OLF CRISES: The past and the Present;Reconciliation as a way forward
When we look at the path followed by the Oromo national struggle over the past few decades, we realize that our national struggle was made to go through Dark Age and OLF as a political party has been turned into a kind of organization which George Orwell described in his book titled Animal Farm. Marginalization on region, religion and other elements are chronic. Blackmailing individuals on false allegation is becoming an art to excel with. Things have been taking wrong direction with devastating outcomes.
To begin with, the path our national struggle followed in the past few decades is full of unbelievably distorted realities. Some of the distortion were/are purposely planned by few people within the circle of our leaders in the Oromo national struggle to reach certain selfish end goals. The current crises within OLF, other Oromo based political parties and the Oromo society at large is partly the result of purposely designed strategies by few elites (most of them in leadership for over decades) in an attempt to take the default leadership of Oromo nationals struggle. It seems that these leaders are also aspiring to replace the Amahara/Tigre leadership of Ethiopia . To achieve such narrow goals, these leaders employed a divisive Abyssinian type leadership, i.e, divide and rule strategy.
It is painful to all of us to mention that these people mobilized Oromo nationals on the basis of region, religion etc and exploited the difference between Oromos from different regional and regional background to create mistrust, confusion, suspicion, and disunity to achieve their narrow goals of sole control over OLF and to take Ethiopian power after independence.
In my understanding, regional originality, in what ever form can never be a virtue to be proud of. Our people from West have developed a mentality of being superior Oromos and paraded themselves to be highly civilized and torchbearers of the Oromo national struggle. This mentality of them however did not save them from acting in an immoral, uncivilized and divisive way that resulted in cruel deeds to our national struggle. Though they perfectly understand the genesis of Oromo national struggle, where the seed of the struggle germinated and by who, they preferred to deny the truth and create fabricated lies (similar to the 3000 historical myth of Abyssinians) to confuse Oromo mass and develop a fake history that they are torchbearers in the Oromo national struggle. It is a fight initiated out of inferiority complex and the fight is to take credit in the past achievements of the OLF control in future. History tells how OLF has been performing since such chauvinist elites took leadership of the Oromo national struggle.
Such mentality of them did not only discourage Oromo nationals and compatriots, but created mistrust among the leaders themselves and Oromo mass at large. It is a major contributing factor for the decreasing unity among Oromos, stagnation of Oromo national struggle and more importantly it served as an opportunity for our enemies to easily penetrate our leadership circles.
Oromians from different parts of Oromia became victims of such extremely subtle strategies of marginalization. Oromos from different region are given a position that they don’t deserve in the national struggle due to such deliberately orchestrated marginalization. In their attempt to take credit of who established OLF, these Oromo elites trashed the contribution of Oromos outside their narrow circle as none. For instance, the contributions of Shoa Oromos in fighting the injustice of Ethiopian regime from the early time of occupation to the time OLF emerged as political party was/is deliberately ignored and Shoa Oromos were /are often referred to as Amaharas by such chauvinist leaders. As a matter of fact, the emergence of OLF out of Macha and Tullama Self Help Association by itself is a clear evidence of how OLF came into being. It is only possible to deny that fact out of voluntary ignorance. Some leaders have voluntarily denied the contribution of Shoa Oromo to the national struggle and preferred to discourage them. It is not uncommon to hear such chauvinist referring to Oromos from central Oromia as Amahara. Such ill-intended techniques were used by few vicious and selfish leaders to completely discourage Oromo nationals from other regions. It the awareness of such painful marginalization that drove out most Oromians out of OLF and made them distance observers of the ongoing national struggle. This finally led OLF to enter into political crises it is suffering over years.
To mention an example, many active members OLF were deliberately referred to as members of IBSO , QC , AWO, etc, when these Oromo nationals are/were actually active members of the OLF who met their membership obligation and responsibilities. These kinds of tags (labels) are deliberate stigmatization techniques aimed at incapacitating individuals and erode his/her moral confidence in OLF and thus force them leave the organization for good thereby leaving the leaders comfortable on their throne without any opposition.
What transformed OLF leaders into this?
At the early stage OLF leadership was good. Its flag bear ODA, a single unifying icon under which Oroms organized themselves with near absolute unity and crushed their enemies over centuries. Having carried such unifying spirit, OLF won the support of almost all Oromo within the empire and all over the world. As OLF grew to national party representing Oromos, its leadership gradually abandoned the principles that made OLF great, until today OLF entered a tragic situation. The leaders of OLF through time evolved into bad leaders; bad to ignore the concern of their own people, bad to employ divisive strategies for their selfish end goals, bad to love revenge than reconciliation with Oromos of different opinion. They preferred to forget the Gada principle, where a leader assumed leadership based on merit and achievements. They preferred to cling to power beyond their rightful terms. More importantly, they preferred to ignore “SAFUU OROMOO”, the source of all morality and discipline in Oromo social institutions.
Gradually, as OLF become more and more popular, selfishness in all its forms crept into the organization. The Gada virtue of honesty, condor, trust, brotherhood and patriotism slowly withered and authoritarian style leadership replaced it. Nepotism replaced merit. What was left in OLF at last seems to be a collection of people whom neither the vices of the cruel Ethiopian regime on the Oromo people nor an increasing open hatred among the Oromos could shake out their apathy.
One may ask himself/herself, why are these things happening to the OLF? But that is a wrong question. The question should have been who has brought OLF to the edge of destruction?
In my opinion, our leaders are to be blamed and are responsible for OLF’s current situation and for what is happening in the Oromo mass at large today. OLF and our national struggle had been made to go through Dark Age by leaders whom I mentioned above. These leaders don’t want being replaced by some one who is clear sighted than them. They are deadly in awe of changes that may remove them from control. To prolong their influence in the Oromo politics, they devised evil strategies, which over a period of time made OLF loose its prominent members and decline in strength. This evil strategy is a carbon copy of the Abyssinian divide and rule strategy. This time it is used by people of Oromo blood to divide Oromo people deliberately. The strategy was implemented in a subtle way on the basis of region, religion and ideological differences.
Oromo nationals who criticized and opposed such ill-intended leadership style were technically attacked and destroyed. By maliciously impressing the ignorant, unprivileged and uneducated Oromo mass with idea that “so and so is an ‘Ethiopian agent’, ‘a traitor’, anti- OLF’, ‘an enemy’, ‘spy’, ‘regionalist’ etc,” those elites within the OLF leadership managed to destroy Oromo nationals through blackmailing and character assassination. When the actual perpetrators of regionalism are the leaders themselves, they use the same regionalism tag to blackmail their critics and dissidents.
By employing such subtle ill-intended strategies, the few elites within OLF leadership successfully paralyzed the moral and patriotic spirit of Oromo nationals whom they perceive as a threat to them and thus managed to recycle the OLF leadership baton within few individuals loyal to each other.
These are not true leaders in my understanding of leadership. True leaders love liberty and believe in the equality of all people under their leadership. They reject such regional prejudices in favor of equality of all people regardless of their regional backgrounds. They love fellow Oromos regardless of religion, region, or ideological differences. Lack of such leaders is what brought OLF into its current crises. Lack of such leader is what made it possible for hatred to engulf our people at an alarming rate and gradual stagnation of our national struggle.
Over a period of time these leaders have had/have transformed OLF into a kind of organization which George Orwell described in his book titled Animal Farm, where the main principle is that ‘All people are equal but other people are more equal”. Nepotism and moral corruption are severe in OLF today. People are promoted not on the basis of merit and achievements but on closeness to some one and degree of loyalty. Individuals who are unconditionally loyal to leaders are appreciated whereas those sticking to truth, principle and the rule of law are discouraged. OLF as a political party is no more interested in courageous individuals acting out of conviction. They are in great need of submissive creature prepared to change their opinion whenever necessary. Collections of such cliques have done more harm than good to OLF and the Oromo national struggle. Such cliques, operating under the command of their masters, have successfully divided our community along clan lines. This terrible negative strategy where OLF mobilized its supporters on the basis of region and clan was admitted in public by one top OLF leader, Mr. KUMSA in 2004 in Nairobi . He disclosed in a public gathering when Oromos in Nairobi were on the edge of clash due to the divisive political strategy that OLF followed during that period. He openly apologized for the mistake done. He was one single courageous individual to do that. Tragically, four years down the time line, the situation culminated in a violent fight between Oromos from Arsi and Harargehe. The situation was worsened by the presence of political activists from other political organizations like AWO and OPLF who added fuel to an already burning fire. I never have witnessed any thing painful and hurting to my national feeling than that in my life time
When I think about the position assigned to Oromos from central Oromia and others, by few chauvinist elites that dominated the OLF leadership, my heart seems to burst under the weight of grief, sorrow and pain. The unjust treatment of Geresu Tufa, a visionary young leader, after he was taken to Asmara best exemplifies how some people from Shoa are suspected and given the tag of spy, enemy, ect, in spite of their contribution to the on going national struggle.
Let me say few point about this patriotic Oromo national. While in Ethiopia, Geresu mobilized Oromo students in Addis Ababa University and served as chairperson of Oromo students. He committed his time and took the risk of organizing Oromo students from university level to high school and elementary school level under the nose of TPLF. He was front runner in all Oromo students’ affairs and demonstrations that were mobilized against the TPLF government.
After he fled to Kenya , he established East Africa Oromo Students Movement together with his fellow university students who flee Ethiopia after the April 2001 student demonstration in Addis Ababa University . Through their movement they were able to mobilize Oromo students both at home and in different parts of the world.
At the time when OLF created political and social confusion in Nairobi in 2001, Geresu was the first courageous young activist who took the initiative to paralyze the then ongoing confusion. Through continuous meeting with Oromo community, Geresu and his fellow Oromo students in Nairobi were able to restore the eroded confidence of Oromo community on OLF. Above all, he decided to commit his life to the Oromo people’s national struggle and accepted a call from Oromo Liberation Front and went to Asmara .
Tragically, for some reason known to OLF leaders alone, he was made to suffer unimaginable character assassination and blackmailing that he does not deserve. Worst of all, he was put in an open prison in foreign land and suffer moral degradation. For me, it simply indicates the incarnation of evil and wickedness in our leadership sphere. A rational person cannot do this. I understand that reason serves both evil and good. Our leaders, I think, are ‘rational’ both when they invited Geresu to the field of national struggle and when they decided to destroy him. I hope you remember that those members of the Dergue red terror who put hundreds of thousands of youth to death did their cruel and gruesome act in the belief that they were serving the right cause and acting rationally. Interestingly, such people are not naturally evil, but are victim of their own ignorance. They are victims of their narrow ideology that does not tolerate and give space for others with different world outlook. They do such evil out of fear, fear of being eliminated and replaced by people who they see as their opponents. It was out of such painful feeling about this committed Oromo national that some Oromo nationals took the risk of writing petition to the Eritrean government on behalf of him and other university students who were kept captive in Eritrea for unclear reason.
The case of Geresu represents just one case among tens of thousands of Oromo nationals who became victims of deliberate character assassination and marginalization by these handful individuals. Thousands of Oromo nationals in Diaspora are nursing such broken hearts and if we don’t stop it now, this evil will keep on destroying hundreds and thousands of clean hearted Oromo nationals and thus leaving morally corrupt people in the OLF.
It is an obvious fact that one can not prepare for the future without clarifying the past. There are always prices to be paid in changing the past evil with what we believe is right for our nation. It involves practically participating in the existing situation, observing what is going on, making comparisons and choices and reaching a reasonable decision that can be a solution for the past evils. Many Oromo nationals have now seen all the evils, the goods, the strength and the weaknesses within the process of our national struggle and made meaning out of it. Many of them took the risk of participating in the challenging phases of our national struggle in spite of all the problems that they have been facing and other Oromo nationals have been facing. They have sacrificed their time, their knowledge and personal gains and opportunities with firm stand to bring our national struggle to the successful end. By doing that they left us with a legacy to be proud of and with a spirit to continue on the line of their noble works.
Their experience clearly shows that we are not only fighting the evil of the Ethiopian state, but also the perpetrators of ignorance and evil within us as well. It clearly shows that there are perpetrators of evil and ignorance within us at the very time we are fighting the evils and injustice of Ethiopian empire. It is a pity to reproduce the same evil that we are fighting.
Reconciliation As A Solution
In spite of the organization crises, low morals in our leaders and mistrust among Oromo community, Oromo people are still optimistic that the situation will change for good. The future is in our hand. I believe we have an ideal to live for; the ideal to be free as human society, the ideal to retain our lost identity, the ideal to revive our degraded culture, and the ideal to be a free nation.
To realize our ideals, we must do every thing possible to sweep away the past so as to build the future. It starts from you and me. Our painful understanding of marginalization within the Oromo national struggle in the past should not discourage us from positively contributing to the on going national struggle. However, we should not allow the past mistakes continue hurting more and more people. We should ask ourselves why are we so marginalized and how can we stop it? We must answer both questions to understand the root cause of the problem and also to device a mechanism by which we can contain it.
It is therefore up to me and you to get rid of the mentality created in us by others, the mentality that Shoa/Arsi/Bale.. e.t.c. are an outsider to the Oromo national struggle. It is only when we perfectly identify our role in the ongoing national struggle and the credit others gave us that we can make positive contribution to our struggle.
Personally, I understand that it is not out of natural order to have a strong ARSI/SHOA/HARARGEHE, etc. community before having a strong Oromo community. The opposite is impossible, that is, having a strong Oromo community before having strong Arsi/Shoa/HARARGEHE community. The base of all social organization starts at family level and from there it goes to higher and wider level of social organization. In the past, our leaders misused this grass root approach of organizing people based on their regional originality for their narrow and selfish ends. Their intention was not to build strong community, but to have absolute control over them by using the difference between people from different region.
As a solution to challenge leadership catastrophes, concerned Oromo nationals began to call for community development based on their regional Origin (Arsi, Shoa, Harargehe,.. etc). This call for strong solidarity is being seen as a threat to Oromo unity by leaders who previously used the same base of social structure to mobilize community to attain absolute control. They began to see it as a step taken with regionalism urge. They began to see it as an evil undertaking that targeted the unity of Oromo people. The move can be wrong when one use such approach of mobilizing people for negative ends, like the one I mentioned previously. They want to accuse Oromians of getting together on regionalism basis and try to assign the position they don’t deserve in the national struggle.
In spite of all the evils we are in, our national struggle is still picking momentum, because there are many true Oromo nationals who have never given up and surrender to all vices that have infested our national struggle. I firmly believe that we shall take our national struggle to a successful end but only when we take the risk of accepting our past weakness and call for reformation and reconciliation. We must therefore be able to close the old chapter of the past and begin a new one with new spirit.
I believe that fighting the past evil with another evil can only lead us to further destruction of our nation and our genuine cause. I therefore, out of concern to save our nation from further crises, call on all concerned Oromo nationals and leaders to work on a way towards reconciliation among Oromians and create the spirit of belongingness and unity among us.
Gada Oda
When we look at the path followed by the Oromo national struggle over the past few decades, we realize that our national struggle was made to go through Dark Age and OLF as a political party has been turned into a kind of organization which George Orwell described in his book titled Animal Farm. Marginalization on region, religion and other elements are chronic. Blackmailing individuals on false allegation is becoming an art to excel with. Things have been taking wrong direction with devastating outcomes.
To begin with, the path our national struggle followed in the past few decades is full of unbelievably distorted realities. Some of the distortion were/are purposely planned by few people within the circle of our leaders in the Oromo national struggle to reach certain selfish end goals. The current crises within OLF, other Oromo based political parties and the Oromo society at large is partly the result of purposely designed strategies by few elites (most of them in leadership for over decades) in an attempt to take the default leadership of Oromo nationals struggle. It seems that these leaders are also aspiring to replace the Amahara/Tigre leadership of Ethiopia . To achieve such narrow goals, these leaders employed a divisive Abyssinian type leadership, i.e, divide and rule strategy.
It is painful to all of us to mention that these people mobilized Oromo nationals on the basis of region, religion etc and exploited the difference between Oromos from different regional and regional background to create mistrust, confusion, suspicion, and disunity to achieve their narrow goals of sole control over OLF and to take Ethiopian power after independence.
In my understanding, regional originality, in what ever form can never be a virtue to be proud of. Our people from West have developed a mentality of being superior Oromos and paraded themselves to be highly civilized and torchbearers of the Oromo national struggle. This mentality of them however did not save them from acting in an immoral, uncivilized and divisive way that resulted in cruel deeds to our national struggle. Though they perfectly understand the genesis of Oromo national struggle, where the seed of the struggle germinated and by who, they preferred to deny the truth and create fabricated lies (similar to the 3000 historical myth of Abyssinians) to confuse Oromo mass and develop a fake history that they are torchbearers in the Oromo national struggle. It is a fight initiated out of inferiority complex and the fight is to take credit in the past achievements of the OLF control in future. History tells how OLF has been performing since such chauvinist elites took leadership of the Oromo national struggle.
Such mentality of them did not only discourage Oromo nationals and compatriots, but created mistrust among the leaders themselves and Oromo mass at large. It is a major contributing factor for the decreasing unity among Oromos, stagnation of Oromo national struggle and more importantly it served as an opportunity for our enemies to easily penetrate our leadership circles.
Oromians from different parts of Oromia became victims of such extremely subtle strategies of marginalization. Oromos from different region are given a position that they don’t deserve in the national struggle due to such deliberately orchestrated marginalization. In their attempt to take credit of who established OLF, these Oromo elites trashed the contribution of Oromos outside their narrow circle as none. For instance, the contributions of Shoa Oromos in fighting the injustice of Ethiopian regime from the early time of occupation to the time OLF emerged as political party was/is deliberately ignored and Shoa Oromos were /are often referred to as Amaharas by such chauvinist leaders. As a matter of fact, the emergence of OLF out of Macha and Tullama Self Help Association by itself is a clear evidence of how OLF came into being. It is only possible to deny that fact out of voluntary ignorance. Some leaders have voluntarily denied the contribution of Shoa Oromo to the national struggle and preferred to discourage them. It is not uncommon to hear such chauvinist referring to Oromos from central Oromia as Amahara. Such ill-intended techniques were used by few vicious and selfish leaders to completely discourage Oromo nationals from other regions. It the awareness of such painful marginalization that drove out most Oromians out of OLF and made them distance observers of the ongoing national struggle. This finally led OLF to enter into political crises it is suffering over years.
To mention an example, many active members OLF were deliberately referred to as members of IBSO , QC , AWO, etc, when these Oromo nationals are/were actually active members of the OLF who met their membership obligation and responsibilities. These kinds of tags (labels) are deliberate stigmatization techniques aimed at incapacitating individuals and erode his/her moral confidence in OLF and thus force them leave the organization for good thereby leaving the leaders comfortable on their throne without any opposition.
What transformed OLF leaders into this?
At the early stage OLF leadership was good. Its flag bear ODA, a single unifying icon under which Oroms organized themselves with near absolute unity and crushed their enemies over centuries. Having carried such unifying spirit, OLF won the support of almost all Oromo within the empire and all over the world. As OLF grew to national party representing Oromos, its leadership gradually abandoned the principles that made OLF great, until today OLF entered a tragic situation. The leaders of OLF through time evolved into bad leaders; bad to ignore the concern of their own people, bad to employ divisive strategies for their selfish end goals, bad to love revenge than reconciliation with Oromos of different opinion. They preferred to forget the Gada principle, where a leader assumed leadership based on merit and achievements. They preferred to cling to power beyond their rightful terms. More importantly, they preferred to ignore “SAFUU OROMOO”, the source of all morality and discipline in Oromo social institutions.
Gradually, as OLF become more and more popular, selfishness in all its forms crept into the organization. The Gada virtue of honesty, condor, trust, brotherhood and patriotism slowly withered and authoritarian style leadership replaced it. Nepotism replaced merit. What was left in OLF at last seems to be a collection of people whom neither the vices of the cruel Ethiopian regime on the Oromo people nor an increasing open hatred among the Oromos could shake out their apathy.
One may ask himself/herself, why are these things happening to the OLF? But that is a wrong question. The question should have been who has brought OLF to the edge of destruction?
In my opinion, our leaders are to be blamed and are responsible for OLF’s current situation and for what is happening in the Oromo mass at large today. OLF and our national struggle had been made to go through Dark Age by leaders whom I mentioned above. These leaders don’t want being replaced by some one who is clear sighted than them. They are deadly in awe of changes that may remove them from control. To prolong their influence in the Oromo politics, they devised evil strategies, which over a period of time made OLF loose its prominent members and decline in strength. This evil strategy is a carbon copy of the Abyssinian divide and rule strategy. This time it is used by people of Oromo blood to divide Oromo people deliberately. The strategy was implemented in a subtle way on the basis of region, religion and ideological differences.
Oromo nationals who criticized and opposed such ill-intended leadership style were technically attacked and destroyed. By maliciously impressing the ignorant, unprivileged and uneducated Oromo mass with idea that “so and so is an ‘Ethiopian agent’, ‘a traitor’, anti- OLF’, ‘an enemy’, ‘spy’, ‘regionalist’ etc,” those elites within the OLF leadership managed to destroy Oromo nationals through blackmailing and character assassination. When the actual perpetrators of regionalism are the leaders themselves, they use the same regionalism tag to blackmail their critics and dissidents.
By employing such subtle ill-intended strategies, the few elites within OLF leadership successfully paralyzed the moral and patriotic spirit of Oromo nationals whom they perceive as a threat to them and thus managed to recycle the OLF leadership baton within few individuals loyal to each other.
These are not true leaders in my understanding of leadership. True leaders love liberty and believe in the equality of all people under their leadership. They reject such regional prejudices in favor of equality of all people regardless of their regional backgrounds. They love fellow Oromos regardless of religion, region, or ideological differences. Lack of such leaders is what brought OLF into its current crises. Lack of such leader is what made it possible for hatred to engulf our people at an alarming rate and gradual stagnation of our national struggle.
Over a period of time these leaders have had/have transformed OLF into a kind of organization which George Orwell described in his book titled Animal Farm, where the main principle is that ‘All people are equal but other people are more equal”. Nepotism and moral corruption are severe in OLF today. People are promoted not on the basis of merit and achievements but on closeness to some one and degree of loyalty. Individuals who are unconditionally loyal to leaders are appreciated whereas those sticking to truth, principle and the rule of law are discouraged. OLF as a political party is no more interested in courageous individuals acting out of conviction. They are in great need of submissive creature prepared to change their opinion whenever necessary. Collections of such cliques have done more harm than good to OLF and the Oromo national struggle. Such cliques, operating under the command of their masters, have successfully divided our community along clan lines. This terrible negative strategy where OLF mobilized its supporters on the basis of region and clan was admitted in public by one top OLF leader, Mr. KUMSA in 2004 in Nairobi . He disclosed in a public gathering when Oromos in Nairobi were on the edge of clash due to the divisive political strategy that OLF followed during that period. He openly apologized for the mistake done. He was one single courageous individual to do that. Tragically, four years down the time line, the situation culminated in a violent fight between Oromos from Arsi and Harargehe. The situation was worsened by the presence of political activists from other political organizations like AWO and OPLF who added fuel to an already burning fire. I never have witnessed any thing painful and hurting to my national feeling than that in my life time
When I think about the position assigned to Oromos from central Oromia and others, by few chauvinist elites that dominated the OLF leadership, my heart seems to burst under the weight of grief, sorrow and pain. The unjust treatment of Geresu Tufa, a visionary young leader, after he was taken to Asmara best exemplifies how some people from Shoa are suspected and given the tag of spy, enemy, ect, in spite of their contribution to the on going national struggle.
Let me say few point about this patriotic Oromo national. While in Ethiopia, Geresu mobilized Oromo students in Addis Ababa University and served as chairperson of Oromo students. He committed his time and took the risk of organizing Oromo students from university level to high school and elementary school level under the nose of TPLF. He was front runner in all Oromo students’ affairs and demonstrations that were mobilized against the TPLF government.
After he fled to Kenya , he established East Africa Oromo Students Movement together with his fellow university students who flee Ethiopia after the April 2001 student demonstration in Addis Ababa University . Through their movement they were able to mobilize Oromo students both at home and in different parts of the world.
At the time when OLF created political and social confusion in Nairobi in 2001, Geresu was the first courageous young activist who took the initiative to paralyze the then ongoing confusion. Through continuous meeting with Oromo community, Geresu and his fellow Oromo students in Nairobi were able to restore the eroded confidence of Oromo community on OLF. Above all, he decided to commit his life to the Oromo people’s national struggle and accepted a call from Oromo Liberation Front and went to Asmara .
Tragically, for some reason known to OLF leaders alone, he was made to suffer unimaginable character assassination and blackmailing that he does not deserve. Worst of all, he was put in an open prison in foreign land and suffer moral degradation. For me, it simply indicates the incarnation of evil and wickedness in our leadership sphere. A rational person cannot do this. I understand that reason serves both evil and good. Our leaders, I think, are ‘rational’ both when they invited Geresu to the field of national struggle and when they decided to destroy him. I hope you remember that those members of the Dergue red terror who put hundreds of thousands of youth to death did their cruel and gruesome act in the belief that they were serving the right cause and acting rationally. Interestingly, such people are not naturally evil, but are victim of their own ignorance. They are victims of their narrow ideology that does not tolerate and give space for others with different world outlook. They do such evil out of fear, fear of being eliminated and replaced by people who they see as their opponents. It was out of such painful feeling about this committed Oromo national that some Oromo nationals took the risk of writing petition to the Eritrean government on behalf of him and other university students who were kept captive in Eritrea for unclear reason.
The case of Geresu represents just one case among tens of thousands of Oromo nationals who became victims of deliberate character assassination and marginalization by these handful individuals. Thousands of Oromo nationals in Diaspora are nursing such broken hearts and if we don’t stop it now, this evil will keep on destroying hundreds and thousands of clean hearted Oromo nationals and thus leaving morally corrupt people in the OLF.
It is an obvious fact that one can not prepare for the future without clarifying the past. There are always prices to be paid in changing the past evil with what we believe is right for our nation. It involves practically participating in the existing situation, observing what is going on, making comparisons and choices and reaching a reasonable decision that can be a solution for the past evils. Many Oromo nationals have now seen all the evils, the goods, the strength and the weaknesses within the process of our national struggle and made meaning out of it. Many of them took the risk of participating in the challenging phases of our national struggle in spite of all the problems that they have been facing and other Oromo nationals have been facing. They have sacrificed their time, their knowledge and personal gains and opportunities with firm stand to bring our national struggle to the successful end. By doing that they left us with a legacy to be proud of and with a spirit to continue on the line of their noble works.
Their experience clearly shows that we are not only fighting the evil of the Ethiopian state, but also the perpetrators of ignorance and evil within us as well. It clearly shows that there are perpetrators of evil and ignorance within us at the very time we are fighting the evils and injustice of Ethiopian empire. It is a pity to reproduce the same evil that we are fighting.
Reconciliation As A Solution
In spite of the organization crises, low morals in our leaders and mistrust among Oromo community, Oromo people are still optimistic that the situation will change for good. The future is in our hand. I believe we have an ideal to live for; the ideal to be free as human society, the ideal to retain our lost identity, the ideal to revive our degraded culture, and the ideal to be a free nation.
To realize our ideals, we must do every thing possible to sweep away the past so as to build the future. It starts from you and me. Our painful understanding of marginalization within the Oromo national struggle in the past should not discourage us from positively contributing to the on going national struggle. However, we should not allow the past mistakes continue hurting more and more people. We should ask ourselves why are we so marginalized and how can we stop it? We must answer both questions to understand the root cause of the problem and also to device a mechanism by which we can contain it.
It is therefore up to me and you to get rid of the mentality created in us by others, the mentality that Shoa/Arsi/Bale.. e.t.c. are an outsider to the Oromo national struggle. It is only when we perfectly identify our role in the ongoing national struggle and the credit others gave us that we can make positive contribution to our struggle.
Personally, I understand that it is not out of natural order to have a strong ARSI/SHOA/HARARGEHE, etc. community before having a strong Oromo community. The opposite is impossible, that is, having a strong Oromo community before having strong Arsi/Shoa/HARARGEHE community. The base of all social organization starts at family level and from there it goes to higher and wider level of social organization. In the past, our leaders misused this grass root approach of organizing people based on their regional originality for their narrow and selfish ends. Their intention was not to build strong community, but to have absolute control over them by using the difference between people from different region.
As a solution to challenge leadership catastrophes, concerned Oromo nationals began to call for community development based on their regional Origin (Arsi, Shoa, Harargehe,.. etc). This call for strong solidarity is being seen as a threat to Oromo unity by leaders who previously used the same base of social structure to mobilize community to attain absolute control. They began to see it as a step taken with regionalism urge. They began to see it as an evil undertaking that targeted the unity of Oromo people. The move can be wrong when one use such approach of mobilizing people for negative ends, like the one I mentioned previously. They want to accuse Oromians of getting together on regionalism basis and try to assign the position they don’t deserve in the national struggle.
In spite of all the evils we are in, our national struggle is still picking momentum, because there are many true Oromo nationals who have never given up and surrender to all vices that have infested our national struggle. I firmly believe that we shall take our national struggle to a successful end but only when we take the risk of accepting our past weakness and call for reformation and reconciliation. We must therefore be able to close the old chapter of the past and begin a new one with new spirit.
I believe that fighting the past evil with another evil can only lead us to further destruction of our nation and our genuine cause. I therefore, out of concern to save our nation from further crises, call on all concerned Oromo nationals and leaders to work on a way towards reconciliation among Oromians and create the spirit of belongingness and unity among us.
Gada Oda
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