Gedu Andargachew

[Oromo Liberation Army OLF-OLA @OLF_OLA]

Statement issued by the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival (Alliance for Survival)

Ever since Ethiopia fell into the hands of Prosperity’s personalist, dictatorial and genocidal regime, war, genocide, mass slaughter and absolute poverty have become its defining features. It has become a country in which law and order have collapsed; millions have fallen into severe poverty and been displaced; hope for its citizens has vanished; and the government declares one destructive war after another. Dictatorial rule has been imposed upon it, and it has moved beyond state failure to face the danger of disintegration. It has also become a country pushed to the margins of regional and international political, economic and diplomatic affairs, deprived of its
voice and influence.

The regime rests on a distorted narrative and an anti-people state structure. It is at odds with reason and truth, equality and the participation of the peoples, justice and freedom, the dignity of the people and the sovereignty of the country. Because it does not pursue peaceful and constructive approaches, it has neither the will nor the capacity to halt the war consuming the
country and its peoples; bring lasting peace; guarantee citizens’ rights and freedoms; establish law and order; or end the peoples’ suffering and torment, poverty and backwardness. To achieve its sinister objectives, this dictatorial and genocidal regime has become a mercenary of foreign powers, selling out the interests of the peoples and turning the country into a subservient and dependent state.

Accordingly, we, the peoples’ forces concerned with the survival of Ethiopia’s peoples, bear the historic responsibility of overthrowing this regime, safeguarding the survival of all nations, nationalities and peoples, and opening a new chapter. The historic mission and first objective of the peoples’ forces is to defend ourselves collectively against the devastating war declared upon us; remove Prosperity’s personalist and dictatorial system, which has endangered the survival of our peoples and the security of the country; and bring about the establishment of an inclusive transitional government guided by a transitional charter. In doing so, we seek to open a new transitional chapter in which the human and democratic rights of all Ethiopians can be guaranteed in full, without diminution.

The principal objectives of the transitional period that begins after the regime’s fall will be:
1. To safeguard the survival of the peoples and the security of the country; stop all wars; guarantee human and democratic rights; maintain peace and security; stabilize the social and economic crisis; improve relations with neighboring countries; and restore the country’s regional and international standing.
2. In the interests of peace in the country and the continued survival of its peoples, to conduct an honest, trustworthy, fully inclusive and participatory popular and constitutional dialogue, through which decisive questions concerning the peoples and the
country will be resolved with the direct participation of the peoples.

Accordingly, we, the peoples’ forces listed below, have agreed to coordinate our popular and organizational capacities to remove Prosperity’s personalist, dictatorial and genocidal regime; guarantee the survival and security of our peoples; bring about the establishment of an inclusive transitional government; and open a new democratic transitional chapter. We have also agreed to resolve our differences peacefully, on the basis of the freely expressed will of our peoples, principles and a lawful order.
These forces are:
1. Amhara Fano National Movement (AFMN)
2. Oromo Liberation Army (OLF–OLA).
3. Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
4. Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).
5. Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (Ugugumo)
6. Benishangul Peoples’ Liberation Movement.
7. Gumuz Peoples’ Democratic Movement.

We have established a joint alliance called the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, known in short as the Alliance for Survival.

We express our profound joy at having achieved, after much effort and many difficulties, this great and decisive alliance that the Ethiopian people have eagerly awaited. On this occasion, we wish to make the following appeals:
1. To all Ethiopians, civic associations and political organizations: Recognizing that the regime is a force determined to destroy the very existence of all the peoples of Ethiopia, we respectfully call upon Ethiopian popular forces, civic associations and political organizations that accept the Alliance’s objectives and approach to struggle to become partners in our struggle for survival.
2. To the regime’s armed forces and their leadership: Recognizing that the regime you serve poses an existential threat to the peoples of Ethiopia, and that it is anti-people, anti-peace, anti-democratic and genocidal, we call upon you, before it is too late, to join and become partners in the struggle to save your people and your country.
3. To neighboring countries, African countries and the international community: Recognizing that the genocidal regime in power is alienated from the people; that it has neither the capacity nor the will to establish peace and stability in Ethiopia or the Horn of
Africa; and that it is a regime in its twilight, nearing removal from power through the people’s struggle, we call upon you to stand with the peoples, justice and democracy.

Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival
(Alliance for Survival)
#Oromia #Ethiopia

[Gedu Andargachew @Gedualen]

በዛሬው እለት በኢትዮጵያ ሕዝባዊ ኃይሎች ትብብር ለህልውና የተሰጠው መግለጫ የመላው የኢትዮጵያን ሕዝብ ተስፋ ያለመለመ የአዲስ ዓመት ስጦታ ነው።

[Gedu Andargachew @Gedualen]

And against the enormity of the destiny they are tasked to restore — to make Ethiopia lead, to make it whole, to make it rise — those interests did not just look small.

[Gedu Andargachew @Gedualen]

At the closing ceremony of a fractured national dialogue, Uhuru Kenyatta did not speak to what Ethiopia is— wounded, divided, and weary of itself — but to what Ethiopia must be.
His speech healed because it invoked Ethiopia not as an ethnic federation of fears,

[Gedu Andargachew @Gedualen]

therefore carries the dignity of an entire continent.And by invoking that greatness, he held up a mirror.
In that mirror, the participants saw themselves clearly — their dwarf political interests, their kebele calculus, their endless transactions.