For the last two years, the renegade Sudanese government has been waging an escalating genocidal war against one of the ancient peoples of Africa, the original Nubians: the Fur people. �Darfur� means the land or country of the Fur. It is the same Sudanese government that had harbored Osama bin Laden, the same government that had been on the list of several governments as a terrorist government, which is now waging the present genocidal war of ethnic cleansing against the people of Darfur. The Sudanese government past gross violations of human rights for over thirty years, starting before the current Government, is part of the shameful record of abuse, murder, and total deprivation of political and human rights of millions of people for years in Africa. Successive Sudanese governments have waged genocidal wars since 1956 against the Christian South and the Moslem West.

The reference in history to Nubians or Kushits includes the Fur people whose civilization flourished as a great civilization contemporary to the Pharonic civilization. One of Nubian/Kushit later date citadel was Meroe, a great city before it was destroyed by another rival civilization from further south, the Axumit Empire. The Nubians/Kushits never recovered their greatness after the destruction of Meroe. They were gradually confined in the Darfur area due to the constant raids by the many tribes of the Bejas. In antiquity, the main players in the destruction of settled life and civilization were the many tribes of the Beja marauders. The Beja tribes are complex in their identities and relationships in that part of the Sudan Nile River Eastern Banks from North to South. The people who are now wrongly identified as �Arabs� are the Janjawid, a number of loose tribes of mixed heritage of the Bejas with very limited Arab settlers� blood. As was the case of all of those who controlled the Sudanese government since independence, Bejas and Arab admixtures control the government of the Sudan. The people of Darfur and the people of the Christian South have no meaningful participation in the Governments of the Sudan since independence even though they are the majority of the population of the Sudan.

The Bejas have been through out their history, until they were forced into settled life by the spread of Islam, nomad raiders. The ancient people of the area knew them as the scourge of that part of the World. Their viciousness is recorded by the Romans. Their victims were mostly the Nubians/Kushits who are now once more being massacred by the Bejas who have transformed their identity as �Arabs� and who are being protected by the Arab League and other Moslem countries from being condemned for their crimes of genocide and war crimes, at the United Nations. The African Union is even in a worse situation, neutered and ineffective to bring about any resolution, since it is acutely dominated by Arabs and Arab League nations of the Middle East and non-Arab Moslems in the surrounding region.

The people of Darfur (comprised of several tribes) are the most beautiful and superbly civilized black people in the African Continent. Even their brand of Islam does not have the harshness associated with that religion as in the Middle East. They are a gentle people with great physical beauty and elegance. For Ethiopians, the type of massacre and genocidal war of attrition, rape and pillaging waged against the people of Darfur is something that we had misfortune of experiencing as victims of the Mahadist incursions in the 19^th Century. Ethiopians had a long history defending against the grandfathers of the Janjawid/Bejas, even before some of them were Islamized and constituted the current menace of civilization in the region.  It is to be recalled how on several occasions in a long history of nomadic life, the Bejas from the area presently identified as the Sudan have attacked villagers in the Western part of Northern Ethiopia (present day �Eritrea� and Begemder), and because of such violence of the Bejas, the great Ethiopian Emperors like Ezana, Caleb, GebreMeskel, Sertse Dingle, Amde Tsion, and much later Thewodros II, and Yohannes IV had to mount extended expeditions to contain the Beja marauders.  During the time Ethiopia was experiencing internal chaos in the 17^th and 18^th Centuries, the Ottoman Turks sponsored Bejas, taking advantage of the situation, were able to occupy most of the area that was part of the Ethiopian Empire, which area is now part of the oil producing region of the Sudan. During the time of Yohannes IV, with modern weapon being supplied by the Ottoman Turks and their vassals the Egyptian Sultans, they even dared to raid Gondar a couple of times. 

What we have witnessed in the last one year in the Darfur region should be a warning to all of us. The way the Bejas (Janjawid) have raped, murdered, destroyed villages after villages, with tens of thousands killed, millions pushed out of their homes and farms, is a grim reminder as to what would happen to us in the near future once the Sudanese Bejas have ethnically cleansed the Darfur. With oil wealth and the backing of Egypt and other Arab League nations of the area, there is no doubt in my mind that we Ethiopians are going to be their next victims. We do not have to sit and wait until things start happening to us.  We are far more capable with war games than anyone in the region. It will not take us long to build our capabilities to confront and destroy any would be enemy to our independence and sovereignty.

The genocide in Darfur is the last warning for Ethiopians to establish a new government, a government that is devoted to the integrity and Sovereignty of Ethiopia, and start a new program of national renewal to withstand that disaster that is going to come soon. The first duty of all Ethiopians is to get rid of Meles Zenawi and his collaborators who are playing footsi with the Sudanese government. They already have made great concessions ceding Ethiopian territory and interest to the current Sudanese Government. This is like a child playing with gunpowder; it is going to explode sooner than later in our face.  Appeasement does not work. The current government of Ethiopia is not the right type of government that is capable of mobilizing nationalist ethos  

The only language the Bejas had understood and respected through out history is the language of the use of superior force. We need to arm and organize every Ethiopian in Begemder/Gondar, Gojjam, Wollo and Tygri for civil defense.  We need to develop rapid deployment system that will involve citizens to form a defense force against the adventurism of these Modern day marauders who will try to do the same type of genocide and atrocities that they committed against the people of Darfur. If the Bejas are capable of committing such atrocities against fellow Moslems and fellow Sudanese citizens, can anyone imagine the degree of atrocities they will commit against Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia?

Ethiopians should organize peaceful demonstrations against the genocide committed against the people of Darfur. The United Nations must take serious steps by declaring the Darfur area a zone safeguarded under United Nations protection. The United Nations under similar genocidal wars have established protected zones in Bosnia, Timor, Cyprus, Iraq, Sierra Leone et cetera. It is time that similar safety zone be established in Darfur.

Tecola W. Hagos

July 2004