Collective and Individual Self-Defense is the only option moving forward!

Before Yesterday, it was killing in Adigrat. yesterday, it was a massacre in Chelenqo. Tomorrow, nobody knows but there will be another massacre. Every passing day, the TPLF/EPRDF is testing and checking the resolve and the determination of the Ethiopian people, particularly the Oromo people, to defend themselves and what belongs to them. Knowingly or unknowingly, the TPLF is making the Oromo people and everybody else bitter, brutal and violent towards them and their supporters throughout Ethiopia.

No segment of the society is left out and spared. The resolve and determination of the students in schools, the farmers on their farmlands, the merchants in their business places, the youth on the streets, the rural residents, the urban residents, the old, the young and everybody in between are tested until the only choice one is left with is to fight back and stand one's ground.

It appears very clear that Ethiopia, as a country and society are effectively transitioned from one of the most peaceful, cultured and respectable African countries with a very strong sense of respect for the government and laws, are now morphing into what looks like the animal world of survival of the fittest. Might is right. One has to kill the killers and their supporters to stop them. For the TPLF/EPRDF, if you and your group are weak in terms of the number of firearms at your disposal or you are cultured, tolerant, law-abiding and magnanimous enough not to be barbaric and violently savage, you will be considered weak, and you will be robbed and mercilessly attacked. The Oromo people are the primary victim of this policy of the TPLF/EPRDF.

In order to restore respect for each other and peacefully coexist, it appears the Ethiopian people, particularly the Oromo people must adopt a clear policy of mutual self-defense by getting organized and building alliances, where possible, to defend themselves in a group of one or more. There is no legal recourse to redress the victims. Force is your only power. And power is ones only safety. The only recourse if attacked is self-defense and the defense of one’s property. An attack on one Oromo must be considered as an attack on all Oromos. Members and supporters of the group deploying those killing squads must be considered legitimate targets of self-defense.

Moving forward, the Oromo people have only one option. The Oromo people must adopt a clear policy of collective self-defense to contain the daily carnage and brutality. The Oromo people will not stop the daily carnage by crying for the killed, pleading with the killers and providing humanitarian assistance to the victims’ family. It is tried for the last twenty-six years and failed. It never worked and will never work.The Oromo people must stop mourning and start acting.

Artist Haacaallu Hundessa said it all. Self-defense, both individual and collective self-defense, is the only viable option. An attack on one Oromo must be considered as an attack on all Oromo people requiring simultaneous and instant actions of collective self-defense against the attacking group's interests and members everywhere. Only fear of retribution will tame the beast and speak sense to their mortal instinct and force them to behave like a human.