Exploring new political alternatives for the Oromo in Ethiopia. Report from Oromo workshop and its after-effects
This report is intended to stimulate a debate on political alternatives for the Oromo, an ethnic and social group in Ethiopia. It makes documents from an Oromo conference in Bergen at CMI available for the discourse among the Oromo in exile and also in Ethiopia. It argues that it is necessary to consider alternative strategies apart from armed resistance struggle.
The contributors, scholars from different countries, with long experience in Ethiopian politics, consider it essential to discuss again issues of armed struggle and of the location of their political organisation in exile in Asmara. They strongly suggest the OLF to develop a detailed and credible, applicable plan for a political order that gives sovereignty back to the people.
The report urges the Oromo to design a model of how to organise a local administration that responds to the needs of the local people, and represents and defends their interests towards higher authorities. Such a vision is considered essential both to give the Oromo new hope, and to lend their organisation a more solid political credibility in international diplomacy, as well as among their own people.
