From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Oct 31 2009 - 06:39:21 EST
Ethiopia: The Untold History - The 1992 TPLF-OLF War
October 31, 2009 at 7:43 am
By <http://gadaa.com/oduu/?cat=379> Tuji Jidda*
Since its foundation in 1973, the OLF has waged a continuous low-level armed
struggle for the independence of Oromia, mainly from Abyssinia. Latter on,
it would change its objective to solely self-determination. In recent times,
it has pushed for self-determination within the Federal Union of Ethiopia.
During the last years of the Derg regime, TPLF and OLF attempted to form a
coalition, but it failed. Then, TPLF established OPDO and others as its
puppet organizations for its own political consumption.
OLF was not a major participant in the Ethiopian civil war, even during the
final stages of Deg, but it became the major participant in the transitional
government. During this time, it has managed to get unprecedented support
and gathered huge troops within the shortest time in the history of
liberation fronts. This happened not by people reading OLF's political
programs, but simply by indoctrinating how the Oromos became dehumanized by
the Abyssinian Menelik's campaign of "Galla Holocaust", and the atrocities
committed by subsequent enemy regimes.
Latter, rumors circulated that said the OLF expected to take over post-war
government merely on grounds of popular support, its undeclared landslide
victory in the flawed interim election as well as representative of the
single largest ethnic group. On the contrary, the TPLF was sabotaging the
encampment agreement, started provoking, intimidating, closing and
confiscating OLF offices, snipes hooting, mass killing and, in some cases:
like in "Water" town, massacring the OLF, its supporters and Oromo at large.
"Water" is a small town in Eastern Hararghe (Afran Qallo) zone; it reported
that between 150-200 demonstrators were massacred by TPLF machine gun in a
few minutes in 1992.
Matters eventually came to a head when the OLF could not control and lead
the mass support it has gained, became overconfident and demanded that they
take over the government as of right, but without mandate. This became good
pretext for TPLF to wage war. It encircled all OLF military camps and
offices. Then, all of a sudden OLF declared the collapse of the transitional
government, took their representatives out of the transitional government,
and tried to bring their troops out of camps.
"The western Ambassadors" (i.e. donor groups EU, US and Australia) in the
country recognized that the OLF had no grounds for dispute inside government
and, certainly, not for taking their troops out to fight military battles.
However, they were clear that their own governments would have a very
different attitude and would want to interfere. In an almost unique
decision, these ambassadors, as a group, did not tell their governments what
was going on, but only asked the TPLF leaders (Ethiopian government) to
ensure that the effective suppression of the OLF military force happened as
discreetly as possible! They would allow the government to round up the OLF
and end the new war. However, this had to happen as quickly as possible and
news of this had not to leak out into the front pages of Western newspapers.
One memorable quote during this negotiations was ". for God's sake, do not
send in helicopter gunships!"
The article published by the then OLF leader, Mr. Lencho Leta, entitled "The
making and unmaking of Ethiopia's Transitional Charter", supports the above
statement. In collaboration with EPLF, the TPLF first cut all communication,
including its radio transmissions from the Sudan, made the disorganized
leaders hostages in their office compounds and disintegrated the front. Even
though more than 100,000 troops were involved, the OLF's Oromo forces had
been practically defeated within a month; though there were skirmish clashes
during subsequent years, without major fighting involving helicopter
gunships or fighter planes.
It should be noted here that 'defeated' was the OLF army, but neither the
moral nor the hearts and minds of the Oromo people. That is why the ruling
enemy regime spends millions to categorize the OLF as a "terrorist"
organization thereby to get a cover for committing all kinds of atrocities
on the Oromo people, especially on Afan Oromo speaking Oromos.
The surprising thing is that no report has been produced in any media
regarding the war and causalities, except the massive detention of both
military and civilian Ethiopians in different camps. Even though the
TPLF-OLF war had been one of the biggest battles of the decade, the
Ambassadors' home governments never realized what had happened in Ethiopia,
let alone leakage of reports by Western media. Also, whole atrocities
committed during the years-long campaigns of war waged by TPLF to clear OLF
army and Oromo ideology was not reported at all. Unconfirmed source,
however, estimate thousands have died, thousands have fled to neighboring
countries, many thousands have been imprisoned and millions have been
displaced to lead miserable life, most internally. Its effect: the ongoing
Green famine.
Since the OLF's founding, its undisputed genuine cause for struggle has been
weakened by many reasons: by the inability to defuse the artificial
differentiation created during cruel past regimes among the vast Cushitic
Oromo regions; by the front's own lack of unity and clarity regarding its
ideology and ultimate objectives or strategic vision; by the lack of
organizational leadership qualities; by the historical animosity with
extreme Abyssinian politicians; by the lack of support, due to politics of
fear, from other Southern minority groups; by the lack of support from
neighboring countries; by the effect of politics of new world order; and by
the critically-biased intervention made by Western donor countries.
Many believe that the Abyssinia-Ethiopia conflict and that of the whole East
Africa problems will not be solved unless the 120 years of the shadowed
40-million Oromo tragedy is addressed. That is why there is almost no
possibility of forming coalition of rivals in Ethiopia. The rise and fall of
CUD is also consequence of similar sabotages. It is expected FDD would face
the same fate.
Gadaa.com
Except the news of OLF boycotting the June 1992 election, the international
media never knew about the 1992 TPLF-OLF War when it was happening at the
time.
* Tuji Jidda writes from Washington, DC.
