Struggle for National Liberation and Formation of Independent Republic of Oromia Continues

From Oromo Liberation Front led by J/Dhugaasaa Bakkako
August 26,2012

Statement on the Death of Mr. Meles Zenawi and the Appointment of  Mr. Hailemariam Desalegn as the New Prime Minister of Ethiopia

There is no doubt that Mr. Meles Zenawi’ s death has created anxieties within Tigray People’ s Liberation Front (TPLF). We are also informed that his deputy and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Hailemariam Desalegn is now appointed as his successor and is already in charge.

The Oromo people, young and old, men and women, will remember Mr. Meles Zenawi and his regime for the appalling cruelty which they have experienced during the last twenty years. They will remember him as an Ethiopia ruler whose regime incarcerated tens of thousands of their sons and daughters in concentration camps such as Dhidhessa, Hurso and Bilate, where many had lost their lives because of foul conditions, communicable disease, starvation and torture in the 1990s.

Mr. Zenawi will be remembered also as a despotic ruler whose tyranny was responsible for the disappearance or death of tens of thousands of Oromos since the 1990s. Thousands of Oromo torture-survivors will remember him for the cruelty they had experienced in his jails and the traumas it had imprinted in their bodies and psyche; traumas which will continue to mar their lives. Thousands of women will remember him for the repeated rapes they had suffered in the hands of the security men who guard the country s numerous jails and detention centers.

The nightmares of Meles Zenawi’ s regime have affected the lives of tens of thousands of Oromo students, who have been dragged away from their studies and were imprisoned, tortured, or were forced to flee from their homeland. Hundreds of Oromo artists, poets and journalists will also remember Mr. Zenawi for the imprisonment and torture his regime had inflicted and the cruel death sentences it had passed on their
colleagues.

Oromo farmers and pastoralists will not forget Mr. Zenawi because of his heinous policy of selling their farmlands, pasturelands and sources of fresh water to foreign contractors in the name of development, displacing them from their homes and exposing their families to homelessness and poverty. In other words, if poverty is the legacy of the century-old Ethiopian colonial rule in Oromia, abject poverty is consequences of Mr. Meles Zenawi s rule during the last two decades. Therefore, we do not share the view which applauds the so-called economic miracle Ethiopia underwent under his rule.

Meles Zenawi was a brutal dictator who masterminded genocidal campaign against the Oromo and others. He died without taking responsibility for his actions against humanity. The hypocrisy of some world leaders whose condolence letters to the TPLF/EPRDF brutal regime laud Mr. Meles Zenawi as a great loss to Ethiopia and Africa is deplorable.

Some people hope that the bitter legacy of Mr. Meles Zenawi’ s twenty years rule will now be over and Ethiopia will see the light of democracy soon. However, we in the OLF do not entertain the view that the appointment of Mr. Hailemariam Desalegn who is a non-Tigrayan will satisfy the claims or change the dire situation of the Oromo and the other oppressed peoples of Ethiopia for the better. What is needed is a fundamental change which our people have for many decades struggled to achieve and not simply change of rulers.

We remind once again our people, our friends and our adversaries, that the Oromo struggle is being waged to regain independence from the oppressive Ethiopian political system and not against a despot or an autocratic ruler; consequently, the death of Mr. Zenawi will not affect the goal the OLF had set out to achieve from the beginning formation of independent republic of Oromia. Hence, we call upon the Oromo people and their political organizations to consolidate their human and material resources, to strengthen their unity, and continue their struggle for national liberation.

Oromia shall be free!

Dhugaasaa Bakkako,
Chairman of the OLF