Yet another 'peace deal' in Ogaden

By Andrew Koriri
On the night of September 21, 2010, less than a week after hundreds of Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) armed fighters trained by Eritrea trespassed through Somaliland and entered into the Somali Region of Ethiopia (Ogaden), Senior Ethiopian regime officials were in Bole International Airport (Addis Ababa) to receive an “ONLF” delegation led by Salahadin Ma’ow Sh. Abdirahman. In the coming few days, most likely in the first week of October, the “ONLF” faction that chose peace with Ethiopia will hold conferences inside the Ogaden region. The plan is to organize one such conference in Gari’goan, a place of symbolic value for the ONLF, as it is where its first conference was held after the fall of the Derg regime. This will be followed by a large meeting with the ‘people’ in Kebri-Dahar to brief on the outcomes of the Gari’goan conference.
In June 2010, The Ethiopian regime also signed a peace deal with the United Western Somali Liberation Front (UWSLF), a defunct Islamist front with no armed presence in the region. The group’s leader Sheekh Ibrahim is now in the capital of the Somali regional State – Jigjiga, but there has been no change for the better in the security situation of the region since his group signed the peace deal. In fact, it got worse with clashes between the Government forces and the ONLF rebels becoming more frequent and more intense. In the month of September alone, the Ethiopian regime claimed to have killed over 120 rebel fighters, while the ONLF on its part issued a series of military communiqués in which it claimed to have killed several hundreds of Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF).Read More