The whole of Ethiopia, including the Oromia Region, is now yearning for lasting peace and inter-group harmony in the wake of the reform measures being courageously taken by the change agents within the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition itself, writes Merhatsidk Mekonnen Abayneh.
Aristotle, one of the leading thinkers of ancient Greece, used to say that “man is, by nature, a political animal”. In his philosophical conception and elucidation of politics in its formative stage, he argued that the organization of a noble society is achieved more through cooperation than confrontation between and among its hostile individuals and groupings with various competing views and interests.
This golden dictum has lasted ever true throughout our ages to this date. Definitely, politics is the art of conducting war through peaceful and harmonious means and the battlefield happens to be the mainstream society in which it operates. You cannot genuinely compete for political power and fight it out successfully articulating and arguing in favor of your own separate policies and programs in one hand and using firearms in another.
Sad to rush for a dismissive conclusion, Dawd Ibsa, who claims to be the sitting head of the Oromo Liberation Front, is too old to grasp this classical notion or rather grapple with the deteriorating reality on the ground getting complicated by the day. In a press statement he gave on December 21, 2018 from his office in Addis Ababa, he was not hesitant to declare having officially instructed his armed militia illegally operating in Oromia to show maximum restraint when it comes to undesired and intermittent clashes with the Regional and Federal Police and military forces except where they are provoked and compelled to defend themselves at times of unexpected attack.
Probably due to his advancing age coupled with an intoxicating self-coronation, it is hard to establish if the gentleman knew of the far-reaching consequences of his manipulative and self-incriminating declaration. In other words, it must be a simple mockery of civilized politics to encounter an exhausted rebel leader formally excused for his previous wrongdoings, officially invited to lay down his arms and welcome home as a proud celebrity to otherwise contribute in the reconstruction of the country under reform to instead initiate a renewed violence and prepare for war against the host government in command.
Worse, the old man’s astonishingly odd and uncompromising criticism of the Government of Abiy Ahmed (PhD) in power was not limited to this pompous threat apparently making the rebel group look like an ‘an alternative ‘government in the country at the moment. It also denounced the government’s alleged failure to honor the terms of the bilateral agreement purportedly concluded with a view to paving the way for its comeback in the same manner as did a dozen of other opposition forces which were allowed into the nation one after another having relinquished their anti-government struggle in all its forms.
On the verge of the dynamic change that has been taking place in this country, Only God should know what kind of peace deal the agents of the reformist Government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the leadership of the then-exiled Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) had struck in Asmara, Eritrea, if any, prior to the latter’s decision to return to Addis Ababa after quite a terribly long break from domestic political scene. Come what may, though, one cannot become that naive to imagine the brokering of a secret deal – a deal which would allow the former guerilla fighting front into the country together with its active combatants to still keep on carrying out its armed resistance where and when it wishes to. Naturally, no government is that magnanimous or foolish to put its inherent, legitimate and exclusive authority of owning and using force in jeopardy to that level in the face of an incoming belligerent.
Amid this confrontational rhetoric injected into the crisis by Dawd Ibsa, the Oromia Police Commission had no choice, but to release a balancing statement emphasizing that it has run out of its patience under the circumstances. On this account, it has unveiled, (though reluctantly), that the Oromo Liberation Front’s forces operating in the Western, Eastern and Kelem-Wollega Zonal Administrations of the region have so far murdered a dozen of innocent citizens, including two police commanders and 12 officers, not to mention that several inhabitants in various localities have been maimed physically and displaced from their homes.
The commissioner further told the media that a weaponry store belonging to the local police station was looted and bank robbery has been committed in broad daylight resulting in the grievous loss of up to three million birr. Other public and private property damage is beyond imagination, either.
Depending on his extended clarification, lower-level government structures are demolished and essential public services are disrupted due to the serious breakdown of law and order which has continued to engulf the vast administrative areas of the region affected by the rampant insecurity. What is exceedingly disappointing is that all this criminal activity was perpetrated against life and property allegedly in the name of the OLF, according to Alemayehu Ejigu, Commissioner General of the Oromia Regional Police.
Regardless of the misguided view of its pioneering leader, OLF’s return from its endless exile upon the invitation of the government is, indeed, a ‘blessing in ‘disguise. No one rules out that OLF is a household name inside the Oromo communities both at home and abroad. Nevertheless, I have never heard of any single news headline that the age-old rebel group had ever managed to acquire and control for a while even an inch of territorial foothold in the region concerned during the five-decade old armed struggle it has waged in a protracted manner.
As a matter of fact, the whole of Ethiopia, including the Oromia Regional State, is now yearning for lasting peace and inter-group harmony in the wake of the reform measures being courageously taken by the change agents within the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition itself. Hence, why Dawd Ibsa should desperately try to carry on the discarded path of violence and thus destabilize the positive atmosphere created by the government is far from clear.
It makes no sense for a disgruntled leader of the former rebel group with a pretty poor historical record of having achieved any tangible gains on the ground in the course of its prolonged struggle as a liberating front to now claim commanding an army as well as fighting against and standing up with the government security and military troops from the safest and warmest throne generously awarded to him by the welcoming authorities diligently working hard for a peaceful and democratic transition with unwavering dedication.
Does it mean that an ‘infamous state’ is in an underground process of formation within the political and spatial jurisdiction of the ‘legitimate state’?
If pronounced to be true, that kind of far-fetched and ill-advised move to emerge into an ‘alternative ‘regime alongside the legitimate authority through the barrel of the gun would , I am afraid, eventuate to the de-legitimization of the group and the political suicide of its instinctually ambitious leadership already in disarray.
Our wise forefathers have got an interesting and quotable proverb to that effect: In no time and by no means should a poor mouse ever underestimate the power of the cat to the extent of embarrassing it by unusually smelling its nose at close range.
Ed.’s Note: Merhatsidk Mekonnen Abayneh is a Legal Advisor in Chief to the President of the Amhara Regional State in the capacity of a Regional Bureau Head without portfolio. He writes on legal, political and peace and security issues. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter. He can be reached at [email protected].
