The Murder of Mathewos Korsisa and his Nephews

It is often argued that the socialist regime of the military junta that took power after the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia was not exclusively an Abyssinian (Tigre and Amhara) dominated administration. On the basis of such argument is to be found the occasional participation of few, handpicked surrogates who were ready to serve their Abyssinian masters at the expense of their own peoples. 

In this regard, there were a number of notorious non Abyssinian cadres of the socialist government who tortured, maimed and even killed their own people to obtain favours from their Abyssinian masters. Ali Musa of the then Bale province in the present Oromia region, and Pertros Gebre of the then southern Shewa province are indicative cases in this regard. These individuals were indeed some of the most brutal and the most feared non Abyssinian cadres of the socialist government of the time. 

Although such surrogates were encouraged by the Abyssinian socialist dictators to kill and maim their own people, they were not tolerated when they tried to voice little concern about them.

Mathewos Korsisa, a Sidama from Dalle District rose to one of the highest ranks in the socialist government through his participation in the Socialist Ethiopia Farmer's Association. From Secretary of the Socialist Ethiopian Farmer's Association in the Dalle District, Mathewos Korsisa moved up the ladder to become the Secretary of the Sidama Provincial Socialist Ethiopian Farmer's Association. 

When the Workers' Party of Ethiopia was launched in the early 1980s, Mathewos was recruited to become member of the Central Committee of the party - the highest position any regional government or parastatal leader could hold. 

Unlike Petros Gebre and other notorious cadres, Mathewos Korsisa was not an ordinary state functionary and administrator, and thence was not involved in brutalising the local people. He rose to fame because of his involvement in organizing farmer's cooperatives particularly in coffee rich Sidama and Gedeo areas, which soon led to an initial coffee quality improvement and productivity increase, thus contributing to greater export volume and higher return for the central government. 

Mengistu Haile Mariam applauded him on several occasions for the initial success of the various farmers' cooperatives in the Sidama and surrounding areas.

Mathewos Korsisa used his position and his relationship with Mengistu Haile Mariam to fight against corrupt government regional administrators, such as Tefera Endalew. Tefera Endalew had been one of the most notorious Abyssinian administrators of then Sidama province. Originating from Wello province in the present Amhara region, he used to torture, harass and intimidate the Sidamas, Gedeos and Guji Oromos who also inhabited part of the Sidama province. 

Tefera Endalew head of Sidamo keflehager administeration at Aleta Wondo in 1978

Amharas robbing the Impoverished

Towards the end of 1970s, Tefera Endalew ordered each and every peasant farmer in the Sidama province to pay over 50 Birr (a very big amount of money 30 years ago) in order to build a small meeting Hall in Awassa town – that is now called Sidama Cultural Hall. Over 8 million Birr was the total amount gathered from the overburdened Sidamas, Gedeos, Jemejems and Areros (the later two are in Oromia at present) peasant framers through this sort of forced taxation. 

However, the construction of the Hall did cost only 1.5 million Birr approximately. Mathewos Korsisa, as the representative of the peasant farmers, not only did oppose excessive taxation but also demanded to know what happened to the rest of the collected amount of money that was not needed for the otherwise small meeting Hall in Awassa. He therefore complained that Tefera Endalew disastrously contributed to further depriving the peasantry form the basics for survival by means of forced taxation for the erection of a small meeting Hall. 

However, what did not occur to Mathewos Korsisa to deeply understand was that his highest political authority in the region (his position of member of Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Ethiopia) was simply and purely fake because he was a Sidama. 

The Frame Up

Even worse for him and his concept of Justice, Tefera Endalew was not alone in making decisions on how to lay excessive taxation on the Sidama peasantry and thus extort extra income through the bias of erecting petty projects. This trickery had been integral part of the traditional and systematic Abyssinian exploitation of the Sidama national resources, as well as of those of other nations in the South since 1891. 

Amounts of money usurped through the petty projects bias were ordinarily shared among the top echelons of the Abyssinian administrators. Tefera Endalew alone could not make such big a decision; it had to be anticipated that he had the wholehearted backing of high ranking Abyssinian officials at Addis Ababa. 

As a matter of fact, the additional money collected through this bias, namely the erection of the meeting Hall in Awassa, has been shared between Fiseha Desta, a Tigre who was the then Vice President of the country, Tefera Edalew, and a few others. 

Gullible enough not to anticipate these Abyssinian fraudulent acts and the incessant practice of similar trickery, Mathewos Korsisa assumed that his position as Central Committee member of the country's ruling party was real, and he therefore launched an all-out attack on Tefera Endalew in front of other officials. He accused him for intentionally impoverishing the Sidamas, Gedeo, and Guji Oromos for the sake of small construction projects and for overtly robbing most of the collected money. 

Tefera Endalew was temporarily humiliated, but never admitted that he made a mistake. He started to plot with his superiors at Addis Ababa in order to eliminate Mathewos Korsisa once and for all. But there was still a problem. 

Mathewos Korsisa was no less than member of the ruling party's Central Committee, the person with the "highest ranking political authority" in the region. In addition, he was liked by every peasant in the region. He had never been involved in brutalizing the people in the area. Consequently, the elimination of a so famous figure in the area proved to be a relatively difficult task for the Abyssinians. Besides, the issue of the Abyssinian corruption that had been undertaken in the Sidama land for long was real and true, and most people knew this. 

Amhara outrageous lies and crimes

As it comes, the only way for Tefera Endalew to get rid of Mathewos Korsisa was to fabricate lies, and have him implicated in serious and inhuman crimes that one could never imagine. Abyssinians are indeed experts in lies, frames, frauds and deceitful schemes. Finally, they planned a gruesome story to frame Mathewos Korsisa up, and to carry it out they committed a dreadful murder that paved the way for them to get rid of Mathewos Korsisa. As he was truly innocent and at times naïve, Mathewos Korsisa had befriended a female Abyssinian restaurant-keeper in Awassa town. He would never imagine that Abyssinians would use this personal relationship as an opportunity to eliminate him from the planet for ever. 

Tefera Endalew employed for his plan's needs the Abyssinian government's police commanders at Awassa; they committed the most brutal murder on the Abyssinian restaurant-keeper and her family, so that Matehows Korsisa could be implicated for the extraordinary and dreadful murder. The Awassa police department led by Major Chane, originating also from Wello province, went to the residence of the Abyssinian women, blatantly murdered her and her mother in an inhuman and most barbaric manner never witnessed before – throughout the Sidama History.

They did cut the woman's body into pieces, and put various objects in her private parts. Mathewos was in a meeting with peasant farmers in Dale districts, when the incredible crime happened. When he returned back to Awassa after 3 days, there was a rumour spreading around, according to which Mathewos did murder his Amhara girl friend and her mother. The organized Abyssinian cadres started harassing all Sidama people, overtly stating that the Sidama people are barbaric. 

They propagated their version of the event, pretentiously wondering how the Sidamas were able to commit murder of Abyssinian women in such a brutal manner, and the like. Mathewos was stunned. All the Sidamas knew that this was not the work of Mathewos Korsisa. Everybody knew that there had been an inhuman frame up. But to no avail. After a week of lies and deceitful accusations, Tefera Endalew finally got Mathewos Korsisa. 

The Elimination of the Innocent at the Hands of the Mendacious Gangsters

Even before his immunity, as member of the ruling party's Central Committee, was officially stripped off, Mathewos along with his two nephews who lived in Awassa with him, was implicated in the crime, imprisoned, and tortured to unconsciousness. The level of torture was so inhuman that Mathewos gave a plastic full of dead body tissues from his legs to his family as evidence of the Abyssinian brutality. 

The Sidamas, led by a famous Sidama elder, who was at the same time uncle of Mathewos Korsisa, named Assefa Balango, submitted a petition to the central government, stating that Mathewos would never commit such a heinous crime, and that it was not in the culture of the Sidama people to murder women. Assefa Balango had previously been twice Member of the Parliament of Haile Selassie, but of course nobody listened to them. 

Fiseha Desta and other high ranking officials in Addis Ababa, who finally shared the extra money collected from the province's impoverished peoples, along with Tefera Endalew, told Assefa Balango and the Sidama delegates that they knew that Mathewos was a killer and that he would never be pardoned. 

In 1987, Mathewos Korsisa and his two nephews were tortured for a whole day and then taken out of the Awassa prison under the pretext of transfer to a prison in Addis Ababa. However, that was not the case; they were taken somewhere in-between Awassa and Addis Ababa, left there until it became dark, and then brought back to the Oromia side of lake Awassa at night. There, they were brutally killed and buried by Major Chane and his colleagues, who also had killed the Abyssinian woman and her mother. 

The Truth

The truth about the disappearance of Mathewos was disclosed only in 1996, when the Sidama police managed to capture major Chane in Wello, and bring him to Awassa. Major Chane testified that he did kill both the women and her mother, and Mathewos Korsisa with his two nephews; he admitted that he had done so because he had been so ordered by Tefera Endalew. Major Chane took the Sidama police to the place where they buried Mathewos Korsisa and his two nephews. The skeletons of three men were found eight (8) years after their brutal murder. 

After Mathewos Korsisa was taken out of Awassa prison, his uncle Asseffa Balango tried to locate him in Addis Ababa prisons. He would never find him anywhere. Finally, he deduced that Mathewos Korsisa had been killed. Asseffa Balango died of heart attack in Yirgalem hospital a few weeks after. 

This is a typical first hand account of the Abyssinian brutality in Sidama. We can draw a parallel with the current TPLF brutality. The Loqqe massacre was indeed the continuation of the same Abyssinian brutality. We will describe the awful details of the Loqqe massacre in a forthcoming article. 

Mathewos Korsisa is survived by his Sidama wife and several children. 

Tefera Endalew lives luxury life in Nairobi, Kenya at present. He runs a business of several taxis purchased with the money he robbed from the Sidama province.

source: http://www.sidama.org/Murder%20of%20Mathewos%20K.htm