18 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebel group has described as “good news” the call by the authorities of the Oromia region for a “reconciliation” process, although it has said that it “lacks the necessary clarity”. .
The group has said that the appeal does not allow “to be too optimistic about the imminent opening of a peace process” and has criticized that “the peace appeal does not directly mention the OLA”, since the regional president, Shimelis Abdisa, referred to the group with the name of OLF-Shene, used by the authorities to refer to the rebels.
“While this does not make a big difference at the substantive level, it does not help to clarify the ambiguities about the possibilities for peace and how the Ethiopian government wants to seek it,” he said, as reported by the Ethiopian newspaper ‘Addis Standard’.
In this sense, the OLA has demanded that the process be led by the central government and that it have “international actors” as “guarantors of the application of the mediation agreements.”
“It was the federal Parliament, not the regional one, that outlawed the OLA. It is also the federal Army that leads the military operations on the ground, so the peace process with the OLA is beyond the capabilities of the regional government. of Oromia, both legally and operationally”, he stressed.
Shimelis stressed during a session of the regional parliament that “there is nothing that cannot be resolved through peaceful means,” although he stressed that security operations will continue “against those who do not want to resolve the problem peacefully.”
The OLA published a letter on February 9 betting on “a peaceful settlement to the conflict” and asked to “seize the moment as an opportunity to find a negotiated and peaceful solution to a conflict that has shaken Oromia for the last four years.”
The group, which splintered from the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) after the 2018 peace deal and is an ally of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) in the war in Tigray, has claimed responsibility for several attacks — especially in Oromia– during the last few months.
The OLF fought for decades for the secession of the Oromia region, but in 2018 it announced that it was giving up the armed struggle, accepting the amnesty offer from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the first Oromo to hold office in the African country.
