A reader
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July 10, 2008
Dear Editor:
The comment below is in response to an article As Ethiopia Boils, Minnesota's Ethiopians Feel the Heat," by Doug McGill. First and foremost, I want to make it clear that I am not defending the terrible human rights violations as reported in the story.
I just wanted to challenge Lencho Bati’s comment as quoted by the author of the article. I believe Mr. Bati’s comment is unbecoming of a professor when he said,
‘It’s a nightmare what Oromos are subjected to in Ethiopia," says Lencho Bati, a professor at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, and as native Oromo. "It’s exactly what blacks in South Africa suffered under apartheid – lack of access to resources, education, power, cultural enrichment and the right to self-determination."
I think two wrongs don't make a right. It is critical to expect from learned people that they compare apples with apples, not apples with oranges. Furthermore, whether historical or current events, one must state facts accurately.
Mr. Bati failed on these scales when he compared Oromos in Ethiopia with Blacks in South Africa under apartheid. For instance, historians and others who are even now part of that Ethiopian history know, for instance, that the great Ethiopian emperor, Menelik, was an Oromo. During the long reign of Emperor Haile-Selassie, many distinguished government officials were Oromo. Even under the Zenawi regime, the first president was an Oromo: i.e. Dr. Negasso Gidada. Among notable opposition leaders are Dr. Merera Gudina and Dr. Bulcha Demeksa. Is the brutality of the Zenawi regime confined to the Oromo only? And the rest are grouped into the same class as the ruling white minority regime of apartheid South Africa?
I hope the professor refreshes his research citation principles before he makes an in the window allegation against all Ethiopian people.
Thank you.
