The time has come for Oromo to act to save our nation. All Oromo nationalists have assumed that someday we will eventually take action of behalf of Oromia.
What are we waiting for? Are we waiting for a crisis? Let me show you crises:
Is the coming to ether of all these crises enough to spur us to action? It should be. These conditions affect every sector of the Oromo society. A proper response is for every sector of the Oromo to act together to change all of these circumstances. There is no question that now is the time for all good Oromo to come to the aid of their country.
Are we waiting for a unity of forces among the Oromo? We have that now. United Liberation Forces of Oromia (ULFO) has been formed to clear the way for action. As I said in The Turning Point #4, I personally think that the leaders of every legitimate Oromo organization have made a valiant joint effort to call for our input, our participation and our contributions to the building of our country. They have cleared a fertile field of debris. This is the necessary first step toward production. Now we have to come forward to talk about what we want to grow there. We have to prepare the ground, invest in the future crop and take all measures to share in the harvest.
Are we waiting for opportunity? The sky is the limit to the opportunity now facing Oromia. There is a lot left to save. Now we just have to figure out how to do it. Together we need to visualize our nation and then build up our capacity as a nation. How do we do that? Well, we do it one Oromo at a time. All of us are needed.
Oromia needs Oromo doctors and nurses to literally keep our people alive.
Oromia needs teachers to equip our people with the skills to save themselves.
Oromia needs business people who can bring to our doorstep the tools and the comforts that the rest of the world enjoys.
Oromia needs engineers to electrify a country in darkness, to build roads that tie us to one another, to install plumbing to bring life-giving clean water and to take away the contamination that surrounds us, and, finally, to connect us through telephones and computers to our friends and potential allies in the outside world.
Oromia needs Oromo computer experts to channel our efforts.
Oromia needs agricultural experts to revive our breadbasket.
Oromia needs miners to tap our gold and minerals for our own benefit.
Oromia needs healthy mothers to bear and to teach her children.
Oromia needs craftspeople, artists and fashion designers to express our creativity.
Oromia needs laborers to do the back-breaking work required to build a nation.
Oromia needs Oromo journalists to monitor our progress.
Oromia needs musicians and poets to remind us of the joy and the good life that is within our reach.
Oromia needs novelists to remind ourselves and to teach the world what our experience has been.
Oromia needs diplomats to make our effort welcome and understood in the wider world so that what we do will have a reception appropriate to our achievement.
Oromia needs every Oromo for the task of building our nation.
The list goes on and on. As I said, the sky is the limit to what the Oromo can do if we work together. To get started we must adjust from crying and complaining about our very real miseries to selecting what we will do and starting to take some action. We can only change things if we are constructively engaged in doing somethingz.
Which of these tasks do you think is the most important for the Oromo to achieve what is needed? Whatever you select, get to work on it. NOW. Find other people who share your concerns, your interests, your skills and being to plan the most effective way to proceed. Don't worry if it as not been done before. The Oromo should be the vanguard in creating a designer nation suited to the 21st century. We are not restricted by old inefficient Abyssinian ways of doing things in Oromia. We can leave all that ugly colonial past behind us an be excited about building the Oromo future together.
Okay, you say, this all sounds fine and good. If you are with me so far, you can ask, "How exactly, do we actually come forward? To whom do we come forward? In what kind of a setting? Do we call somebody? Do we write a letter? Do we put an ad in the newspaper? What newspaper? Do we call a meeting? With whom? What about the majority of Oromo who are not members of any Oromo organization? Do you have any concrete suggestions that you -are willing to share with us?"
Yes I do have concrete suggestions. My suggestions are on a level with those of any Oromo who can come forth with ideas to be considered. First of all, I think that we all have to be realistic and refrain from being disappointed that a political Messiah has not appeared out of the wilderness pointing out the way for us. There is no one Oromo out there to stand up on a platform and tell us what we have to do. We have to stop looking for and waiting for such a person. We have all lost a lot of time waiting for answers to come from above. Why do we do that? I really do not know. Maybe it is because we have been conditioned to wait to be given orders. Maybe it is because we have seen that those who take initiative are shot down. Waiting for orders and waiting for permission to act is a colonial legacy that we have to realize still exists within many of us. It is a big part of our struggle to overcome this wait-and-see tendency of ours. It usually results in our doing nothing.
Secondly, I think that we should acknowledge openly that there has been progress away from the disunity that crippled us for generations. The leaders of all of our Oromo organizations who sat together as ULFO in July and in September this year did something very significant. It marked the first time that Oromo leaders have sat around a table together since the Gullalee Assembly met to resolve "to stand resolutely against the Amhara conquest." Since that assembly, Oromo have fought conquest and colonization, but they have fought it in their separate localities. They have not faced their enemy as a united force. By contrast, those who conquered the Oromo were not only united in ambition and objective, but they were assisted by external powers. The unity agreement struck in September is big step forward in the effort to put our nation together. We should accept it.
Now, as I promised to do, I have read very carefully the documents that were produced by the new Oromo unity organization, ULFO. The question that comes to my mind as I go over every line is, How could we all be a part of this effort? Is it open only to organizations or do individuals have a part? If we are not a member of one of the participating organizations, what is our connection with this group? How do things fit to ether? Does this action to form ULFO give us the place to begin that we so badly need? Can these people who were elected actually lead us into the 21't century?
I recommend that all Oromo should study these documents issued by the united forces on July 25, 2000, and September 20, 2000. There are other supporting documents (resolutions and statements), but the Memorandum and the Consensus are the main ones. Pay particular attention to the closing kaku or oath taken by the participants.
What do these documents reveal? In the Memorandum of Understanding, the participants promised to work together for the liberation of Oromia, offered a general plan for how to do it and be an the effort with a co-ordinating committee. They promised to hold a founding congress in less than 60 days and they kept that promise (July 25 to September 20 is 58 days).
In the second meeting these men demonstrated that the sketchy plan put forward in the Memorandum could be translated into the bare bones of a working program, beginning with short-term goals that can contribute to the long-term goal of billisumaa. To carry forward the design process they organized three functional committees with members from each of the participating Oromo organizations and a managing body which responds to a council of delegates at the end of the year.
They agreed to organize among themselves one national liberation army with a central command, while fashioning a multiparty structure. This is what all organizations, with all their differences, could agree to. They also recognized in principle that the Oromo people should be the ultimate decision-makers in establishing the concrete forms of action and took a traditional-style Oromo oath to uphold the agreement and to work for the liberation of Oromia.
What is left to do now? Here is where the Oromo people come in. We have to breathe life into this beginning. Here is where I think that we have to ask ourselves what our role should be and act to make places for ourselves and for our specific interests. We need not focus on what they have not done. We should focus on what we can do with what they have done. Actually we should be delighted that this group did not fill in all the blanks, but left many issues to be determined through participation of the people. Now is when we measure the real commitment of the Oromo people to our freedom. Some may still ask with doubt, "Are these ULFO leaders for real? Is this process to be trusted?" I suggest that rather than asking whether these who met in Asmara are for real, people should ask themselves whether they themselves are for real and whether they can trust themselves to do what is necessary.
Think about it. These men who met together each thought that their organization, whether it was the OLF the IFLO, UOPLF, or the OLC, had some unique claim to leadership of the Oromo struggle. They have all swallowed their pride (which is not a small thing) and have agreed to share equally in the process of Oromia's liberation. When they have been able to do this much for the goal of Oromo liberation, the most meaningful concrete steps we can take are to make this work rather than to block it.
Now is the, time when we find out the truth about ourselves. Now is the time when we find out who among the Oromo is sincerely looking for freedom, and who simply loves a conflict. The issue now is not about the leaders. They did what they could do and they acknowledged that what they did was the people's demand. They tossed the all back to the rest of us. This is the opening we can use.
The process begun in July is still very much in flux. Last week I spoke with a good friend by phone who had attended a briefing session called by a representative of ULFO on the West Coast. My friend was in the process of filling out an ULFO survey and questionnaire which was handed out at the meeting requesting information and input on a variety of matters from the Oromo population living abroad. He was asking me about what kind of answers to give. The paper is due to be mailed in by the end of this year so that the ideas can be incorporated in ULFO's design meetings scheduled for the spring. I have not yet seen either the questionnaire or the survey, but the process of seeking input from the rest of us is a promising direction to take. This is a very encouraging development in my view. More than anything else that has been said or written by this group, this search for input strikes me as a genuine attempt to strengthen the root of the struggle. In order to make the root strong, we who have not been actively participating must participate. I assume that it would be possible to get hold of these questionnaire forms through any of the participating organizations. Hopefully this group has its own local address or website. There is a similar meeting called in my area later this month, which I hope to attend.
It looks as if each of the participating organizations is claiming responsibility for fathering this ULFO. I personally think that each of us who was holding out for Oromo unity and expressing dissatisfaction with any one of the existing fronts or associations can lay claim to this product. And each Oromo who was pushing for unity should feel responsible for this child. We will only know for certain as time passes, but right now it looks like this will be a healthy child since there are so many fathers to take care of it.
When these organizations together are asking us now for our input as individuals, let us respond thoughtfully and constructively, giving concrete suggestions about whatever concerns us. We can use this avenue to come forward and to become involved. It is my opinion that the individuals and groups that move forward to offer serious ideas and arguments for the shaping of this initiative now will make a difference for the liberation of Oromia.
My concrete suggestion, then, for how to come forward to contribute to Oromo liberation is: respond fully to the questionnaires, telling what your contribution will be. This can take any form, from saying what you are willing and ready to do, sending money donations and making clear what activities you want your money used for or what specific kind of project you are ready to raise support for, suggesting potential allies for Oromo efforts in any area where Oromia can benefit, offering ideas for the design, etc. This is how we can all give shape to this promising effort that has been launched.
If you have a skill or a vision, now is the time to come forward and to let it be a part of the basic design of the nation of Oromia. We have the chance to build our house to our own specifications. It is good for those who will live together in the house to register their needs and their ideas at an early point in the design stage. Once the construction begins, and the walls begin to go up, it will be much more difficult for the others to make the adjustment to accommodate you.
If these Oromo organizations working together are able to act on what we put forward, then we will see a way to be a part of a wider process of taking care of our own affairs.
Isn't this what self-determination is all about? We have all declared that self-determination is what we want. Let us reach out our hands and make it happen.
By H. Q. Loltu
P.O. Box 10192
Rockville, MD 20849
U.S.A