This is a translation of a speech by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s social affairs adviser, Daniel Kibret.

It is plainly hate-speech. It is an open call for genocide.

“Weyane [Tigray] is not something we can understand. We can only erase it.

For instance, Australia… there is an island called Tasmania which is found in southern Australia. They have destroyed Tasmanian tribes until only one person remained. There was only one person left for [continuity of] the race. Only one person!

They have completely wiped them out. It is only by wiping it out.

As I had said before, it is only by wiping out [of existence] the disease called Weyaneness…

Firstly, so that it may not exist physically…

Secondly, the [very] idea. The idea of Weyaneness must never exist. Even in the form of an idea…

When people say ‘Weyane’ one ought to say ‘in the name of the father’! [a common Ethiopian orthodox reaction uttered against wickedness while crossing oneself]. Everyone [should say that]! [applause].

Never!

This is what we ought to tell our kids; We shouldn’t say ‘they [Weyane] did this because of this’.

Since there is a disease called Weyane that has infected Ethiopia in a very severe way, even when its name is mentioned, say ‘in the name of the father’ and get far away from it.

Don’t go anywhere near where its name is mentioned. Don’t read a book which is written about it. Don’t see a picture which is written about it. Don’t see its photo.

Never [do it]! It will infect you.

Without you knowing it, It will spread within you. So get away from it’.

The third one is from history. Under any circumstances, its history shouldn’t continue and have a place in Ethiopian history. It had had enough.

From now onwards it must not have history. Under any circumstances! In the future, when the country changes, when things come, all traces of it that would make it to be remembered must be made to not exist.

The statues it erected [applause], the names [of places, institutions] it has given, the ones it named, ones which makes it become remembered [must be erased]… so that we may never remember it.”

The speech in full

Daniel Kibret’s speech

I used to see [inaudible] and Dr. Wedajeneh trying to understand Weyane. [They were asking] such things as ‘What is it? What kind of thing is it?’ [laughter] I [say] the main problem of the rest of Ethiopians is our trying to understand Weyane. It is not possible to understand [it] [laughter/applause]. It is not possible to examine it with a sane mind. Neither with logic or through a scientific way is it possible to understand it. Many people, and the past few days too when we were talking with my friends, they say, ‘it is because of this; it is because they were confronted with such and such; it is because this happened to them; [it’s because] they did this’. Yet they don’t arrive at it [figure it out]. It is absolutely impossible to be saintly and understand Satan’. Either you yourselves would have to become Satan; [otherwise] you can’t! Just because you asked, ‘what is the cause [of it]’, you can’t find the answer. Weyane is not something we can understand; we can only wipe it out [great applause]. I [believe] we shouldn’t labor to make our children understand [what Weyane is] [laughter]. Under any circumstances! It is not possible! The level [of civilization] the world has reached to doesn’t have sufficient [capacity] to explain it to them. They are outside of it. Just look at the things they did. Be it through philosophy or science when you are not able to define something, you bring out its characteristics [through which] it manifests.

For instance when they first attacked the North Command last year, there were many things [that happened] then which were not disclosed for the sake of the unity of [Ethiopian] peoples. For instance, in one area, the people that were nearby surrounded the corpses of the soldiers [the Weyane] killed and spent the night eating food, having drinks and dancing. In what way could this, for instance, be analyzed? Earlier, for instance, Doctor [Wedajeneh??] was [so] baffled [by it] that he said it is insanity. An insane person will not do this. Never! [laughter]. We have many insane friends. [widespread laughter]. They don’t do that. They never do that! Contrary [to that] they are very humorous and playful. They are ones who see things in a different way. They don’t do something like this. How could a person dance and eat near a corpse. While wild animals, birds eat the corpse of Ethiopians, yet they were eating near it. In what way could you analyze it? What do you expect from an entity which is like this? There are [some] people who say, ‘they should never have done this’. How do you explain it to them? Look at what was done the past few days. It is not the robbery or things like that. We may say, the robbery is due to thieves and attribute it to a certain body. When they entered last time into Nifas Mewcha hospital, there was one patient that was sleeping there who had an artificial leg. They took away his leg laughter]. They pulled it out. Is this thievery? In what way are you going to analyze this? Is it through philosophy, science or psychology? In what way will it be analyzed? Will he take this [the prosthetic leg]? No he won’t. it was made to the size of the man [patient]. Why do you really attempt to understand this [inaudible]? Why do you waste you mind by laboriously wondering, ‘what could be the reason?’ You can only understand it by not understanding it [laughter]. In China, a small village, which I witnessed with my own eyes, they buried people inside the houses of farmers. Corpses have been buried in each & every house. What was difficult for the farmers was not returning to their village. On one hand think of [how much financial] capacity it would require a farmer to build a house. If they had destroyed it [the house], he would build it again on that spot. But they buried [corpses] in it and went. How are you going to understand this? Search for it in our culture? Is it there? It isn’t there. Search for it in our history? It isn’t there. There is one I haven’t seen because I was too shocked by it. Those who were with me saw it. They cut off and take with them the heads of their very comrades, especially those who are officers. In areas where we visited, there were people whose heads were cut. How could one person possess a mind that enables him to cut off the head of the one that has come with him? Why do we labor to understand this? How is it possible to analyze, understand and explain this? There is no such creature [in existence]. A while back, I learnt biology up to grade 10 where every animal is classified in kingdom, phylum, family, etc. It [Weyane] isn’t in there [laughter]. It isn’t in there. Go and search for it in the encyclopedia of animals. It isn’t there. Sometimes people [attribute such things to] Satan. That is a bit [convincing]. But I [believe] even he wouldn’t do this. Satan [demon] wouldn’t do such a thing to [another] satan [demon]. He wouldn’t. There isn’t [anything written which] says, ‘satan killed [its fellow] satan and satan cut off the head of [another] satan’ [laughter]. It is possible to understand Satan, [at least] a bit. [But] it is impossible to understand Weyane. It is impossible! They said ‘give us food’ and after they ate the food, you see them breaking the tray. [This is what] those to whom this happened [said]. Ok, what is this? [inaudible] They break the glass [cups]. This is what they did in all the fronts they came. Had it been the issue of a few individuals or a few fighters, we would have understood it by saying there is an exception in everything. But don’t assume that this is so. They prepared a document and gave training on it. They have trained [their fighters] to do this. They gave training! In what culture or mentality does a person defecate on the tray on which he ate? They did this! They defecated on Mitad [a clay stove on which injera is cooked]. They defecated on the mattress on which they had slept. Ok, what is this? They slayed the sheep and goat they stole from the hotel they entered on the bed of the hotel. Ok, what is this? Who can analyze this for me now? Why do we suffer to understand them? ‘They did this because this happened to them’… Do you know why we worry like this? It is because we are sane. It concerns us because we are sane [applause]. So we suffer to understand the people who are not sane with a sane mind. Sometimes, those of you who had seen the history and other stuff of the outside world… sometimes, [you say], ‘why did the westerners support them?’ By the way, had education and civilization not trained it, the ancient [state] of westerners brings about this. Read about how America wiped out the natives. How did Canada wipe out the natives? How did Australia wipe out the natives? To your surprise, they wiped them in this way. It was later that their residents [citizens] got a bit civilized and understood [civility] got himself liberated first. So, sometimes, a society which has understood such wickedness may not know [recognize] it. It understands it after a while. They [westerners] understood it [Weyane’s wickedness] after a while.

For instance, Australia, there is an island called Tasmania which is found in southern Australia. They have destroyed Tasmanian tribes until only one person remained. There was only one person left for [continuity of] the race. Only one person! They have completely wiped them out. They have inflicted on them that which we say has occurred in Shewa Robit. Their unconscious – a human mind has conscious which [develops?] by education; he also has unconscious. The unconscious of Weyane fits [harmonizes with] the unconscious of westerners. They communicate with [understand] each other through that. It is through that! They [westerners] keep silent when they [weyane] do whatever they want. They keep quiet while seeing them do this. The inside fits. They want the conscious [part] for politics etc. But on the inside they are one. This is how they destroyed the natives of Canada. For instance, when you see the history of Americans, the whites remain silent until those we customarily call Red Indians grow crops, when it is harvest time and they go and burn their crops with fire. The ancient farming is not like the way it is now. It is planted by waiting for [the right] season. Next comes winter. They know that. They were made to perish through starvation. They have exterminated them through smallpox. Many perished through smallpox. The natives of Australia survived by going to the north, to the desert. They left their country and left for a deserted area where no one lived. The unconscious of the two fits. Sometimes you can’t understand what they did with an Ethiopian culture and mindset. So I advise you not to try to understand it. Many people are stupefied [by Weyane’s ‘evil’ deeds], they say, ‘how?’ Don’t say, ‘how’; it is [simply] like that! [laughter/applause]. That’s it. It is what it is. You can only take it [itself]. When we learned math a while back, there is what we call given, right? – what you are given [initially]. They are given! [laughter] You can never understand this. What happened [happened] the way it did! It’s like that! Why [didn’t we know] until now? It is us who didn’t see this! Is it something new they brought forth now ? No. It was like this. But we didn’t see it. After all people have different levels of seeing, right? What you didn’t see on the first floor become clearly visible when you reach the 10th floor. We didn’t see it because we were on the 1st floor. Now we are able it [very well] and they revealed it very clearly. But it was like this in the past too. How do you understand one who rapes an eighty year old mother, nun? And think of the culture – [or] what you expect to be – from which this body came? When you see the religious, cultural and historical background, how was he [Weyane] able to do this? How was he able to [rape] 12 year old children from the context from which he came? Is it something it brought about now, today? It is not! It was like that! It was like that! You can never understand some things. The hospitals, it was like what has been said earlier, there could be destruction, but it [is necessary] to see very well the way they destroyed it. For instance, [they could] load medicines and take it. We can assume it is right [to be expected] since they don’t have medicine. But spilling medicine? Spilling glucose? What is this? Which mind is the one that orders this? Which [part of the] mind? What kind of mind urges him to do that? I was watching what was recorded and brought [here about] what happened to one [elderly] mother. It was what she told to media. ‘’They took away the tray, the Mesob [container for keeping Injera], the dishes, I also had pots I had bought, they took them too”, said she. Only one old pot remained. When they looked at it [they found out that] it was old compared to the other pots they took from my house. So what did they do? They put the old pot on the ground and put holes in it with bullets. The cost of the bullet is more than the pot. You see? This is how my [sane] mind thinks. So why didn’t the man [Weyane fighter] think like this? It is simply like that! [laughter] It is not necessary to ask, ‘How? When? Where? Why?’ regarding them. It is [necessary] to remove these questions from them? It is like it is! What worries me is how are we going to live. How are we going to be [what is our fate] while [living] with those who have such kind of [mental] framework. The neighbor of [one’s] house can be changed; [but] the neighbor of [one’s] country can’t be changed. How are [we] going to live someone who behaves as such; acts and does [things] as such. I’m mentioning this so that you may not take the struggle against which Ethiopia is engaged. Many people consider it [like] a soccer game. ‘tell him to do this in this direction; this [area] was captured; this or that happened’. Don’t be misled into thinking that we are fighting against an easy enemy. It is against an evil spirit-disease which has lived within it [Ethiopia] and knows it’s inside [thoroughly]. Even if Italy came, it didn’t know our inside [secrets]. It only [knows] through study; it wasn’t in our midst. These people were inside us [in our midst]. They knew us when they lived [with us]; it was us who didn’t know them. 60 generals and 200 mid-level officers of defense force [ENDF] defected and went there. What are we left with? Think! This defense force [ENDF] which [accuse] of not fighting immediately is the one which has been eaten up and endured suffering. In 1991, they dismantled it. When Ethio-Eritrean war happened, they begged, ‘please! By my death! In the name of Trinity’ and gathered the poor Ethiopian heroes. And to prevent it from being established as such, as you have heard Taye speak earlier, they took it [away] and made it not have a head. Then they attacked it in the North Command. And so that it may not have any that it remains with, as I had told you earlier, about 60 generals and 200 officers betrayed it and defected. These individuals know where our weapons are; from where it was bought. They know what we have. They know where our training centers are. They know us very well. But we are going to fight them by building from scratch. It is not an easy challenge. It is not an easy enemy that Ethiopia is faced with. It’s very existence is surprising! That it survived! And beyond that, as I have told you earlier, its friends, which fit with it unconsciously, help it. You have seen how no one spoke when all the crime/injustice was being done from up top [Tigray] until they reached North Shoa. Silence! As if they were doing righteous things. As if they came while establishing hospitals, schools, kindergartens on their way! Silence. Had they been [true] human rights activists, they would have at least said stop. If they couldn’t say it publicly, why don’t they tell it by phone, ‘please stop; this thing is not good’? They won’t say that [because] they are one. Their behavior fits [with each other]. When they think their godson has been hit a little bit, they start shouting. The destruction that occurred [in Amhara & Afar]! The destruction is okay; we can build it tomorrow. The deed [crime] that was done! What has been committed! Cattle! I was able to see what took place in the northern front – on Mai-Tsebri front. They gathered cattle and massacred them by bullets [shooting]. What are these cattle? What are they [for them to do this]? Slaughtering them is one thing. Loading them and taking them away is what a thief does. To your surprise, when we were going along the Meket road, [we saw that] they have hit eucalyptus trees, which farmers sell for firewood, with cannon; they cut down what was left; broke its waist. When we went there, [we found] all the trees broken down from the waist. When we said, ‘what is this?’, they told us, ‘they came and executed it’ [laughter]. How can a tree be executed? How are you going to understand this? What kind of logic can make you understand this? One that executes trees? Can a tree be executed? What wrong did it do? Which political party is it part of? Or which ethnicity? It was said, ‘Amhara is like this; Afar is like that; Oromo is like this’. What about trees? Can there be anything as suffering in an attempt to understand this? A [great] suffering has confronted this country. We have to be freed [or separated from this]. The solution is separation. The hope can come, we have to be separated from this group. Don’t think that it is not just the other people, we have to liberate the people of Tigray itself from this group. The people may not realize it. The people may not understand now. But even it [the people of Tigray] will understand it after a short while. Even the person who has the disease may not understand [he is sick]; such is the nature of some diseases. After a while, the patient himself realizes that he is sick. That he didn’t realize it doesn’t mean that he is not sick. At least it is the person that knows should be the one that feels sorry for that person. Tomorrow [soon], they will understand. There may be many reasons for their not understanding it. But they too will wake up one day. They will know what kind of evil spirit-disease has taken hold of them. A wicked spirit! A thing that is beyond the human mind [inconceivable]. Therefore, the struggle we are undertaking is difficult. The one that had taken hold of this country is a very dangerous disease. HIV/AIDS is too pleasant. Corona is too pleasant. Cancer is too pleasant. All the diseases that have come upon the world can be treated either through prevention or through treatment. Weyane can’t be treated either through prevention or through treatment. It can’t be treated by neither! It won’t get far if you get away from it. It is only by wiping it out. As I had said before, it is only by wiping out [of existence] the disease called Weyanenes from the three things: Firstly, so that it may not exist physically as an institution. As an institution! It shouldn’t be an institution that gives trainings; establishes organizations; sets networks; gathers people. Secondly: the [very] idea. The idea of Weyaneness must never exist. Even in the form of an idea; when people say ‘Weyane’ one ought to say ‘in the name of the father’! [laughter] Everyone [should say that]! [applause]. Never! This is what we ought to tell our kids; We shouldn’t say ‘they [Weyane] did this because of this’. Since there is a disease called Weyane that has infected Ethiopia in a very severe way, even when its name is mentioned, say ‘in the name of the father’ and get far from it. Don’t go anywhere near where its name is mentioned. Don’t read a book which is written about it. Don’t see a picture which is painted about it. Don’t see its photo. Never [do it]! It will infect you. Without you knowing it, It will spread within you. So get away from it’. It is such kind of disease that Ethiopia is faced with. Don’t mention it under any conditions: either in good or bad. It is a nasty disease. You will be infected without you knowing it. It is the idea. Even though the idea is wiped out as an institution, but I see it on various individuals. As has been said before, some find themselves being its victims unaware. Unaware! Some people, even while protesting against it, [have it within them]. It is a matter of percent. 20 percent; 30 percent; 5 percent – Weyaneness will be there in their blood. [There’s] a tiny bit that wouldn’t be removed. Or like it was done in the old times in rural areas, when there is a bad [corrupted] blood or ‘black’ blood, [the vein] is slit open and it is made to pour out. From some people, Weyaneness has to be slit open and be poured out. It is somewhere [in their body]. [laughter/applause]. There are [areas] of some parties & organizations from which it has to be spilt out. In the future, there is Weyaneness in our laws, organizational arrangements, regulations by which we abide; so it has to be slit and poured out.

The third one is from history. Under any circumstances, its history shouldn’t continue and have a place in Ethiopian history. It had had enough. From now onwards it must not have history. Under any circumstances! In the future, when the country changes, when things come, all traces of it that would make it to be remembered must be made to not exist. The monuments it erected [applause], the names [of places, institutions] it has given, the ones it named, ones which makes it become remembered [must be erased]; so that we may never remember it. Nothing must remain. Nothing! We should make it in such a way that we will not see it while on the road and remember. If we do this, we will save [rid] Ethiopia from it. If that doesn’t happen, [even if] Weyane number one gets destroyed, there is a chance for the coming of Weyane number two, Weyane number three, Weyane number four. [inaudible] so that it may never come [arise] again.

I had said before what was said here in Dire Dawa. There was one person who had become very troublesome. He wouldn’t hear of it even though they advised him repeatedly to desist. One day, someone whipped him severely when no one was looking. He thought no one saw him. But someone had seen [what he did]. Later he [the one whipped] took him to court.

He accused him saying ‘he did this and that’.

[When he was asked], ‘do you have a witness?’

[He said] ‘Yes’.

That person [who saw the whipping] was called.

He was asked], ‘have you seen [it]?’

He replied], ‘yes I saw it happen’.

‘In what manner has he whipped him?’

‘In a manner that would make him never desire for a whipping ever again. [laughter]

We have to whip Weyane in a manner that would make it never yearn for it. Ever! Only if we do that will we have hope. [laughter].

Thank you!

 “What is needed is not to understand Weyane but to wipe out Weyane”, EBC, 17/12/21