Photo: William Lloyd-George/IPS Addis Ababa — The leadership of a faction of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebel group has arrived in Addis Ababa seeking to resume stalled peace talks with the central government.
Kenya mediated talks between the rebels and the Ethiopian government in Nairobi which failed in October. The ONLF refused the government's condition that they must respect the National Constitution of Ethiopia and work within the constitutional framework.
Abdinur Abdulaye Farah, the faction's leader in East Africa, told reporters that his arm of the ONLF has now acknowledged the National Constitution and is in Addis Ababa for peace talks in a bid to peacefully join in the country's political process.
"We can't refuse to accept the National Constitution. It is what made us equal with all the nations and nationalities of Ethiopia," he said.
He also stated that refusal to accept the National Constitution had been an incorrect stance and expressed his group's readiness to cooperate with government in developmental endeavours at national and regional levels.
It is hoped that the group's decision will end the separatist rebel group's three decades of armed struggle for the independence for the predominantly Somali ethnic region of Ogaden in South East Ethiopia.
It is to be recalled that Ethiopia signed a peace accord with a major section the ONLF group in 2010; which led to the release of imprisoned members of the rebel faction.
A third separate rival wing within the divided ONLF has declined to accept the National Constitution and has vowed to continue its armed struggle.
"Those members of the front who rejected the National Constitution have no popular support and there are only a few led by former Somali navy Chief Admiral Mohamed Omar Osman, who is now hiding in Asmara [Eritrea]," Farah said.
Designated as a terrorist organisation, ONLF was responsible for an attack on a Chinese-run oil exploration field in which 65 Ethiopian soldiers and nine Chinese oil workers were killed.
In 2011 the ONLF alleged that government forces killed 100 civilians in the Somali region of southeastern Ethiopia, in a week-long military operation.
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Thank God. Al Hamdullah! AFRICA UNITE! This is the best news I've heard in 2012. Ethiopia is really about to come up. Everybody in Ethipia and Somalia should just respect each other's religion so it can be new state called EthioSomalia. Then after that the whole east Africa can be united. Then the whole continant can be united. Africa Unite!
ONLF Press Release December 25, 2012 The Ethiopian regime’s desperate attempt to hide its failure in Ogaden by concocting yet again another false peace agreement with a so-called ONLF faction
There are no on-going talks between ONLF and the Ethiopian government currently. However, the Ethiopian regime is peddling that it is holding peace talks in Addis Ababa with what they portray as Ogaden National Liberation Front by using a junior defector, from ONLF Foreign Office, called Abdinur Abdullahi, whom it elevated to the rank of ONLF Executive Committee member. This practice was done two years ago with Salahdin Maow, a man who was expelled from the organization, but still the Ethiopian regime paraded him in front of the international media and claimed that he represented a major ONLF faction. Nevertheless, after the expensive hype of claiming that the regime has signed a peace agreement with a major ONLF faction that was intended to delude the international community failed, the Ethiopian regime finally sought the help of the Kenyan government to try to broker a peace deal with ONLF.
However, after two rounds of talks in Nairobi, Kenya, the Ethiopian regime, which was expecting an easy ride and capitulation from ONLF stormed out of the talks and declared that the talks had failed when it realized that ONLF will not accept its unilateral preconditions, but was ready to engage in serious and principled negotiation process.
All these malevolent attempts by the Ethiopian regime of engaging in false negotiations is intended to deceive the international community in order to counter the criticism that came from its recent debacle at the Nairobi talks. Finally, such irresponsible machinations of resorting to this type of behavior shows that the Ethiopian regime has not yet learned that deceit and denial of the severity of the Ogaden conflict and the need to engage in a genuine peace process to find a just solution that accepts the exercise of the right of self-determination of the Ogaden people. Such a Machiavellian attitude will not serve the interests and well-being of all the people in the Horn of Africa nor will it stop the Ogaden people’s legitimate resistance against the Ethiopian regime's unjust rule and inhuman suppression.
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)