[By Fekreselassie]
This article is based on a true story about what happened to a farmer and his family in a small village during the genocidal war in Tigray.
Most of you may think this is fiction, just a short story cooked up in my deluded mind as I might wish it to be. But I am certain no one will be offended if I tell the story unless you judge me by the poor style of my writing, the deprived depiction of the character, the stream, and the common diction because I am neither an extraordinary writer nor a scholar.
I am writing this hoping my reader will determine all this before getting into the story so that my intention will be taken as to my anticipations.
It is a true story.What has happened in a small village in the last two years of the war in Tigray? The Ethiopian government declared a “law and order operation” on Tigray and broadcast it on all mass media to the world, evangelising to capture the TPLF leaders. The Ethiopian government allied with the Eritrean government and ordered their armies, including the Amhara Special Forces and Fano Militia, to push deep into Tigray. The Eritrean soldiers in the northern and eastern parts and the Amhara Special Force and Fano Militia in the western part of Tigray were conducting their hidden plan to invade Tigray and exterminate the people of Tigray in the near border area, while the Ethiopian Army controlled the entire Tigray region.
The story I will narrate to you begins here.
A week before Christmas, on Monday morning, while the farmer came out of his barn to do his customary work, suddenly, in his last look, he saw a group of soldiers coming in to his house. He stood at the gate of his barn. The farmer had doubts in his eyes when he looked at the soldiers coming to him. He immediately realised that the soldiers were Eritrean soldiers. He grasped the buzz of the nearby villagers in seconds. As soon as he heard from the nearby villagers, the soldiers flooded into the village. The soldiers made forays into the village and took away their livestock, cattle, and any other home belongings. Today seemed to be his turn to stay gloomy, the closer they got to him.
The soldiers entered the farmer’s house.
The thinner, longest man, who has a bewhiskered face that looked like a leader of the soldiers, closely asked, “Which one of your ox do you like most”?
There was no greeting, as usual, between them. But they seemed to have understood each other very well.
Chilay,” said “the farmer,” signing to Chilay with his one hand.
The Eritrean soldiers looked like hungry dogs. The villagers called them Sha’ebia soldiers, as their Eritrean people call them.
He shot at Chilay immediately on its forehead, and Chilay fell down.
His wife and his daughter came out of their little home after the shooting of the ox but said nothing while standing at the gate of their home. Tears poured down, and they were sobbing with tears running from their eyes.
“Stay inside,” said the soldier’s comrades. “The farmer’s” wife and his only daughter, Shewit, hurriedly entered their home.
The farmer did not doubt that these soldiers were Eritrean soldiers because, according to the rumours of the nearby villagers, their military uniforms were not like those of the Ethiopian army, and they were speaking Tigrigna in Eritrean accents and intonations. It was surely strange to the farmer to slaughter an ox without saying, the Father, the Holy Spirit,Amen! Or, in any of their religions, God’s blessing. In addition to this, it was the Christmas period. But the farmer seemed so worried about all this that he said nothing.
Like a hungry dog, the Eritrean soldier said, “Take up its skin and roast it for our breakfast. It is an order”!
The farmer stood like a stone.
“What are you waiting for?” said the Eritrean soldier.
“The knife…” said the farmer.
The Eritrean soldier said, “Do you expect me to give you a knife and an axe? What an indolent farmer, said the shorter of all who have a horrible, long-dead man’s face.”
“The farmer” looked as if he were drowsy but did not quite fall asleep that night. He looked as if he were sleeping on the gate of the barn and woke up right at that moment. He went back to the barn, took a knife and an axe, and started to take the skin of his ox, Chilay. There was a fable that the farmer heard from his elder a long time ago, when he was a child. Aserpent that came out of the Red Sea ruled the land of Eritrea, and the people were slaves to that serpent for years. They gave him their cattle every day until all the cattle were eaten, and they started to give him their children. It seemed that the serpent in the fable was sent today, after a thousand years, to the farmer’s house, rising from the dead.
Chilay was the darling ox for the farmer. Chilay was a lovable ox, and the farmer had been happily using him to plough his farm for a year to feed his family.
Yes, in the summer, the farmer’s anxiety was caused by these soldiers. He never dreamed of this. He actually had some fears as a farmer, especially about the locusts and the price of fertiliser, which might have worried him. But this all passed. He gets the fertiliser on time at a fair price, and he was able to save his land from the locust.
Here, my reader has to keep in mind that the farmer was one of the happiest peasants in the village, and he had built a happy family before the horrible genocidal war waged on Tigray, and suddenly the Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers came to his village, terrorising him and his family.
“Cut one leg and roast it; time for breakfast,” said the soldier, as if he were speaking to his comrades too.
The farmer goes to remember the beautiful day he spent with Chilay. The farmer harked back while he ploughed with Chilay singing and while his wife and her daughter, Shewit, came to the farm and helped him. “The farmer reminisces about his happy family.”
After they ate their breakfast, they tied the arms and legs of “the farmer”. Then they got into his home and gang raped the farmer’s wife and daughter, and then the soldiers burned his barns. Lastly, they killed his wife and daughter in front of him. The farmer begged them to kill him, but they left him with that intensity of sorrow.
This is what happened in that little village. Still, of course, I heard from the media and scholars in dispute about what happened in Tigray over the last two years. Some say it is genocide or extermination, and others say it is a warcrime. There are even others who do not like the issue being raised. I still never hear apologies from any of those who did it. As I explained earlier, I am not a scholar. I am an ordinary man. I don’t know what you may say, but when I think of that village and that farmer, I feel there is no justice on earth. Is there?