Authorities in Ethiopia’s Oromia region have called on those who joined the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) to «return to peace», while ruling out the possibility of opening a peace dialogue with the rebel group.
Hailu Adgna, head of the Oromia Communication Department, indicated that the authorities have tried to get those who joined «the terrorist force Shene» to surrender their weapons and reintegrate, before adding that several of them have surrendered.
Thus, he indicated that the OLA «has no chain of command and is divided along regionalist lines», before stressing that the security forces will maintain their operations against the rebels, whom he called «bandits», as reported by the Ethiopian daily ‘Addis Standard’.
In this way, Hailu emphasized that the regional government is working to get those who «wrongly joined» the rebel group to surrender, in a process mediated by local and community leaders.
In response, OLA spokesman Odaa Tarbi told the U.S. television network Voice of America that the group has an organized structure and accused the authorities of rejecting the possibility of initiating a peace dialogue.
Odaa recalled that the central government has reached an agreement on the cessation of hostilities with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in the framework of contacts to achieve peace after two years of war in the region of Tigray (north).
In this sense, he emphasized that the authorities «create new reasons for not sitting at the table (of negotiations) with the OLA» and warned that «the struggle will continue until the grievances of the Oromo people are answered».
The OLA, a splinter of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) after the 2018 peace deal and an ally of the TPLF in the framework of the war in Tigray, has claimed responsibility for several attacks–especially in Oromia–over the past few months. The OLF fought for decades for the secession of the Oromia region, but in 2018 announced it was giving up the armed struggle, accepting the prime minister’s offer of amnesty.
