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By: Saafi Labafidhin
Nov 21, 2007
Professor Ephrem Issac (Photo SEED)
Every time they are under pressure,
desperate Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF)
regime claims their door is always open to
negotiations. We have seen this in 2005 when
there was real jeopardy to their fate. After
the heat of upcoming elections reached
Jigjiga, and the Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF) doubled its operations against
the demoralised government military, they
were forced to seek the help of Ogaden
elders whom they refused to even talk to
previously. These traditional elders were
present in Addis since 2004 and met with
Zenawi only after one of the leading
Ethiopian newspapers, The Reporter,
published Sultan Fowsi
who was the leader of the elders on its
front page. More than a decade before this,
we have also witnessed the Qabridaharre
Conference where Zenawi himself spent
sleepless nights there to implement his
‘divide and rule policy.’
Time after time they tried to
get rid of ONLF and its sympathisers. They
call this organisation as ‘terrorists’.
There has never been a year without a
crackdown in this region and the bulk of the
Ethiopian military find themselves trapped
in an ongoing battle and consider this
region the worst place to be. And things are
never getting better for all of us. Despite
all these atrocities, the current regime has
always been on the loosing end of the battle
against the Somali people, both at home and
abroad.
Confused about how to create
equilibrium for their conflicting policies,
the TPLF is once again playing a game
against the ONLF. They said they are going
to negotiate with ONLF –the same
organisation they called as terrorists.
Nevertheless, this time they are using their
new envoy Prof. Ephrem Isaac
as a messenger. TPLF has always had a hidden
agenda towards Ogaden. But this time their
apparent objectives are as follows:
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a) To confuse the
International Community
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b) to divert attention
from their open-ended atrocities
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c) to kill the support of
Ethiopian peace loving people for the
ONLF
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d) and mainly, to divide
ONLF leaders
The latest move by TPLF comes
as crackdown of civilians continues and
those who survived flee for their lives. A
time when an Ethiopian army’s field
commander claimed to have killed many ONLF
fighters and captured many others alive.
Lander which is a relatively stable village
in the Haud has been a home for many fleeing
Families. It is an open secret that for the
army TPLF civilians and ONLF freedom
fighters were of equal importance –they kill
all. In the latest hours there has been
reports from Dhagaxbuur that many villages
around the famous Haro-Digeed valley have
been carpet-bombed by helicopters positioned
in Dhagaxbuur town.
Can Professor Ephrem Take
fires between TPLF and ONLF?
Mediation is a process in
which a third-party neutral assists in
resolving a dispute between two or more
other parties. It is a non-adversarial
approach to conflict resolution. More
interestingly, mediation has always been a
part of Somali culture in the Ogaden as it
is said u kala dabqaadid –literally
meaning to take fires between warring
parties as sign to mediate them. As a
principle of mediation, a mediator must be
neutral to the problem in question.
Despite his position as a renowned professor
in Harvard University, this gentleman lacks
neutrality as he openly supported and
continues to hail the criminal leaders of
Addis Ababa regime and their flawed
policies. He has gone to the extent to
advocate the riddance of HR2003 in front of
the United States Congress.
In addition, I doubt if the
professor is acquainted with the
long-standing trouble in the Ogaden and the
realities on the ground; although I am sure
he is aware of the brutality of TPLF against
his own people: the Oromo.
As an Ethiopian Jew who directs Institute of
Semitic Studies in Princeton he can do
better if he helps reconcile the Semitic
language speakers, namely TPLF and CUD –Tigray
and Amhara respectively. Or may be he can be
successful if he settles the deep-rooted
dispute between the Orthodox Church Synods,
which of course, concerns him more than the
Ogaden.
When it comes to Somali
history and culture and how to negotiate
them, Mr Zenawi knows better for he has been
in Mogadishu (with Ogaden leaders) in 1980s
for a long time!!! Instead of using all
available opportunities Meles prefers to
blame ONLF of reluctance and uses this as a
pretext to press on with military operations
in the region. On Oct 23
AFP
quoted him as saying "We have spent years
trying to convince the ONLF that
negotiations were the only solution. We even
sent elders abroad to meet them but they
were reluctant," But wait a minute! We know
ONLF have always sought a face to face
dialogue in a neutral platform and you tell
us this stuff while your forces continue to
execute a campaign of terror against
innocent people and more recently
carpet-bombing villages and nomadic
settlements in Haro-digeed. And Hey! Who
arrested the leader of the elders you are
talking about? ONLF or YOU? We know that you
know we know!
Is TPLF really committed to
end its wicked policies towards Ogaden?
Over 16 years have gone since
the downfall of the Derg. Although the
country is one the poorest performing
nations according to
UNCTAD's new edition of Trade and
Development Index (TDI) (see
here),
much has changed for other regions where
there are rebel movements, from Amharas
Ethiopian People's Patriotic Front
to Oromia’s OLF (Oromo Liberation Front),
and Afar’s Afar Revolutionary
Democratic Unity Front
(ARDUF). However, the Ogaden (Somali
Region), except for very few projects which
are not intended to serve the local people (Jigjiga
University is one of them); there has been a
total neglect and collective punishment.
As a rational person longing
to see peace and development in his/her
land, I have always asked myself why Shinile
is so under developed. Why pastoralists
living in Negele Zone, Jigjiga and Afdheer
are marginalized. Why are there daily
Ethiopian Airline’s flights to Godey while
there is no infrastructure and access to
basic services –you may think I am naive but
I at least know planes go there daily just
to make sure that the Chat business
is booming!! Why many other places where
neither ONLF nor other rebel movements
operate are neglected. There is only one
logical fact: The SOMALI people anywhere
they may be are isolated and collectively
punished by the regime in power by reasons
some of which are unknown to me. That is why
we have a chip on our shoulders!!
The Addis Ababa regime has
always ignored the price paid by their
troops killed in the battles. After all,
most of them are not Tigrayans. That means
TPLF kills two birds with one stone.
Fighting with the ONLF and making non-Tigrays
busy by fighting someone else’s war.
During the 2005 election
campaign, Prime Minister Zenawi, who has
always been a wolf in ship’s clothing,
boasted that as a guerrilla fighter, he was
able to rule Ethiopia through the gun, and
by it will he only be removed, according to
him. Contrary to his claim, I would always
expect ONLF or any other rebels to engage
their matters peacefully. But it is
unfortunate if the non-violent cannot
protest peacefully. So TPLF acknowledged (at
least to themselves) that by its crackdown
alone, it is only walking into the lion’s
den and that they cannot defeat ONLF in the
battle field, they seem to have opted for
other hypocritical ways to get rid of ONLF
for good.
One such way is to pretend as
if they were serious enough to negotiate
with ONLF; they must have calculated the
outcome of their cheap lip service when they
chose to send Prof. Ephrem Isaac as a
messenger. They have done this before in
1995 when the Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF) split into two over
negotiations with the TPLF. The “hawks”
under the then ONLF leader Sheik Ibrahim
Abdalla continued armed struggle, while the
“doves” led by Bashir Abdi Hassan joined the
EPRDF after merging with the Pro-TPLF
Ethiopian Somali Democratic League (ESDL) of
Abdulmejid Hussein. “TPLF succeeded in
fragmenting the ONLF by engaging its more
moderate members in negotiations and into
the region’s patronage and spoils system
(Tobias H. and Mohamud H, 2006).
A word to the ONLF: Don't
negotiate out of fear but don't fear to
negotiate
To borrow a nice expression
from John F. Kennedy who once said, "Don't
negotiate out of fear but don't fear to
negotiate” I would wish to see honest
negotiations between the main actors in the
Ogaden politics, namely ONLF and TPLF. I
have already read a response from ONLF as I
was in the middle of my writing. I
appreciate the balance of your
statement
and how you always put your position
clearly: “We have maintained that any such
dialogue should be held in a neutral third
country, in the presence of a neutral third
party arbiter of international standing with
no preconditions placed on either side” So I
say to you: Please leave no stone unturned
to unite your people and campaign the world
to press Ethiopian government for a dialogue
for a peaceful solution to the long
suffering of the Somali people of Ogaden.
You have challenged them in
the war front, but always remember in our
modern time
the pen is mightier than the
sword.
And above all,
stay united!
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