A Reminder to all Tigrians why we have to keep celebrating Yekatit

Atakelti Kebede: Feb 27/06

As the history of our country goes, Tigray is the heart of civilization of Ethiopia. The battles stage of the imperial canalization for centuries and when we look in to our history the great patriots of numerous battles and wars who defended Ethiopia with their lives were mostly the tigrians with cooperation of their Ethiopian brothers and sisters for most of the battle. Even those we successfully defended our country from a foreign aggression for some reason at one time of our history Menilik willingly without being harassed or coerced entered into several Treaties with Italy; He had a personal and selfish motives to overthrow Yohannes and become Emperor, and to make sure to keep the Tigrian challengers to his Crown remain incapacitated, divided, and his action actually caused harm to Emperor Yohannes life. With this in mind patriots who defended Ethiopia with their lives ending up getting no opportunity for education or any benefit.After the five years War with Italy, and the reestablishment of Haile Selassie as Emperor of Ethiopia in 1941, a number of Ethiopian patriots were opposed to Haile Selassie and his effort to reestablish an absolute Monarchy. Tigrian patriots who fought bravely against a brutal fascist army for all of the five-year occupation in their home base were neglected at times mistreated. The people of tigrai had enough and triggered the First Woyane Movement and many other rebellions to the day he was overthrown by the Derg in 1974.During the aristocratic-feudalism era of Emperor H. Sellassie the tigrian nationalities were down to second class citizens of their own country. The most fertile lands were taken up by imperial land grants to the nobility as gult & rist. If this wasn’t  enough the bombardment of Meqele market place & the town of Qeha on a day light killing many people angered the people of tigrai and started organizing them selves through out the region.

Based on the above evidences the First Woyane Movement was lead by Blata Hailemariam Redda in the mid 1936 Ethiopian calendar. This heroic individual and the people of tigrai behind him started a rebellion against the Emperor on  over taxation, improper allocation of land, corrupt government officials, poverty and neglect and justice for the people of tigrai until he was captured and sent to prison for a long period. After the break down of the rebellion Emperor  haile slassie used opportunist individuals to devastate Tigrai It was extremely sever partially as punishment for the First Woyane Movement, with no central government development assistance or program, famine and poverty were perpetual reality in most of Tigrai. If the emperors are wasn’t bad enough all hopes of reform was once again squashed by Mengistu Hailemariam started murdering people all over Tigrai and Ethiopia especially in Addis Ababa, Dessie, Mekele, Gondar, targeting Tigrians.

All the above in discriminate atrocities  have pushed the people of tigrai to organize them self’s again and start the armed struggle of the second WOYANE On Feb 11/1976 E.C. under the leader ship of TPLF for justice and betterment of the tigrain society. This was (is) the day of freedom and jubilation for the people of tigrai and Lekatit 11 is born and we promised our self’s that we will break the chain of oppression for good. The fate of our people depended on the survival of TPLF and TPLF”s survival depended on the fate of our own people, once understanding was reached among the TPLF fighter and the people of tgrai why we need to fight the inhuman derg regim there wasn’t going back. Finally after seventeen years of struggle in 1991 we removed the dictator derg regim from power and established a multiparty democratic nation and nationalities for the first time in our history. Of course we had paid the ultimate sacrifice of thousands and thousands of our young and old, man and woman of tigrians for a better tomorrow. The savage brutality of the Derg, whose historic barbarism at Hawzien, Tigrai, will remain, recorded in our history books for eternity. It will keep reminding the heroes and heroines who destroyed the Derg’s savagery to promise to their people that Hawzien will never happen again in the land of Woyane Tigrai Remember the tens of thousands, who were murdered, tortured, incarcerated long prison terms because of their ethnic identity. Therefore it is very important for all tigrians to celebrate Lekatit 11 to commemorate our fallen heroes for the survival of all tigrians. In doing so the present generation will transfer the torch of Woyane to the next generation, which in turn will transfer it to its next generation, then that way to eternity

Long live YKATIT