I had to sleep on it before I report on the breaking news that cleared OLF’s smoke screen. Breaking news of a shake-up inside OLF’s leadership has been reported in different media outlets but soon after that, the executive committee of OLF posted a statement on its website indicating “unconstitutional activities and conspiracies against OLF”.
Though, I have heard of possible tactical disagreements between the OLF core leadership a while back, I didn’t expect it will manifest itself the way it did in the last couple of days. I and many supporters have ignored many conspicuous signs of what was brewing inside OLF’s camp. My understanding was, the dissent was quashed pretty quickly or at least the two rival groups have reached on some kind of consensus. Apparently, they didn’t reach the kind of agreement I and many others envisioned they would reach at this time.
I have full confidence in OLF leadership’s damage control and road map building ability for the tough struggle ahead. For better or worse, what would come next is yet to be seen but stirring OLF that has been in the slow cooker for close to 35 years is something of good news for the Oromo people at large. Each faction has to maneuver very carefully not to cancel out each other’s efforts and take us back to square one. Instead they have to synchronize their efforts and strategize on how to get to the end goal which should be their common ground. We need action, we need change and we hope we get it NOW!
As representatives of Oromos that are currently being oppressed, exploited and prosecuted by minority Tigrayan hegemony and by successive regimes in the past, all groups that say are looking out for Oromos should show what they say in action. Whether it is diplomatic, militaristic or economic struggle, they have to intensify it hundreds of times more. While doing that they need to build alliance among themselves as well as others. Like the saying goes, a house divided against itself can not stand. Therefore, priority has to be given to smooth things out inside OLF and other Oromo political and civic organizations and then we could move on to forge alliance with other oppressed people of Ethiopia and any other stakeholders in the region.
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