Some recently released wikileaks cables on the OLF:
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NAIROBI 004377
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/11/2016
TAGS: PINR PREL PGOV ET KE
SUBJECT: BORANA PARAMOUNT CHIEF ON THE OROMO LIBERATION
FRONT AND ETHIOPIAN INFLUENCE
REF: NAIROBI 4313
Classified By: PolCouns Andre for reasons 1.4 (B,D).
¶1. (C) Summary: Paramount Chief Abdisalan claims that
Ethiopia has an active informant network in northern Kenya's
Moyale District targeting OLF supporters and that many Kenyan
officials in Moyale are on Ethiopia's payroll. He believes
that the leadership class of Moyale District supports
Ethiopia while "the Borana in the bush strongly favor the
OLF." Peace initiatives addressing chronic ethnic conflicts
in the district are undermined by OLF hired-guns. End Summary.
¶2. (U) PolCouns met with Paramount Chief of the Borana
Ibrahim Abdisalan to discuss the presence of Oromo Liberation
Front (OLF) fighters in Moyale and Marsabit districts of
northern Kenya. Note that Kenya's Borana and Ethiopia's
Oromo are essentially the same ethnic group.
¶3. (C) Abdisalan claimed that OLF allies in the lower rungs
of the Moyale District administration and police services
gave OLF fighters advance warning about a recent attempt by
the Government of Kenya (GoK) to identify and arrest OLF
militants. The OLF fighters dispersed from the towns to
remote villages and camps in the bush. The GoK made
indiscriminate arrests of Ethiopian Oromos who could not
produce Kenyan identity papers. According to Abdisalan, very
few of those arrested as suspected OLF militants had any
association with the OLF.
¶4. (C) Abdisalan asserted that some Borana leaders are
actively recruiting current and former OLF fighters to assist
them in their conflict with the Gabra. (NOTE: The Borana
and Gabra have a long-standing and often bloody feud
revolving around competition for pasturage and water sources.
END NOTE) Attempts by Gabra and Borana elders to make peace
are frustrated by these guns-for-hire who create incidents to
re-ignite conflict whenever peace appears to be at hand.
Their motive is job security.
¶5. (C) Commenting on Ethiopian activity in Moyale District,
Abdisalan said that Ethiopian military incursions are less
frequent than in the past (see reftel for the views of
Moyale's District Commissioner), but that Ethiopia's
informant network is quite active. He alleged that
informants on Ethiopia's payroll finger individuals who
support the OLF with food and shelter. Sometimes, he
maintained, these informants will denounce their landlord or
a personal rival with no connection to the OLF for purely
personal reasons. Consequences of denunciation can be dire,
including "disappearances" and beatings. Abdisalan said that
the GoK's Moyale administration goes out of its way to avoid
confronting Ethiopia over these practices. He insisted that
many Moyale administrative and security officials are in
Ethiopia's employ.
¶6. (C) When PolCouns asked Abdisalan whether Kenya or
Ethiopia had greater influence in Moyale District, he replied
that the majority of elders of the district's three main
communities, Borana, Gabra and ethnic Somali (Gurreh), "are
answerable to Ethiopia." He attributed their allegiance to
Ethiopia's program of inducements and threats. He claimed
that the same pattern applied to neighboring Marsabit
District as concerns the Borana and Gabra, but that this was
not true of the Rendille community of Marsabit "since they
are not represented on the Ethiopian side of the border."
Abdisalan noted that while the Borana leadership and senior
levels of GoK administration in Moyale and Marsabit districts
are firmly in Ethiopia's camp, "the Borana in the bush
strongly favor the OLF."
PolCouns met with Sheikh Abdinassir, a former
International Visitor grantee, to discuss security issues in
Kenya's Isiolo, Moyale and Marsabit districts bordering
Ethiopia. Abdinassir is an influential Muslim cleric and
scholar among Kenya's Borana ethnic group. The Borana make
up about one percent of Kenya's population and about ten
percent of Kenya's Muslims. They occupy about 20 percent of
Kenyan territory in the dry, pastoralist and historically
neglected north central part of the country. The Borana are
closely related to Ethiopia's Oromo community. They are
often in conflict with the Gabra over scarce resources. The
Gabra and Borana are both pastoralists and are close
socio-linguistic cousins. The Gabra, outnumbered by the
Borana within Kenya, often call for reinforcements from their
ethnic brethren in Ethiopia during times of conflict.
¶3. (SBU) Abdinassir related coordinated efforts by Ethiopian
and Kenyan officials to dissuade Borana elders in Kenya from
supporting Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) militants (an
Ethiopian rebel group). Many Kenyan Borana traditional
leaders attended a pastoralist conference in Yabelo, southern
Ethiopia in April. At that conference, according to
Abdinassir, Ethiopian Borana/Oromo leaders emphasized that
significant new development resources were coming into their
region negating the need for OLF militancy.
¶4. (SBU) These Kenyan Borana leaders told Abdinassir that
they would attempt to rein in the OLF militants who take
refuge in their villages on the Kenyan side of the border,
but that they would not be able to disarm them. The leaders
pointed out to Abdinassir that they have little or no control
over armed fighters since they themselves are unarmed. A
truce is the best they can manage.
¶2. (SBU) Kenya's Provincial Commissioner (PC) for Eastern
Province, which includes a 350 kilometer stretch of border
from Lake Turkana to Moyale, spoke with PolCouns about
security and administrative coordination with his Ethiopian
counterparts. Initially, he spoke only about enhanced
coordination at the local level on the issue of preventing
Gabra/Borana (Oromo) communal violence in the border region.
He did not respond to PolCouns inquiries about the presence
of Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) fighters in the region. He
noted an increased tempo of meetings among Kenyan and
Ethiopian local officials and between those officials and
community elders, confirming much of the information relayed
in ref A. These meetings were paying off as tensions between
the two communities had reduced considerably. He further
noted that border tensions evident during a polcouns trip to
Moyale in July 2006 had dissipated. This observation is
confirmed by other interlocutors resident in Moyale.
¶3. (C) Eventually, the PC relented and spoke frankly about
the OLF issue. He expressed frustration that despite
demonstrated Kenyan security cooperation in identifying and
arresting OLF fighters on sabbatical in Kenya, the Ethiopians
still took unannounced unilateral actions violating the
border. He spoke of a recent incident when a "pro-government
Oromo militia" crossed into Kenya "occupied one of our Borana
villages, interrogated the population, then kidnapped several
Kenyan suspects." The PC claimed, "when we protested, they
released some of the captives. From their condition we could
see they had been tortured." Further Kenyan protests
produced "Ethiopian assurances that the militia commander
responsible for the incident had been 'suspended,' but we do
not know what this means nor do we find that sufficient."
(SBU) Vincent Okioma, District Commissioner for the Moyale
District of Kenya's Eastern Province, spoke with PolCouns
about the activities of OLF fighters and Ethiopian military
in his region. Okioma frankly admitted that "Moyale district
is a sanctuary for OLF fighters." He stressed that the
Government of Kenya does not support the OLF, but noted that
many OLF fighters have relatives among the Moyale District's
Borana community. "When they visit their relations we cannot
tell them apart from the local population." (Note: Kenya's
Borana community is for all practical purposes identical to
Ethiopia's Oromo community. End Note.) Okioma insisted that
"when we are able to identify OLF fighters, we arrest them."
He noted that when his administration moves against OLF
elements, Borana politicians and community leaders "accuse us
of political persecution." (Note: The Borana community in
Moyale District elected the KANU candidate in the July
by-election, rejecting the pro-government NARC-Kenya
candidate. End Note.)
¶3. (SBU) Okioma claimed that the Ethiopian military "ignores
the border when in hot pursuit of OLF fighters. They do not
even bother telling us they are coming over the border."
Okioma went on to say that "our problems with the Ethiopians
are at the level of the [Oromiya] regional government. The national
government says all the right things, but the regional
government administration is hostile and aggressive toward
us. They falsely accuse us of supporting the OLF." Okioma
alleged that some former OLF fighters engage in banditry on
the Kenyan side of the border for personal gain, while
current fighters do the same to raise funds for their cause.
SUBJECT: OLF CLAIMS TO BE FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY
Classified By: Ambassador Ronald K. McMullen for Reason 1.4 (d)
¶1. (C) Summary: The Chairman of the Oromo Liberation Front
(OLF), Daawud Ibsa, believes his organization's support among
Ethiopia's largest ethnic group bodes well for the OLF's
chances in the event of fair elections in Ethiopia. He
complained to the ambassador June 19 that PM Meles has failed
to implement Ethiopia's progressive constitution and has
systematically centralized power into his own hands and that
of his political party, to the detriment of the Oromo people
and democracy in Ethiopia. Ibsa claimed the OLF is engaged
in armed struggle to promote the self-determination of the
Oromo people as envisaged in the Ethiopian constitution and
is militarily active on "Oromia's" western, southern, and
eastern fronts. The ambassador urged the OLF to desist from
armed struggle and, if it would not, to at least forgo acts
of terrorism. End summary.
¶2. (C) Courteous Chairman
--------------------------
OLF Chairman Daawud Ibsa, accompanied by the Washington-based
AmCit director of the Oromo Relief Association (ORA), paid a
courtesy call on the ambassador June 19 at the embassy. The
Chairman provided background on the OLF's history and
policies, emphasizing the OLF's coalition with the Tigrayan
Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Eritrean Peoples
Liberation Front (headed by Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afwerki,
respectively), to oust Ethiopia's Mengistu regime. Ibsa said
he was a charter member of the OLF's youth wing in the 1970s
and was elected chairman of the OLF in 1999. He spoke
English well and was polished in manner and dress.
¶3. (C) Falling-out with Meles
------------------------------
Despite being comrades in arms in the 1980s and early 1990s,
Ibsa said the OLF broke with the TPLF after the "snap
elections" of 1992, in which the OLF's strong base of support
in Addis Ababa and elsewhere shocked and scared Meles. Given
that the Oromos constitute an estimated 40% of Ethiopia's
population, Ibsa continued, combined with the OLF's
demonstrated grass-roots support, Meles realized the OLF
posed a clear threat to continued TPLF rule if a functioning
democratic system were implemented. Ibsa claimed that after
the TPLF-OLF break, Meles and Isaias cooperated against the
OLF until the start of the 1998-2000 Border War.
¶4. (C) Democracy, the OLF's Route to Power
------------------------------------------
Ibsa urged the USG to do more than criticize the Government
of Ethiopia's human rights abuses against the Oromo people
and others. He argued that the United States should press
Meles to allow true democracy and the full implementation of
Ethiopia's federal constitution, based on ethnic regions, as
this would be the most effective way to mitigate human rights
abuses and provide for good governance. Ibsa reasoned that
because many Oromos support the OLF, and that the Oromos
constitute a least a plurality of Ethiopia's population, then
the OLF would likely be the largest political party if free
elections were held.
¶5. (C) ...But Armed Struggle for Now
-----------------------------------
The OLF chairman said his organization has turned to armed
struggle to force the TPLF to allow the Oromo people to
exercise their right of self-determination as promised in the
federal constitution. Ibsa claimed the OLF is militarily
active, mentioning bases in Kenya and Sudan. The ambassador
advised the OLF to give up on armed struggle and work toward
democracy peacefully. Ibsa looked dubious but did not
comment. The ambassador then cautioned Ibsa about severe
consequences for the OLF if it were to engage in acts of
terrorism. He mentioned the May 20 bus bombing in Addis
Ababa in which an AmCit, among others, was murdered. Ibsa
replied that the TPLF is trying to paint the OLF with the
terrorism brush, but the OLF is staunchly against all acts of
terrorism. The OLF chairman warned that "Ethiopian brutality
in the Ogaden and Oromia" is providing fertile ground for
extremists advocating terrorism.
ASMARA 00000334 002 OF 002
¶6. (C) Sources of OLF Support
-----------------------------
Ibsa said that in the past USAID provided support to the OLF,
but now the organization relies primarily on donations from
abroad, including from Norwegian Church Aid and the Lutheran
World Federation. The OLF (and/or the ORA) has offices in
many countries with Oromo emigrant populations. He said
Eritrea permitted the OLF to hold its 2004 General Conference
in Eritrea, as well as a meeting of its Central Committee in
March, 2008. We note the GSE allows the OLF to have a
bare-bones office in a suburb of Asmara and that Ibsa travels
on an Eritrean passport.
¶7. (C) Comment: The OLF, as described to us by Chairman
Daawud Ibsa, faces three big challenges. First, the OLF
needs to generate some hope of a democratic opening in
Ethiopia, given the organization's belief in its promising
prospects in a fair election. Second, as Eritrean
hospitality always comes with strings attached, OLF members
need to avoid being fully captured by Eritrea for use as
cannon fodder or bomb planters in another proxy war between
Isaias and Meles. Third, being a traditional
ethno-nationalist movement with a large Muslim base, the OLF
needs to provide young, disillusioned Oromos a political home
more attractive than that proffered by firebrand Islamists
who have made substantial inroads elsewhere in the region.
All three challenges, from Embassy Asmara,s perspective,
appear daunting, although we defer to Embassy Addis Ababa for
a more thorough analysis of the OLF and its future.
¶3. (C) The OLF Military Effort
-------------------------------
Daawud claimed the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) had "thousands
and thousands" of rcuits, but washmstrung by lack of
supplies. He said the OLA had mounted some significant
guerrilla actions on "the eastern front in the past two to
three weeks," but being headquartered in Eritrea, which was
not contiguous to Oromia, created OLF logistical and command
and control difficulties. The chairman maintained that
despite the armed struggle, the OLF was committed to
democracy. He provided no detail on any potential Eritrean
support to the OLF.
¶7. (C) COMMENT
--------------
Many of the OLF's leaders are aging Protestants presiding
over a rank and file that is largely young and Muslim, and
who might have been attracted to General Kamal's more
aggressive line. It is odd that the Eritrean government,
always keen stir up trouble in Ethiopia, didn't intervene to
help General Kamal unseat the democratically oriented OLF
leadership. One explanation might be that Daawud Ibsa led
the OLF column that marched into Addis Ababa in 1991, along
with other rebel groups supported by Isaias Afwerki's EPLF.
Ties and loyalties established in "the Struggle" remain a
paramount dynamic in Eritrean politics. Perhaps Isaias has a
soft spot for his former OLF brother in arms. End Comment.
^
American ambassador to Eritrea is a funny guy.
