BORANA PARAMOUNT CHIEF ON THE OROMO LIBERATION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NAIROBI 004377 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/11/2016 TAGS: PINR PREL PGOV ET KE SUBJECT: BORANA PARAMOUNT CHIEF ON THE OROMO LIBERATION FRONT AND ETHIOPIAN INFLUENCE REF: NAIROBI 4313 Classified By: PolCouns Andre for reasons 1.4 (B,D). ¶1. (C) Summary: Paramount Chief Abdisalan claims that Ethiopia has an active informant network in northern Kenya's Moyale District targeting OLF supporters and that many Kenyan officials in Moyale are on Ethiopia's payroll. He believes that the leadership class of Moyale District supports Ethiopia while "the Borana in the bush strongly favor the OLF." Peace initiatives addressing chronic ethnic conflicts in the district are undermined by OLF hired-guns. End Summary. ¶2. (U) PolCouns met with Paramount Chief of the Borana Ibrahim Abdisalan to discuss the presence of Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) fighters in Moyale and Marsabit districts of northern Kenya. Note that Kenya's Borana and Ethiopia's Oromo are essentially the same ethnic group. ¶3. (C) Abdisalan claimed that OLF allies in the lower rungs of the Moyale District administration and police services gave OLF fighters advance warning about a recent attempt by the Government of Kenya (GoK) to identify and arrest OLF militants. The OLF fighters dispersed from the towns to remote villages and camps in the bush. The GoK made indiscriminate arrests of Ethiopian Oromos who could not produce Kenyan identity papers. According to Abdisalan, very few of those arrested as suspected OLF militants had any association with the OLF. ¶4. (C) Abdisalan asserted that some Borana leaders are actively recruiting current and former OLF fighters to assist them in their conflict with the Gabra. (NOTE: The Borana and Gabra have a long-standing and often bloody feud revolving around competition for pasturage and water sources. END NOTE) Attempts by Gabra and Borana elders to make peace are frustrated by these guns-for-hire who create incidents to re-ignite conflict whenever peace appears to be at hand. Their motive is job security. ¶5. (C) Commenting on Ethiopian activity in Moyale District, Abdisalan said that Ethiopian military incursions are less frequent than in the past (see reftel for the views of Moyale's District Commissioner),but that Ethiopia's informant network is quite active. He alleged that informants on Ethiopia's payroll finger individuals who support the OLF with food and shelter. Sometimes, he maintained, these informants will denounce their landlord or a personal rival with no connection to the OLF for purely personal reasons. Consequences of denunciation can be dire, including "disappearances" and beatings. Abdisalan said that the GoK's Moyale administration goes out of its way to avoid confronting Ethiopia over these practices. He insisted that many Moyale administrative and security officials are in Ethiopia's employ. ¶6. (C) When PolCouns asked Abdisalan whether Kenya or Ethiopia had greater influence in Moyale District, he replied that the majority of elders of the district's three main communities, Borana, Gabra and ethnic Somali (Gurreh),"are answerable to Ethiopia." He attributed their allegiance to Ethiopia's program of inducements and threats. He claimed that the same pattern applied to neighboring Marsabit District as concerns the Borana and Gabra, but that this was not true of the Rendille community of Marsabit "since they are not represented on the Ethiopian side of the border." Abdisalan noted that while the Borana leadership and senior levels of GoK administration in Moyale and Marsabit districts are firmly in Ethiopia's camp, "the Borana in the bush strongly favor the OLF." ¶7. (U) Abdisalan contacted PolCouns to express his appreciation for the successful completion of a girls' school construction project in Bute undertaken by a CJTF-HOA civil affairs team. PolCouns delivered a commemorative plaque to the school in late July and met Abdisalan at that time. He also noted that his brother-in-law, prominent Moyale cleric Sheikh Nasir, had a very positive experience in the U.S. as a participant in an international visitor program focused on the American Muslim community. ¶8. (C) Comment: Abdisalan only offered his views at PolCouns' prompting. He did not appear to have a particular agenda to push regarding either Ethiopia or Kenya. He seemed resigned to both the GoK's chronic neglect of his region and Ethiopia's intense involvement in the affairs of Kenya's Borana community. Ethiopia is filling the vacuum created by Kenya's long history of ignoring and under-investing in the governance of the North. This is a USG concern since under-governed regions can be exploited by actors intending harm to USG interests. NAIROBI 00004377 002 OF 002 ¶9. (SBU) While USAID/East Africa (USAID/EA) has several ongoing cross-border peace-building initiatives along the Kenyan border with Ethiopia (District Peace Committees),the decision was made not to task the contractor with mounting an initiative along the Moyale/Moyale border because of the complexity of issues driving the conflict there. Despite a clear need for enhancing community based peace structures there, a very serious assessment would need to be undertaken of the underlying causes of the conflict, including both governments' involvement. The assessment would also be an opportunity to more clearly examine how the instability relates to US national security interests. ¶10. (SBU) At present, USAID/EA strategy addresses the overall lack of cross-border governance by encouraging collaboration between local government, civil society and community based organizations (elders, youth and women's groups) through the District Peace Committees. USAID/EA notes that this normally effective approach can only succeed with a clear commitment from the two governments to address the underlying political factors described above. HOOVER