NewAfrican
(July/August 2001)

By Peter Strandberg

The Oromo Liberation Movement (OLF) which claims to represent the 28 million people of Oromo (who make up nearly half of the total population of Ethiopia), has, for the past year, intensified its armed struggle against the government in Addis Ababa. Created in 1973, the OLF fought for years alongside the Tigrian Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Eritrea Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF) against the government of President Mengistu Haile Miriam, which finally fell in May1991.

OLF in Action

Today, while the TPLF and EPLF dominate the governments in Ethiopia and Eritrea respectively, the OLF is back in the "bush" (it has in fact been in the bush since June 1992) fighting their old comrades-in--arms who now rule in Addis Ababa.

The bush war has now spilled over into neighboring Somalia and Kenya and could lead to another big war in the Horn of Africa.

The situation on the Ethiopia Kenyan border is sensitive. In the past few months, Ethiopian soldiers and their militia have crossed the border into Kenya, killing several Oromo civilians and nine Kenyan policemen who tried to defend them.

On a recent trip to OLF bases on the Ethiopian side of the border, our truck was attacked by bandits who sprayed the side of the truck with bullets. We were lucky to escape. Later, we heard from the local police that the bandits got so frustrated after losing our truck that they killed two passing women, on their way to the market

In another Ethiopian attack over the border further east, the village of Gurar was torched, leaving over 3,300 people without homes.

Last year, the Ethiopian troops undertook about 26 cross-border operations, leaving 40 civilians dead and thousands homeless. About 15,000 cattle were stolen and taken across to Ethiopia.

It is easy to understand why nobody has cared to chronicle the suffering of the Oromo in northern Kenya and inside Ethiopia, and why no foreigner has been with the OLF guerrillas since they went back into the bush in 1992.

Guerrilla base

We finally reached our destination late at night, a completely camouflaged guerrilla base in the middle of the bush, near the mountain range called the Mega Escarpment. There had been no rain in this area for the last six years. In the morning, I met Bikilcha Sangi, the OLF commander of the Southern Front.

"We are fighting the Tigray army on four fronts, here in the south, in the west, east and in the central highlands," Commander Sangi said. "From a very bad situation back in 1992 when the TPLF could use Eritrean troops against us, we organized ourselves and have grown in strength day by day."

The OLF has about 17,000 men spread out in a large area, from the borders of Sudan and Somalia down to the Kenyan border Close to 8,000 of them are engaging the well-armed Ethiopian army on the southern front.

Reports that the Eritrean government is helping the OLF could mean that the hush war in Ethiopia could explode and involve both Somalia and Kenya.

Some 4,000 Ethiopian troops have reportedly crossed into Somalia supporting the Rahanwein Resistance Army in fighting warlords and OLF guerrillas in the east.

Veterans

Outside a small border village, I met two old members of the OLF - Tula Dube, 79, and Wako Kanchora, 59. They have been with the OLF since its creation in 1973.

Wako tells me: "We were friends to both the TPLF and the Eritreans fighting Mengistu, but after the victory in 1991 the TELF started to kill and arrest our members in Addis Ababa, knowing that they would never be able to win a free election in the country, being a minority compared to us Oromos."

So back into the bush, they went. Today, the two veterans are optimistic that they will live to see "Oromia" liberated, and a new government in Addis Ababa. Oromia was once a mighty kingdom in what is now Ethiopia, stretching from Einfine (now Addis Ababa) in the north, to the Somali border arid Ogaden in the east, to Sudan and the Kaffa region, and into northern Kenya.

The Oromo migrated north into Southern Ethiopia in the early 1600s, as slave raiders decimated the original population. Their monarchy was conquered by Emperor Menelik's expanding empire in what would become Ethiopia.

During Emperor Haile Seaside’s reign, the Oromo organized a movement to fight for their freedom and this saw the birth of the OLF. Today, one of Africa’s biggest tribes has no influence at all in its home country.

Says Hakule Galma, an old woman who has lived on the Kenyan side of the border for years: "We have lost everything in Ethiopia and now they come again killing our people and stealing our small belongings. Kenya does nothing to protect us and the world is not giving us any help." From the look of things, the end, of her nightmare is nor nigh.