Mukhtar Mohamed Omar
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September 4, 2010

I read Professor Siyoum Gelaye’s rebuttal of comments made by Mr. Hassan Abdullahi, ONLF’s Ethiopia and Foreign Relations Officer. Mr. Hassan made the comments in an exclusive interview with Ethiopia.org. Professor Siyoum’s response came in an article titled “Fabrication of Ethiopian History Continues Unabated”. The article is fraught with fiction, half-truths, nostalgia, wishful thinking and dubious historical accounts. The professor used a number of familiar but contentious historical assertations to dismiss Mr. Hassan’s statements. Let me first deal with the distortions the Professor made on some of the issues Mr. Hassan discussed.

Professor Siyoum misrepresented Mr. Hassan’s argument that the Ogaden region was not part of Ethiopia before Menelik’s invasion. Mr. Hassan didn’t say Ogaden was a recognized nation before the invasion. He said it was governed by clan elders, much the same way Northern Ethiopia (which comprised of present day Amhara, Eritrea, and Tigrai) was ruled by autonomous kings. I have sufficiently read about the ‘era of princes’ (Zemene Masafint) to know that there was no center of power nor international recognition for any of the kings in Northern Ethiopia for most part of their existence. The professor should not therefore contest what is uncontestable: it is the majority view that Menelik created the modern Ethiopia, of which Ogaden is part of.