Mekelle: 11 April 2024 (Tigray Herald)
My grief over the killing of Mr. Te Urgesa is heartfelt and profound sayed Lidetu Ayalew
Today, we heard that Bete Urgesa, the head of the Oromo Liberation Front’s political sector, was brutally killed. The news is very shocking and sad. Mr. Bete became one of the many people of our country who lost their lives brutally during the era of the prosperous political regime.
Apart from knowing him personally, Mr. Bete, who is my friend, was a peaceful fighter who was committed to his cause in a clear and direct way, and had a strong belief in ideological struggle.
Mr. Bete’s death today is a cruel act that shows that there is no peace and rule of law in our country, that no individual or community is guaranteed to live, and that the Oromo people and Oromo political forces are direct victims of the current regime’s violence, contrary to what some people think wrongly. In addition, it is a tragic event that proves that unless we fight and defeat this current regime together, we all have no other chance and hope than to end up being killed in turn.
This action strongly reminds us that we must immediately stop the side interference and struggle of Ethiopian political forces and fight together against the current regime which is a danger to the common existence of all of us. It will get us nowhere if we continue to forget the past as a joke, and be shocked and cry over the new every time people are killed like this. There is no shameless and immoral situation for a people to experience death. We can stop them from being killed individually and in turn, not by begging and questioning, but by united and strong struggle.
My grief over the death of my friend Mr. Te Urgesa is deep and heartfelt.
My condolences to all their families, friends and comrades.
He laid down his life for a belief that was etched into the very core of his being, always conscious of the fate that might one day claim him.
But knowing this doesn’t ease the sorrow that now consumes me. How I wish he had been granted more time—to live, to be with his wife and children.
A wife, four kids, and loved ones have to confront not only the brutal murder of a loving husband, father, and friend but also the torture of having to collect his body from where his assassins dumped it.
Bate Urgessa was not an ordinary Oromo politician, but a sharp intellectual who loved debating, reading, and learning. He lived a fearless life, too, despite the repeated suffering the Ethiopian state exacted on him.
Bate understood how merciless an amorphous empire was for a political struggle he pursued but he chose to peacefully pursue it anyway, and he was relentless and unbroken until his killers silenced him forever.
