As the empire of Ethiopia is motioning in a new rupture, crises are mounting and though the split of the center led the nomination of Abiy Ahmed (Ph.D), ethnic Oromo, to the office of the prime minister, neither the symbolic nomination nor the prime minister’s “significant” reforms has proven successes with respect to the empire’s stability and settlement of major competing ideologies and interests. Since the beginning of the rupture, the empire’s security has lapsed and there is an empire-wide ethnic motivated violence. According to the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Group, IDMG, the empire has at least “1.4 million internally displaced persons in the first half of this year (January-June 2018),” placing second the world’s war rubbished State of Syria by exceeding it with 200,000 persons.
On the other hand, though the newly nominated prime minister made unexpected and swift reforms in terms of government’s civil and military compositions, and empire’s policies towards oppositions and neighboring states, none of these has addressed the long-standing boiling factor of the empire —the nature of the empire-society relations. Thus, though the ruling regime made what seems reasonable concessions to at least ease the pressure on the center “no one is content with the current situation,” in the words of Ornella Teta.
Nonetheless, as the empire is in a moment of uncertainty and afflictions, no one is being affected worse than the occupied Somalis. Prior to the start of the rupture, occupied Somalis were living in a state of a hell in which collective punishment and deprivation of the basic human and democratic rights were its hallmarks.
As the rapture matured, ethnic violence between occupied Somalis and Oromos was orchestrated by the ruling regime, and when the Ethnic Oromo prime minister came in to power, in violation of all the grounds for federal interventions, army was sent to the occupied state which dismantled the regional state institutions, arrested the stooge regional president, and afterwards a new president was poll shot in to the state’s presidential palace.
Additionally, the orchestrated de facto ethnic violence has turned into ethnic cleansing against the Somalis after the new premier took office. While thousands of Somali civilians were murdered and more than a million were evicted from their homes since the start of the conflict, attacks on the contested areas were intensified by the Oromia regional gov’t under the shadow of the federal leadership. For instance, as this article is being written, there is an ongoing battle in the strategic town of Moyale in which the Somali civilians are defending against an invading paramilitary Oromo militia who are in a mission of taking the full control of the town. Furthermore, there are endless clashes in the industrial city of Dire Dawa, Babili, Chinacseni, and Tuliguleed, the suburban of Jijiga.
To react to this conundrum war on the western border with Oromia, the response of the political leaders of the occupied state is widely insufficient and suffers lack of preparation or misreading the problem and political horizon of the empire.
On the side of the regional government, it has adopted the policy of appeasement to the center and Oromo regional government. The state president has kept his tone form condemning the attacks or killings of his state civilians. Instead, he opted to beg for peace the invading party. However, though this option has not brought results, the president is still failing to come up with any working strategies rather he is trying to send the blame at least to the past days by saying “95% of those responsible are those orchestrated it,” since the regime orchestrated it is the one ruling now. The president made these remarks the in the front of the state’s “intelligentsia community” and on the face of the bodies killed by the Oromo paramilitaries.
On the side of ONLF, though the front categorically condemned the invasion and urged the start of “reconciliation processes…by all stakeholders to end this calamity,” the front merely relies on condemnations and pursuing of ill-crafted diplomatic tools. Just like the regional government, the front hasn’t shown any strategic tools that will save the lives of Somali civilians after the diplomatic discourses didn’t bring any solutions.
In summary, it’s apparent that Somalis are on the weak side of this confrontation and their leaders should make higher consideration and give the diplomacy every possible opportunity. But what should they do if it doesn’t work? Should they surrender fully, if the invading party rejects to stop the invasion? What back up plans are in place if the door of diplomatic negations is closed? To what extent are these plans error free? To answer these questions, one should know that the invasion on the western border with Oromia is positing a severe danger to the political future of the state and cannot be separated from the general ongoing upheavals in the empire.
Therefore, to effectively encounter the threat, leaders of the of the occupied Somalis need to holistically understand the ongoing rupture and its foreseeable consequences then formulate a comprehensive strategy which identifies and empowers the state’s competitive advantages to smartly end this calamity and secure the interest of the nation. Since “diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice doggie’ until you can find a rock,” in the words of Will Rogers, Somali Galbeed leaders need to find the rock or create it before it’s too late!
Adalvoice 