"...The Oromo factor is an aspect of the war that most analysts miss...Until the Oromo and other forcibly retained peoples are free from the hold of Ethiopia to determine their own destiny and set their own course, the Ethiopians will continue to use them and their resources to make war in this region..."

• Why, from the outset of the war in 1998 has Ethiopia sent tens of thousands of foot soldiers to their deaths in wave after wave against a well-entrenched and heavily armed Eritrean army facing them across empty plains at Badme and elsewhere?
• Why now in May 2000, is Meles Zenawi, the prime minister of this country, again Putting the lives of teens of thousands more of his own citizens at risk over the same remote places of territory? Why couldn't a few diplomats around a conference table draw lines on a map as border disputes are usually settled?
• Why would this prime minister spend over $1 billion on armaments, $480 million in 1999 alone, while large parts of the country slipped toward famine, then spend an additional $1 million per day year round to maintain the military operation?
• Why would he risk his country's relationship with generous patrons (the United States and the European Union) by arrogantly defying their a appeals for cease-fire and restraint and by defying similar appeals from the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, and the African diplomatic corps in order to launch and then persist in this year's offensive?
  

No, far from being crazy, there is a method to Meles' "madness." He and his generals are implementing a systematic and deadly strategy that makes sense, but only if you set aside the idea that Ethiopia has become a democracy and apply instead the ancient logic of empire. In the design of this war, as with many other aspects of governance Ethiopia is functioning like an empire, where a dominant ruling group maintains its power by holding subject peoples under its control. In this case, the ruling Tigray are guaranteeing their superior position by sending the Oromo and other subject peoples (who are "internal" enemies because they constantly challenge Tigray's rule) to enter into battle with Eritrea, who has become an external enemy by rejecting the over lordship of Ethiopia and establishing its own self-determination. The scheme is that these two threats to Ethiopia will eliminate each other in battle, the bloodier the better. Meles and His generals are gleeful over their success in executing this maneuver in full public view. The international audience is equally horrified and puzzled by it because they are blind to its logic. One key to understanding Ethiopia's strategy is to focus oh the composition of the infantry that Meles has so recklessly and insistently sent forth against the Eritreans every spring since 1998. The foot soldiers that are repeatedly put in harm's way are overwhelmingly from the Oromia and other non-Abyssinian peoples who resent and resist their subjugation within Ethiopia. No journalist or researcher that I know of has ever done a systematic survey of the ethnic composition of the military recruits, but through informal accounts and anecdotes it has become known to those of us who have relatives in the army that these foot soldiers are overwhelmingly (at least 80%) Oromo and southern people.  Most of the Tigray are officers or given assignments which do not put them at risk. The ratios should be thoroughly investigated by any one who takes the dynamics of this region seriously. These non-Abyssinian peoples were originally brought into the empire through conquest by Abyssinia and have never achieved full citizen status. Their treatment in this war is, in fact, further evidence of their subject status.

The truth at a glance is that the Oromo never wanted Meles and his TPLF/EPRDF group to come to power in the first place. They wanted their self-determination and independence at the time that the Tigray (TPLF/EPRDF) was recognized by the United States to take over from the Dergue in 1991. Oromo nationalists were the vast majority in the country and Oromo nationalist sentiment was high. Meles saw that the Oromo posed a serious threat to the EPRDF. But ironically and fatefully, Meles allied with the Eritreans in 1991-1993 to subdue the Oromo, promising Eritrea its independence in exchange for complicity in bringing the Oromo under control.

There is no question that without the Eritrean forces, together with American and western European advisers, it would not have been possible for the TPLF to resubjugate the Oromo forces within Ethiopia during the first year when Tigray was trying to assert its dominance. But the United States and Eritrea assisted the Tigray enthusiastically in those crucial months between July 1991 and June 1992. The Oromo struggled, protested, fought and negotiated to be recognized in their own right by both Eritreans and the United States. The Eritreans chose to overlook their plight and removed themselves to sit aloof, beginning at the July Conference when the "new" arrangements for the "new" Ethiopia were made. They turned a blind and deaf ear to the Oromo, insisting upon calling them “Ethiopians” and counseling them to make the best of their situation under the TPLF. The Oromos lacked the consolidated organization to prevent Tigray over lordship from happening at the time.  Tigray gladly accepted the arrangement.  Having dealt with the Oromo resistance, they turned around to beat the Oromo ploughshares into swords of aggression against Eritreans.

Let us be honest.  The reason the Tigray had to let the Eritreans go is that they knew that they could not hold them.  Ethiopia could not fight everyone together.  The Tigray, with the assistance of the West, apparently calculated that as long as Eritrea was economically linked to Ethiopia, Eritrea was not really independent.  Then the Eritreans introduced their own currency, the Nakfa, which was the fullest possible expression of real independence.  Ethiopia could not tolerate the implications of the move.  Within a month, the two countries were at war, first verbally, and soon militarily, as hostilities broke out over a pretext, an obscure border region.

Now their aloof behavior toward the Oromo subjugation is coming back to haunt the Eritreans.  Careful analysis reveals that the Eritrean interest in the long term is in fact closer to Oromo interest than it is to the Tigray.  But the Eritreans have never publicly acknowledged the similarity between their position and that of the Oromo in the Horn of Africa.  They have not wanted to see it.  They did not let these sorts of considerations stand in the way of their progress toward independence in those early days.  Eritrean alliance with the Tigray was considered to be a “natural” alliance.  After all, they were cousins.  They had the blood tie. 

Let us look at this more closely, though.  Yes, they were cousins, but they were cousins separated at birth.  The Eritreans were taken from the womb of Abyssinia, which went on to become an African empire, and were given away to be raised by Italian colonists.  Actually, they became slaves of the Italians while the Oromo became slaves of Ethiopia’s Abyssinians.  Ethiopians eventually reached out their hands to enslave the Eritreans for themselves in 1952.  Thus, the circumstances of Eritrea’s historical experience gives them more in common with peoples colonized by Abyssinians than with their Abyssinian blood kin who grew up protected and comfortable, wielding and enjoying the fruits of empire.  May be Eritreans can realize that now.

It should be clear to the Eritreans and to all who take an interest in this part of the world that if the Eritreans had supported the Oromo when the Tigray came to power, 80% of the infantry would not be there in battle against them today.  The Ethiopians would not have the cash available to purchase the armaments used against them, since over 60% of Ethiopia’s foreign exchange comes from Oromo coffee alone.It is important to note that the Oromo are not coming against Eritreans as Oromo.  They are coming in wave after wave as Ethiopians because they are subject to Tigray’s rule, forced into the infantry and then forced to the battlefield to do the EPRDF’s bidding.  This is how the Ethiopians are using the Oromo against the Eritreans and equally using the Eritreans to break the Oromo forces.  The TPLF/EPRDF’s greatest long-term threat is the Oromo who still remain inside the borders of Ethiopia’s empire.  The Oromo factor is an aspect of the war that most analysts miss.  When the Oromo go to fight, often as minesweepers or on the front lines, the Eritreans are invited to gun them down in the thousands in self-defense.  The Eritreans should be commended for the tactical retreat taken in recent days.  Had they not held their fire, thousands more subject peoples would have been massacred according to the Ethiopian design.  Their move should be considered an act of bravery, since the Ethiopians would have been more than happy to be rid of soldiers gunned down on both sides. 

We should not forget how the war itself is an extension of an overall assault against the Oromo and all resistant peoples in their homes.  It is set up to extinguish the sector of the strongest Oromo youth and to cripple those who remain in Oromia, depriving them of the manpower, eliminating their cushion against disaster, sending them into famine and making them fear what will happen if their resistance continues.  The message to be sent to the Oromo is that Tigray holds all the cards and all the power.

By eliminating the Oromo threat at the front lines, Meles kills two birds in one battle.  Actually, to him, it is like a cockfight.  Meles would be delighted to see both fighters disable each other for life. 

So, when people ask how Meles could send his own people into such incredible danger in these wars, it is clear that they do not understand his plan.  Meles does not regard the foot soldiers sent to assail the Eritrean to be his “own people” at all.  They are the ones who want their own self-determination.  The war with Eritrea provides both the perfect excuse to snatch these young nationalists out of Oromia and parts of the south and the perfect opportunity to send them unprotected in great numbers against the Eritreans. 

This formula explains a great deal, including the Ethiopians’ belligerence in the face of the United States, their increasing excitement as the battle heats up, their glee at the prospect of bigger and more “decisive” engagements, the abandon with which they send “their” troops into highly hazardous situations deep into Eritrean territory.  They seem to be looking for danger.  They seem to be saying. “Let the Oromo be diminished.”  Ethiopia will not mourn these dead.  Ethiopia will probably not even bury them.  They didn’t bury them last year, except by bulldozer.  Last year tens of thousands of Ethiopian foot soldiers were slaughtered at the hands of the Eritreans.  Did anyone ask why the Ethiopians shrugged off this great loss in silence?  More Ethiopian soldiers died during this week of May last year than Americans killed in the entire Vietnam War.  At least 80% were Oromo or non-Abyssinian recruits.  The west was insensible to this issue in 1999.  Their attention was turned to Kosovo, which was a much smaller engagement.  But the lesson was not lost on Ethiopia.  They quietly accepted (if not celebrated) the loss.  It is clear why.  These were their political enemies lying dead across the no-man’s land.  That is why there was no public breast-beating, no outrage, and no tours of the littered battlefield for journalists, no official body count.  There were only plans to repeat at great cost the entire exercise, same time, same place, and this year.  The current engagement seems to be orchestrated to imperil as many Oromo and Eritreans as possible. 

The Eritreans and the Oromo have themselves to blame for this situation.  They could have disarmed Meles, and all subsequent Ethiopian rulers who might come against them in battle, if they had formed an alliance based on the need to dismantle an oppressive empire.  They had the chance and let slip away.  It appears to have been a lack of consciousness on both sides, a failure to distinguish who is a friend and who is an enemy to their cause.  Eritreans chose to be opportunistic and to seize upon the “uniqueness” of the Eritrean claim for independence rather than upon the common need to resolve the fundamental contradiction that lay at the heart of the crisis in the region, the reach of the Ethiopian empire.

Eritreans, Oromos and other Ethiopian colonies must see the empire dismantled before they are able to achieve peace. The Ethiopians, including Meles and anyone who might succeed him, will always use the non-Abyssinians, the people resources from conquered and annexed territories, against the Eritreans.  Thus, Eritrea itself will never have peace until Ethiopia is dismantled as an empire.

Ethiopia, of course, knows this.  All of its behavior demonstrates that it knows this.  When Meles and Col. Gebre Kidan announce to the world “We will break the back of the enemy,” and “Our main goal is to emasculate the enemy troops,” they mean both enemies.  When they refuse to accept peace proposals, saying “the war will end when all our territory has been liberated” or fighting will not stop until the enemy no longer poses a threat,” they are seeking any pretext to continue the war for the reasons I have stated above, not for the reasons that they give to the press.  They know what they must do in order to stay on top.  They must keep the potential allies apart.  They must keep the soldiers under their control.  More Oromos must be killed.  Ethiopia must weaken Eritrea’s ability to function as a friend to the other subject peoples in the region.  Ethiopians call their behavior “protecting their sovereignty.”  Nonsense.  Call it protecting their dominance, protecting their superior position, protecting their ability to use the power and the material of others for their own ends.  Call it behaving just like their ancestors.  Call it what you will.  They are protecting empire.

This policy has broad implications.  For example, people wonder what is the connection between war and famine in this country.  That has a simple answer:  The war brings the famine.  Droughts and rain shortages happen periodically in this region.  The people’s systems of production are designed to function during drought, but they require the labor force of young men, who are notably absent everywhere in Oromia and the south.  The able-bodied men are taken at the height of drought, leaving women and children to shrink and starve unless they find their way to feeding centers.  If the men have not already been grabbed for the war front, then they are hiding in the forests to save themselves.  Ethiopia knows that if war leads to famine in both Eritrea and Oromia, it reduces the capacity of Eritrea’s progress and of Oromia’s resistance movement.  For the Tigray, this comes as one of the bonuses of war.  One Tigray spokesperson recently explained to the press, “War and famine have always been part of Ethiopia’s culture.”  Well, the public should also know that as long as the empire is intact, this would remain to be true.  That combination, however, is not part of Oromo culture.

Last week, while African diplomats were urging Meles to stop fighting and begin to negotiate and end to the war, he contemptuously refused to halt the attack declaring, “Remove the stick and the peace process vegetates. Lift the stick and the peace process begins to have some life.”  It is clear that the Oromo are the stick that Meles uses to batter the Eritreans.  Without the Oromo, Meles would be empty-handed.  He knows it, but the rest of the world has not yet realized it.  But when the Oromos and the other subject peoples in the empire are finally in charge of their own human and material resources, the stick will be gone from Meles’ hands, and from the hands of any possible successor forever. 

The world must overcome.  Its astonishment and dismay over Ethiopia’s battle swagger and learn a lesson from this tragic scenario.  Until the Oromo and other forcibly retained peoples are free from the hold of Ethiopia to determine their own destiny and set their own course, the Ethiopians will continue to use them and their resources to make war in this region.  When the Eritreans rise up from this current engagement, either defeated in this round or surviving at high cost, they must also remember this lesson.  The best insurance for peaceful secure future for Eritrea lies in a peaceful, secure future for Oromia. 

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