'We Say They Are Neftenya; They Say We Are Olf': A

CHAPTER 7

‘WE SAY THEY ARE NEFTENYA; THEY SAY WE ARE OLF’: A POST-ELECTION ASSESSMENT OF ETHNICITY, POLITICS AND AGE-SETS IN OROMIYA

Charles Schaefer

‘We say they are neft enya; they say we are OLF’ was repeated verbatim by two interviewees two hundred kilometers apart and in radically dif- ferent circumstances, yet it communicates the dipoles of politics in Western Oromiya region of Ethiopia in the months following the May 2005 elections. In one instance, it was used to explain why police and other armed men broke down the door to a classroom and proceeded to indiscriminately beat male and female high school students.1 In the other instance, the phrase was used by a businessman of mixed Tigrean/ Eritrean ethnicity to explain the increased hostility he feels his neigh- bours hold towards him.2 Th e acrimony imputed in the phrase is borne out in the actions of government forces, particularly the Federal Police and Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), against the Oromo people for politics in Ethiopia is dissolving into the zero- sum battle over power that characterises much of Africa. Yet focusing exclusively on the polarities ignores the enormous gains made in the democratically contested middle ground of the 2005 elections and mis- represents attempts to fi nd workable solutions and political compro- mise. Th e focus of this chapter is precisely this contested, at other times negotiated, middle ground between the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolu- tionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and opposition parties as related to ethnicity and politics. Neft enya, literally ‘gunmen’, harkens back to the nineteenth century when Emperor Menilek’s northern armies conquered southern Ethiopia and left behind soldier-settlers to administer the regions (Donham and James 1986). Th ese neft enya were rewarded with legal

1 Interview, Nekempte, 15 December 2005. In cases where the security of the inter- viewee may have been at risk, names and other identifying details have been omitted. 2 Interview, Dembi Dollo, 12 December 2005. 194 charles schaefer rights to exploit the indigenous population inhabiting large parcels of land. Land was not of utmost value; it was the peasants residing on the land who, through coercion, provided labour (Tesema Ta’a 1986; Guluma Gemeda 2005). Th us an ethnic divide emerged and continues today, with non-Oromos residing in traditionally Oromo areas viewed as neft enya, an image actively propagated by Oromo opposition parties during the election campaign to discredit the EPRDF. Th e Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) is the oldest political party rep- resenting the Oromo people. Th e OLF was a comrade-in-arms along- side the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) in the military struggle to unseat Mengistu’s Derg. Th ough together victorious, through various misun- derstandings over democracy, federalism and power-sharing prior to the 1992 election, the OLF withdrew from the elections and was imme- diately declared an illegal party by the triumphal EPRDF. Blocked from participating in the political fray, the OLF has mounted armed resist- ance on occasion and in certain locales, while also attempting to remain a party wedded to democratic ideals; needless to say, the schizophrenic nature of the OLF has confused the international community and played into the hands of the EPRDF. Yet despite all, as conditions con- tinue to deteriorate for the Oromo people, the OLF assumes almost a messianic promise of deliverance in spite of the fact that the OLF is wholly underfunded and lacks a cohesive political agenda. For a person to be called neft enya is to be castigated as an outsider, an imperialist; for a person to be called OLF is to be viewed as someone willing to subvert the constitution – in post-9/11 discourse, a terrorist. With the heightened tension existing in Western Oromiya (henceforth this region will be referred to as Wallega, the provincial name used under former regimes), where Federal Police, in bluish-camoufl aged uni- forms, patrol town streets, and groupings of local police, party cadres and local militias perpetuate abuses and arouse fear throughout the countryside, the real issues concerning power and governance tend to be overlooked. Th is chapter will dissect the ethnic divide in terms of electoral politics and traditional authority structures with specifi c attention given to the relationship between Oromos and northerners who have settled in parts of Oromiya. Th e second section will analyse party politics following the elections and how the situation on the ground has moulded the contending parties’ platforms as they react to a legacy of northern