Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa – was an Oromo sheikh from
Harar and a former candidate for
Haile Selassie's parliament who had joined the
Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and became its principal military commander. He would soon find himself at odds with other members of the OLF's central committee that hailed from a student background. A critical juncture was reached in September 1977, when the OLF elected a new chairman, Magarsa Bari, and in April 1978, when significant alterations were made to the executive committee at an OLF congress in the Chercher Mountains. These changes did not sit well with Jaraa. In addition to ridiculing the student intellectuals within the ranks of the leadership and challenging their military acumen, he began to mobilize supporters along religious and regional lines. His critics responded by accusing him of "conspiring with
Somalia to spread Islam." At a leadership meeting later that year, a fire-fight broke out in which a senior military commander
Baro Tumsa was killed.
Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa was then expelled from the OLF after he was accused of killing
Baro Tumsa, he then left the organization with around 300 Muslim Oromo followers and emerged a few years later when he officially formed the Islamic Front for the Liberation of the Oromo (IFLO) in 1985. The movement immediately attracted the attention of the
Derg regime as according to Gebru Tarke "The IFLO represented a dangerous mix of ethnonationalism and religious fanaticism in a multiethnic society." During the 1980s, the IFLO, which emphasized Oromo Islamic identity, and the OLF, which promoted secular Oromo nationalism, frequently clashed—at times more intensely than with the
Ethiopian Army itself—especially in
Hararghe. Both Oromo groups were also engaged in clashes against the Somali nationalist
WSLF, which at times attempted to impose itself on the non-Somali highlands. With an army of up to 3,000 fighters, the group became militarily based in eastern
Hararghe, controlling portions of the countryside in the eastern highlands around
Dire Dawa by the time
Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the country in Spring 1991. After the
Derg was overthrown in 1991 the IFLO then joined the
Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) where the party held 3 seats out of the 27 reserved for Oromo parties. The
Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) held 12, while the
Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO) held the remaining 10. After withdrawing from the TGE and boycotting the
1995 general elections, the group returned to the bush with the objective of toppling the EPRDF, and has since claimed responsibility for many operations launched against EPRDF targets. In a 1994 interview with an Arabic-language paper made available by An-Najah Blogs, Sheikh Abdulkarim claimed that the mujahideen controlled 24,000 km2, predominantly in the
East Hararghe Zone, and were carrying out commando operations against EPRDF targets. The movement was disbanded in 2005 after Jaarraa created the Front for Independent Democratic Oromia (FIDO) around the same year. ==Links and References ==