The Oromo political patterns we have witnessed all along these past 17 years moved and approached issues from a day to day based reactions to only delineate the original objectives of the OLF. It is one thing to capitalize on an existing MISSION and use different strategies in-order to accomplish the task at hand but it is another matter to react to TPLF’s political dynamics only to be further confused by it. For sure, such an approach is what causes frustrations within the organization and that frustration is responsible for the conflicts we are witnessing.
HOW DOES ETHIOPIA’S POLITICAL DYNAMICS CAUSES A SPLIT INSIDE THE OLF?.
If we carefully examine the political dynamics of year 2005 Ethiopian election and analyze what happened inside the OLF, or even see Oromo Diaspora's behavior, we notice how new political components are entering Oromians political equation.
BUT WHY?
Here is the equation. If OLF’s goal is equals to LUST FOR POWER IN ETHIOPIA, then changes resulted inside the the OLF. That means, whenever the TPLF changes it’s political direction, it forces the OLF to alter it’s original political objective. And then, when alteration happens to the original objective of the OLF, opposition takes place and thus split takes it’s tall allowing the birth of new organizations. Not only that but the organization also loses it’s best members, dissatisfaction also increase weakening the organization. (The split of QC OLF and the formation of FIO can be sighted as an example).
Further more, from these new dynamics also arises new changes that produces another environment that facilitates new thinking chemistry and therefore, Oromians behavior. That new behavior therefore is a competition among groups and individuals who want to grab political power in Ethiopia via a simply perceived smilingly short cut venues. For example, Hasen Husein, Lenco Lata and Lenco Batii believe that the Oromo nation can take the political responsibility in Ethiopia and lead the horn of African nation. I believe that the Dawud Ibsa group thas been pressed very hard to take this very direction.
It is this dynamics what brought us to the current split facilitated by quest for the upcoming year 2010 Ethiopian election. For the Lencoos, every election time in Ethiopia brings new possibilities yet the Dawud group is kind of slow when it comes to reacting to this idea and thus friction have developed. At this point, the general Galchu’s team seems to be courageous enough to jump on the Ethiopian political wagon of 2010. Both sides finger pointing or resorting to their tribal groupings is simply a very common reaction of those who are attempting to survive and rise from their political death.
At any event, the political correlation between the OLF and the TPLF is what resulted in frustrating political environment observed since year 1991.
To further dig deep into the roots of the conflict, the correlations between conflicts inside the OLF, among the Oromians, OPDO’s expansion to Diaspora and TPLF’s strength, including current and past challenges needs to be investigated by first asking essential questions such as;'
• Does the new political environment affect Oromo unity? How?
• What observations correlate what the TPLF does in Finfinnee and the split inside the OLF?
• How can we understand the correlation between OLF’s weakness and Oromians desire to join the OPDO?
For example, Oromians return back to Finfinnee and taking land from the TPLF or joining the Ethiopian millennium party is caused by OLF’s inability to minimized TPLF’s influence. This alone compensated OPDO’s expansion into diaspora Oromo politics.
Localism also developed after OLF’s repeated exposure to localist tendencies reflected back in 1991. Most of all, the so called “winning against the TPLF via peaceful means involved the process of disarming the Oromo nation from it’s nationalist question in which a decrease of membership is observed.
Overall, the current split is about one group’s attempt to maintain control over the organization in order to rally the Oromians in this upcoming 2010 election by using the OLF for it’s brand name recognition while the second group also wishes to do the same. As we can see, this move created another round split and disturbances.
By coordinating these political environmental clues, one can arrive at a final conclusion and engage the Oromians to discuss on a specific topic and find permanent solution.
I think, once the roots of the conflict is found, a mechanism of bringing groups or individuals together can be possible. But so far, what we see is this great correlation between the idea of democratizing Ethiopia and using the separation of Oromia as a potential tool to get back to Ethiopia and rule it. But so long these consistent contextual political environment continues pairing the TPLF and the OLF, Oromian’s unity can not be materialized. So, the remaining question will be, how can the Oromians build an organization that is capable to carry out OLF’s original objective?. This is to say that the upcoming 2010 Ethiopia’s election can not and will not bring new opportunity for the Oromians.
Rundassa Ashete Hunde
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