Welcome to the Gadaa.com Scholarship Search - Operation Ocean Waves
Historical Context of Operation Ocean Waves:
General Taddasa Biru was a very popular police force commander and was believed to be an Amhara by members of the Haile Sellassie regime for he had fully assimilated into the fabric of the ruling Amhara elite.
In the early 1960's General Taddasa was a leading figure in a campaign called the Fidel Serawit (the Army of Letters) to eradicate illiteracy across the Ethiopian empire, and particularly in Oromia. Alarmed by the success of the literacy campaign in Oromia, the Ethiopian Prime Minister of the time, Akelilu Habete Wolde, who assumed General Taddesa was an Amhara, confided to him the educational policy of the Haile Selassie's government in these words: "Taddese! After you have started leading the literacy campaign, you talk a lot about learning. It is good to say 'learn.' However, you must know whom we have to teach. We are leading the country by leaving behind the Oromo at least by a century. If you think you can educate them, they are an 'ocean whose waves' can engulf you.
General Taddasa was shocked to learn that the government's central policy was to perpetuate ignorance, economic exploitation & political oppression of the Oromo. Soon after that, to the disbelief of the Amhara ruling elite, General Taddasa decided to join the Macha-Tullama Welfare Association (MTWA), a self-help Oromo organization that mobilized the Oromo public for political & economic freedom since the 1960's. By becoming a member of MTWA, General Taddasa declared being Oromo & being proud of it.
MTWA became highly publicized & gained members in thousands after General Taddasa joined the Association. He delivered politically charged speeches at the regular meetings of MTWA. Public rallies & meetings were organized in villages, towns, and cities in several parts of Oromia. The government was particularly disturbed when persons like General Taddasa, whom they took for an Amhara or considered Amharized for all practical purposes, not only openly identified himself as an Oromo, but also articulated his people's position & dissatisfaction with the government.
General Taddasa's involvement with MTWA was an important juncture in the history of modern-day Oromia, and he was propelled to take actions against the political & economic subjugation of the Oromo after the infamous conversation with the Prime Minister of the Abyssinian empire. In the last 44 years since that conversation, the Oromo have gained little or no political & economic freedom. The underlying policy of each and every Abyssinian regime that has come to power after the fall of the Monarch has remained and remains to be to put the Oromo people in a state of darkness. Gadaa.com has opened the Gadaa.com Scholarship Search - named Operation Ocean Waves with the mission of providing the youth with scholarship, internship and other related information that will open the doors of higher education in North America. This mission is knowingly named Operation Ocean Waves to make the Abyssinian ruling elites' fears of educating the Oromo a reality.
[The historical facts about General Taddasa Biru & MTWA are taken from: Jalata, Asafa. 1998. "Oromo Nationalism and the Ethiopian Discourse: The Search for Freedom and Democracy". Asmara, the Red Sea Press, Inc.]
