The Ogaden National Liberation Front, Abbreviated ONLF; Somali: Jabhadda Waddaniga Xoreynta Ogaadeeniya, Abbrieviated JAWXO; Arabic: الجبهة الوطنية لتحرير أوجادين, romanized: Al-Jabhat al-wataniat litahrir 'Awjadin, Abbreviated ALJAWLA, is a Somali politico-military organization which aims for the right to Self-determination of the Somali People in the Ogaden or the Somali Region under the control of Ethiopia.
Arsi Oromo is an ethnic Oromo branch, inhabiting the Arsi, West Arsi and Bale Zones of the Oromia Region of Ethiopia, as well as in the Adami Tullu and Jido Kombolcha woreda of East Shewa Zone.The Arsi are made up of the Sikkoo-Mandoo branch of Barento Oromo. The Arsi in all zones speaks Oromo share the same culture, traditions and identity with other subgroup Oromo.
A state of emergency was declared on 9 October 2016 by Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, after de facto taking effect the previous day. The state of emergency authorized the military to enforce security nationwide. It imposed restrictions on freedom of speech and access to information. The duration was initially announced for six months. The Constitution of Ethiopia provides for a six-month state of emergency under certain conditions. The declaration of the state of emergency followed massive protests by the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups against the government, which was dominated by the Tigray People's Liberation Front, largely consisting of Tigrayans, a smaller ethnic group. The 2016 state of emergency was the first in about 25 years in Ethiopia. In March 2017, Ethiopia's parliament voted to extend the state of emergency for another four months.
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 Sidama National Liberation Front, also known as Sidama Liberation Front or Sidama Liberation Movement is a rebel group in the Sidama Region of Ethiopia. The SNLF allied with the Oromo Liberation Front in 2012 and the Ogaden National Liberation Front in 2015 against the Tigray People's Liberation Front.
The Oromo–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.
Jawar Mohammed is an Ethiopian political analyst and activist. One of the founders of the Oromia Media Network (OMN), Jawar was a leading organizer of the 2014–2016 Oromo protests. He has been credited with toppling the incumbent government in February 2018 and bringing Abiy Ahmed to power.
The 2021 Ethiopian general election to elect members of the House of Peoples' Representatives was held on 21 June 2021 and 30 September 2021. Regional elections were also held on those dates.
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.
A October 2019 Ethiopian clashes was a civil unrest that broke out in Addis Ababa, on 23 October 2019 and swiftly spread to entire Oromia Region after activist and Director of Oromia Media Network, Jawar Mohammed reported on his Facebook page around midnight, on Tuesday. In his post, Jawar has said that his house was surrounded by police officers and that they tried to withdraw his security guards from their posts. His VIP security detail was assigned to him by the government once he arrived from the US. According to official reports, 86 people were killed, 76 were killed by Communal violence, while 10 were security forces of Ethiopia.
Hachalu Hundessa was an Ethiopian singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Hachalu played a significant role in the 2014–2016 Oromo protests that led to Abiy Ahmed taking charge of the Oromo Democratic Party and Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, and subsequently becoming prime minister of Ethiopia in 2018.
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 Oromia Media Network (OMN) is an Oromo news channel headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.. OMN is established as a non-profit independent media outlet 501(c)(3) organization, licensed under the Federal Communications Commission funded by public donors from the broader Oromo diaspora.
Filsan Abdullahi Ahmed, also called Filsan Abdi, is an Ethiopian activist and politician from the Somali Region. She is a founder of the Nabad project, a satellite television station for promoting communication and peace in Somali Region and between the Somali and Oromo communities.
Bekele Gerba is an Ethiopian politician and activist. He is a member of Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) which promotes political change by nonviolence. He was imprisoned from 2011 to 2015, 2015–2018 and again on 30 June 2020 following the Hachalu Hundessa riots.
The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) (Oromo: Koongiresii Federalawaa Oromoo, KFO; is a political party based in Ethiopia that was created in 2012 from the merger of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement and Oromo People's Congress.
The ongoing Ethiopian civil conflict began with the 2018 dissolution of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (ERPDF), an ethnic federalist, dominant party political coalition. After the 20-year border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a decade of internal tensions, two years of protests, and a state of emergency, Hailemariam Desalegn resigned on 15 February 2018 as prime minister and EPRDF chairman, and there were hopes of peace under his successor Abiy Ahmed. However, war broke out in the Tigray Region, with resurgent regional and ethnic factional attacks throughout Ethiopia. The civil wars caused substantial human rights violations, war crimes, and extrajudicial killings.
Abiy Ahmed is currently the third serving Prime Minister of Ethiopia. In 2018, he became the first ever Oromo descent to assume the role of prime minister in the history of Ethiopia. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in his second year as a prime minister of Ethiopia in 2019 becoming the eighth African laureates to win the award for peace.
Persecution of Amhara people 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.
