Waqo Gutu

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General Waqo Gutu (died February 3, 2006) was an Ethiopian rebel figure, leader of the United Liberation Forces of Oromia (ULFO) since the 1960s in the Bale Province in southern Ethiopia. The General had been elected chairman of ULFO in 2000.[1] He died in Nairobi West Hospital, survived by 20 sons and 17 daughters.[1]

[edit] Life

Little is known about his early schooling or ideological basis for his rebellion against Emperor Haile Selassie and the re­gimes that followed the monarch’s ouster and murder. Assessments of Wako Gutu vary greatly over his role as "founder" of Oromo separatism.

According to Faano Shuundhee and Morkata Boru, Oromo community leaders in Nairobi, General Waqo Gutu as he was known was a symbol of Oromo resistance and ini­tiator of their right to self determination. According to Oromo accounts Gutu sowed the first seeds of rebellion in 1943 by acquiring arms to commence the struggle against Haile Selassie, and touched off a political and mili­tary struggle that lasted decades. He fired the first shot in 1958 by slaying two po­licemen and to­gether with Abdullai Usman Gutu pro­ceded to the jungle in 1962 to widen an armed re­sistance against Haile Selassie’s land policies in what is now Oromia Region, where most Oromo live. The next year, he attacked the Dhombirka battal­ion of the imperial army, in­flicting heavy casualties.[citation needed]

His role in starting the Bale revolt was almost accidental, according to one source. When a conflict over grazing rights between two groups of Oromo was ignored by the central government, after waiting in vain for three months Waqo Gutu "went to Somalia and brought back 42 rifles and two Thompson submachine guns."[2] Waqo's journey took place early in 1965; the revolt itself had been raging since June 1963 when Kahin Abdi openly defied the government in Afder.[3] An ill-timed attempt by the government to collect unpaid taxes from local peasants fanned the flames. At the end of 1966, about three-fifths of Bale Province was in turmoil. This peasant revolt ran from 1964 to 1970, stemming from issues involving land, taxation, class, and religion.[4] Waqo Gutu surrrendered to the Ethiopian government 27 March, 1970. The cost of the rebellion was minimal to him; he was given a villa in Addis Ababa and treated well by the Emperor. The local Oromo peasants lost tens of thousands of hectares, which was redistributed to Christian settlers who had fought against the rebels.[5]

With the eruption of the Ethiopian revolution, Waqo returned to Bale, and be­tween 1975 and 1991, his gue­rillas controlled several towns in Oromia.[citation needed] He also visited sev­eral countries, including Somalia to raise funds with which to arm and galvanise the struggle.

In 1989 he established the United Oromo People Liberation Front (UOPLF) to join the struggle against the dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. He joined the vic­to­rious Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) of Meles Zenawi which had ousted Mengistu, but Waqo left the transitional government talks in 1992, claiming he had been betrayed by the TPLF.

In 2000 he formed the ULFO to unite the dis­pa­rate armed and political groups fighting for the right to self determination of the Oromo, and led as chairman from 2002 until he was taken ill and flown to Nairobi where he died after three months' hos­pi­tali­sation. He was buried 11 February in his birthplace in the Bale Zone.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Lemi Kebebew, "The Father, Leader of Oromo Struggle Passes Away" (Oromia State Government website, accessed 6 October 2006)
  2. ^ Marina and David Ottaway, Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution (New York: Africana, 1978), pp. 92f
  3. ^ Gebru Tareke, Ethiopia: Power and Protest: Peasant Revolts in the Twentieth Century (Lawrenceville: Red Sea, 1996), p. 140.
  4. ^ Gebru Tareke, Ethiopia, pp. 125-159.
  5. ^ Ottaway, Empire in Revolution, p. 93