There are severe repercussions for Ethiopia's future, and the lives of civilians as the protracted conflict in the Oromia state plays out in complete darkness.
There are severe repercussions for Ethiopia's future, and the lives of civilians as the protracted conflict in the Oromia state plays out in complete darkness.
There are numerous armed parties engaged in the conflict. The federal government has increased airstrikes and drone attacks to cover ground forces fighting the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) in the Wallaga, West Shawa, North Shawa, and Guji zones.
The Oromian Subtle Reign of Terror
At the same time, Amhara state forces, also known as the Fano, have invaded Oromian territories bordering the Amhara Region, surrounding both Karrayyuu in East Shawa and Kiramu in East Wallaga.
Large-scale cross-border invasions by the Amhara forces are still downplayed or denied by federal officials and the regional government of Oromia. However, the growing number of fatalities and IDPs in the state exemplifies how detrimental such incursions are to civilians.
Fano's expansionist irredentism in Oromia risks igniting a protracted civil war that could jolt the Horn of Africa. There is a significant chance that the invasion by Fano will quickly turn into a civil war, which no group is equipped to manage or stop.
It's also why the world community needs to end its eerie silence and act to end the war in Oromia before it's too late.
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The conflict in Oromia is proceeding according to the plan for the Addis Ababa-based central government. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, elected in April 2018 due to Oromo protests, said in a speech to the one-party-controlled parliament on February 22, 2022:
"Success cannot be attained through a military campaign alone. We should enquire as to why the Oromo people backed the armed group. If we are lacking in any way, we must improve. It is insufficient to lament Shane [OLA] merely.
We need to find out why a particular area [in Oromia] offered the group shelter and supplies. On the surface, Abiy appears to comprehend the futility of applying military force to a primarily political problem. But his infamously uncooperative administration keeps using Orwellian double-speak.
In response to the premier's speech in parliament on March 23, 2022, Shimelis Abdissa, the president of Oromia, addressed a crowd in Adama.
Shimelis declared that the Shane forces find an appropriate time and attack their forces; when Shane forces attempt to attack them, they hide in the civilian population, and this results in the civilians suffering.
Shimelis appears to attribute the Oromo civilian population's suffering to the fact that they are home to the OLA, also known as Shane by the government. He does, however, unwittingly admit that the war cannot be won.
However, the Abiy administration keeps launching counteroffensives to purge OLA from the Oromia region. The final operation to remove the OLA from all of Oromia was successful, according to a report in April 2022 from the government-run OBN media.
Once more, on June 28, 2022, the presidents of the states of Oromia and Amhara vowed to work together and step up their efforts to eradicate what they called "terrorists." However, in August 2022, Amhara regional and federal forces launched a coordinated attack against the OLA in western Oromia.
This is to support the Oromia Police and Special Forces, as well as the Gaachana Sirna (a revolutionary guard formed of residents that resembles the ruling party's militia), to halt the OLA's advance toward Finfinne.
I was a member of the Abiy administration and was present when Oromia's political and security crises first began. Therefore, I want to clarify how the current situation came to be.
As I have argued somewhere else, the devastating conflict in northern Ethiopia began in Oromia when Abiy's government decided to crush all rival forces, including the youth movement that gave him rise to power and opposition parties, to create a powerful one-party state.
At an early 2019 Oromo Democratic Party(ODP) Central Committee meeting, which predates the Prosperity Party, Abiy addressed us:
The Tigray People's Liberation Front can teach a lot (TPLF). Without any challenge, especially from within the region, it ruled Tigray for more than 27 years. Like the TPLF ruled Tigray, the ODP ought to lead Oromia.
We can also learn from Eritrea, where there is no opposition at all, and if the worst happens, Ethiopia can continue without holding elections.
Abiy's authoritarian plan was contested by some of us, including the Oromian president at the time, Lamma Magarsa. Abiy replied, "I know how to get rid of them easily." Sadly, the majority of ODP leaders endorsed and approved of his plan. To this end, Lamma's removal from office in April 2019 was the first step in carrying out Abiy's plan.
I saw a string of disastrous campaigns that began in April 2019 that destroyed the nonviolent Qeerroo movement and its leaders throughout Oromia.
I noticed when Shimelis and the party secretariat's head, Fikadu Tassama, ordered the extrajudicial execution of detained youth leaders they claimed belonged to an "enemy cell" during a video conference with local government representatives.
Many of the youth were detained by regional authorities after being arrested and held in police stations, secret locations, and administrative buildings for months or years without a court date. Oromo police and Special Forces also killed numerous other people without following the law.
After a meeting of the newly established Prosperity Party central committee in March 2020, where Abiy proposed using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to put off the national election and eliminate all our enemies, both in towns and bushes, I left the Abiy government.
The central committee supported both agendas with few objections. There was a severe crackdown in Oromia. Within two months, revolutionary singer and Qeerroo movement icon Haacaaluu Hundeessa was murdered.
His murder served as a justification for the execution of additional youth leaders, opponents, supporters, and anyone else considered to be Oromo nationalists. The broad security dragnet put an end to Oromia's nonviolent resistance movement.
In short, Oromia has been under a reign of terror since 2019. The youth who had escaped the campaign of arrest, execution, and disappearance were coerced into enlisting in large numbers with the OLA.
In March 2022, the Oromian legislature approved a law that would organize and train all Oromians aged 17 to 56 to join the Gaachana Sirna (Revolutionary Guard) in support of Abiy's government.
The war against OLA and the campaign against dissenting Oromo voices go unabated. Large-scale conflicts between the OLA and government forces have worsened since April 2022.
Armed Amhara forces began attacking Oromian territory in August 2022, targeting areas in the western Oromian districts of Amuru, Jardega Jarte, Kiramu, and Gidda Ayana as the central Oromian districts of East Shawa and Fantalle.
Since November 2022, social media has been inundated with reports of mass atrocities against civilians, including massacres of children, women, and the elderly; beheadings, executions, and burning alive while filming; more than one million internally displaced people; lootings; and other horrifying events.
The federal government has used drones to attack a dozen locations where civilians were mercilessly massacred. University students in nearby regional states and students from all over Oromia demonstrated against the government's indiscriminate attacks and the brutality of Amhara forces in western Oromia.
The government's response was to arrest everyone who spoke out against the atrocities in large numbers and kidnap them. The state-run media have not covered the ongoing issues in Oromia. Only the Gidda Ayana district communication office in East Wallaga made a statement regarding the violence.
However, it was reported on her official Facebook page that the occupants of the Kiramu district in East Wallagga are entirely displaced due to the invasion by Fano Amhara extremists.
As initially intended, Abiy's administration continues to keep the conflict in Oromia out of the public eye and diplomatic spotlight.
The Abiy regime launched yet another "final operation" against OLA in the first week of December 2022 in keeping with the pledge made in November 2022 by Berhanu Nega, the education minister and president of EZEMA, who stated that "how would the conflict in Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz be resolved?
Initially, through the use of force. He pointed out that the Tigrayan strife ended precisely because Tigrayan fighters suffered a military defeat. Therefore, according to Berhanu, civilians in conflict-affected areas should be given weapons to defend themselves.
The Abiy administration has yet to show much interest in pursuing a peaceful resolution in Oromia, despite being forced to do so in Tigray. Abiy views peace as a tactical and transient goal; unless coerced, he will not commit to a genuine political solution.
Abiy has taken advantage of the fact that the international community and the western media continue to ignore Oromia despite their calls for peace and humanitarian assistance in northern Ethiopia.
Abiy Ahmed is from the Oromia Region, to be crystal clear. In 2018, I supported his candidacy and cast my vote for him. However, the fact that he is from Oromia does not give him the right to commit war crimes against his alleged supporters.
In addition, the Abiy government's sensitivity to the crisis makes it impossible to ignore it and achieve long-lasting peace. Abiy's personal property is not Oromia. He wasn't picked for office in a legitimate election.
After the opposition boycotted the polls due to the widespread incarceration of its candidates, members, and supporters, his party was the only candidate in every electoral district.
There's no reason to think the mainstream media can't cover the conflict in Oromia, which is taking place within a 50- to 60-mile radius of Addis Abeba, in the same way, it covered the Tigray war despite a total communication blackout.
Yet, for several reasons, the conflict in Oromia is kept from the public eye and disregarded by diplomats based in Addis. They are:
- The government made every effort to minimize the severity of the issues in Oromia.
- Because Abiy has been elevated in the media to the status of an Oromo leader, calls for Oromo freedom, democracy, and peace have been misrepresented as an internal power struggle.
- By portraying Oromo complaints as falling along a phobic spectrum ranging from extremism to tribalism, anti-Oromo forces and the urban elite have been victorious in misleading the media and the international community.
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The attempts to equate Oromummaa, the pan-Oromo identity, with extremism in ethnicity and religion serve as an example of the oromophobia of these forces. Oromo people are among the Abiy government's primary victims, but cultural elites who yearn for imperial Ethiopia continue to portray them as “new oppressors.”
Fourth, Oromo activists and media, especially in the diaspora, appear worn out and divided, making it difficult to communicate or explain the crisis in Oromia to the outside world.
As a result, it has led to misunderstanding and a need for more clarity regarding Oromo demands and the security and humanitarian crises raging throughout Oromia since 2019.
In conclusion, the recent three years have seen an unspeakably brutal campaign against Oromo civilians. The Oromo people's endurance is being put to the test by the brutal terror.
A peaceful resolution is in jeopardy due to the Amhara forces' invasion and demands to rule Oromia. Therefore, 2023 presents an opportunity to extend the call for peace beyond Tigray and look for a sincere political solution to Ethiopia's many crises, emphasizing the Oromia situation.