Gambella wish a Happy New Year, 2014, to all Ethiopians though Happiness is now very rare for a lot of families shattered by violence. I hope it is the wish of every peace-loving Ethiopian to pursue peace by words of love rather than more ammunitions because the more weapons we wish to acquire for both sides, the more it will make 2014 E.C appear even more agonizing than the past 10 months.

Let think about the lives of those in the front line. Is it worth sacrificing more lives for a war that is not external aggression? Before 4th of November 2020, GC, those who were beating up war drums never knew things were going to turn as uglier as they have now got. Nobody knew the massive loss of lives that have now been witnessed from both sides.

So, pushing for a more military solution when opponents are armed teeth to toe is nothing but a catastrophic erosion of Ethiopia’s younger population which will make us more vulnerable economically as a society and weak as a nation from foreign foes.

I hope everyone waking up today in the first day of our calendar year would need to have a different approach about how this war has affected us not just human cost in the war fields but economically as well. Families are now struggling to put food on the table because of the terrible inflation and lack of jobs. That is even better but how about having family members killed in this war and having family members still in it you never knew are going to make it back.

Sacrifice is fine if a foreign force imposes Territorial integrity like what Eritrea in the 1990s did and what Sudan is now doing in the Amhara Region and what Egypt is trying to do by openly willing to bomb our damp. But people are taken by surprise for Ethiopia to go to war against itself causing enormous suffering to its population. Very unthinkable of us because our peacekeepers have been sent to crisis spots as part of the UN Peacekeepers to quell violence like in Darfur, Somalia and Rwanda in the 1990s.

But now we have just become as bad as the other guys we tried to bring peace to. We have become no different to the nations we once thought were uncivil. Let hope this idiocy stop in this new year and for that to happen, I would like us to think about your children when you wake up in the morning. Have a look at them and consider them just like those children in the frontline.

How would you feel when they are away in war field not knowing whether they are alive or dead? I think this is how peace can be achieved if anyone feel the pain like those families who have already been touched by this war. Who have lost loved ones and those do not know the status of which their children are in in the war zone.

I will remind us that we are delusional if we think firing more bullets, more drones, more attack helicopters will bring us a lasting peace. It works for external aggression only for a short while such as in the US Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan but not internal differences and such is the case for the past 10 months. There was no bullet yet to be fired that we have not fired. Yet the war has just proven to be a misery.

Being the case, how could we be sure the next 10 months would be any difference when we see pockets of violence everywhere in the country? This is simple fact. Military Victory is never adequate to bring a lasting peace. We saw that in many countries especially in the Middle East and in Afghanistan.

A political solution is more viable than finishing our society for a job that is entirely a responsibility of politicians to get a common ground. LET HOPE FOR A PACEFUL 2014 E.C