By Mikael Deribe
The life line of TPLF’s iron clad hold of power is the reluctance and inability of different Ethiopian political forces (in organization level) to move beyond their archaic and rigid political maneuvers. Each group seeks to obtain victory all alone in a quest to exercise its own political ideology without having to worry about appeasing any other organization. I doubt if they have realized yet that the old winner – loser politics will bring neither peace nor development to the people they claim to represent. TPLF has injected the possibility of cessation of any ethnic-based region by ratifying article 39 of its constitution early on. This issue all alone has been a single source of the uncompromising mentality reflected on the stubbornness of each political group and a problem that sustains TPLF’s hold of power by making a viable coalition of opposition forces nearly impossible.
Nationalist Ethiopians reject the idea of working with groups such as the OLF and ONLF by automatically citing their agenda of separating from Ethiopia and their account of Ethiopian history. OLF’s and ONLF’s claim of being “colonized” by Ethiopia angers many who consider Oromos and ethnic Somalis as fellow countrymen whom they have suffered alongside through the centuries long misrule under different regimes of our nation. Predictably, the TPLF regime works to exaggerate these differences as it knows that any dialogue and compromise between nationalists and cessationist will prove to be a major threat to their hold of power.
However, we should recognize that the leaders of OLF and ONLF have at different times shown their willingness to cooperate with nationalist forces (peaceful or armed) to work together toward liberating Ethiopia from the few TPLF mercenaries who live lavishly over the misery of our people. One example of this willingness is the formation of the Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (AFD) nearly two years ago that had TPLF leaders suffering from an acute case of paranoia. However AFD’s objectives were vague and lacked a clear picture of post-TPLF Ethiopia. AFD’s future endeavors were not discussed enough as some of the political forces in the alliance had conflicting political agendas. The alliance was not formed based on the prospect of bringing peace, stability and development to Ethiopia in a post-TPLF era but solely on the aim of overthrowing the TPLF-dominated regime. This apathy could have proved disastrous if AFD was viable until the eminent demise of the TPLF regime plunging our country into another political chaos.
Therefore, I believe, if any of the leaders of the Ethiopian opposition forces genuinely care for our people who currently suffer under a fascist regime, they will take the time to approach each other and set up a conference to at least discuss the root cause of the oppressive Ethiopian political culture and the prospect of a peaceful post-TPLF Ethiopia. This action will be crucial not only in clearing up the uncertainties of our future co-existence but also in nourishing our hope of liberating ourselves in unison. We Ethiopians do not expect these different political organizations to have a common manifesto overnight; however we do realize that there will not be unity if we remain afraid of dialogue and compromise. A viable coalition based on well-discussed political objectives regarding the pre and post-TPLF Ethiopia will be an unstoppable force not only to free our people from the ruthless tyranny, but also a remedy to tackle the many problems that has kept as the poorest of the poorest in the world.
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The writer can be reached [email protected]