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Ogaden Online Editorial
Dec 08, 2007
When the Ethiopian regime failed in its
carefully crafted and well-executed military
plans against the Ogaden National Liberation
Front, ONLF; when the same regime flunked
horrendously to shake the will of the people
of Ogaden with the commission of despicable
crimes against humanity;
And when the
same Ethiopian clique finally realized the
futility in its efforts to hide the
atrocities it continuously perpetrates
against the innocent Ogaden citizenry, it
has now unleashed a new wave of propaganda
on the Internet.
The hope is to
besmirch the reputation of a genuine,
reputable freedom fighting movement like
ONLF by claiming that ONLF carries out some
of the same ignoble crimes that it, the
Ethiopian regime, is accused of.
Of course if
the regime and its bevy of spokesmen were to
spearhead the campaign to disseminate false
information against ONLF, it is a foregone
conclusion that very few people will accept
the veracity of any such message. The
regime, instead smartly retorted to
employing people purporting to be from
Ogaden, or the ‘Somali Regional State –
SRS-‘ as they put it, to carry the message.
People like
Ismail Ahmed
and
Abdullahi Gariile
have already put forth allegations and
innuendos against ONLF without presenting a
single shred of credible evidence. Now the
latest salvo comes from the Wardheer News
Editorial Group –WNEG- with fallacies
possibly concocted in the drinking dens of
California.
The premise of
the arguments put forth by people like
Ahmed, Gariile, and the WNEG is very simple.
All that ills the Ogaden citizenry is
because of the struggle spearheaded by ONLF.
Heap, according to this people, all blame on
the use of the name Ogaden in the liberation
struggle.
Forget,
for the moment, they say
[the] death and mayhem,
despicable human rights abuses, intermittent
contemporary collective punishments [that]
successive Ethiopian regimes had so far
offered to these [Ogaden] residents for over
one hundred years.
Furthermore,
they postulate that the use of the word
‘Ogaden’ in any context of the struggle, let
alone as part of the name of the movement,
is ‘as dangerous as the bullets shot by
Abyssinian Highlanders’. Humour us but
PLEASE spare us your fallacies if this is
all the logic and reasoning you could summon
in defence of the indefensible Tigrian
autocracy in Addis Ababa!!!
Concocted
fallacies aside, It is quite unfathomable
how a group like WNEG who purport to have
drunk from the fountains of higher education
can claim with a straight face that
‘successive Ethiopian regimes have
christened’ the region
as Ogaden. Do we assume that Ethiopian
regimes also influenced cartographers to put
Ogaden, the very region successive Ethiopian
regimes planned to obliterate, on the global
map?
The Los Angeles locofocos
while lost in their self-delusion appear to
have forgotten basic history and lessons in
international law. They drew blank on the
fact that the Organization of African Unity,
OAU, in what is commonly dubbed as the
Cairo charter of 1964
agreed on the inviolability of the colonial
boundaries.
If colonial
borders are inviolable as per the OAU
charter and there is always a ‘global’ fear
of the slightest hint of Somali irredentist
claims, then by using the Somali word and
linking Ogaden to the Somali nation, will we
not be framing the argument in favor of the
ever-scheming Ethiopian imperialists?
All a
Somali Something or a Somali Nothing Freedom
movement will do is enable Ethiopia, as
it successfully did numerous times in the
past, to claim that the Ogaden issue is not
one of indigenous people fighting for the
right to self-determination, but one of a
territorial dispute between Somalia and
Ethiopia. Who do you think wins this
argument ten out of ten times? Glance the
Somali history for the answer if you care!
ONLF
leadership was spot on in realizing
Ethiopian trickery from the inception of
this organization. The reason the WNEG and
its ilk hear about Ogaden today is not
because ONLF is ‘killing’ the Somali
inhabitants of Ogaden, as the apologists for
the Addis Ababa autocracy would have us
believe. Nor is it a sudden infatuation the
liberal press in America has had with ONLF.
However it is
because ONLF succeeded in using the
indigenous card to press for the globally
agreed people’s inalienable right to
self-determination platform. This is why
ONLF is in a coalition with other oppressed
communities like the Oromo, Gambella, and
Sidamo et al in Ethiopia today. After all,
the Somalis in Ogaden are not the only ones
facing the malignant machinations of a
determined Tigrian hegemony in Ethiopia.
Even for a
brief moment, if we were to set aside the
territorial argument and use the Western
Somali Liberation Front, WSLF, as the banner
name that came out of the fallacies from the
Los Angeles locofocos, there are those who
will always find fault with such a name. As
happened in the 1970s when WSLF had the
military might and support of the now
defunct Somali army, there are those who
would propose Further West (Sii
Galbeed) WSLF as the ideal name for the
liberation of the Ogaden Somalis.
Instead of a
struggle for our freedom are we going to
debate endlessly a name while our people are
maimed; while our youth and elders are
extra-judicially killed; and while our women
and children are raped or hanged from trees
as is happening today in Ogaden? Instead of
learning from our history and past failures
are we going to repeat the Further West (Sii
Galbeed) fiasco of the 1970s? No. No. And No
is what we say to you, the locofoco lads.
Instead of
retorting to empty threats of possible
future prosecution – this is the West after
all; Instead of relaying the message of the
Tigrian hegemony word for word as is seen
with the repeated use of the word
‘terrorist’; Instead of relying on
propaganda provided by the enemy of the
people of Ogaden, not the clan, as was seen
with the use of the Danood video and the
selective quote from newsmen who were
seeking favors from the regime but have
since been deported from Ogaden;
And finally,
instead of writing incoherent,
contradictory, and unintelligible long
prose, WNEG and its ilk are better served to
do their homework and get on the bandwagon
of the struggle before it is too late. The O
in ONLF did not and NEVER WILL it refer to a
clan in the context of the struggle for
freedom and the search for the inalienable
right to self-determination for all Somalis
in Ogaden.
The O pertains
to the territory where ethnic Somalis reside
in the country called Ogaden. If the O in
the freedom movement stands for a clan, why
did this organization stood away from
entering the Somali civil war fray for
seventeen years? Why is it that Somalis of
all backgrounds are spearheading this
indigenous struggle to gain freedom from the
Tigrian hegemony?
We are sure
confused comrades in comfortable chairs with
fallacies concocted in the drinking dens of
California have no place in the discussion
of the legitimate struggle of the people of
Ogaden.
editorial@ogaden.com
Ogaden Online Editorial
Dec 08, 2007 | 
