Finfinne— The Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, or EPFAS, was announced on 20 September 2026. Announced participants included the Oromo Liberation Front–Oromo Liberation Army, known as OLF–OLA, the Amhara Fano National Movement, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Its statement, reproduced on an OLF–OLA-associated website, proposes an inclusive temporary government, temporary governing rules, and public discussion of the country’s political future.
The central issue is political authorship: people’s continuing power to shape, approve, challenge, and revise the rules and institutions governing their lives. It must operate throughout the struggle and transition. A promised future vote does not, by itself, authorize the powers leaders exercise beforehand.
Domination means exposure to power people cannot effectively contest or control, even when no mistreatment occurs and leaders promise to act wisely. Republican political thought calls freedom from this vulnerability non-domination. Applied reciprocally, it protects communities against imposed arrangements and individuals against unchecked authority within them. Neither legal office nor a liberation claim excuses unchecked power. Political authorship makes power answerable at both levels.
Cooperation among former enemies may help stop fighting and enable negotiation. It also raises questions about representation, civilian safety, and governing powers. Incumbents must face the same scrutiny. Existing institutions carry legal responsibilities an opposition statement cannot set aside. Holding office does not excuse ruling through fear; opposing a government does not establish a right to replace it.
Different decisions need different permission
Three levels of authorization matter. Organizational authorization is a mandate from a movement’s members or appropriate internal body, including permission to join an alliance. Alliance authorization concerns participating organizations’ rules and limits for cooperation. Constituent authorization comes from the people bound by decisions about their political status or constitutional future. Authority at one level does not automatically confer authority at another. Temporary government also needs separate public authorization and a lawful basis for its powers.
Joining an alliance need not require a referendum. Negotiators may arrange a ceasefire without authority to decide borders, appoint a government, or settle whether a people remains in a federation or becomes independent. Each decision needs authority appropriate to its consequences.
The available public documents, examined through 14 October 2026, record promises of public choice alongside objections and contested participation. ACLED reported that the Gumuz movement denied joining and that rival Ogaden National Liberation Front factions disputed participation.
Published reactions also differ. Advocacy for Oromia rejected EPFAS, arguing that it inadequately addressed Oromo grievances and historical redress. T. M. Asfaw opposed cooperation over divergent political projects and risks to Fano’s cohesion; Habte H. urged that EPFAS be judged by civilian protection and the accountability of any transitional government. These positions raise questions for leaders; none measures public opinion.
The reviewed documents do not establish specific instructions authorizing representatives to join EPFAS or agreed public procedures for approving temporary appointments and governing powers. Nor do they establish an agreed alliance choice among federation, a negotiated political relationship, and independence for Oromia or other peoples. Undisclosed arrangements cannot simply be presumed absent, but the public needs more than assurances.
A promised future vote does not, by itself, authorize the powers leaders exercise beforehand.”
The statements and interviews reviewed here do not establish what most of the Oromo, Amharas, Tigrayans, or others want. Support for a movement, its alliance, and a particular settlement are separate questions. Leaders must discover those differences and let them affect decisions.
Listening must be able to change decisions
The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire offers a demanding understanding of liberation. People must take part in understanding their circumstances and shaping the effort to change them. Leaders have to learn from those experiences, explain their own thinking, and revise it through dialogue. Reflection and action belong together: people and leaders act, examine the consequences, and learn how to proceed.
Frantz Fanon warned that liberation could replace officeholders while ordinary people remained excluded from governing. Freire offers a response: leaders and communities learn through dialogue, and public criticism must be able to change strategy and the terms of delegated authority. Listening helps a struggle avoid reproducing the domination it opposes.
Engagement must begin while choices remain open and continue throughout the struggle. Meetings held only after decisions are settled give people little influence. Leaders should explain which proposals changed because people challenged them and give reasons for rejecting others.
A community may be concerned about unsafe roads, missing relatives, or farmland access, while its leaders prioritize an alliance. Engagement must address both sets of concerns. Usable information and independent space to propose alternatives can reveal dangers or priorities leaders have overlooked.
The OLF–OLA’s 2023 manifesto affirms Oromo self-determination and freely elected representatives. Its members’ approval cannot substitute for the choices of everyone it claims to represent. Leaders’ interests and public preferences may differ; continuing engagement helps expose and address that difference.
The Oromo Liberation Front—Adda Bilisummaa Oromoo (ABO) in Afaan Oromo—reported adopting a political program at its August 2017 congress. The program, according to a nonpublic copy consulted by the author, advocated an independent Oromia while pledging to respect the Oromo people’s decision on self-determination and making political association conditional on public choice. It records an organizational position at that time; it does not establish present public preferences or an EPFAS-specific mandate for today’s OLF–OLA. Advocating a constitutional outcome does not, by itself, give an organization authority to decide that outcome for the people.
In the BBC’s Afaan Oromo interview account, adviser Jireenyaa Guddataa describes procedural cooperation rather than a merger, with organizations retaining separate leadership, programs, and forces. He says the public should decide unresolved political questions. These explanations clarify the movement’s position; they do not establish agreed alliance rules or public approval.
Operational secrecy may protect lives but needs specific reasons, limited scope, and independent review. It cannot justify blanket secrecy about political commitments or postponing accountability until victory. People must be able to criticize strategy without being branded enemies of the struggle.
Discussion must reach people outside party structures and those pushed out of public life. Women, young people, displaced families, farmers, pastoralists, workers, and minority residents need safe opportunities to shape what gets discussed. Commanders, donors, officials, and customary leaders should not control who gets heard.
Five questions can turn the principles of non-domination and leadership through dialogue into a practical test of political authorship:
- Who claims to speak on whose behalf?
- Who has granted them the authority to make decisions, what decisions are they authorized to make, and for how long?
- Can those affected raise their own priorities and challenge proposals without fear of reprisal?
- How will each decision be approved through a fair process?
- Finally, how can people challenge a wrong, replace their representatives, or reclaim powers they have delegated?
Freedom for Oromia must protect everyone
Reciprocal non-domination requires the Oromo people’s real authority over political arrangements and protection against arbitrary power for every individual in Oromia. Equal rights belong to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, political affiliation, or social status. Political authorship gives people continuing control over governing institutions; equal rights limit even publicly authorized leaders. An Oromo-led government can still dominate residents who cannot effectively challenge its decisions.
The principle extends across communities. Those demanding freedom from imposed rule must respect other peoples’ corresponding freedom. No alliance vote gives one movement authority to decide another people’s status or settle a disputed territory by military force. Respect for these rights must not depend on an opponent showing the same restraint.
A reformed federation, a new agreed political relationship among peoples, and independence for Oromia or other peoples must remain open to peaceful debate. Ethiopia’s Constitution recognizes self-determination, including the right to form an independent state, and sets procedures for exercising it. It also protects equality and political participation. Collective rights and residents’ individual rights both matter.
Article 39(4) specifies how secession may be exercised: a demand approved by two-thirds of the legislative council of the people concerned, a federally organized referendum within three years of the federal government receiving the council’s decision, and, if a majority supports secession, transfer of powers and division of assets as prescribed by law. Border disputes and constitutional amendments have separate procedures. Following these procedures does not, by itself, eliminate coercion or exclusion, but neither an alliance agreement nor military control substitutes for a lawful constituent decision.
The Oromo people’s collective rights, Oromia’s governmental powers, and residents’ individual rights are connected but distinct. Rules for selecting delegates or voters must be publicly explained, respect collective rights, protect residents and displaced people, and allow independent challenges. Neither control of a disputed area nor forced displacement may determine whose voice counts.
Shared institutions may be needed for security, revenues, transport, and public services. Their powers should be agreed, limited, and open to challenge. This does not give every local leader a veto over ordinary common decisions. Fair procedures can produce binding decisions despite disagreement, while protecting those who lose a vote.
Political authorship concerns who may exercise authority and how people hold it answerable. Reciprocal non-domination limits every actor’s conduct, authorized or not. Civilian protection is an immediate obligation.
Civilian protection cannot wait
ACLED reported that an August 2026 ambush by the Bizamo Command in western Oromia killed at least sixteen people, including eleven civilians and five soldiers. It also reported that the Amhara Fano National Movement, later announced as an EPFAS participant, claimed Bizamo fell under its command. How can OLF–OLA justify cooperation with a partner claiming command over a unit implicated in killing civilians in Oromia? Each partner must prevent forces under its control from attacking civilians, including those another partner claims to represent, and support independent investigation and accountability.
Scrutiny must also reach OLF–OLA. Amnesty International’s 2026 briefing documented ten survivors’ accounts of sexual violence in western Oromia, supported by medical evidence. Survivors identified OLF–OLA fighters; one also identified an Ethiopian army soldier. Amnesty could not verify the named individuals’ identities. These accounts demand survivor protection and independent investigation, without assigning guilt to an entire organization.
OLF–OLA’s manifesto calls for independent investigation. In the BBC account, Guddataa disputes allegations against the movement while pledging punishment of offenders under its control. These statements require independent testing; the manifesto’s general commitments are not a specific response to Amnesty’s later findings.
Government authority likewise requires scrutiny. Human Rights Watch’s 2026 country report, covering 2025, describes abuses during armed conflict and government repression of independent media and civil society. A 2024 Reuters investigation reported extrajudicial killings and unlawful detention linked to Oromia’s Koree Nageenyaa security committee. The same investigation reported that the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’s head confirmed the committee’s existence and said it had exceeded its mandate.
Liberation without a new dominator means that those acting in the people’s name remain within the people’s reach.”
Holding all actors to standards of protection does not mean that every allegation rests on equally strong evidence or that responsibility is equal.
Every force must prevent attacks on civilians, sexual violence, forced displacement, child recruitment, and obstruction of relief. Survivors need care, safe reporting, and access to justice. These duties apply immediately, whether or not an actor has public permission to govern.
Temporary power needs limits from the start
A future vote cannot automatically authorize everything leaders do before it. Temporary administrations may shape constitutional choice by appointing officials, selecting participants, controlling security, or narrowing the options people may debate.
Before exercising discretionary power, a temporary administration needs a publicly approved mandate. People must know who selected it, who approved its powers, what it may do, and when its authority expires. Independent civilian oversight and legal review must enable changes to appointments or decisions.
Where safe elections are impossible, temporary arrangements need open selection rules, nominations from political, community, and independent civic groups, protected objections, and early public review. Authority must remain limited, and successful challenges must be able to change appointments or mandates. Calling a body inclusive establishes neither representation of everyone nor authority to decide the constitutional future.
Who authorizes the body setting these selection rules? Publicly justified procedures involving affected communities’ representatives and diverse civic groups must determine its membership and mandates. Minorities, displaced people, and politically unaffiliated residents must have a protected right to participate. Those procedures must also face independent legal review.
A civilian body can help legally authorized institutions develop separate procedures for consultation, delegate selection, and referendum eligibility. Calling itself representative confers no authority to make binding rules. Without a full public mandate, provisional authority must remain especially narrow, temporary, and reviewable.
Different tasks require different thresholds. Ceasefire talks, relief access, and indispensable services may proceed lawfully under narrow, reviewable powers without a constituent vote. Governing appointments, security, and budgets need time-limited public authorization and lawful authority. Final status and foundational constitutional arrangements require constituent decisions. Urgency creates no general license to govern.
Public approval and legal authority differ. Article 9(3) of Ethiopia’s Constitution prohibits assuming state power outside constitutional procedures. The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, ratified by Ethiopia, treats replacement of a democratically elected government by armed dissidents or rebels as unconstitutional; application depends on the government’s democratic character and particular facts. Neither victory nor public support alone makes an administration lawful. Lawfully holding public office does not justify coercion or the permanent denial of recognized rights. Where institutions obstruct those rights, negotiated constitutional change requires disclosed negotiating mandates, an account of the obstruction and legal status, and protection of competing choices. Obstruction does not transfer constituent authority to commanders.
Peace must reach everyday life
Political authorship also matters in decisions about land, livelihoods, resources, and everyday life, beyond governments and constitutions.
Oromo political thought helps connect these safeguards to everyday relationships. Safuu holds those in authority accountable to standards of restraint, dignity, and responsibility toward others and the living environment. Gadaa’s traditions of deliberation and succession offer lessons about limited office and public assessment of leaders. Women’s institutions such as Siiqqee also express capacities to organize and challenge wrongdoing.
These traditions vary and have changed over time. Historical gender and status inequalities require critical scrutiny. Contemporary institutions drawing on them must protect equal rights and remain answerable to residents with different beliefs.
Nagaa connects peace with just coexistence among people and their surroundings. Applied to a political settlement, it directs attention to whether displaced families can return safely, livelihoods can recover, water is clean, and injuries receive a fair hearing. A ceasefire deserves protection even while that work remains unfinished.
Together, Safuu, Gadaa, and Nagaa connect political authorship to ethical restraint, public review of officeholders, and material repair. They deepen Freire’s demand for continuing public control: even a government chosen through fair procedures can dominate when decisions affecting land, livelihoods, or the environment remain beyond effective challenge.
This tests promises of change: people need meaningful influence over land, mining, development, and public money, with effective ways to challenge harm. The proposed Addis Ababa–Oromia Master Plan raised fears that capital expansion would displace Oromo farmers. Protests met a violent crackdown; the plan was canceled in January 2016. That reversal showed protest could change policy; it did not establish lasting public control over land. Replacing officeholders can leave familiar power intact if land and resource decisions remain beyond public control.
EPFAS should be judged by the powers it claims and decisions it makes, with the same scrutiny applied to incumbents and other actors. Political authorship must extend through struggle, temporary government, and final settlement, with people able to authorize decisions, challenge them, and secure change through fair procedures.
Liberation without a new dominator means that those acting in the people’s name remain within the people’s reach.
Editor’s Note: Dr. Hambisa Belina is an associate professor of accounting at Morgan State University. His research spans auditing, internal controls, and corporate transparency, as well as interdisciplinary scholarship on Indigenous Oromo institutions and their intersections with political economy, peace, development, urban studies, and territorial studies. Hambisa can be reached at hambisa7@gmail.com.
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