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Just a few hours after the SPDP�s executive committee was put together and president and the cabinet ministers were formed, I received more than my share of emails. Friends and people who read my articles frequently used all
types of words to express their disappointment with the way the SPDP was reconstructed and their disapproval of my ideas on the party�s importance in the region, which some thought I was just acting as mouthpiece for the party. They stopped short of accusing me of having sold out to the SPDP. Although, I emailed some, I chose to offer a public response to the rest, since some of them already opted for public query.

I would not attempt to justify my position towards the SPDP nor my personal views on how I think we should walk out of this political deadlock, which benefits only the federal army generals and their informants who are controlling our whole region and are accountable to nobody. I would simply tell my critics that they have jumped to conclusions, because they have adopted the unilateral view that �what hurts Meles�s EPRDF party sister (SPDP) is good for the Ogaden region.�

It is easy to accuse each other of being unpatriotic or not understanding the issues on the ground. However, my last article was not only intended as a framework for SPDP�s meeting, but also to raise the awareness that both ONLF and SPDP were equally our parties with different ideologies to uplift our people. My point is clear, although the outcome of SPDP�s reconstruction meeting was not up to our expectations, we still should give the process an opportunity and see how it effects the lives of the people.

I strongly believe it should be evident that who is nominated to where is not the most important thing to a people determined to undo the past and move forward. Getting a group of leaders with a clear vision of what needs to be done does only one thing; it simply makes the road to recovery more error free, and ultimately shorter. But at this juncture in our history that is left to chance only, a chance that we all hope falls in our favor.

What is important, that which cannot be left to chance, is a determination to rally as a people who have suffered so much and share the common vision. That supersedes all else. The vision ranks in importance higher than any group of people chosen to drive the vision. Let us keep the vision in sight, as we vow to move forward.

Further more, I want remind my critics that we should ask ourselves new set of questions because the old ones get us nowhere. What didn�t work for 100 years won�t work for another 100 years, don�t we understand? We need to change the way we having been doing business. Our region is now abandoned to federal army generals and their informants and nobody really cares about where it is headed. No single country gives damn of the ill treatment of our people. The world is changing and we need to invent new ideas to catch up. We must know that our stern way of thinking won�t bring a solution to our many problems.

Isolating SPDP may hurt Meles but it does not help the cause of peace and development in Ogaden region. The problems we are faced with are caused by the inability of our politicians to work for the benefit of all the people in the region rather than focus on individual and petty clannish interests. How to break the cycle of violence? How do we go from here? The issue is not about favoring SPDP or disliking ONLF, it is about finding out ways to solve the misery in the region. Our people can�t take this inhuman way of life that they have been in for the last 100 years any more; there have to be way out.

We must have the courage to question old concepts. And recognize that the solution to our problems would come from us and us alone, because, in truth and reality, nobody, in Washington, London or Paris, gives a "tooth" about what happens to Ogaden region. And in our search for solution, we must leave no stone unturned, including shaking up our safe sense of truth and righteousness (if you really understand what I mean). We must not move a step backwards. We want reasonable results to our reasonable demands.
Eventually, it would come down to both SPDP and ONLF to solve our problems. The sooner we realize that they are both ours, the better. It is not about SPDP or ONLF, it is not about what the Meles or his generals say, but rather what works for people in Ogaden region, from their perspective, in all honesty and with some creativity. If we truly don't want the way things are in our region, we must use our heads to find way out.

By Abdullahi Khalif-Gariile
U.S.A
[email protected]