Issue No. 257

Rising tensions in the SRS: The ONLF vs Addis

Political tensions in Ethiopia's long-marginalised Somali Regional State (SRS) continue to escalate amid the worsening relations between the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and Addis. After months of strained ties, Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) General Staff Chief Berhanu Jula criticised the ONLF in early September, calling it an "enemy of the Ethiopian state" and implying that Egypt founded the group to destabilise the country. The ignored requests for Jula to withdraw the comments have helped sparked a political crisis amid broader discontent within the ONLF and the SRS over perceived encroachments on regional autonomy, as well as the destabilising Addis-Mogadishu conflict.

Formed in 1984, the ONLF is an ethnic Somali movement that conducted a guerrilla war against successive central administrations, ostensibly on behalf of those mostly living in the territory now known as the 'Somali Regional State.' For those in Addis, the SRS can be perceived as a potential threat to the centre and Ethiopia's stability, in large part due to its close clan and political relationship with Somalia. Pan-Somali nationalists have long advocated for the incorporation of the 'Ogaden' into Somalia, as expressed in the Siad Barre regime's calamitous invasion of the territory in 1977. This suspicion extended to the ONLF, with former SRS President Abdi Iley handed carte blanche to forcefully suppress the popular guerrilla movement. From 2010 to 2018, Iley brutally wielded the paramilitary Liyu Police force as his own praetorian guard to quash any opposition. His deposition in 2018 and the arrival of Mustafa Agjar as president, a little-known quantity, was hoped to bring a fresh start for the much-overlooked and impoverished region.

Simultaneously, though Kenyan-mediated peace talks began in 2012 between Addis and the ONLF, it was the arrival of incumbent PM Abiy Ahmed and the detente with Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki that brought about the October 2018 peace accord in Asmara. The ONLF, along with its armed wing, the Ogaden National Liberation Army (ONLA), agreed to disarm and pursue their political objectives peacefully. The government promised disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration for fighters, and the ONLF was to be officially recognised as a political party.

Yet one of the frustrations within the ONLF is that much of the 2018 accord has not been actualised. Earlier this month, ONLF spokesperson Abdiqadir Hassan 'Adani' said that while the group has remained peaceful, the resettlement of displaced persons, reintegration of ONLF fighters, and "addressing the conflict's core issues have not been fulfilled." In large part due to the rapid deterioration of relations in recent weeks, the ONLF had intended to hold an extraordinary Central Committee session on 26-27 October to assess the 2018 agreement, but under pressure from Addis, postponed the meeting.

The SRS President Mustafa Agjar, too, has repeatedly sought to marginalise the popular movement in various underhand ways. In one episode, he unsuccessfully sought to elect his allies to the ONLF leadership at their party congress in Godey by dispensing immense amounts of cash. When this didn't work, he worked to deny the demobilising cadres accommodation that the federal government had promised before distributing regional government posts to ONLF opponents of Chairman Abdirahman Mahdi Maaday. Agjar has attempted to split the movement by creating a wing loyal to his Jigjiga administration, which has had negative implications for the SRS’s compromised democracy. Despite these attempts, the ONLF remains popular in the SRS, particularly due to Agjar's incompetence and corruption.

In 2024, the domestic and regional fallout of the explosive Somaliland-Ethiopia Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has also refracted across the SRS and the politics of the ONLF. The organisation regards the MoU as contrary to the principles of Ethiopia's 1994 Constitution, which established the current ethnic federal structure, as well as the rights of the Somali people in Ethiopia to determine their future. A recent ONLF statement that warns of "external forces" that threaten to destabilise the SRS has been read as an allusion to the developing ties between Ethiopia and Somaliland, as well as between Egypt and Somalia. Much like southern Somalia, the SRS has been caught squarely in the middle of these escalating regional tensions, as well as between governments in Mogadishu and Addis attempting to drum up support for their respective positions.

Part of this strategy has been the attempt by Addis to display support within the SRS for the MoU. Somali elders and community members have been portrayed in state media as pledging their support for the MoU, while there have been persistent rumours that the SRS's flag and name may be changed amid the geopolitical fallout. For the ONLF, these are all affronts to Article 39 of the Ethiopian Constitution, which establishes the right to self-determination for ethnic-based regions, including the possibility to secede from Ethiopia. Moreover, the re-deployment of a significant number of ENDF troops from the Amhara region to the SRS has further raised the alarm amongst the ONLF and others, who have warned against militarisation and any clamping down on civil liberties.

Consequently, Jula's comments were the tipping point that, when not retracted, has driven the ONLF to take more forceful anti-Addis positions. In a statement on 20 October, the ONLF became the latest body to withdraw from the tarnished National Dialogue Commission. The process has been compromised by several issues, including the fact that it remains an essentially advisory body to the federal parliament that ruling Prosperity Party members dominate. Other groups, including the Oromo Liberation Front and the Oromo Federalist Congress, have already voiced their displeasure with the Commission, and it lacks critical representation from Amhara, Oromia, and Tigray– three key regions wrestling with the consequences of armed conflict.

Moreover, the Addis-ONLF tensions follow a concerning pattern of the federal government seeking to undermine legitimate political parties. Senior leadership within the Oromo Liberation Front have been arbitrarily jailed, while recent weeks have had state airwaves filled with federal officials criticising the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF)-- in contravention of the Pretoria agreement. This has not been lost on other insurgent forces in Ethiopia, undermining the sporadic attempts to establish peace in the restive Amhara and Oromia regions. Still, despite its frustrations, the ONLF should not return to armed struggle– even if it comes under pressure from elements within the new Tripartite Alliance of Eritrea, Egypt, and Somalia to do so. Fully implementing the 2018 peace agreement, respecting the SRS's constitutional regional autonomy, and allowing the ONLF to operate free from harassment are all in the interest of the federal government. Addis can ill afford another destabilising crisis along its border with Somalia.

By the Ethiopian Cable Team