The movement was founded in western Ethiopia, and included fighters such as the Shoan Ras[nb 1] Abebe Aregai,[citation needed] and a number of intellectuals who included the sons of Hakim Workneh Eshete and Heruy Welde Sellase, and Yilma Deressa.[5] Its chairman was Alemework Beyene, a veterinary surgeon educated in Britain. The organization had a constitution consisting of ten points, which included: asserting the supremacy of the political sphere over the military, injunctions against mistreating peasants and prisoners of war, forbidding its members from seeking exile and urging them to prefer death to capture by the enemy.[6]