Sidama Crisis Monitor

31 August 2025

In an incoherent twitter rant and an apparent hate speech posted on 8 April 2025, Yonas Biru, the former World Bank employee dismissed for gross incompetence in 2009, launched unprovoked, unethical, and divisive attacks on the Sidama language and culture. He proclaimed that the use of the Sidama language as an official language in the “Sidamo” province was an “ignorant” decision. First, in a true testament to his incompetence and utter ignorance about the administrative structure in the country today, he refers to the Sidama National Regional State established through a Referendum conducted on 20 November 2019 as the “Sidamo” province. The “Sidamo” province created by the defunct feudal regime to enslave Sidama, Southern Oromia and Gedeo was officially dissolved in 1991, nearly four decades ago. However, it appears that Yonas Biru is still gripped by the nostalgia of the illusionary imperial supermacy underpinned by ahistorical narrative of kibre nagast and “Solomonic dynasty” where hitherto independent African nations like Sidama were subjected to untold political and cultural marginlization and economic plunder after annexation by King Minelik in 1890s. The “Sidamo” misnomer was coined by the invading colonial army of King Minelik to humiliate the Sidama nation 130 years ago. By invoking the illegal misnomer, Yonas Biru laid bare his deranged state of mind and incessant hate towards the Sidama people in particular and the historically oppressed south in general.

Secondly, having been fired from a reputable multilateral financing institution for utter incomptence, he not only has the audacity to lecture the Sidama nation on the demographic pressure it is facing today but also erronously correlates the right to excercise self rule and preserve and develop ones language and culture with a population density. What an utter nonesense!! Like any other members of the Ethiopian federation, Sidama’s right to adopt the Sidama language (Sidaamuafoo) as an official language is enshrined in the constitution whether the delusional rightwing unitarits like Yonas Biru would endorse or reject it.

Ironically, the same Yonas Biru who today continues to spew poisonous rhetoric against the political views and languages and cultures of the historically oppressed nations in the country, took the World Bank to a Tribunal for racial discrimination against him in 2009, which was dismissed for lack of any merit.

His hate speech was not confined to denigrating the Sidama language. He mocked the iconic Sidama cultural dresses Qolo and Gonfa and equated them with a Persian rug. Although no one would expect an imbecile like Yonas Biru to posess a common decency to respect the cultural heritage of over five million people who call Ethiopia home, he had crossed a red line by mocking our iconic cultural dresses in a disgraceful manner which warranted our brief response. The Qolo and Gonfa are worn during special occassions of cultural significance particularly the Sidama Lunar New Year, Fichchee and Cambalaalla, a UNESCO Intangible World Cultural Heritage. Although seeing these dresses worn by a corrupt criminal, Desta Ledamo, appointed to exact revenge on the Sidama nation on behalf his narcissist enabler is regratable, it does not diminish its historical and cultural significance in the Sidama society. No one has any right to denigrate the cultural heritage of any society. The Sidama nation and the oppressed south will work in unison to defend the rights of all peoples to preserve, protect and develop their languages and cultures.