"Negotiated Surrender" : ODF's Fundamentally Flawed Approach to Conducting Oromo Struggle

A political group can follow a method of struggle that it deems can help accomplish its goals or political program, but that method can be fundamentally flawed when the context of the struggle and power relations (asymmetry) between groups are overlooked, misunderstood or misapplied for any reason.  When this happens, individual leaders can take a struggle in radically impossible direction compromising the well-being, security and existence of a nation. 

The recent rejection of the Oromo Democratic Front by Ethiopia's EPRDF regime highlights the fundamental flaw, not in principle, but in reality of the impracticality of the so-called "peace talks"  in an environment where there is an astronomical power imbalance between the ruling group and rebels or opposition.  The first duty of a well-meaning organization should be to alter that power imbalance and force a dictatorship to the table. The group's leaders are no strangers to miscalculations and poor planning.  

 Why does not Lenco Lata and ODF learn from the failure of OLF-EPRDF/TPLF "peace talks"  of the 1990s, which forced them to leave the Transitional Government of Ethiopia in the first place ?  This is a particularly important question because the group is repeating the same approach that they know does not work in the context of the current power imbalance. What is the point of being called a "veteran politician" and the founder of this and that if one fails to learn from the past and keeps taking people on the path to another collective loss? 

A statement issued by the ODF leadership shows the ODF "delegation"  headed by Lenco Lata was expelled from Ethiopia after several days in Finfinne. Some people say there was delegation at all; just the president of the organization who was stopped and refouled from the airport. TPLF was not even interested in the "negotiated surrender" ODF leaders were offering it in the name of kick-starting phantom "stalled peace talks"--stalled for 23 years?!   Being rejected when one willfully travels 7000 miles to surrender is by itself an extremely humiliating experience, but that is beside the point because they don't feel humiliated at all.  But, the point is the methods of struggle pursued by ODF is less grounded in the reality of Ethiopia's cruel Realpolitk and more planted in utopia about what is possible and what is impossible.   

Even if we judge the group by the method of struggle it has chosen ( undefined "peaceful struggle"), it does not meet the standards for legitimate peace talks: the presence of a deadlock between parties, neutral location, and third party brokers. The move was more like a friend visiting a friend over a weekend or Lenco going to a belated Meles Zenawi wake/ funeral. In this situation, peace talks or negotiations were  obviously the wrong move because  EPRDF has little incentive to talk to anyone given the power asymmetry.  Scholars of non-violence struggle comment that when major non-negotiable principles and interests of a group are likely to be sacrificed, including the group's identity, and the right to self-government, negotiations are dangerous and irrelevant: 

When the issues at stake are fundamental, affecting religious principles, issues of human freedom, or the whole future development of the society, negotiations do not provide a way of reaching a mutually satisfactory solution. On some basic issues there should be no compromise. Only a shift in power relations in favor of the democrats can adequately safeguard the basic issues at stake (emphasis added). Such a shift will occur through struggle, not negotiations. This is not to say that negotiations ought never to be used. The point here is that negotiations are not a realistic way to remove a strong dictatorship... When the dictatorship is strong but an irritating resistance exists, the dictators may wish to negotiate the opposition into surrender under the guise of making “peace.” The call to negotiate can sound appealing, but grave dangers can be lurking within the negotiating room (Sharp 2010: 10-11).    

If EPRDF/TPLF accepted ODF's offer to perform  a ritual for "negotiated surrender", we could say a negotiated surrender happened, but luckily it did not. If it did, it could just legitimize the dictatorship. It is still a proof that ODF is unreliable in the Oromo struggle since the intention to surrender was there.  The perks Lenco Lata got out of the trip to Finfinne was a couple of editorial articles in The Ethiopian Reporter where he tried to sell himself as as a "moderate" with alternative political program and downgraded the Oromo aspiration to collective self-determination to a cultural and linguistic problem.   

 By rising above region, religion and politics, the Oromo people need to understand political groups and leaders that are willing to surrender their interests for personal power and glory . As for peaceful struggle, ODF is just a redundant organization since the home-grown Oromo Federalist Congress can do a better job of peaceful struggle. 

However,  ODF has the right to compete to become OPDO number two. The Oromo people can choose not to support an unstable organization with a fundamentally flawed method of struggle. Being informed is important to make those crucial choices.  

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