of the Charter
Conference that we have seen earlier. �In
February 1994, I told the American Ambassador, Mr.
Mark Baas, at a social setting� says Bulcha, �that
I wanted to be elected into the Constituent
Assembly as an independent. I told him about my
plan because if something happened to me, he would
know that it was politically motivated�The US
Ambassador immediately called Kinfe Gebre-Medhin,
the EPRDF/TPLF security chief, who was then,
deputy to the Minister of Internal Affairs and
Security (Kuma Demeksa). Baas asked Kinfe to see
me and Kinfe agreed. Soon after, I went and spoke
to Kinfe who encouraged me to participate in the
elections.�
Bulcha�s involvement
in the campaign for election, however, is not
going to be easy. He may have earned the support
of his people in his district but his constituency
and himself were intimidated by the local police
as he plainly puts it: �Wherever I spoke,
policemen who looked poor and in tattered
uniforms, followed me everywhere, surely not to
protect me, but to intimidate my supporters who
followed me wherever I went�I never needed them,
as the people were friendly, and it was the
Government officials, including the policemen, who
were unfriendly to me and my entourage.�
Bulcha continued to
complain about police harassment in his campaign
trail: �Police continued to follow me and openly
register or pretended to register the names of the
people who came to listen to me. I often repeated
my own belief that the Americans largely installed
EPRDF as a Government of Ethiopia and that, in my
opinion, EPRDF should have held a general national
election in which all parties put up candidates.
�When many of the people thrown into jail sent
their children to tell me what happened to them, I
decided to return to Finfinnee to inform the
Federal Authorities and also the American
Ambassador. I say the American Ambassador because
EPRDF was officially installed by US officials,
such as Herman Cohen and Paul Henze in July 1991.
I felt terribly bad that I had to complain to a
foreign envoy in my own country because I felt
that nobody in the Government was on my own side
or on the side of justice and democracy.�
On pages 200 and 201 of
Chapter Thirteen, Bulcha argues the Oromos must
win at least 40% of the seats in the Parliament
because they are 40% of the Ethiopian population;
and the parliamentary system that �was being
tailored to suit the Weyyane, should be dropped
and replaced by a presidential system.� There
are two defects in relation to these arguments: 1)
bigger populations can have an advantage only in a
one-man-one-vote system but this can be guaranteed
only if the given ethnic group solidly and in a
unified manner votes for the candidate from its
own nationality. In the Oromo case, as has been
testified in at least three previous elections,
the Oromo were divided between the OFDM, Bulcha�s
party; the OPDO, an Oromo organization affiliated
to the EPRDF; the Oromo National Congress; and
others still adhere to the OLF. In this kind of
political scenario, majority vote becomes
meaningless. 2) In any parliamentary system
whether it is in Britain, India, or Israel, it is
the winning party that wins the government and
elects the prime minister, and not the majority
people who want to install their own ethnic
government; 3) just by replacing the parliamentary
system by a presidential system, one cannot solve
problems associated with elections; in the US, for
instance, the people vote for their presidential
candidates but ultimately it is the Electoral
College that determines the outcome of the
electoral system. For example, if a presidential
candidate wins the majority of the popular votes
but not the Electoral College votes, s/he would
not become the president of the United States. All
democratic countries have their own unique ways in
running elections and accommodating the
electorate; for Ethiopia, the best system is the
parliamentary system because Ethiopians would not
be divided along ethnic lines as in voting for
their nationality party only.
Despite the relatively
weak raison d�ĕtre that Bulcha attempted to
promote vis-�-vis majority electoral votes,
however, he has a point when he compares Ethiopia
to Botswana, Zambia, Senegal, Mauritius, Ghana,
South Africa and asks �When will �election�
work in Ethiopia?� We had indeed elections in
Ethiopia since the coming of the EPRDF to power,
but it is the same party that has been running the
country for the last twenty-two years. By
contrast, the above-mentioned African countries
have witnessed several regime changes during
elections in the last two decades.
Chapter Fourteen is
focused on Bulcha�s role beyond politics and as
founder and chair of Awash International Bank (AIB).
In this chapter, Bulcha, to his credit, passes
with clean conscience against tempting corrupt
practices. He says, �ex-Derg officials, advised
us to oil our way by giving bribe to some
lower-level officials of the Government, but I
categorically rejected the idea.� Also, among
the many professional Ethiopians that he admires
in this chapter, one that stands out is Leikun
Berhanu, former Governor of the National Bank of
Ethiopia who later was instrumental in the making
of the AIB. Bulcha furthermore tells us that
Leikun was unfairly sent behind bars after he was
charged falsely, and this is how he puts it: �Leikun
took a big risk by joining AIB as CEO because when
the Government asked him to join the EPRDF party,
Leikun was reported to have refused because he was
non-political in his work�individuals who hated
him because he would not cooperate in corrupt
practices were determined to destroy him. They
succeed when they finally had the National Bank on
their side. As a result, he is now serving a
13-month prison sentence.�
Chapter Fifteen is a
short two-page chapter that deals with intrigue
within AIB, depth of corruption, and fraud
elections manipulated by �schemers�, as Bulcha
taints them, in the Board of the bank. These
unfavorable circumstances would compel Bulcha to
�look beyond the Bank� as he explains it in
Chapter Sixteen. He resigns from AIB and begins to
�devote his time for Oromo burning issues,�
which is the subject of Chapter Seventeen. In
Chapter Eighteen, the author discusses how the
Oromo are viewed are treated in the context of
elections and �mirage democracy� but the
chapter simply reinforces the earlier concerns
Bulcha has about the Oromo that he already
dissected in the previous chapters.
In Chapter Eighteen,
one intriguing idea that Bulcha talks about is his
decision �to speak in Afan Oromo in Parliament�
and for doing this, he was congratulated by the
Oromo including women who belonged to the OPDO. I
personally appreciate this kind of self-esteem and
pride because the use of language is one important
and vital manifestation of ones
self-determination. However, Ethiopians in general
and the Oromo in particular should also cleverly
utilize Amharic in order to promote their
objectives.
One interesting
question that Bulcha forwarded to the late Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi in the Ethiopian Parliament
has to do with the question of Assab that many
Ethiopians, including myself, have put on the
plate but was never considered. This is what
Bulcha asked: �Do you ever regret that you
easily gave up the Port of Assab to the Eritreans?
History has recorded that Emperor Haile Selassie,
with an astute and superb personal international
diplomacy, brought Eritrea back to the Ethiopian
family of nations.�
Chapters Nineteen and
Twenty respectively deal with �the invasion of
Somalia� as a wrong Ethiopian policy, and Bulcha�s
decision to step aside from OFDM leadership. It
looks Bulcha�s retirement is heralded by writing
this interesting book that I have reviewed. As I
have done for all other books that I have reviewed
in the past, my job is to objectively analyze the
central theses and message of the books. In the
latter context, thus, while I have admired some
aspects of My Life, I have also brought forth
criticisms on other aspects of the book. The
criticisms are intended to make input and to
enrich the ever-increasing data in Ethiopian
investigative discourse and do not, in any way,
diminish the significance of this important
book.
In conclusion, I like
Ato Bulcha Demeksa to answer the following
question, a question that I did not generate but a
question that came from his own constituency while
he was campaigning during the election: Obbo
Bulcha, dubbiin kun maal isini fayyadhaa? (Brother
Bulcha, what does this thing benefit you?)