ADDIS ABABA — As the ink dries on the “Alliance for Survival” — the seven-member armed coalition announced on September 20, 2026, with the stated aim of toppling Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government — a new and deeply consequential challenge has emerged from within Oromo legal and intellectual circles. In a searing position paper, the Oromo Lawyers Group has declared the alliance between the Oromo Liberation Army (WBO/OLA), the Fano militia, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) not merely strategically unsound but a fundamental betrayal of the Oromo people’s historical struggle.

The document, titled “Why the Coalition Formed to Topple the Prosperity Government (ONEG/WBO, TPLF, Fano) Cannot Succeed: Ideological Conflicts, the Oromo People’s Painful Questions, and the Dangers Facing the Struggle,” represents one of the most systematic and unsparing critiques yet produced by an Oromo professional body against the WBO leadership’s strategic direction.

Its conclusion is unequivocal: the WBO, by allying with forces that deny Addis Ababa’s Oromo character and by negotiating in secret without popular mandate, has forfeited its claim to represent the Oromo people — and risks repeating the catastrophic mistakes of 1991.

Three Armies, Three Irreconcilable Goals

The Lawyers Group’s central analytical claim is that the WBO, Fano, and TPLF may share a common enemy, but they do not share a common cause. Their ideological foundations, historical grievances, and political objectives are not merely different but actively contradictory.

The WBO’s stated purpose, the document notes, is to assert Oromo national sovereignty and land rights — including over Addis Ababa (Finfinnee), which Oromo nationalists regard as the historic heart of Oromo territory. Yet the organization’s leadership, the paper charges, has pursued “a secretive approach” with the TPLF and Fano that is “fundamentally opposed” to this objective.

Fano, by contrast, is described as a movement built on “the old and outdated extremist view of ‘one country, one faith.'” More pointedly, the document accuses Fano of actively propagating the position that “Addis Ababa (Finfinnee) is not Oromo” and of building military capacity in Oromia — particularly in Wallagga — to advance this objective. This, the Lawyers Group asserts, has made Fano “more than 99% rejected” by the Oromo public and by Oromo political thought.

The TPLF, meanwhile, is characterized in even harsher terms. The document reminds its readers that the TPLF, despite having no border with Oromia, “came from Tigray and controlled the center of Oromia for 27 years,” during which it “killed, displaced, tortured, and looted the wealth of the Oromo people.” The TPLF knows, the paper argues, that it cannot return to Addis Ababa and reassert dominance over Oromos due to its historical crimes. Its strategy, therefore, is to use the WBO “as a ladder” — a vehicle to return to power and resume economic exploitation.

The implication is stark: the WBO is not a partner in this alliance but a tool. And the Oromo people, the document insists, “clearly understand this.”

The Internal Dangers: Division and Illegitimacy

The Lawyers Group warns that the alliance has already created “high internal danger” within the WBO. Members who oppose the leadership’s secretive approach, it argues, may follow the path seen during the TPLF’s internal splits — abandoning the struggle or surrendering to the government. The document frames this not as a hypothetical risk but as an unfolding process.

More fundamentally, it contends that the Oromo people’s rejection of the alliance is overwhelming — “more than 95%” — and that a military effort lacking popular base and acceptance is doomed to ultimate failure.

This claim of near-universal Oromo rejection cannot be independently verified. Oromo public opinion is neither monolithic nor easily measurable under current conditions. But the Lawyers Group’s assertion reflects a broader sentiment that has surfaced repeatedly in Oromo diaspora discourse since the alliance was announced: that the WBO’s leadership has acted without consulting the very population it claims to represent.

“Trampling the Blood of Martyrs”

The document’s most emotionally charged section addresses what it calls “the betrayal of blood and sacrifice.”

It invokes the thousands of Oromo youth — the Qeerroo generation — who, it says, “shed their blood and broke their bones” for the cause of making Addis Ababa the “heartland of the Oromo people.” To now ally with forces that say “Addis Ababa is not Oromo” and attempt to enter the capital alongside them, the Lawyers Group argues, is “to trample the blood of those martyrs and to render their lives meaningless.”

The document further charges that the alliance “reopens the wounds of history” by embracing the TPLF — the same force that, for 27 years, “persecuted, killed, displaced, and looted” Oromos — and paving its way back to Addis Ababa. This, it says, inflicts “another indelible wound on the hearts of Oromo mothers.”

And it accuses the WBO leadership of preparing to “surrender the Oromo people’s historical rights” — national self-determination, cultural autonomy, and land ownership — in exchange for the promise of “power first,” negotiated with “extremist Fano forces.”

Unanswered Questions at the Heart of the Alliance

The Lawyers Group identifies what it considers the fatal flaw in the “Alliance for Survival”: the absence of any agreement on the most fundamental questions of political transition.

If the Prosperity government falls, the document asks, how will power be divided in the transitional government? What system of governance will be established? Who will lead the transition? And what will be the fate and ownership of Addis Ababa?

“To say, without answering these fundamental questions and without signing a clear agreement, that ‘after we topple the regime, the people will decide,'” the document states, “is to deceive the people.”

This is a direct challenge to statements reportedly made by WBO commander Jaal Marroo and other spokespeople, who have suggested that the post-Abiy political order will be determined by the people. The Lawyers Group argues that history — specifically, the experience of 1991 — demonstrates precisely the opposite: that the force controlling Addis Ababa after a regime’s collapse determines the transition, not the public.

The Lessons of 1991

The document’s historical section is its most pointed warning.

In 1991, when the Derg regime fell and a transitional government was formed, “it was not the people who decided everything, but the TPLF, which controlled Addis Ababa.” The TPLF, the Lawyers Group reminds its readers, “controlled the transitional government and imposed its will on the people by force.”

The implication for today is unmistakable: if the WBO, Fano, and TPLF succeed in toppling Abiy and enter Addis Ababa together, the post-conflict order will not be determined by the Oromo people — it will be determined by whichever armed force controls the capital. And given the TPLF’s historical dominance and Fano’s hostility to Oromo claims on Addis Ababa, the Oromo people are likely to find themselves once again marginalized, if not actively repressed.

The document calls the WBO’s promise of post-collapse popular sovereignty “100% false” — a deliberate deception designed to pacify a population that would otherwise reject the alliance outright.

The Oromo People’s Painful Questions

Perhaps the most powerful section of the Lawyers Group’s paper is its catalog of questions that it says the Oromo people are asking — questions that the WBO leadership has not answered.

First, why did the WBO reject peace talks? The document notes that when a group of Oromo lawyers and intellectuals proposed negotiations with the government, and the government expressed willingness to talk, it was the WBO that rejected dialogue and reconciliation. “The people are asking you every day,” the paper states, “‘Solve your political problem with the regime through peace and negotiation.’ Why did you choose to ally with Fano and TPLF — forces that are not the desire or purpose of the Oromo people — instead of accepting reconciliation when the government was ready to talk?”

Second, why the secrecy and deception? The WBO, the document notes, has publicly denied relations with the Tigray diaspora/TPLF while simultaneously acknowledging relations with domestic armed forces. “How can you form a military alliance with these forces without a written, verified agreement signed before trustworthy and neutral observers?” the paper asks. “Why have you not fulfilled your leadership duty to inform the people?”

Third, who will lead the transitional government? “When you negotiated with these forces,” the document asks, “did you agree on who — which person or entity — will lead the transitional government if the current system falls? Or did you leave this critical issue to be decided after the collapse?”

Fourth, what if 1991 repeats itself? The document poses a series of hypothetical but historically grounded scenarios: If these forces — the same TPLF that conspired with Eritrean forces against the OLF in 1991 — repeat that conspiracy and attack you, what will you do? If, after seizing the center of power, they declare “one country” and “Addis Ababa is not Oromo” and open war against you, will you return to the bush and continue the struggle, or will you abandon it and go home? Or will you open a civil war within Addis Ababa and violently confront the transitional government?

Fifth, why was a written agreement not signed in advance? “If you say, ‘We will form an alliance and topple the regime,’ why did you initiate military activity without signing and publicizing this alliance on paper, before witnesses?”

Sixth, why deceive the people with false promises? “History — the 1991 experience — clearly shows that when a regime falls, it is not the people who seize power, but the military group with weapons in hand. Why, then, was it necessary to deceive and confuse the people with the false promise that ‘after the regime’s collapse, the people will decide’?”

The Demand: Transparency, Apology, Withdrawal

The Lawyers Group does not merely criticize. It issues a set of urgent demands to the WBO leadership.

First, if a clear agreement with these forces has already been signed, it must be fully disclosed to the Oromo people and their representatives.

Second, if the WBO entered this alliance without such an agreement — “out of emotion and conspiracy” — its leaders must appear in public media and apologize to the Oromo people.

Third, the WBO must urgently withdraw from the alliance and clearly restate its position on Addis Ababa and Oromo historical rights.

The document concludes with a warning: “Any secret effort with Fano and TPLF, without a clear agreement on the historical rights of Addis Ababa and Oromia — the very cause for which thousands of Oromo youth have laid down their lives — has reduced the WBO’s credibility and acceptance among the Oromo people to zero. The current approach risks surrendering the Oromo struggle to others. If the position is not corrected, it will be held accountable by history and by the people.”

The Broader Reckoning

The Oromo Lawyers Group’s intervention is significant not only for what it says but for who is saying it. This is not a statement from a rival armed faction or a diaspora opposition group with its own organizational agenda. It is a position paper from a professional body — lawyers, presumably with training in evidence, argumentation, and legal accountability — applying those skills to the WBO’s political strategy.

Its critique is comprehensive: ideological, historical, strategic, and moral. It challenges not just the wisdom of the alliance but its legitimacy. And it does so in the name of the Oromo people — a people the document insists have been neither consulted nor convinced.

The paper also implicitly raises a question that will haunt the WBO long after the current alliance’s fate is decided: What is the relationship between an armed organization and the population it claims to represent? If the WBO can enter a military alliance with forces that deny Oromo claims to Addis Ababa — the central symbolic and territorial demand of the Oromo struggle — without popular mandate, what does “Oromo liberation” actually mean?

For now, the “Alliance for Survival” remains intact on paper. But the Oromo Lawyers Group’s intervention suggests that its real battle may not be against Abiy’s government, but against the skepticism, alienation, and outright opposition of the very people it claims to be fighting for.

The WBO has not yet responded publicly to the Lawyers Group’s demands. Whether it will — and how — may determine whether the alliance becomes a turning point in the Oromo struggle or the moment it began to unravel.