Having lost almost all of its trained armored and infantry divisions over the past year, Abiy’s Prosperity Party (PP) is now
relying on, almost exclusively, airpower and local vigilante bandits called Fanno in many of its operations inside Oromia
and Amhara regions. In both cases—air raids and operations by a ragtag army of local militia—civilians have become its
easiest and most favored target. This military debacle is now grounded on a firm political, economic, and diplomatic
atmosphere. Abiy’s futile attempt to engineer a return back to the old unitarist political dispensation has been categorically
rejected by the majority of the people of the country; the economic base of the PP that fuels the war is in free-fall; and the
regime epitomizes an absolute fall from ‘diplomatic grace,’ the worst in the country’s history.
The release of only some (tens of thousands still languish in various concentration camps across the country) prisoners of
conscience comes amid the abyss that the PP flounders to get out of. The OLF-OLA High Command shares the joy of our
people and the family of the political prisoners who got relative freedom by their release from the confines of narrow fourwalled prison cells to a larger one. The PP’s motivation is, however, far from the freedom of the prisoners or the joy of our
people. By this release of prisoners, the PP aims to:
- Prop up its legitimacy, in Oromia in particular, by ‘freeing’ innocent politicians who should not have been arrested
in the first place. - Create a pretense of military victory and circumvent the necessity to directly deal with the warring parties.
- Have the international community believe that it’s an agent of a peaceful political project from the get-go if it hadn’t
been for the ‘others’ to whom it often externalizes all problems.
Therefore, OLF-OLA High Command calls upon all prisoners of conscience to continue to stand with the just cause of our
people, and with OLF-OLA to bring the national struggle for the liberation of our people to its natural conclusion. We
kindly advise against allowing any pretense of legitimacy that the PP aims to achieve through your release.
We call upon the international community to take stock of the behaviors of this regime over the past three years and see
through the veil of shenanigans that Abiy’s PP is trying to pass as a peace offering. This is the same regime, headed by the
same Prime Minister that repeatedly hoodwinked, in the face of massive support no less, the international community
without any qualm.
The PP is a dumb-witted entity of sorts that talks of amnesty when there is no guilt on the part of the political prisoners and
craves adulation while it should pay compensation for unjustly taking away their freedom in the first place. Abiy does not
deserve praise, he should be responsible for jailing innocent souls from the outset!
Victory to the Oromo and all oppressed people!
OLF-OLA High Command
January 8, 2022
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