By Faisal Roble
Editor’s note: This personal essay by Faisal Roble was published by WardheerNews in July 2007. It was a time when atrocities, war crimes, and crimes against humanity were committed in the Somali region under the rubric of “war on terror.” What is currently happening in other regions of Ethiopia is more a manifestation of what the author calls the normalization of state crimes in Ethiopia. This essay speaks to how the era impacted Mr. Roble’ s own family.
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In a recent Chicago Tribune article (Fallout from the war on Terror hits Ethiopia, July 9, 2007 ), and a call-in (town-hall style) program of the BBC Somali Section, which featured the Regional president of the Somali autonomous region, in Ethiopia, Abdullahi Hassan “Lug Buur” (July 13, 2007) are both troubling. The gory and inhumane way Somalis are treated (e.g., Nur Osman, 25, who was still “clamping a hand to his stitched up neck,” cut by the Ethiopian soldiers) is in a way a small part of the results of the “war on terror.”
As an American of Somali origin from that region my family and I have been deeply impacted by the story in the Chicago Tribune article.
Listening to the many call-ins, with harsh words for the government, I felt somewhat sad for my good friend and the president, especially the position he has found himself in. Abdullahi Hassan is basically a good man with a good heart (not to mention that he is, as one caller said, a distant relative of Sayid Mohamed Abdulla Hassan), but he is in the middle of a storm that he/his government cannot do much about.
The Somali question in Ethiopia is old, and as complex as the conflict of the Palestinians & Israelis, and is very difficult for the outside world to comprehend; its human and personal tragedies have been often overlooked for many years.
It is only now with western reporters taking a good look at it that our conditions are humanly shocking to human eyes: Ethiopia treats us as sub-human; our largely reserved and private women are raped at will; our books of faith are burned or soaked in urine and in human waste by Ethiopian soldiers as part of their prison torture machine; family belongings (livestock, farms and anything else that we own) are looted, confiscated, or burned with impunity. Collective punishment is a mainstay in the Somali region, reminiscent of “Zaraf Somali,” meaning “wipe out Somalis,” a favored slogan for Ethiopian soldiers while carrying their indiscriminate total scourge policy.
Different Ethiopian regimes have been doing similar things to us since the Paris Conference in1884 that placed our community under this excessively cruel feudal rule of the ancient empire of Abyssinia. This time, with the world becoming a “global village,” small parts of our blight is being noticed, thanks to some American papers.
Some of us escaped the rape, torture and mayhem, often physical like that one imparted on Nur Osman. Although the Chicago Tribune witnessed the young man still “clamping to his stitched new neck,” the Minister of Information, Bereket Simon, who is a close advisor to Meles Zeanawi, denied any culpability.
But Nur, who may most likely get killed in the very hospital bed he is supposed to rest, told the western reporter that Ethiopian soldiers did it to him. The added tragedy of this story is that Nur may as well be the cousin of the president of the region, but they are both helpless in the hands of this government. And each would try to survive the best way they know.
I left Ethiopia while I was still in my teens for a temporary safe haven to Somalia en route to America. Just like my countrymen, the psychological scars that I sustained from Ethiopian rule are complex, but the most immediate one for me involves the last leg of my father’s life, Abdi Roble.
I have been a naturalized US citizen, thankfully achieved the “American middle-class dream,” and always longed for the day my father comes here and plays with my children in the backyard of my suburban home. In 1996, I secured an immigrant visa.
But days before he departed from Jigjiga to Addis Ababa, he was taken from his home directly to the Jigjiga jail at the frail age of 86 years, and was instantly transferred to Harar, where he remained until April, 2003. There he joined among other elders including his longtime friend, Bashir Sheikh Abdi, the grandson of Sayid M. Abdulle Hassan. Unlike my Dad, Bashir could not withstand the dilapidating conditions of advanced diabetes and died there. Unlike my father who never workd for any government, Bashir was once the governor of Harar.
My Dad told me that dragging Bashir’s dead body represented the lowest point of his community. My son, “Nobody threw a single stone,” became his post prison mantra.
Soon I learned that my father was released from prison due to deteriorating health conditions. I traveled to Jigjiga (in May of 2003), and spent time with him. I found him sickly with a soul of 92-years-old that still wanted to visit America because I told him his visa was still valid. But then he listened to his body and decided to accept the reality that he would stay and die at home.
For the month that I was with him, we slept in the same room. Often, we talked small talk. I once told him how old-age is a mitigating factor in democratic societies, even for hard criminals. He laughed at me, implying I was naive, and added: “son, you are telling me about the country where real human beings live; you know real freaking animals live here (“sow ma ogid in uu halkan dugaag cirfiid ahi ku nool yahay, he told me with his teeth grinding to expressing the harsh reality of his environment which he cannot change).
He told me that it was his dream to visit America to see all his children and grandchildren (all together 29); and for once lay his eyes on this magically magnanimous country called America, which gave to his children the chance to seek education and succeed in life.
I told him both Addis Ababa and Mogadishu would be villages compared to Los Angeles. He laughed and said something that really hit me hard. “If they, meaning white men, can turn around their land and make it so beautiful, imagine what Addis Ababa and Mogadishu could be, and he stopped in the middle of the sentence.
Abo, I said finish the sentence. He added “if we had good people to lead us, given the land, water, and sun all year round, we could have Addis or Mogadishu better than where you came from about ten times.”
Exactly 30 days to the day I arrived in town, he saw me to the dusty airport in Jigjiga with a final and ultimate sojourn saying: “Son, only Allah knows whether we will meet again, but go to your new and safe [adopted] home.” Safety was always central to our conversation.
Uncommon to Somali men, I felt tears streaming down on my cheeks uncontrollably, only to be countered by his fatherly gaiety and cheerful pronouncements: “son, be a man and be happy for me to leave this world for good and for the better place that we will all end up sooner or later.”
I gave that man a huge and rare hug, holding his bony body tightly against mine for as long as I could, and quickly turned away to not look backward. I was sure I could not handle any more emotions. The last thing I wanted to see was tears streaming on those frail and fried cheeks. I have never seen my father cry and I did not want to see at my adult age. I was not prepared for the emotional breakdown that would give me.
My Mom, who immigrated to the US in 2006 recently told me he indeed wept after I departed. I am glad I did not witness that for going through that would have killed me! My Dad passed away five days after I got back to Los Angeles.
Nobody explained to me to this day why my Dad languished in that jail in Harar that they call “alam-baqay,” meaning, I am finished with this world. I talked to many top officials (powerless ministers) in the region and everyone talks about my Dad as the great patriot that he was. Actually, he was a legend in standing up for local and regional authorities that abuse his people.
For a while I used to have nightmares of an American court, where my attorneys would grill Ethiopian officials on human rights abuses. Who knows what the future holds for us, especially that now a lot of us are US citizens, and live in places like San Diego, Minneapolis, Chicago, Columbus, Toronto where many conscientious lawyers are in abundance. In my consoling prayers I remind my late father to hang on! One day he or another father with a similar ordeal will get justice.
As a tax payer, it angers me, though, that millions of our hard-earned dollars would go dictators who kill or torture our people. I never understood how my taxes that are used to kill, mayhem, or torture our relatives enhance US interest and national security. It is the opposite. It is this duplicity of calling America a democracy and its propensity to finance dictators that kill or mayhem our relatives back home that my late Dad could not understand. Neither could I convince him. RIP.
Faisal A. Roble
Email: [email protected]
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Faisal Roble, the former editor of WardheerNews portal is Principal City Planner and CEO for Racial Justice & Equity for the Planning Department, Los Angeles City.
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