The Oromo Liberation Front is an Oromo nationalist political party formed in 1973 to promote self-determination for the Oromo people inhabiting today's Oromia Region and Oromia Zone in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. The OLF has offices in Addis Ababa, Washington, D.C., and Berlin, from which it operates radio stations that broadcast in Amharic and Oromo.
Ethnic violence in South Sudan has a long history among South Sudan's varied ethnic groups. South Sudan has 64 tribes with the largest being the Dinka, who constitute about 35% of the population and predominate in government. The second largest are the Nuers. Conflict is often aggravated among nomadic groups over the issue of cattle and grazing land and is part of the wider Sudanese nomadic conflicts.
The Oromo Liberation Army is an armed opposition group active in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. The OLA consist primarily of former armed members of the pre-peace deal Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) who refused to disarm out of skepticism of the peace deal, and former youth protestors who grew disillusioned with nonviolent resistance.
The 2014–2016 Oromo protests were a series of protests and resistance first sparked on 25 April 2014. The initial actions were taken in opposition to the Addis Ababa Master Plan, and resumed on 12 November 2015 by university students and farmers in the town of Ginchi, located 80 km southwest of Addis Ababa, encircled by the Oromia region. The plan was to expand the capital into the Oromia special zone, leading to fears that native Oromo farmers would lose their land and be displaced. The plan was later dropped but protests continued, highlighting issues such as marginalization and human rights. Mulatu Gemechu, deputy chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, expressed to Reuters: "so far, we have compiled a list of 33 protesters killed by armed security forces that included police and soldiers but I am very sure the list will grow". Protesters demanded social and political reforms, including an end to human rights abuses like government killings of civilians, mass arrests, government land seizures, and political marginalization of opposition groups. The government responded by restricting access to the internet and attacking as well as arresting protesters.
The Oromo conflict is a protracted conflict between the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ethiopian government. The Oromo Liberation Front formed to fight the Ethiopian Empire to liberate the Oromo people and establish an independent state of Oromia. The conflict began in 1973, when Oromo nationalists established the OLF and its armed wing, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). These groups formed in response to prejudice against the Oromo people during the Haile Selassie and Derg era, when their language was banned from public administration, courts, church and schools, and the stereotype of Oromo people as a hindrance to expanding Ethiopian national identity.
The Oromia–Somali clashes flared up in December 2016 following territorial disputes between Oromia region and Somali region's Government in Ethiopia. Hundreds of people were killed and more than 1.5 million people fled their homes. The conflict ended in 2018.
The Burayu massacre was a series of communal clashes which occurred in the vicinity of the Ethiopian town of Burayu, in the Oromia Region, on 14–16 September 2018. Individuals from the Oromo and Dorze ethnicities fought in and around Burayu, a town in Oromia Region which is located near the northwest boundary of Addis Ababa, the federal capital. Different sources cite number of civilians killed both from Oromo and non-Oromo ethnicity.
Events of 2020 in Ethiopia.
The Hachalu Hundessa riots were a series of civil unrest that occurred in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia, more specifically in the hot spot of Addis Ababa, Shashamene and Ambo following the killing of the Oromo musician Hachalu Hundessa on 29 June 2020. The riots lead to the deaths of at least 239 people according to initial police reports. Peaceful protests against Hachalu's killing have been held by Oromos abroad as well. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found in its 1 January 2021 full report that part of the killings were a crime against humanity, with deliberate, widespread systematic killing of civilians by organised groups. The EHRC counted 123 deaths, 76 of which it attributed to security forces.
The Mai Kadra massacre was a massacre and ethnic cleansing carried out during the Tigray War on 9–10 November 2020 in the town of Mai Kadra in Welkait in northwestern Ethiopia, near the Sudanese border. Responsibility was attributed to a pro-TPLF youth group and forces loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in the EHRC-OHCHR Tigray Investigation, preliminary investigations by Amnesty International, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), and interviews conducted in Mai Kadra by Agence France-Presse. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and EHRC reported that at least 5 Tigrayans were killed in Mai Kadra by Amhara militas such as Fano in retaliation. Tigrayan refugees in Sudan told multiple news outlets that Tigrayans in Mai Kadra were targeted by either Amhara militias, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), or both.
The Benishangul-Gumuz conflict was an armed conflict mostly in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region in Ethiopia that started in 2019, until peace agreement signed between the rebel groups and the government of Ethiopia in October 2022.
Events in the year 2021 in Ethiopia.
Following the 2018 dissolution of the ethnic federalist, dominant party political coalition, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, there was an increase in tensions within the country, with newly resurgent regional and ethnically based factions carrying out armed attacks on military and civilians in multiple conflicts throughout Ethiopia.
The Gambela Massacre was a three-day-long massacre in the city of Gambela targeting Anuak people in December of 2003. The massacre perpetrated by the ENDF and "highlander" militias after an ambush of ARRA employees. Calls from International community made to condemn and stop the various forms of attacks against the Anuak people- i.e. Ethiopia to take immediate action and to comply to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (“ICERD”). The calls included actions against: 1) Racial Discrimination, 2) State obligation to protect and ensure economic development, economic, social, and cultural rights, 3) Freedom of movement, 4)The right to equal treatment in the justice system, 5) Protection Against Violence, and 6) Access to Remedies and Justice for Crimes of Racial Discrimination.
The OLA insurgency is an armed conflict between the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which split from the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in 2018, and the Ethiopian government, continuing in the context of the long-term Oromo conflict, typically dated to have started with the formation of the Oromo Liberation Front in 1973.
Events in the year 2022 in Ethiopia.
Since the 1990s, the Amhara people of Ethiopia have been subject to ethnic violence, including massacres by Tigrayan, Oromo and Gumuz ethnic groups among others, which some have characterized as a genocide. Large-scale killings and grave human rights violations followed the implementation of the ethnic-federalist system in the country. In most of the cases, the mass murders were silent with perpetrators from various ethno-militant groups—from TPLF/TDF, OLF–OLA, and Gumuz armed groups.
The 1995 Ethiopian Federal Constitution formalizes an ethnic federalism law aimed at undermining long-standing ethnic imperial rule, reducing ethnic tensions, promoting regional autonomy, and upholding unqualified rights to self-determination and secession in a state with more than 80 different ethnic groups. But the constitution is divisive, both among Ethiopian nationalists who believe it undermines centralized authority and fuels interethnic conflict, and among ethnic federalists who fear that the development of its vague components could lead to authoritarian centralization or even the maintenance of minority ethnic hegemony. Parliamentary elections since 1995 have taken place every five years since enactment. All but one of these have resulted in government by members of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) political coalition, under three prime ministers. The EPRDF was under the effective control of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which represents a small ethnic minority. In 2019 the EPRDF, under Abiy, was dissolved and he inaugurated the pan-ethnic Prosperity Party which won the 2021 Ethiopian Election, returning him as prime minister. But both political entities were different kinds of responses to the ongoing tension between constitutional ethnic federalism and the Ethiopian state's authority. Over the same period, and all administrations, a range of major conflicts with ethnic roots have occurred or continued, and the press and availability of information have been controlled. There has also been dramatic economic growth and liberalization, which has itself been attributed to, and used to justify, authoritarian state policy.
On 18 June 2022, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) was accused of massacring over 500 Amhara civilians in the Gimbi county of Oromia Region, Ethiopia. Witnesses said that the OLA intentionally targeted ethnic Amhara people. This attack is part of a series of Amhara massacres that occurred in 2022.
Ethiopian Government blamed Oromo Liberation Army; OLA denied responsibility