ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopian troops have launched operations against members of a rebel group that signed an agreement to end hostilities with the government last year, an official said on Wednesday.
Since the 1970s, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) has fought an insurgency for self-determination for ethnic Oromos, the Horn of Africa country’s most populous ethnic group.
The OLF was initially part of a transitional government set up in 1991 by rebels. The rebel coalition had driven military leader Mengistu Haile Mariam from power, but the OLF soon fell out with them.
But skirmishes between the two sides have since plagued the Oromiya region.
On Wednesday, Billene Aster Seyoum, press secretary of the prime minister’s office, accused the group of carrying out attacks that included rape, bank robberies, and blockades of highways that caused “a lot of displacement” in parts of the Oromiya region.
Billene said the offensive was taking place in the province’s Kelem Wollega Zone, where she said OLF training sites were based. She denied media reports of air strikes, saying helicopters were only used to transport soldiers.
In a statement, the OLF said on Sunday that the government was trying to resolve “disagreements” by force instead of holding discussions.
“It is very sad that the government does not have any interest and patience for peace. That is why the fight between the OLF and the government has not stopped altogether,” it said.
Nearly three million people were displaced throughout the country last year due to clashes that often took place along ethnic lines.
Today is bank robbery and tomorrow will bring more horrendous crimes against the civilian population. I have been saying and telling other countrymen for many, many years. These are a group of likeminded individuals with deep seated hatred for others who they think are from different ethnic groups. They are one of the worst kinds of bigots. They have made up their mind that to build upon existing harmonious living for a more equitable system is 100% impossible. They have labeled every other ethnic group as the enemy to them and the noble people of Oromia. I have been forewarning about these miscreants and equally feral group of ruffians for quite some time. I am warning you now that unless you deal with them in the only way they know, tomorrow they will be lobbing live and deadly grenades at places of worship and entertainment. They have been shown the respect they never deserved. I have been urging main media outlets in the Diaspora to ask tough questions whenever they had the chance to interview these bigots. But I think they became gun shy of being called a media of ‘Neftegnas’. They were smitten with them. I asked them to ask these former red cubs of the Mengistu killing gauntlets about their criminal collusion in the 1970’s and early 80’s. But as I mentioned above, those in the media had chosen to remain smitten for fear of being labeled ‘the children of neftegnas’. They were allowed to roam free among the Diaspora spewing their poison into the gullible youth. I used to hear what they used to preach in closed quarters. They put KKK and Neo-Nazis to shame with what came out of their mouths. Now we have this!!!! I am telling you again and again that if this regime of this young visionary PM does not re-examine its policy towards such bigoted groups of bank robbers, it is risking the safety of innocent civilians in all major cities and localities. Bank robbery was not confined to Western part of the country but one of them happened in the vicinity where I was born, Asabot. I could not believe it. The people I talked to told me that the robbery was committed on a vehicle that was transporting cash from one bank location to another. I remember when I was growing up a special train that was designated in carrying a large amount of cash to pay the monthly salaries of thousands of employees of the company(Chemin de-fer) at every railway station from Dewele all the way to Awash. If my memory does not fail me, that special purpose train was called ‘balasta’. In any case, everyone knew it carries a large amount of cash and it was a very slow moving one. I remember many times when it spent the night right there in Asabot with no armed men guarding it overnight. No one!!! That was going on for decades until Ziad Barre sent his hooligans across the border. You know why no one thought of robbing that cash loaded train? Because everyone believed it did not belong to him/her. It is other’s money. And it was tantamount to thievery. And thievery is a sin. That is, dear old countrymen/women, our legendary value. I guess such priceless value has slowly begun to erode away before I know it, before we all know it. This one is even more vexing to me just because it is being committed in my name. It is carried out in the name of my noble people of Oromia. Sickening, just sickening!!!!