One evening soon after that, my uncle called me and said that some policemen were looking for me and Muze, so we had to leave the city. We departed around midnight, disguised as farmers, after gathering our belongings. First we went to Awasa and from there to Yabelo, where my family lived. But we stayed in town because going to my family’s house would have been too dangerous.
I managed to get a message to my father and he came and took us to the country, disguised now as shepherds. We spent the night outside our huts and in the early morning we left my home village for the broiling desert.
Three times we were detained and asked for identification. Luckily, my father had procured the necessary papers, and we continued our journey leading our cattle.
After a week we reached the Kenyan border. I told my father to turn back and promised him that I would head to a refugee camp and then eventually to Europe or America.
I kissed him and he left me crying as I called back for him. Muze grabbed my arm and said, “Are you mad? What are you doing? If they catch you here, imagine what they will do to you. Don’t be a fool!” I went quiet as my father departed, my gaze on the border. I prayed in my heart, Please, God, if it is Your will, let me return to my home in peace. I knelt and kissed the ground. Then I stood and walked slowly to the border. Farewell, Oromia.
We crossed the scorching Didi Galgalu Desert and after a day reached Marsabit. Then we proceeded to Nairobi. In Nairobi we met our African brothers who shared our nationalities. Muze insisted that it was useless staying in Nairobi talking about war, liberation, and the dictator Mengistu. He wanted us to join our comrades and fight to the end. After some discussion we decided to become part of the liberation front.
At that point, Muze and I separated. I saw him off to Mombasa, and from Mombasa he headed to Sahel and joined the northern liberation army. I returned to Nairobi and stayed there for a few weeks. I then went back to Borana to join the fight there. Soon we were able to liberate some territory. Our influence extended across the north, where we got remarkable support from the people. We were advancing and before long seized significant areas to the south, east, and west of Oromia.
In the fall of 1988 I was severely injured and had to leave the battle zone. I was taken to Marsabit Hospital and then to Nairobi before I was strong enough to head to Europe. As soon as I arrived in Germany I enrolled in the university, and I received my MA in philosophy in 1992.
A month after my schooling ended, I went back to bring the wisdom of the West to my “underdeveloped” homeland. I was desperate to see my family. As soon as I arrived in Addis Ababa, I tried to connect with my old friends but could not get ahold of anybody. So I traveled to Borana to visit my family.
I reached my family home just after midnight, without any neighbors seeing me. My family was happy when they found me in better health. I gave them European clothes and shoes and everybody was very excited. Then my father said, “Enough, let’s go to bed and talk in the morning; you must be tired.”
So tired that I developed a fever that very night. After a couple of days of recuperating, I walked around the village in my father’s overcoat so that nobody would recognize me.
The village was exactly the same as it had always been. When I left, there had been no electricity, no clean water, no school, and no clinic — after all these years, there was still no basic infrastructure. For months I stayed there unnoticed.
While life went on pleasantly, one day the army suddenly swarmed down from the north, making their way through my homeland, leaving us overnight with the familiar sensation of fear. They were led by our own men. They banged on the doors. They broke into our house. In the middle of the night, three more soldiers pushed their way into our home, smashing things with their boots.
“Out, everybody, to the fields!”
Trembling, we all got up and headed out into the chilly dawn. My father and my mother, my sisters and my brothers.
“Out! Out!” the shouting continued. “Out to the field!”
“What about Waaqoo?” my mother whispered to my father.
“They do not know he is here.”
“Maybe he should hide?” Mom suggested.
“No, no,” said my father, “they will surely find him.”
“But if we keep him hidden in the back, perhaps no one will see him. I am sure we can hide him safely.”
“No, no,” my father repeated. “It’s dangerous. Better he goes with the rest of us.”
Yet there was no time to argue. “Out! Out!” the shouting went on.
They were still there, rounding up all of the men, women, and children. I went to the empty field where my family was gathered. Many memories of the field washed over me, including a happy one: the tree in the middle was where my father used to tell me stories about the creation of earth and heaven, the split of Horo into Hora (Adem) and Hortu (Hawwe) — the formulation of Gada and how it led humanity to peace. The field where I had spent so many happy hours of my childhood playing with the village girls. But also a field where in the past regime, people from the surrounding villages had all gathered for meetings. Where we were told what to do and how we should behave. Where we were instructed to speak only in Amharic. The field where we were taught to speak, to write, and to think only in this foreign language. Where a phrase publicly spoken in our mother tongue brought a slap on the face from the lords or their Oromo collaborators. It was where I was told by my grandfather how others prostrated before the Abyssinian priest and were baptized and shown a change in heart by the will of God, by the unrestricted ministry of this priest, and we were saved from the sin of the ages, now acting in holiness and righteousness.
They came with their heavy rifles. They came dragging some men behind them. The men with rifles distributed themselves among the crowd. A soldier here, a soldier there, and everyone felt the alien presence close to his skin, everyone felt the gnawing concern digging into his soul.
Their leader climbed up on the platform and slowly turned his eyes over us, over the sea of faces all around him.
“Comrades,” bellowed the leader, “behold the antipeace forces! They are here with us. They are in us. They are our enemy. They are against the peace and prosperity we have in our blood. Now take out your identity cards.”
Everybody began taking out their ID cards except the young boys, girls, and women. Soon, soldiers with rifles came straight at me and shouted, “Show me your identity card!”
I showed them the ID I had brought from Germany. They were not able to read it so they took it to their leader and whispered to him. He studied it for a long time and told one of the soldiers to bring me to him.
“Comrades,” he cried, “behold the antipeace elements! Here is the one we were looking for; here is a member of the antipeace forces in your midst.” They brought me to the platform.
My mother shouted: “He is my son and he is not antipeace! He grew up and was educated here! He is Borana; he is an Oromo!” They didn’t hear her and my brother took her away.
Then I went to the leader and said, “Look, I am from Germany and I just arrived back — that is why I don’t have a local ID card. I was born and raised here.”
“Why did you come from Germany? To fight us?”
“No, no, just to help my people, to serve them.”
“Ah, you mean that we are not helping them. Take him away!”
They brought me to a detention camp in Yabello, where I learned that they had also arrested my father, one of my brothers, and many other people from the village.