Wallelign Mekonnen Kassa (

Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...

: ዋለልኝ መኮንን ካሣ; 22 March 1945 – 10 December 1972) was an Ethiopian

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

student activist and militant active in the Ethiopian Student Movement from the mid-1960s until his death in 1972. Wallelign was the author of the highly influential but contentious article ''On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia'' published in 1969.

Early life

Wallelign was born in Sayint, South Wollo, and was the son of a merchant. He graduated from Woizero Sehin Secondary School in

Dessie Dessie (; also spelled Dese or Dessye) is a town in north-central Ethiopia. Located in the South Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region, it sits at a latitude and longitude of , with an elevation between 2,470 and 2,550 metres above sea level. Dessie ...

Student leader

Wallelign enrolled at the then Haile Selassie I University as a

Political Science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

student. Wallelign soon became involved in the radical student groups that were proliferating at the university. Due to his student activism he was arrested and sentenced to five years imprisonment in April 1969, but was pardoned by Emperor

Haile Selassie Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...

shortly afterwards.

''On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia''

Wallelign’s most famous article ''On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia'' was published in the student movement’s journal ''Struggle'' in November 1969. In this article Wallelign tried to analyze 'national oppression' in Imperial Ethiopia and argued that as Ethiopia was not one nation, but rather a collection of different nations and nationalities, whose struggle for

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

should be supported by the student movement as long as they are committed to

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

. This was a highly contentious area that divided the student movement at the time, but Wallelign’s views eventually came to dominate the student movement as well as the political parties that it spawned.Balsvik, 1985: 297. As a result of the publication a police harassment and media campaign was unleashed against the student movement and ''Struggle's'' publication was suspended. The following month, Tilahun Gizaw, president of the University Students' Union of Addis Ababa, was assassinated by what is presumed to be agents of the state. Wallelign was arrested again in December 1969 and imprisoned until May 1971.

Death and legacy

After his release Wallelign worked in the Ministry of Ground Transportation and remained active in the radical movement. On 10 December 1972, Wallelign and six fellow activists attempted to hijack an Ethiopian Airlines flight leaving

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

for Europe. Following a string of hijackings carried out by Eritrean and Ethiopian activists in the late 1960s and early 1970s however, Ethiopian security officers had been placed on such flights, and a shoot-out ensued that took the lives of five of the hijackers including Wallelign. He was buried in Dessie. At the end of the

Ethiopian Civil War The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991. The Derg overthre ...

the rebel Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) named its Wollo offensive Operation Wallelign in honour of the fallen activist. Wallelign's views are embedded in the current Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia which recognizes the unconditional right of "every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia... to self-determination, including the right to secession". The ongoing debate on this constitution bears witness of how controversial his views remain.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mekonnen, Wallelign People from Amhara Region Addis Ababa University alumni Ethiopian socialists Ethiopian communists 1945 births 1972 deaths