BACKGROUND
Somalia Galbeed more commonly known as the Ogaden lies between Oromia to the West, Afar land to the Northwest, the Republic of Djibouti to the north, Kenya to the south and The Somali Republic to the east. Somali agro-pastorals people with a single language, culture, and socio-economic structure inhabit the Ogaden territory.
The Ogaden Somali people were free, independent and powerful until colonial powers from overseas came to Africa and started arming the Abyssinian chiefs in the north of present day Ethiopia. The Abyssinians using the arms and expertise provided by the colonialists captured Harar in 1884 and started raiding Ogaden Somali villages in that area, killing the men and selling women and children as slaves. The Ogaden Somalis resisted vehemently the encroachment of the Abyssinian expansionists and succeeded in halting their advance. Even though the Abyssinian military campaign to conquer the rest of the Somali territory failed, the colonial powers recognized its claim over the Ogaden Somaliland and signed treaties with them.
From 1886 to 1948, Abyssinia (renaming itself Ethiopia) waged a constant war of conquest against the Somalis but failed in gaining any further foothold in the Ogaden.
In 1935, Italy invaded Abyssinia and captured it along with the Ogaden and the territories of other nations in the area. Then the British defeated Italy in the Horn of Africa in 1941, and it administered the Ogaden for eight years until it transferred the first part of the Ogaden (Jigjiga area) to Ethiopia (the Abyssinians) for the first time. The next parts were transferred in 1954 and 1956. Thus, Ethiopia gained the control over the Ogaden without the knowledge or consent of the Ogaden Somalis. From that time onward, successive Ethiopian regimes mercilessly suppressed the Ogaden people and whenever the liberation movements seriously weakened and threatened Ethiopian colonialism, a foreign power directly intervened to re-establish its colonial rule over the Ogaden.
Oromo nationalism has evolved in response to the Oromo people’s long, difficult and often antagonistic relationship with the Ethiopian state. Much of what is now Oromia was conquered and forcibly incorporated into the Amhara-dominated Ethiopian empire towards the end of the nineteenth century. During the old imperial era, the Oromo people were subjected to widespread repression. The rulers in Addis Ababa adopted a policy of forced cultural assimilation and they took steps to suppress Oromo culture, including restricting the use and development of Afan Oromo.7 Haile Selassie, the last Ethiopian emperor, was overthrown by the military in 1974. But the “Derg,” the committee of military officers who seized control of the country, quickly evolved into an extremely brutal dictatorship that continued the oppression of the Oromo.8
In 1991, after a long civil war, the Derg collapsed. The political vacuum that was created by the Derg’s collapse was immediately filled by the TPLF-controlled Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition, which has remained in power through the present day. The TPLF, led by Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s current prime minister, gained control in Addis Ababa
The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) had its origins in a protracted armed struggle in Oromia against the Haile Selassie government in the 1960s. Presently regional Ethiopian government and security officials routinely accuse dissidents, critics and students of being OLF “terrorists” or insurgents. Thousands of Oromo from all walks of life have been targeted for arbitrary detention, torture and other abuses even when there has been no evidence linking them to the OLF. Even some apolitical civil society organizations have been treated as subversive threats to the regime, hampering their ability to operate effectively.
The 1955 Ethiopian Constitution legalised full-scale exploitation of Afar lands through formalising state ownership of all pastoral lands under the principle of ‘public domain’. The Afar were caught in a trap: paying no land tax (or other taxes for that matter), the State could claim that the land was technically ‘abandoned’ and thus claim these key resources (particularly adjacent to the river) for state exploitation. Accelerated displacement of Afar from key dry-season grazing areas on the river was then hastened and set a pattern of displacement and vulnerability that continued for much of the 20th Century.
Ethiopia since the beginning of this century and up to now has been characterised by one nation using the powers of state to subjugate and exploit all the other nations within that artificial system. For almost one century, the Abyssinians are abusing the concept of sovereignty and statehood to deprive the rights of other people living under the rule of the artificial state of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is a state founded on colonial doctrine and bases its rule on the use of force and emergency measures for oppressing the majority of the people and exploiting them. Ethiopia claims that African borders inherited from colonialism should be left intact and it inherited the Ogaden territory from the colonial powers. At the same time, Ethiopia is boasting to be the only African state that was never colonised. This means that Ethiopia has been a participating partner with the colonial powers that divided Africa among themselves but has never relinquished its colonial possessions.
To maintain such a colonial state, the rulers had to build a massive military machine and embark on forcefully maintaining one of the most vicious authoritarian rules in the third world.
