SAVE TIGRAY’S CHILDREN FROM SHARING DASS*
CLASSES WITH SNAKES
Aseffa Abreha 8-2-19
Sometime
ago, a presentation of a three-year development plan of the Tigray
Development Association (TDA) was broadcast by its Board Chairman, Engineer
Yemane Tadesse. I found the presentation very impressive. It
is clearly thought out, well designed and presented. The Board Chairman
explained with clarity the contribution of TDA, especially in the areas of
education and health, to Tigray’s development, although in terms of quality
of education it leaves much to be desired. At the same time, the
presentation shows how long we have come in terms of the level of
communication and information technology development from the time TDA was
established on August 12, 1989 at Howard University, Washington DC.,
USA. TDA’s motto at its establishment was to support Tigray with whatever
each concerned Tigrayan owned – money, knowledge, labour, etc. Engineer
Tadesse could now easily reach Tigrayans dispersed throughout the world by
using his power point presentation thanks to technology development.
His presentation has two parts: The first part includes contributions and
achievements of TDA during the last thirty years of its operations. The
second part covers its development plan for the next three years.
TDA’s contribution to Tigray’s economic and social development during the
last 30 years include the following:
670 elementary schools
42 high schools
21 libraries
2 hospitals
7 clinics
74 health centers
24 science and technology centers
36 virtual computer centers
— Kalamino Special High School
— Meqelle Institute of Technology
— many water wells and small scale irrigation projects
— various assistances worth millions of USD.
For the next three years, TDA has planned the following five
projects(estimated cost is in Ethiopian Birr):
1. To liberate the children of Tigray from learning in “dass* classes
with snakes”. The number of current dass schools which need to be replaced
are 3072. They have to be replaced by properly constructed, regular
schools at the cost of 200,000 birr each.
2. Soft Programmes to be provided for all Tigray elementary schools
(2,213) X10,000X3.
3. To establish ICT centers for all Tigray high schools (265-68) X
550,000.
4. To create Honors class programs for all preparatory 11th and 12th
grades (3x70) X 100,000.
5. To raise the number of high schools to that of a normal country
level equivalence, i.e, one high school per five elementary schools to be
constructed by TDA (30) X 20,000,000.
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Total budget required by TDA during the next three years in order to
implement its planned projects will be Birr 1,409,740,000. The Board
Chairman proposed that in order for TDA’s projects to be materialized, all
Tigrayans, both at home and abroad, have to rally behind TDA, like
worker bees which surround and protect the queen bee, and provide the
main ingredients for honey-making, to raise a Birr/Dollar a day per
person. There are 1,095 days in three years, and committed 128,745 Tigrayans
could raise in three years the amount needed to implement the planned
projects. In order to achieve this proposal, he suggested the following
membership organizational structures for the Tigrayans all over the world.
1. TDA AMERICA with chapters in various USA States, Canada and Latin
American countries.
2. TDA EUROPE with chapters in each European country.
3. TDA AUSTRALIA with chapters in each Australian State.
4. TDA ASIA with chapters in each Asian country, and
5. TDA AFRICA with chapters in each African country.
It is gratifying to note that TDA has reached this level of development
wherein it is ready and prepared to make the best use of the present
opportune times. Firstly, it has now a working experience of thirty
years under its belt. More importantly, it has more favorable
conditions than when it was founded 30 years ago. The people of Tigray
have their own Regional Government within the framework of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thirdly, the Tigrayans who founded TDA
were mostly “ Sedetegnatat” at the time. Today, I believe most of them are
citizens of the respective countries they reside in. Therefore, I hope
and trust that today’s citizens will be more than prepared to meet TDA’s call
this time around too.
TDA Board Chairman Engineer Yemane Tadesse acknowledged that TDA was founded
in the United States of America. He thanked, and rightly so, those who
have been contributing towards TDA’s successful activities. However, in order
to complete the picture, I think it is also worth noting how it was conceived
and created.
Often times, the question of how the idea of TDA was conceived and its
consequent birth are not always mentioned or are glossed over. However,
everything has a starting point and here I hope to fill the information gap about
how TDA came about. In fact, its foundation took a process and needed huge
commitment, tremendous energy, effort and time from 1984-1989. Contrary
to facts, an erroneous narrative has been developed nowadays. The idea of TDA
originated from questions raised by the people and Tegadelti of Tigray and
was conceptualized in media during the most trying times of the armed
struggle.**
Some of the trying times of the armed struggle included, among others,
the raining of bombs on the people and Tegadelti of Tigray both from the sky
and ground by the Derg with full support of the Soviet Union and its
allies. To make matters worse for them, the most severe drought of
1984-85 confronted the people of Tigray. The reaction of the world
was immediate and made food assistance available to Ethiopia. However, the
Derg would not let food aid go through to Tigray. Instead, the Derg
designed its cruel policy of “dry the sea to eliminate the fish” by luring
people to collection centers to receive food assistance. But instead of
providing them with the promised food, families were separated and hauled
away with Soviet made lorries to various parts of the country. Thus, the
Soviet Union and its allies, instead of saving lives, became accomplices in hauling
starving people to other parts of the country. The TPLF had thus to
devise other strategies. One was to get food assistance from the
international community through the Sudan.
An important point to note at this juncture was that this critical strategy
faced an unexpected obstacle. It would have been unimaginable at that
time to expect that two antagonistic and irreconcilable forces would agree on
one agenda. After the Derg prevented food assistance to go
through to Tigray, another route was considered to get international food
assistance to liberated Tigray. This time around the attempt was made
from Sudan through Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) controlled
areas. Like the Derg. The EPLF refused to allow food assistance to the
dying people of Tigray. The TPLF then had to mobilize the people
to clear a dry weather road from Western Tigray to Sudan. It was an
amazing feat. Within a few days the dry weather road network became
operational.
Subsequently,
the TPLF designed two strategies. One was to organize most affected and
able-bodied people, starting from Southern Tigray, to trek to Eastern Sudan
to get food assistance. Their movements were organized mostly by
nightfall to avoid air bombardment by the Derg. Tegadelti had to carry children
and their military equipment at the same time and had an immense task in
front of them. They also had to take care of the elderly and those who got
sick on the trek. It was one of the most trying moments of the armed
struggle. Fortunately, Government and people of the Sudan were generous
enough to have prepared camps and allowed over two hundred thousand of our
people to encamp in the eastern part of their country. They also availed
security protection for the people.
One of
the most dramatic scenes that I vividly remember and could never forget at
the camp was the way our people behaved. They barely had food while trekking
to Sudan for all those days. When they arrived, representatives of
international humanitarian agencies were there ready with truck-loads of
food. Our people got their assigned tents and were seated in front of their
tents. The trucks were in front of them too. We and the representatives
stood facing them and were able to watch their reaction in amazement. There
was no movement whatsoever until their representatives had to be called in
turns to receive their shares for each group. The representatives were
dumbfounded because they were expecting the starving people would rush to get
their share when they saw food. That did not happen in the case of our
people. In spite of trekking for days on end with hardly any food, our
people showed tremendous dignity in those most trying times. With that long
trek and hardly any food traveling to Sudan, the people who moved to Sudan
for a short but trying period showed immense pride in one of the most trying
periods of their time. Watching that, we were very proud. Abadi Zemo,
Tedros Hagos, two or three others and this writer were there standing.
The
second strategy was to transport food assistance from Sudan through the new
road built by the people at the direction of the TPLF to those at home who
could not make it to Sudan. It was at this critical period that
the people and Tegadelti of Tigray kept asking whether Tigrayans in Europe
and America knew about what was going on in Tigray at the time. In
fact, they specifically kept asking whether or not Tigrayans outside of the
country were demonstrating against the Soviet Union and its allies outside
their embassies for supporting the inhuman bombardment of Tigray by the Derg
and what they were also doing to help their people. It was during
these difficult times both for the people and Tegadelti of Tigray that the
idea of TDA was conceptualized and the message carried on to the Tigrayan
sidetegnat in Europe and North America from 1985 to 1989. They then responded
by establishing TDA through a founding conference organized with the
assistance of the Washington D.C. Office of the Tigray Liberation Front
(TPLF) in August 1989 at Howard University, Washington, D.C. This
writer made a presentation at the opening of the TDA founding conference
explaining the efforts made between1985 to 1989 that led to that point. He
also delivered the message mentioned above that he carried from the tegadelti
and people of Tigray in his many travels to media i.e., “what are our
children living in the west doing to try to help their people back home”. It
can thus be said that TDA is the brain child of the people and Tegadelti of
Tigray.
The
founding conference made the following decisions:
1. The name of the organization would be called Tigray Development
Association (TDA).
2. It would have a board with 19 members from Tigrayans all over
the world.
3. It would have an executive committee with five elected members.
At the conclusion of the founding conference, participants elected this
writer President of the TDA Board and Chairmen of the Executive Committee.
Unfortunately, I can’t recall the names of all 19 board members but the
members of the executive committee were, I as chairman, Dr. Tilahun Beyene,
Vice-Chairman, Ato Desta Asghedom, Ato Araya Zerihun and Ato Zemen
LibneDengel. It should also be noted that the late Alemayehu Mesfin designed
the first TDA logo.TDA was thus officially born on August 12, 1989 at Howard
University in Washington D.C.The First symposium was organized at the same
place in1990 to celebrate its 1st year of establishment, and
scholarly papers were presented. TDA members Yasmina Sam Atsebha and Abraham
Teclu worked very hard to collect all the papers presented and prepared a
booklet. ***
* DASS is roughly translated as wooded tent.
** For details, see Aigaforum.com, July 2019, “
Looking Back-TDA 1st Symposium, 1990 “.
*** This writer personally brought two cartons of the booklet, one for
Meqelle TDA head office after we set it up, and another one for the Addis
Ababa branch office.
