Lessons to be learned: how many of you have heared of ENLF?

important lessons to be drawn. The ENLF was the product of the armed struggle of the Oromo and Harari ( adare ) peoples that started in Harar and Bale in the early sixties. The successive Somali governments had tried to misuse that struggle for their own narrow agenda.

To that end they inaugrated the so-called Western Somali Liberation Front, inventing the unhistorical term „Somali Abbo“ to define the Oromos and to neutralize Oromo identity.Their ambition was expansionism beyond the Somali area under Ethiopian occupation. For opposing this ambition I had to sit in Somai jails for months. Many of the people who founded the ENLF later were also among those who had opposed the Somali ambition. Its first manifesto was announced in Damascus in 1972. I was one of its founders. Its declaration sent a wave of shock through the Abyssinian establishment and opposition elements at home and abroad. ENLF was the first genuine attempt by nonabyssinians in Ethiopia to form a multinational Ethiopianliberation organization. Not only the Ethioipian government and the Abyssinan opposition in the form of elements from the student movement, at home and abroad, but also, as to be expected, the Somali government of the day started immediately working to sabotage ENLF at all possible levels by infiltrating it and by tryiing to destroy its elements physically. All left no stone unturned to strangle the organization and nip it in the bud. The Somali government, making use of its position as a member of the Arab League went as far as accusing us before the Arab governments of spoinage for Israel. None of the many Abyssinian political groups today mention the ENLF. It is a taboo. For the group that called itself OLF later, the ENLF was a big embarassment. They also rarely mention it. Of course there were also other internal strutural organizational factors that contributed to the demise of the ENLF. But they were not as important. Readers who are interested to know more about this point can contact me. Many fomer members and sympathizers of ENLF are still living. Others went over to OLF.

Mr. Obama had raised hopes about change of direction. I wished him best and still do. Yet I do think the reality is that the Anglo-American bid for world domination and their version of capitalism in post-soviet era are too strong for the first black man in the white house to question even if he had the best intentions in the world. But has he the best intentions? I would certainly like to think so. Readers of history know yet only too well that world empires do not change course overnight out of benevolence to mankind. I live here in Geremany for years and for health reasons I do not work most of the time. So I became a book-worm reading mostly history books in general. History is becoming almost a science. I think it will help us immensely in unravelling the riddle and fallacy of Abyssinian imperial mythology. This only in passing.

The Abyssinian political elites know very well where they stand in the world today. They take only highly calculated risks. On the whole they are well prepared and well-connected, together and separately. They are constantly on the move plotting intrigues. Their aim is unambiguous. They may be engaged in power struggle among themselves but their overall strategy is the same. They are opposition and government at the same time. They have money and organizational structures at various levels at home and abroad.

Most of the political elites of the oppressed nations in Ethiopia are , however , in complete disarray , and are difficult even to locate. Let us be open. Up to now I do sound as if to say I am talking in their name. I would like really to, even without a mandate! But where are we? Many of us have chosen for long time to burry our heads in the sands in utter resignation … Nobody knows where we are and nobody cares. Coordination is almost missing.. But we do exist somewhere, inside the empire and outside, scattered everywhere, many of us in apalling conditions. Here I must stop a little to mention those of us, not only elites but countless ordinary people, who opted for martyrdom at different times in different parts of the Empire , isolated from each other, in extremly unfavourable local and international conditions, under total media blackout, and those who still resist oppression by all means available to them to defend their essentisal human dignity and existence without any help from outside. In this article I want to say :“ Do you hear me! „ I want to say this not only to the living but also to the dead. I am absolutly certain that humanbeings who sacrficed their lives for others, for the liberation and freedom of their peoples, are not really dead. Their spirits are not wandering in the Elysian heaven or the endless empty space. They live in the hearts and minds of the living. They do not need statues out of stones. They also will hear us and know that they are not forgotten. and that their sacrifice was not sensless. Many of us go on serving the rulling Abyssinian elites for life half-heartedly just to insure own personal survival . A few of our elites have become academics and some of them are mostly holding aloof busy trying to appear cool, pragmatic and objective eager to please their pay masters at home and abroad. The culture of century -old subordination and abyssinization has demoralized most of us and made out of us born cowards, zombies, without honour, vision , integrity and principle. The oppressed peoples of Ethiopia have no real friends in the world. I am stating only facts flat. Our oppressive Amhara and Tigray elites are aggressive, have brilliance, stamina, motivation, pride , fire, will and vision, even if machiavellian . They are by far more educated . Therfore they use military science and technology against helpless poor peoples effectively. Who cares? They lack only in one item – human integrity. Only a qualitatively higher awareness in which human integrity is central can remedy the situation for us all, for them and for us, and help solve our dilemma. Among many Oromo nationalists there are some who give the impression today as if the Oromo Question is the only colonial question that matters in Ethiopia. This is absolutely inacceptable to me. This is the game most Eritreans played in the days of their armed struggle. Personally I will never be part of such a game. Such egotism is extremely harmful to the struggle of an oppressesed nation.

Despite the huge problems of the empire, let me emphasisze this: Whatever our differeces may be, as humanbeings, we are all sitting in the same boat. Despite the ever widening gap, I would like to advocate dialogue . I would 1ike a peacefull solution. That is why on returning to Germany in 1995 I addressed a letter to the late Pope in Rome asking him to intervene because I believe he was a man of dialogue and peace, the Pope who crisscrossed the world bending down and kissing the earth wherever he went. Those of you interested to read the content of that letter, please do contact me. Deep down I am a pacifist. But I cannot push this point too far… I live in Germany for almost twenty-five years. I can say I am a pacifist here more or less both in theory and practice. I can often make myself little, and go out of the way of petty aggressions. There is no problem for my real self. My ego can silenty lick its wounds and go home. How can one be a pacifist in Abyssinian dominated Ethiopia especially since the era of Mengistu Haile Mariam and Melles Zennawi, where even innocent people are obliged not only to spy on but also kill one another out of fear for their own lives. I want our young generation to make fitness -revolution and not to kill each other to maintain opportunistic political elites in power, not to die for revolution that eats its own children.. To them also on both sides, on all sides, I say „do you hear me?.“ The point is that we find our own singular true human voice, each of us, as individual, free humanbeings, without fear. To find one’s own voice demands courage and is not always without a risk. But it is rewarding.

At this point let me try to elucidate the Oromo political reality now briefly.. of which I am a part. The Oromo question is the most central question when dealing with the destiny of the empire. I do not need to go here into why this is so. I want to make clear that the struggle of the Oromo nation for self determination is partly hijacked for long time by the leaders of the group that calls itself OLF.- in reality a group of regionalistic Oromo individuals with backround in missionary schools . Right now the group is splintered in various factions each trying to claim the invaluable name OLF for itself ! This organization is led by a self-appointed clique over which ordinary members have no controll. In this regard it is no better than the Abyssinian cliques. It lacks a democratic structure. Therefore, there was always a gulf between the leadership and its fighters. The leadership stayed away from the fields of battle most of the time.These are in short the cardinal weaknesses of OLF. The basic problem is not mainly one that has to do with its political manifesto, as some would like us to think, even though its manifesto is not unambiguous. I must admit that the name OLF has long become the staple food with which the helpless Oromo masses are fed.This is not so by chance. I believe it is intended at the highest level – a diversionary maneuver to divide and distract the Oromo people. The struggle of the Oromo people is generally percieved by the the Abyssininan political class and their global friends as a single most dangerous factor that can lead to Ethiopia falling apart.The fact that the overwhelming majority of the Oromo people are Moslems aggravated the situation at a time when war on the socalled islamo-facism became a number one priority under Bush administration.. Hence the importance of Somalia in this context – having the largest border with the huge land -locked Oromo homeland. The spectre of Oromo-Somali solidarity against Abyssinian colonialism is haunting a generation of Ethiopian politicians who constantly raise the alarm among the peoples of historical Abyssina, constantly poisoning them with hate and phobia.

OLF came into being in the aftermath of pro- soviet regime- takeover under Mangistu Haile Mariam. The main western powers were extremely outraged at the time. For the first time since the invention of Ethiopia, the Abyssinian rulling elites, both military and civilian, turned away from the western camp , looking to the Soviet Russsia for sustenance, in order to preempty the possibility of the disintegration of the empire as a result of liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples. Thus western circles enouraged the birth of OLF, instructing it duly, when the time came, to participate in the so-called transitional government of Ethiopia under theTPLF .But when it became clear that OLF could somehow mobilize Ormo nationalism at least on superficial emotional level against the regime, it was tacitly sidelined and pushed into exile with diplomatic passports. Its leaders had the impression that some of their western friends would bring them back quickly by pressurizing the regime to more concession on their behalf. I was there at the time. They left behind immense pain and disillusion among their followers.

Many naive or simply uninformed, rigid or regionally biased Oromos do not accept this interpretation even today and are hoping in vain for the revival of OLF. This may also be part of a subtle psychological mechanism to avoid real committment. I think , we , Oromos, are, in many ways, among the most demoralized nations of this planet. Nationalist pride prevents us from admitting the fact. Most of us , including myself, tend to tell the same old story everytime and complain what others do to us. Actually we are most of the time our own worst enemies.

The oppressors of the Oromo people do of course count on the religious divide within the Oromo. The leadership of OLF had presence in the sudanese capital throughout most part of the seventies and the eighties to remain close to events in Ethiopia. They refused to undertake any contact with progressive, democratic, and revolutionsry forces in the Arab countries and elsewhere.Their fear of Islam made them suspicious of anything to do with the Arabs. In this sphere their attitudes are not different at all from those of most Abyssinian elites. As born right wingers with missionary background, they kept a safe distance from anything to do with the left. Knowingly or unknowingly they sabotaged the struggle of the Oromo people in many ways and they still do. Many of them are waiting secretely even now for Alqaiida to be defeated first before challenging finally the Abyssinian domination! Again, they refuse to learn from the EPLF , which despite its Christian background, closely worked with national liberation movements in the Arab countries, to liberate Eritrea from the iron- grips of Abyssinian militarism.

The Oromo question will remain an item mainly for social oral consumption among us most of the time, at home and abroad, unless we, as individuals and as people, change our ways, our tiresome daily routines, our petty self-centered habits, our wrong perceptions, our passivity, ourself-abasement and, most important of all, our disorderliness. I am not critcising only others. May be this is why I also unconsciously chose to live in sweet isolation and obscurity in this relatively quiet beautiful city of Aachen , the capital of Carl der grosse, where I meet Oromos only once in a while, if at all.

This is the story of shadowy politics in and around a shadowy empire by shadowy actors. It can never be told completly. It is messy in the extreme. The problems of the nations of this region are complex and extremely interlinked . Militarism has the region as a whole in its grip. The situation will go on deteriorating untill a new vision is born, a new vision that enables us to turn our attention away from negative orientation and reality to a positive one. A vision that comes from within each of us not from outside. We need to look the truth in the eyes.

Tentatively I would like to suggest a discussion forum outside Ethiopia in which all genuine opposition elements, as individuals and groups, from all the oppressed nations in the Horn of Africa will participate . A forum that is not a showcase for propaganda. For a typical cynical Abyssinian political elite it seems weakness and contradiction to call for national liberation struggle, which they call cessionism, and to call at the same time for a peaceful solution.The only logic they really respect is the logic of imposing one’s own agenda by force and violence. For me the struggle for liberation, using all legitimate means, including armed struggle, and being at the same time ready for dialogue and peacefull resolutions are not contradictory. My presentation here is about a shift of paradigm that chauvenidsts hate. I want all genuine political elites of the oppressed nations in Ethiopia to consider this shift seriously and act accordingly. I have no illusion that the chauvenists will try to infiltrate such a forum to sabotage it from within. But the forum will find ist own ways to take care of itself.

The times of showdowns, empty slogans and rhetorics must be over.We will learn how to be together and interact constructively for a few days at least once in a while.. To do that we must acccept one another with all our differences, not suppress them as is usual in time- honured Abyssinian political culture, or try to change one another compulsively. We need to distance ourselves from all the political cliques engaged now in the rat-race for power. They are in a hurry. We do not need to hurry. We need to see the difference between our ideas, and opinions, or convictions, which keep changing, and our essential humanity that does not change. We cannot change the situation before we change our habits. Specially our habits of obeying others who supposedly know better than us. We have to take things into our own hands no matter how weak they seem to us. This way, I hope we will find a new common language to discuss openly and peacefully the dilemma facing us and our peoples. We can mobilize human sympathy world-wide for a just cause if we mean what we say.

All of us can learn from past mistakes if we want. Meeting one another despite differences is a sign of maturity. There are means to express our ideas, feelings, anger, frustrations, bitterness and disillusionment peacefully. Our nations had lived beside one another in relative peace and independence and interacted all the time from pre-historic times before greedy rulers turned to alien ideas and weapons to crush them. Such a forum must find ways and means to awaken us to a higher understanding and heal the wound. We must organize music and drama groups to reflect the varied rich culture of our peoples and to help us concentrate first on what is absolutely positive and refreshing beyond any doubt. Let us find out also other more effective ways and means to chanell our immense energy constructively, separately and together, in such a way that it impacts the situation on the gound at home, and internationally. We do no need to cover up our weaknesses or the negative side of our reality. Suppressing facts is extremely harmful to the struggle of the oppressed peoples.We need catharsis. We need to give politics human touch. We can advance a democratic culture in the face of feudal Abyssinian culture of intrigues and violence. Let us meet somewhere instead of hurling words at one another across the internet. For a number of reasons I suggest Germany as the right place for our forum.