- Oromo Liberation Army sees the “Proliferation of Kidnappings” as an offshoot systemic problem
- Accuses government in the planning and execution of kidnappings in Oromia region
borkena
Toronto – It was only two days ago that the Ethiopian government indirectly admitted the recent kidnappings of three busses of passengers who were traveling from the Amhara region to the capital Addis Ababa when the Oromia regional government claimed that had secured the release of 160 university students. Parents are disputing that the students are not released.
The Ethiopian government, like some students who managed to escape from the kidnapping, blamed “Shane” – a militant ethnic Oromo Nationalist group that calls itself Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) for the recent kidnappings.
On the other hand, the OLA is pointing fingers at Abiy Ahmed’s ruling Prosperity Party as the cause for what it called a “proliferating kidnappings.”
A Press Release from OLF-OLA High Command said “…the recent incidents of kidnappings around Garba Guracha of North Shoa appears to have been orchestrated by state intelligence officers and lower-level party cadres.”
The OLA sees three actors who are engaged in the practice of kidnapping and it appears that it has absolved itself from it. The primary cause, as OLA, seems to think is systemic at the government level. Ruling party cadres/intelligence officials and jobless and hopeless youths are also actors engaged in kidnappings that are now increasingly looking like a business enterprise.
“The Prosperity Party (PP) political leadership uses kidnapping and ransom as a political device to vilify its opponents. These are planned by Koree Negeenya at the regional level and executed by Shimiles-led Shane robbers (state-led OLA-counterfeits) across Oromia,” OLA said in its statement. Koree Negeenya is a secretive killing squad organized by the ruling government in the Oromia region of Ethiopia, as revealed by a Reuters report published in February this year.
The OLA also alleges lower-level ruling party cadres and intelligence officers undertake kidnappings for “economic reasons,” and it thinks that this aspect is overlooked.
“Those who claim to administer the country must demonstrate a commitment to face systemic issues that permeate the country’s seemingly undefeatable political and security challenges, beyond the nominal call for peace which hitherto amounts only to the surrender of resistance movements,” OLA High Command said as a recommendation to tackle the problem.
Despite the apparent move to absolve itself from kidnappings in the Oromia region, the OLA itself has been repeatedly linked to kidnappings and massacres across the Oromia region of Ethiopia over the past five or so years.
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I ain’t surprised by this boldface denial. There is no one single ‘liberation’ army. The rogue band thugs who roam in Shewa region don’t take orders from those wandering aimlessly in Wallagaa. There must be more than 5 groups who claim to be ‘liberation army’. Don’t you dare call these scabs ‘Oromos’. Don’t even think about it. It is the same situation with the groups in Amhara region. There is no centralized command which one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing. You add a weak or unwilling regime in Addis/Finfinne to the mix, innocent citizens are the ones who have been paying the heavy price. This savage act of kidnappings will be even more common. What left me seething in anger is, what these thugs are doing to the female abductees. They rape them in turns. It is reported that the leader of the thugs in Wallagaa had taken some of those kidnapped years ago as his mistresses. By force that is. If the female abductees refuses that has proven to be a death sentence. So, don’t you dare call these hoodlums ‘liberation’ army.
Having said that, I would not be surprised if some of those within the apparatus of the regional government have somehow a hand in this type of repugnant crime. It could turn out to be a lucrative business by taking a cut of the ransom money. In any case what a nightmare for the innocent citizens.
Am I being told that some individuals with the arteries of the regime don’t have a hand in this heinous crime? Look at it this way. If the thugs who carried out the kidnapping live way out in the wilderness, there is no way they could be able to know a bus or buses loaded with students was/were heading to the area. Somebody within the regime working in the area with advance knowledge of the bus itinerary might have tipped the goons with the exact locations and arrival time. That is what makes both Oromia and Amhara completely lawless regions. Such chaos have history of changing normal men into totally abnormal men. In areas where armed groups roam in both Oromia and Amhara regions the normal ups and downs of everyday life have completely departed and replaced by constant fear, danger, suspicion and rage.
This is what my relatives who live in the capital Addis/Finfinne have told me about the extent of hardship citizens both in Amhara and Oromia are facing on top of the hardship they face just make a living. If you are one of those citizens in rural areas, consider yourself shot dead if you have an attractive daughter or even a young attractive wife. The armed thugs of the so-called ‘liberation’ army or ‘rebels’ will shoot you between the eyes and take away your daughter and wife. As I have said umpteen times in the past, there has never been anything that came out considered to be good out of armed struggle in our times. They have to be despotic and rule with the power that comes out of the barrels of their guns during their days in the bushes and that is what they bring with them if they succeed in their schemes. You want proof? All you have to do is just look around.