For years now, and more intensely for the last few months, we instinctively look for logic and wisdom in this most senseless act of all the senseless. We think and search for answers because thought is a process endowed to beings. But as we search for answers in vain, our common sense betrays us, our humanity fails us, and our understanding aborts us. Why do they burn our forests?

Beyond the shroud of these raging fires is hate, a raging hate, as smoldering as the fire with a purpose that surmounts colony and larceny we are used to. Hate is the only clue the brain can gather, the only answer. They chose to dry the southern lakes which they fell in love with, because they can't fish them all. The drive to love and kill is not new for nature, like the black widow spider that mercilessly kills her partner after mating, earning her the name widow. The Tigrean elites who fail to see the TPLF arson as an arson, must be forced to see that they are condemned to be at least widows, and at best registered criminals - as arson is. And this should make their future no less tentative than the ghastly life we are condemned to today. We shall overcome. 

Oxford dictionary defines genocide as "extermination of a race or community by mass murder, or by imposing conditions that make survival impossible." In essence, therefore, the TPLF's conduct, setting fire to flora and fauna, imposing hunger, and massive killing of the peoples of the South imposes a condition that makes survival impossible, the deed qualifies to be a genocide. 

It may seem too bizarre, too naive to condemn the Oromo nation to genocide of this sort - I believe we are above the critical mass for our advantage; and we have very good oral memory for their disadvantage. They can't burn memories if they can't kill all. But these doltish thugs care less about the memories of history. For the TPLF, the rise of Tigray is measured by the destruction of the non-Tigray. Yohanisism in its 21st century suit - and here we are taking notes that Ali of Wallo couldn't in those days.

It is partly our fault. The defeatist mood that killed the rage in us is mostly to blame. It takes a tiny rope to tie a subdued elephant, an insignificant deep to limit his movement. Those in the deep stayed calmly, blaming others for putting them in a shallow den, instead of a simple pop that puts them beyond the Tigrean hedge. The few who are sick and tired of listening to outcries only walk away because charging is risky, even within. So the selection of negation has the triumph, as did that of the empire. 

The TPLF has offered us several opportunities to contribute to our cause, to do just a little, share the pain of the Oromo who lost his house, his life, his forest - our forest. Ashes born from the immense beauty of a giant tree, from a fried flesh of rare animals, from smoldered eggs of exotic birds, the pain is as real as a murder of the innocent being, and more tragic in its consequence - it targets a generation. That is why it has to be registered as a genocide by essence. 

An Oromo rage was always questioned and doubted - rightly so even in the face of such calamity. There has never been an "opportunity" grave enough to test the rage, an opportunity to compare our rage with the rage that is so willful to destroy it. Here comes that single most important moment for the Oromo in diaspora - what else can come and what else can we do? 

I recently read a forwarded text from a Tigrean web page. It was signed by Assefa Gudeta. The paper argues that the fires are accident, as if a fire has a brain to consume selected territories, to coordinate from east to west, to go and kill students who want to extinguish it, and to forbid University students who volunteered to help. It is particularly sad because the Tigre writer chooses an Oromo last name for his extreme Tigre views, full of hate, a raging hate. The trick of OPDOizing the empire is diffusing to the diaspora Tigre, that the Tigre writer thinks he can shop for more with a fake Oromo name, as they did with fake Oromo entities at home. This in itself is a sufficient proof that the writer has a crime to hide, a sufficient motive to heighten our contribution. For his sake, I will chose to be Goytom Abraha - no other names come to my mind. Let this serve as a hint, perhaps the first hint, that there is a limit to faking and the TPLF don't have the monopoly. If the moral is willing to muddle low, the gimmick is so easy to master. To those who doubt that there may indeed exist an Assefa Gudeta, an Oromo, who wrote the letter to the Tigrean web, I will contribute $1000 dollars to the wish of Assefa and I challenge him to claim it if such a person indeed exists.