By The Star Staff Writer
MOGADISHU – A Somali separatist group in Ethiopia announced a “unilateral ceasefire” on Sunday and urged the Ethiopian government to “halt” all actions that could spoil the ongoing peace process between the two sides.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front said it had reached the decision after considering the call by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for peace and the positive steps he took to find a viable and “lasting solution” for the Somali region in Ethiopia.
“The Ogaden National Liberation Front declares Unilateral ceasefire from today – 12:00 pm, August 12, 2018 that and will cease all military and security operations directed against the Ethiopian Security Apparatus in the Somali territory (Ogaden), until negotiated comprehensive cessation of hostilities is reached with the Ethiopian government,” the group said in its statement.
It added: “ONLF calls upon the Ethiopian government to reciprocate in kind in order to halt any further acts that could hamper the initiated peace process and hasten the proposed peace talks.”
The group’s declaration will mean that its forces will freeze their military attacks against Ethiopian security agents based in the Somali region. ONLF — which was on Ethiopia’s terror list until last month — has since 1984 been agitating for the rights of ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia to self-determination.
A “high-level delegation” from the group has arrived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to meet with “officials, members and communities from the Somali region,” said ONLF in a twitter message late on Sunday.
Representatives from the separatist group and Ethiopian government officials have been holding intermittent peace talks in recent years in neighboring Kenya, but they made little headway in narrowing their core differences. ONLF always argued that the Somali region had “never been historically or politically part of Ethiopia” and therefore should be allowed to secede, while Addis Ababa wanted the territory to remain under its control.
However, Ethiopia’s new reformist prime minister, Ahmed, who came to power in April, has raised hopes of peaceful settlement of the long-running conflict in the eastern part of the country. He urged all armed groups in Ethiopia to resolve their differences with Addis Ababa through peaceful means.
Last week, another armed rebel group, the Oromo liberation Front, which was fighting for the ethnic Oromo group’s self-determination since 1993, has agreed to end its armed struggle and conduct its activities inside the country peacefully.
The Ethiopian government has removed ONLF and OLF along with the Ginbot 7 from its terror list last month.
In its statement, ONLF said there’s an “urgent need to foster a climate of peace that can assist all ONLF, the Ethiopian government and other stakeholders in resolving the long-standing conflict in the Somali territory (Ogaden)”
The federal government deployed its army in Jigjiga last week, sparking a chaos across the Somali region that killed dozens of people and destroyed properties, including churches.
ONLF decried the army’s incursion and called on Prime Minister Ahmed “to immediately halt all military activities in the region” and “initiate a peace process inclusive of all stakeholders.”
The region’s president, Abdi Mohamud Omar — popularly known as Abdi Iley, the one-eyed in English — has since resigned, and his party appointed Ahmed Abdi Mohamed, a youthful former minister, in his place. The federal government airlifted Omar, whose administration was accused of egregious violations of human rights Addis Ababa and hasn’t so far released any information about him.
The relationship between Omar and the federal government was fraught with tensions since Ahmed’s administration replaced the tyrannical regime that was dominated by the ethnic minority group of Tigray, an ally of Omar.
The deployment of the federal army in Jigjiga, the capital city of the Somali region, has worsened the relationship between Somali and Oromo communities, with Somali officials portraying the army as Oromo militias trying to occupy the Somali region.
The ethnic Somalis living in the region — known both as Western Somalia and Ogaden — never voluntarily accepted Ethiopia’s rule since the 19th century, when the British government handed over the territory to Ethiopia.
Somalia and Ethiopia went to war over the area several times, most notably in 19977, when Somali forces briefly retook the region before Ethiopians pushed them back with the help of the Soviet Union and soldiers from Cuba.
The Somalia government has not officially renounced the territory, whose dispute still remains unresolved despite the relatively good relationship between Mogadishu and Addis Ababa. Ethiopian troops are a part of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia.
ONLF rejects the notion that its conflict with Ethiopia is “a dispute between the Republic of Somalia and Ethiopia.”
“It is one of the visages of European colonialism in Africa,” it said on its website. “It is the cause of a nation betrayed by Britain and other colonial powers and annexed by Ethiopia in a manner contrary to the agreements concluded between the Ogaden people and Britain and in conflict with International Law and the charter of the United Nations.”
The struggle for the region’s self-determination, ONLF said in its political objectives, was based on the Somali people’s “rejection of the unauthorized disposition of their territory by the British Government; and subsequently on their constant appeals to obtain the right of self determination based on the principle that the people of Ogaden alone reserve the right to determine their political future.”
On Sunday, ONLF said “any unilateral political or military decisions by all stakeholders” could endanger the stability of the Somali region and derail the proposed peace process.