The Story of a Mandela behind Mandela

By Kadiro Elemo*
This is the story of two Mandelas. Yes, there are two Mandelas. The first one is the Mandela of South Africa, who campaigned against the apartheid. The second one is an Oromo Mandela, who educated the anti-apartheid Mandela. The first Mandela is an international celebrity. He deserves it because he earned it. The other Mandela is an international obscurity, like his otherwise vast people, who are speaking for themselves and coming out from a shadow, a shadow imposed on them by the empire, racism and ignorance of international relations. The South African Mandela is a ferocious enemy of the Apartheid who wanted nothing less than the demise of the system. The Oromo Mandela wanted nothing more than amelioration of the system he faithfully served. The white South Africans tolerated Mandela who destroyed their rule. The Ethiopians killed the Oromo Mandela. What a contrast! The Apartheid system obviously had more clemency for its black subjects than the Ethiopian system for its Oromo people. Had the Oromo Mandela had a chance to witness history in 1994, he would have said that I was the one who gave the ABCs of soldiering to Nelson Mandela.

Recently, I read a fascinating piece, “The Story of Nelson Mandela’s Missing Pistol,” which was written by my dear friend and former classmate at Addis Ababa University, Awol Allo.  As Awol depicted brilliantly, movingly and beautifully, Nelson Mandela, who is widely and popularly known by his tribal name Madiba in South Africa, is an extraordinary man, a man full of courage, wisdom, vision, determination, and who wholeheartedly gave himself for the struggle and freedom of his people.  He is a great man of humanity, and humility, and a trademark of spirit of forgiveness, love and peace. In short, he is an icon of the black race and an epitome of “the best of humanity.” The purpose of my essay is twofold. Firstly, my friend has wonderfully portrayed Mandela the man and the political figure, and his status in the New South Africa. In this essay, thus, I want to shade light on the role of Colonel Taddasa Birru, albeit remote, in the anti-apartheid struggle. Secondly, Awol has brought into the spotlight how the apartheid system and Ethiopian rulers employed the very concept of law and justice to advance, conceal, and humanize their unjust and authoritarian brutality. By comparing the two justice systems, he concludes “that the scale of justice in Apartheid courts is more evenly tipped than their Ethiopian counterparts.” To substantiate his assertion, I will focus on the trial of Maccaa-Tuulamaa Self-help Association to establish roles of courts in Ethiopia in legitimation and perpetuation of the ruthless dictatorship. I should advise my readers that some of the stories in this essay are already discussed in my book, “Ethiopia and United States; The Tragedy of Human Rights.”
As Awol aptly reflected in this writing, Mandela is adored among his countrymen for instituting an armed wing of the African National Congress (MK). He resorted to a military solution when all peaceful venues were closed on the struggle of the Africans for equality. The guerrilla resistance, coupled with international sanctions, ultimately compelled Apartheid South Africa to step back from leaping forward with its affront to humanity and seek compromise with the ANC.
It was this mission of fighting the Apartheid regime that took Mandela to Kolfe, a suburb of Finfinne, in early 1960s. Mandela, an amateurish boxer, armed with nothing but bravery, a resolution, and a sparkling hope, desired to learn the art of war-making to advance the cause of his downtrodden people. This created an opportunity for the two future historic figures to meet, Mandela and Colonel Taddasa Birru.
In his memoir, “Long Walk to Freedom,” Mandela noted, “I was lectured on military science by Colonel Tadesse, who was also assistant commissioner of police.” The colonel taught him about ‘how to create a guerrilla force, how to command an army, and how to enforce discipline’. Mandela, a man who changed the world through his passion and compassion, indicated that the colonel opened his eyes to the military science and shaped his worldview. He lectured him egalitarian ethos of a liberation army, which made the MK popular among its ranks and files. This is how Mandela recalls a conversation with the colonel:

One evening, during supper, Colonel Tadesse said to me, ‘now Mandela you are creating a liberation army, not a conventional capitalist army. A liberation army is an egalitarian army. You must treat your men entirely differently than you would in a capitalist army. When you are on duty, you must exercise your authority with assurance and control. This is no different from a capitalist command. But when you are off duty, you must conduct yourself on the basis of perfect equality, even with the lowliest soldier. You must eat what they eat; you must not take your food in your office, but eat with them, drink with them, not isolate yourself.’

Mandela training in Kolfe was supposed to last for six months, but after two-months, he decided to go back to South Africa as the struggle was bearing fruit and a commander was needed on the ground. Mandela speaks,

Colonel Tadesse rapidly arranged for me to take an Ethiopian flight to Khartoum. Before I left, he presented me with a gift: an automatic pistol and two hundred rounds of ammunition. I was grateful, both for the gun and his instruction.

It was this very gun that Mandela had buried before he was sent to a prison cell on the Robben Island. The fall of the symbolic gun, in the hand of the Apartheid, would have been a psychological disaster, sort of propaganda coup for the apartheid. It is the story of this enigmatic gun that caught the attention of my friend, who was otherwise, went to see a site of the Rivonia Trial in Liliesleaf, SA. Awol has briefly walked us through the place, which transformed from the center of “sabotage and terrorism” to the center of “liberation.” He superbly elucidated the emotional, historic, and symbolic significance of the gun. The military science and the gun for Mandela were contributions of the Oromo hero in a fight against the Apartheid.
It was December 1960 that American educated Girmame Naway and his brother Mangistu Naway, Commander of the Imperial Bodyguard, decided to relieve Ethiopia from the rule of Emperor Hayla Sillase. At the time, the emperor was on the official tour in Brazil. They convinced a police commissioner, Warqinah Gabayyahu, to join the plot. As it was a Manzyan matter, they did not consult a man who would be a game changer, Colonel Taddasa, a decorated anti-fascist hero and the deputy commander of police. The news of the coup was a surreal moment,  a nerve-wracking and  an earthquake for the Colonel since he was indoctrinated that even speaking bad of the divine emperor was transgressing the Law of God that would lead to the fall of Sky. He lost his cool for the “sacred” office of “the God Elect” was disputed and violated. He prepared the Ethiopian Police Riot Battalion for the Kamikaze type mission. He gathered his fellow brainwashed policemen. They passionately chanted and chanted, ‘Let us sacrifice ourselves for our beloved emperor!’ “Let us Perish for Ethiopia.” He marched his men, along the national army, to restore the glory of King Solomon, the son of David, the Son of God, and, above all, to restore the Glory of God. Dying in the mission was dying for the cause of God, and the reward was The Eternal Zion.
The human wave overwhelmed the putschists, who intrepidly fought back, including massacring their hostages. Thousands died, and the coup failed. Mandela knew the Colonel’s role in aborting the coup, “Colonel Tadesse … had been instrumental in foiling a recent coup against the emperor.”
Therefore, at the time of Mandela arrival in Kolfe, Mandela and the Colonel were two totally different figures. Mandela was a man ready to stop the oppression, exploitation, and segregation of his people. Contrarily, the Colonel was a man who saved the throne that exploited and humiliated his people at its nadir.
In 1963 the farsighted minds of the Oromo, who were tired of imperial obstructionism and who were tired of self-mortifications, created a Maccaa-Tuulamaa Self-help Association to kindle development and education of their people.  The association was formed by those Oromos who fully assimilated to achieve the Abyssinian dream, but failed because of the government’s incapacitating system. It was this association that approached Colonel Taddasa to join it as an inspirational figure for his people. Because of his fierce Amhara nationalism, the Colonel was reluctant to join the education of his native people even in a language of the ruling class. At the time, he was also the chairman of the national literacy campaign. Eventually, he changed his heart after a number of appeals from Oromo elders.
Wanting to keep the Oromo masses uneducated forever, the empire did not like the Colonel involvement to enhance the condition of his people. Prime Minister Aklilu Habtawald invited him for a candid discussion. Assuming that the indistinguishable General was his fellow Amhara personage, he earnestly advised him that ‘educating the Oromos, in Amharic, is an ocean whose wave could flood them.’
What the Colonel heard was a rude awakening. This turned his worldview upside down; for the nation, he loved so much, never loved him back; and for the throne, he almost vanished for, wanted to keep his people under a literacy embargo.  It changed him forever. It changed him from the Ethiopian patriot into the father of modern Oromo nationalism. He shaded his Amara mask – a transition from pseudo persona to real self, from self-despise to self-respect, from subservience to assertiveness, and from accepting second-class status to yearning for equality and freedom. Although I do not know the extent of Mandela influence on the Colonel, I surmise that he desired to be a Mandela of his people – an Oromo Mandela who built especial place in the minds and hearts of the Oromo people, a Mandela that the world unrecognized.
For choosing to educate his people, the empire dealt a coup de grace to his colorful military career. He was fired. The decision embittered him. He was more committed than ever to become the mouthpiece of his unhappy people. Thus, the Maccaa-Tuulamaa Self-help Association became a popular movement and a semblance of a political party in the party-less imperial system, where there was only one candidate and one voter: Hayla Sillasse, The Elect of God.
As law-abiding and peace-loving citizens, the Oromos respected even the repressive law of the empire. The empire did not like the association. It was associated with fomenting tribal tension and, the government accused them of hurting a national sentiment of the country by using a forbidden language, Afaan Oromoo, for its meetings. At the time, it was illegal and un-Ethiopian to teach, write, preach, or broadcast in any Oromo dialect throughout the realm of Ethiopia. The association was banned.
As I mentioned earlier, Awol highlights the agency of the law in the execution of unjust and inhumane repression, all in the name of justice. When he draws the parallel between the courts under the Apartheid system and the EPRDF Ethiopia, his finding appalls him. Courts workings under the Apartheid system were benign in their instrumentality in rationalizing irrationalities of human wrongs compared to those under the current Ethiopian government. He amply made clear that the court houses were the only place for rationality to prevail under the Apartheid system, unlike the case in Ethiopia. I will corroborate the same argument by focusing on the trial of Maccaa-Tuulamaa Self-help Association in my next essay.
* Kadiro Elemo is a Chicago based independent researcher and the author of “The United States and Ethiopia: The Tragedy of Human Rights.”