Boundary Making Alone Cannot Resolve the Underlying Segregation and Socio-Political and Economic Injustices

 Boundary Making Alone Cannot Resolve the Underlying Segregation and Socio-Political and Economic Injustices

Recently, the ruling Prosperity Party leaders from both the Addis Ababa City Administration and Oromiyaa Regional State and Oromiyaa Special Zone Surrounding Finfinnee have claimed that they resolved the boundary dispute between the two entities. It was, in fact, a ridiculous scene as it trivialized the issue to make it only a media show-up imbued with flattery cadre blabs.

The OLF strongly censures such contempt of the rights, scratching of the wounds and the sheer downplay of the agonizing memory of the Oromo people and the indigenous communities that have lived in this area for millennia.

The founding of Addis Ababa, a name given to a military post that had overtaken the indigenous name Finfinnee, was part of the agonizing conquest and the southward expansion of the Abyssinian imperial realm. Before settling down in the current palaces, Abyssinian Kings and Rases wiped out the indigenous Oromo community from this area. Oromo Gada and clan leaders were hanged and humiliated, while several community groups were forced to leave the area. Oromo historiography has sufficiently documented the forceful and brutal actions taken against the rightful citizens throughout the ages. Cultural centers, sacred places, and Oromo indigenous political and administrative hubs were replaced by a new set of oppressive institutions and by forceful eviction and dehumanization. Once the brutalizing system entrenched itself, the Oromo were systematically alienated, and they became newcomers to their own fatherland. Their ways of life became repugnant to the new political, social and economic order of operation. Finfinnee (Addis Ababa) thrived on the blood and tears of the Oromo people.

The city's subsequent expansion, from the late nineteenth century to the present, has considered its environs 'no man's land'. Since 1991, despite the acclaimed institutionalization of federalism, as the result of the 1994 Constitution, farmers were evicted without or with meaningless compensation. Proud land owners turned to landless squatters, laborers, guards, and street dwellers. Thousands of families dispersed. To make matters worse, those who somehow survived the eviction were denied fundamental rights such as education, health facilities, and other infrastructure. Currently, the literacy level around Finfinnee is the worst in the country.

The EPRDF regime, in 2014, without out making any remedies to those injuries, introduced a so-called Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan. It was, in fact, new wine in an old bottle. It envisaged expanding Addis Ababa as far as 100 km from the center to evict the remaining Oromo farmers further. That instigated a new wave of Oromo resistance led by Oromo Youth for Liberation and Democracy (Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromo), joined by other activists as the course intensified. The fierce peaceful struggle engulfed the whole Oromiyaa from every direction and later expanded to other regions. More than 6000 lives were lost during the protest. The resistance led to the reshuffle in the EPRDF rank and file, which led the TPLF to relinquish its clout. The new powerholders vowed to respond positively to the Oromo quest in general and the Finfinnee issue. The current boundary demarcation has come about after four years of administration after the TPLF.

With this background, the current boundary demarcation, according to OLF, is far from doing justice to the age-old wrongs mentioned above. First, the issue of Finfinnee, from the Oromo perspective, cannot be addressed by detaching it from the broader Oromo quest for freedom and equality. Finfinnee is categorically part of Oromiyaa. Trying to evade this fact may only delay a popular action but cannot resolve the fundamental issue. Second, a mere boundary demarcation, glosses over restorative and remedial measures. It perpetuates rights abuses and ignores the need to address the violation of rights perpetrated against the indigenous people for the last two hundred years. Third, the current so-called boundary demarcation has violated the existing constitution as it endorsed the city's expansion, which took place without the official consent of the Oromo people and the Oromiyaa Regional State. Fourth, the demarcation process was non-participatory and exclusionary. It has excluded the broad masses of the Oromo people, Oromo political voices, and other stakeholders.

In a nutshell, the OLF understands that the so-called boundary delimitation does not recognize the full rights of the victim and age-old marginalization and does not do good for the city's future development. The OLF thus works towards ensuring the justified recognition of the rights of the victimized people and reversal of the injustices, the unfettered historical and cultural centrality of Finfinnee within the Oromiyaa administrative and legal boundaries. The OLF believes that the Finfinnee problem could only be resolved when the larger Oromo national freedom and equality are ensured. The OLF thus calls up on all Oromo political organizations, activists, and the larger Oromo people to stand by this cause.

Victory to the Masses

Oromo Liberation Front

Finfinnee, August ,2022

OLF

OLF slams AU characterization of military conflict in Oromia as “ethnic violence”

 

Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), has criticized the African Union’s (AU) characterization of the militarized conflict in Oromia regional state as “ethnic violence.” The OLF was referring to a recent “Brief Note” by the AU after its High Representative for the Horn of Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo briefed the AU Peace and Security Council (AU-PSC) on the peace talks in Ethiopia. The party said such characterization was based on “erroneous assumptions and factual fallacies that one does not expect from a continental organization…. A modest observer expects AU to base its conclusion on a non-partisan, solid, and comprehensive analysis of the drivers of the conflict and its actors.”

“Apart from the conflict in Tigray, western continued to be confronted by ethnic violence that is taking a heavy toll on inter-communal relations including in parts of Oromia and Benishangul Gumuz regions. These ethnic tensions have dates back to several decades but have seen a sharp increase over the past three years,” the AU’s brief note reads, triggering the backlash from the OLF.

AU’s characterization disregards the facts that “different groups of people who subsume varied identities have amicably lived with the Oromo people in Oromia in general and Western Oromia in particular. Hospitality, friendliness and protection of non-Oromo groups have been the hallmarks of the Oromo culture since immemorial. Members of the Amhara ethnic group have lived in the area mainly referred to by AU for the last 30 years and have never complained of misdeeds, as they have never had any problem,” the OLF said.

Armed confrontation has been raging by liberation forces since the 1980s, and there is no single report of an attack against civilians, the party said, and accused the ruling Prosperity Party of trying to model the conflict as “ethnic” in order “to shun a political solution to the problem and deny the liberation fighters’ political demands.”

“It is sad to see the AU endorses this disingenuous stand of the Ethiopian ruling party. This raises serious doubt about the impartiality of the continental organization.”

It also expects the AU to report about “hundreds of innocent Oromos killed in Oromia by armed government soldiers and cross border militias which human rights groups have continuously reported.”

The civilian killings in Gambella after the onslaught by the armed rebels on the government military camp “categorically targeted the Oromo residents in Gambella, accusing them of providing support for the rebels”, OLF said, “armed government troops went from door-to-door and attacked the Oromos, which graphic pieces of evidence have corroborated. It suffices to refer to the purposeful killing of a young Oromo, his hands tied on his back and repeatedly shot by Gambella Regional police members.”

The party insists that as its core value, it “always upholds a peaceful resolution of any conflict and political issues” and it supports the attempt being made by AU and other stakeholders to resolve conflict in the Horn, including those in Ethiopia. But “we are dismayed by AU’s biased ‘Briefing Notes’, which endorses state terrorism. We strongly demand the AU correct those facts and straighten its partiality; we expect at minimum from AU to refrain from complicating the already complex problem of this troubled empire,”

Beyond National Dialogue: Ending Ethiopia’s civil war needs international engagement

 The two great ideals that Lincoln emphasized must be preserved are currently endangered and the two factors he identified as threats have converged on Ethiopia. In just four years, the country moved from a hopeful moment of democratic transition to the precipice of a violent dissolution. The leadership derailed the political transition, mismanaged the political space, engendered conflicts, and launched a devastating war. The combined effect of failed leadership has left the government drifting and the country teetering, shocked by foreign invasion and internal anarchy typified by a collapsing economy, a hollowed-out military, and escalating incendiary political rhetoric.

In this article, I argue that the specter of dissolution that now haunts Ethiopia resulted from the choices that Abiy Ahmed made among the real alternatives that were available to him. I contend that Ethiopia’s chance of democratization was scuttled and a devastating civil war was set in motion when the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) selected him as its leader. In conclusion,  the solution to Ethiopia’s current predicament cannot come from within. The international community must work out a negotiated settlement to avert more bloodshed.

In the last two years, it has become clear that Ethiopia cannot defend its territory along the Sudanese border. On November 1, 2020, three days before the start of the Tigray war, Abiy Ahmed requested the Sudanese leader to close the border to deny an escape route to Tigray fighters fleeing the war Ethiopia was preparing to launch. The Sudanese leader welcomed the invitation as an opportunity to recover his country’s disputed land. Accordingly, Sudanese forces seized the land known as the Fashaga Triangle and drove out Ethiopian farmers from the land.

Because both the federal military and Amhara regional forces were busy ethnically cleansing Tigrayans in Western Tigray, as evidenced in the June 16, 2022 joint Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International report, the Ethiopian farmers in the Fashaga Triangle were left to fend for themselves. In the subsequent months, Sudanese forces seized more land and dislodged many more Ethiopians. Unable to respond to the violation of the country’s territorial integrity and displacement of its citizens, Abiy was left with no choice but to accept Sudan’s action as a fait accompli. Though Ethiopia came out from the Sudan saga looking impotent, it did not matter to the prime minister who reckoned that the internal threat to his power was more ominous than the welfare of citizens and the borders of the country.

When he assumed office, Abiy Ahmed was entrusted with two mandates: manage the delivery of routine government services and prepare the country for free, fair, and competitive elections. In effect, he was a leader of a transitional government. He made a conscious, albeit ill-advised, choice to reorient the country’s direction and transform state institutions to suit his vision for the country. This decision, in effect, betrayed the popular protest’s cause of democratization of politics, genuine federalization of governance, economic justice, and cultural autonomy.

No sooner had Abiy Ahmed assumed office than he and his political allies mounted an incendiary campaign against the Ethiopian constitution of 1995 and the multinational federal system. Their goal was to restore a unitary state ruled by an all-powerful autocrat. To begin the process, the ideology of Medemer, a euphemism for unity without diversity, was launched as an indigenous ideology that would supersede Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, rendering EPRDF’s revolutionary democracy irrelevant, and supplanting the imported “politics of national self-determination.” Abiy promised that his unifying ideology of Medemer would obviate the danger of conflict and set Ethiopia on a course to prosperity.

Then Abiy dismantled the EPRDF and replaced it with a superficially unified Prosperity Party. He did so to avoid EPRDF’s periodic gimgema (evaluation), which could have resulted in his removal as party leader. A unitary party was meant to ensure that the prime minister would wield supreme power and remain in office indefinitely. More importantly, the destruction of the EPRDF presaged Abiy’s ultimate goal of undermining the federal division of power, political pluralism, and respect for the right of nations and nationalities. The party’s constitutive documents made it clear that the party envisions the restoration of the pre-1991 unitary system.

After securing his position within the party, Abiy embarked on removing what he considered obstacles to his restorationist vision. His regime imprisoned ethnonationalist opponents, refused to obey a court order to release them, and closed down independent media outlets. Next, he declared war on the multinational forces, commencing with the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) in western and southern Oromia. In Sidama, security forces massacred more than 150 people demanding a referendum for statehood.

The cost of realizing Abiy’s vision is high. Civil war, grave humanitarian crisis, allegations of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, public insecurity, displacement, administrative paralysis, and malfeasance of politicians now characterize the country’s body politic. Pivotal national institutions are dismantled and the country is isolated regionally and internationally. The specter of dissolution is a real possibility today than at any time in the past.

The 2021 election was supposed to be the final act of the democratic transition and the first step to a more open, participatory, and accountable politics. As such, the election was expected to be free, fair, and competitive. With the Prosperity Party controlling nearly all media outlets, no independent media was left for dissenting voices to make their voices heard. The election was not free.

The government regularly spied on the activities of its opponents or used myriad levers to coerce voters to cast their vote in its favor. The party commands an inexhaustible source of finance to fund its campaign. It uses law enforcement to prosecute and imprison its political opponents. Even the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) was not an autonomous and independent electoral institution. The elections were not fair.

The elections were held after the Prosperity Party had suppressed all legitimate voices, cleared the electoral arena of serious competitors, and exacerbated existing political contradictions. The elections were not competitive. What happened in June was not a democratic election but a coronation. In the end, the election failed to resolve the existing political issues.

The Oromia region has endured the depredations of command post rule and economic stagnation. The Oromia Prosperity Party has inflicted indescribable atrocities against Oromo youth alleging collusion with the OLA. The political sentiment among Oromo is that they have been betrayed at every moment of political change, in 1974, in 1991 and most recently in 2018. The failure of democratization and reversal of the multinational federation has solidified the belief that an empire cannot be democratized even under Oromo leadership. Oromos will not abandon their quest for self-rule.