Page 100 - Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization

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The Impact of U.S. Foreign Policy on the Oromo National Struggle
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recognizing regional rights and ethnic distinctions” as “a natural outgrowth of . . .
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Just as they are justified to rule and dominate
[their] view of Ethiopian history.”
other peoples by their sense of “fairness,”Tigrayans are also seen as pro-West because
“they do not try to claim they are Arabs and they do not seek the support of Arab
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governments,” according to Henze. Implicit in these arguments is that other peoples
similar to Oromos are pro-Arab and anti-West and lack a sense of fairness to deal with
other peoples.Based on these false assumptions,U.S.foreign policy experts like Henze
advised the American government to invest in the TPLF and dismissed the relevance
of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). In Henze’s words,“The claims of the Oromo
Liberation Front of widespread organization and effectiveness inside Ethiopia cannot
be substantiated by firm evidence. Oromia as a territorial entity has no meaning inside
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Ethiopia. It is an exile construct.” Based on false information about Oromos and the
OLF or because of his support for the Tigrayans and the TPLF, Henze made these er-
roneous conclusions.The American effort to overthrow the government of Mengistu
Haile Mariam and support of the TPLF between 1976 and 1991 was influenced by
such biased assumptions.
With the assistance of several forces,such as the United States and the Eritrean Peo-
ple’s Liberation Front, the Tigrayan-led Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democra-
tic Front overthrew the weakened military regime in 1991 and formed a transitional
government by signing a Transitional Charter with other political organizations, of
which the OLF was the largest and most prominent. But within less than a year, the
Tigrayan-led regime violated the Charter and established a Tigrayan ethnocratic mi-
nority government, justifying its action through the discourse of “democracy” 19 and
“ethnic federalism.” Since 1991, the United States has cemented its relationship with
Tigrayan state elites at the cost of the colonized Oromo ethnonational majority and
other groups who have been systematically denied meaningful access to Ethiopian
state power. Consequently, the U.S. foreign policy toward Ethiopia has had a serious
negative impact on the Oromo struggle for self-determination and democracy.
By signing the Transitional Charter in 1991 with the Tigrayan-led regime, the
Oromo political leadership tacitly—or effectively—accepted the U.S. policy of pol-
yarchy or elite democracy. 20 However, by ignoring the Oromo leadership, the U.S.
government endorsed the violation of this Charter in 1992 by the Tigrayan-led
Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. Ignoring the human rights vio-
lations of Oromos and other nations, George E. Moose, former Assistant Secretary of
State, argued in 1994 that the Meles regime “for the first time in decades, has brought
general peace and stability to Ethiopia.Though not sufficient, these conditions are es-
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sential for progress in many areas, including human rights.” Despite the fact that the
Oromo national movement does not have any support from Arab and African coun-
tries, U.S. foreign policy elites have tried to link the Oromo national struggle to Mus-
lim forces that they consider “terrorist” to discredit the Oromo struggle for
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self-determination and democracy. Despite the fact that the offices of the OLF and
the Oromo Relief Association have been closed since 1992 in the Sudan by the col-
laboration between the Ethiopian government and the Sudanese government, Susan
Rice, then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, argued that the Oromo
movement is supported by the Sudanese National Islamic Front regime and destabi-
lizes Ethiopia.This regime has been against the Oromo national struggle, because the
Oromo leadership does not accept any religious ideology.When the Sudan supported
the TPLF and EPLF full-heartedly, its support for the OLF was minimal. Susan Rice