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 ONLF Facing Its Biggest Challenges Yet, Fighting for Its Existance-ANALYSIS By Farhan Mohamud
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The Ogaden National Liberation Front may be facing one of its biggest challenges yet; fighting for its own existence. The ONLF has always faced and dealt with a lot of challenges such as lack of financial resources, internal strives, internal defections and power wrangling among its leaders.
The organization has always found a way to survive. However, the organization is now facing what some insiders are terming insurmountable obstacles. ONLF analysts and people with deep knowledge of the organizations operations fear that ONLF may be fighting for its existence after all. Let us now analyze some of the obstacles that are worrying ONLF insiders.
First and foremost, the Bush administration has just ordered Eritrea to close its diplomatic mission in Oakland in a tangible expression of U.S. concern over Eritrean behavior in Somalia, and its support for what the U.S calls terrorist groups. In a briefing for reporters, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said the consulate closure, to take effect in November, is reciprocal action for Eritrean violations of the Vienna convention on diplomatic conduct. In other words, Eritrea�s support and arming of Somalia and Ethiopian opposition groups. That comes against a background of concern about the Eritrean activity in Somalia, where a new report from United Nations monitors says Eritrea has played a key role in financing and arming insurgents, fighting the Somali interim government and Ethiopian forces in Somalia.
To make matters worse for ONLF and its chief ally and sponsor, Eritrea, Frazer said one option for follow-up action would be listing Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism, an action that would automatically trigger wide-ranging U.S. aid curbs and other sanctions against the Asmara government. If U.S follows through with its threat of listing Eritrea as state sponsor of terrorism, ONLF and all other groups supported by Asmara will follow suit and most likely be labeled the terrorist tag. The U.S was already considering very strongly labeling ONLF a terrorist organization and people with knowledge of the U.S state department say that had it not been the New York Times report and Ethiopian operation in the Somali region, the State department would have already put the label on ONLF. Analyst and State department insiders still believe that it�s a matter of time before the U.S government puts the terrorist label on ONLF. Sources say that the state department has done extensive research on the activities of the ONLF in the Somali region and in Ethiopia, and is convinced that, the organizations recent bombing activities in Cabole, Jijjiga, Dhagaxbur and its killings of civilians opposed to it in the region, qualify it to be added to the list of terror groups.
Frazer said talking about Eritrea and indirectly talking about the ONLF and Somali insurgency groups �We are collecting that data. And this U.N. monitoring report will certainly be part of that, but we have to do our independent verification. We do have intelligence that affirms what is in the monitoring report but we are still in the process of collecting that data."Frazer accused Eritrea of collecting money from an estimated 200,000 Eritreans living in the United States, and using the money to finance weapons and training for insurgents in Somalia and Ethiopian opposition groups, including the ONLF.
The ONLF is also facing an internal power wrangling crisis that is spiraling out of control and threatening the organizations existence. The chairman of the organization is facing a strong opposition from former executive committee members led by one of the ONLF�s founding members Dalool. Mr. Dalool has accused the chairman admiral Mohamed Omar of hijacking the organization and making it a clan property. The chairman has also accused Mr. Dalool of undermining the constitutional of the ONLF.
Their feud has divided the organization supporters along Sub-Clans and threatens to bring down the whole organization. Insiders believe that ONLF has never faced this deep internal power struggle. They also believe that the division is so deep and the differences so large that the organization might not survive this division. Others believe it will survive, but, the power struggle might push a large number of its already dissatisfied sympathizers and supporters loose interest in the organization. This will have a major impact in the organizations operations since a large chunk of its budget comes from the Diaspora community in Europe, North America and South Africa. To show you how the power wrangling has divided the ONLF supporters, this week there were two parallel meetings and conferences taking place simultaneously in Minneapolis, Minnesota. One of the meetings was chaired by the admiral Mohamed Omar and the other Mr. Dalool. The attendance was along Clan lines and there was no hiding in that.
There is no question that even if the U.S State department doesn�t label ONLF a terrorist group, but, puts the terrorist tag on Eritrea, it will still have significant disruption on the activities of the ONLF and perhaps, return it, to its pre-Somali Courts Union pseudo existence era. However, if the United States tags ONLF as a terror group, you can forget ONLF, because it will shut down all ONLF activities and operation bases in Europe, North America and Africa. It will also drive the ONLF leadership to either go underground or disown the organization entirely. Eritrea will also be forced to stop all support, military or financial. In addition, the Diaspora community that has been the backbone of the organizations budget even through hard times, will dry up for fear of U.S. FBI investigation and accusation of supporting terrorist group, similar to pressures and allegation faced by organizations that used to help Palestinians, and Islamic Charities in the U.S. Many of these organizations have been shut down and their contributors investigated.
The ONLF has been adaptive historically. It has faced near crisis situation before and survived. However, the internal power struggle which has divided the organization along clan lines, and the threat of terror tag on its chief supporter and ally, Eritrea and on itself, by U.S and western countries, might prove too insurmountable for ONLF.
SOURCE
Farhan Mohamud
Minneapolis |
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