By Mosisa Aga

Part III: OMN, Qeerroo, and the Making of Public Perception

OMN and Qeerroo: A Complicated Relationship

The events of 2011 to 2014 laid the foundation for the larger Oromo Protest of 2014 to 2018. By the time Jawar Mohammed emerged as one of the most influential Oromo media figures through the Oromia Media Network (OMN), Qeerroo had already developed an organizational identity, an extensive communication network, and an active presence across Oromia.

The founding of OMN coincided with the series of protests in 2014 against the so-called “”Addis Ababa Master Plan” that engulfed Oromia. As the protests expanded across Oromia, access to reliable information from inside Oromia remained limited. Although OMN reported major developments as information became available, many of the most detailed reports, including photographs, videos, and updates from local organizers, came through the Qeerroo network and its website, Qeerroo.org. For many people following events from outside Oromia, these platforms became the primary sources of information.

At that stage, however, Jawar Mohammed and OMN did not appear to have direct communication with the organizers of Qeerroo leading the protests on the ground. This distinction is important because it raises a broader historical question. What was the relationship between the movement inside Oromia and the media organization that would soon become its most influential public voice?

One of the most puzzling aspects of this period concerns Jawar Mohammed’s treatment of the name Qeerroo. Between 2014 and 2017, he rarely, if ever, used the term in his public statements. According to one former OMN journalist with whom I spoke at the time, Jawar instructed all journalists not to use the name Qeerroo. When I asked why, he said Jawar told them that no organization known as Qeerroo existed on the ground and that it existed only through its website and online radio. Another former journalist recently repeated essentially the same thing on a mass media.

When I later examined this question in my 2020 article, I found that the first time Jawar publicly used the name Qeerroo during an OMN interview was on August 23, 2017. Why his position changed is not entirely clear. What is clear is that, despite avoiding the name for several years, Qeerroo had continued to gain widespread recognition among Oromos. From that point forward, Jawar began using the name frequently on OMN and across his social media platforms.

Whether this change reflected a strategic decision, a response to changing political realities, or some other consideration is open to interpretation. Its effect, however, was unmistakable. Within a relatively short time, many Oromos came to associate the name Qeerroo closely with Jawar himself. Some of his supporters even began referring to him as Abbaa Qeerroo or “Father of Qeerroo,” a title that many continue to use today.

In my view, this development illustrates an important feature of decentralized political movements. Because the actual leaders of Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo operated underground and could not publicly identify themselves for security reasons, a leadership vacuum emerged in the public sphere. As the most visible media personality associated with the protest, Jawar naturally came to occupy that space in the minds of many observers. Whether this outcome resulted from deliberate strategy or from the dynamics of media visibility is open to debate. What is beyond dispute is that public perception increasingly identified Jawar with a movement that had already developed its own organizational structure before he became its most recognizable public face.

At that stage, Jawar Mohammed and OMN had little direct communication with the organizers leading the protests inside Oromia. According to several former Qeerroo leaders, Jawar approached individual members of the Qeerroo leadership, encouraging them to distance themselves from the OLF and work with him instead, while promising broader support for their activities. They declined the proposal and chose to preserve the movement’s existing organizational structure. One former Qeerroo Bilisummaa leader recalled responding, “Lakkii, nu abbaa qabna, abbaan keenya ABO dha,” meaning, “No, thank you. We already have a father. Our father is the OLF.”

Although these accounts have not been independently verified in every detail, Jawar’s recent Facebook statements provide additional context. While explaining his actions differently, he acknowledged that he deliberately tried to bring individuals associated with Qeerroo under his leadership.

The limited communication between OMN and the organizers inside Oromia may also help explain some of the challenges both sides faced. Without regular communication with the movement’s leadership, OMN would likely have had less access to timely information from inside Oromia. At the same time, those organizing the protests may have believed that limiting communication was necessary to protect the security of both the organization and its operations.

Whether that decision ultimately benefited the movement remains open to debate. Limiting communication may have reduced security risks, but it also restricted the ability of one of the Oromo community’s largest media institutions to amplify the movement during its earliest and most vulnerable stage.

The first wave of protests eventually subsided, but the questions surrounding the relationship between OMN and Qeerroo remained unresolved. Those questions would become far more significant when a much larger wave of protests erupted across Oromia in November 2015.

The Making of a Public Image

Everything changed in November 2015.

When a much larger and more sustained protest spread across Oromia, those leading the movement on the ground faced an important strategic decision. They could continue limiting cooperation with OMN, or they could set their differences aside to increase national and international media coverage and public awareness.

After a series of debate within Qeerroo and OLF leadership circles, they chose the latter.

At this stage, members of Qeerroo on the ground were instructed to send news updates, photographs, videos, and other information directly to Jawar Mohammed so that he could provide them to OMN. It should be noted, however, that this does not necessarily mean Jawar himself was aware of the existence of such instruction. As a result, he often became the first person to share developments from the protest. Through his Facebook page, he posted a continuous stream of updates, sometimes before the same information appeared on OMN. He also appeared regularly on OMN, providing commentary, political analysis, and public messages about the movement.

This gave Jawar a unique position. Although he was not part of the Qeerroo leadership on the ground, he became the principal public channel through which millions of Oromos followed the protest. In a decentralized movement where the actual organizers remained anonymous for security reasons, the person who controlled the flow of information could easily come to be viewed as the movement’s leader. Whether this perception reflected the internal reality of the movement is a separate question. What is clear is that media influence and organizational leadership gradually became blurred in the minds of many supporters.

Jawar Mohammed’s July 21, 2026 Facebook post adds another important dimension to this historical discussion. For the first time, he explicitly acknowledged that neither he nor his colleagues created the name Qeerroo. Instead, he stated that they adopted “the same Qeerroo that was under the OLF,” transformed it into a movement based on peaceful resistance, and popularized it among the broader Oromo public. He further wrote that they had “taken the Qeerroo movement from the OLF in Asmara,” adding in English, “Guilty as charged.” Whether one agrees with Jawar’s characterization of these events or not, this statement is historically significant. It appears to acknowledge publicly what had long been maintained by many OLF members and supporters: that Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo did not originate with Jawar or his colleagues but had already existed as an organized movement associated with the OLF. In that sense, his recent statement provides important context for understanding earlier debates about the origins of Qeerroo, his relationship to the movement, and the way its history was later presented to the public.

More importantly, this statement invites a reassessment of one of the central historical questions surrounding the Oromo Protest. The issue is not whether Jawar played an important role. His contribution through OMN and his international advocacy is well documented. Rather, the question is how his contribution should be understood in relation to an organized movement that, by his own recent account, already existed before he embraced it publicly. Distinguishing between those two roles is essential for understanding both the history of Qeerroo and the public perception that developed during the Oromo Protest.

Reinterpreting the Break with Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo

Jawar Mohammed’s recent explanation for why his group initially distanced itself from Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo also deserves careful examination. In the same Facebook post mentioned earlier, he offered two principal reasons. First, he stated that Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo was committed to armed struggle, while his group wanted to promote peaceful resistance. Second, he claimed that the organization had been infiltrated by government agents, specifically through Girma Xurunaa, and that this concern was later confirmed by their own investigation. These explanations are significant because they attempt to reinterpret an important chapter in the history of the Oromo Protest.

The Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo’s published guidelines, still existing on Qeerroo website, however, raise important questions about the first claim. The publicly available principles and guidelines of Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo consistently emphasized nonviolent resistance. They called on members to treat everyone with respect, reject both verbal and physical violence, avoid damaging property, carry no weapons, and peacefully accept arrest when participating in civil resistance. These principles are consistent with the methods that later characterized the Oromo Protest. If Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo had officially adopted armed struggle as its organizational strategy, one would expect that position to appear in its published guidelines and public statements. Instead, the available evidence points in the opposite direction. This does not mean that every individual associated with the movement interpreted or applied those principles in exactly the same way. It does, however, make the claim that the organization itself promoted armed struggle difficult to reconcile with its own published documents.

The second explanation rests on a different foundation. Jawar argued that Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo had been infiltrated by government operatives and that Girma Xurunaa was central to that infiltration. Unlike the first claim, however, this allegation has not been independently verified through publicly available evidence. It remains part of a broader set of accusations that Jawar has made in recent weeks against several OLF leaders, including Chairman Daud Ibsa, as well as other prominent figures such as Aman File and Dechassa Wirtu. Because these allegations remain strongly disputed, they should be treated with appropriate caution. Distinguishing between documented historical facts and contested claims is essential if we are to understand this period accurately rather than simply accept one side’s interpretation.

In Part IV, we turn to what may be the most consequential question in this series. How did a media commentator become widely perceived as the leader of a decentralized movement? And what effect did that transformation have on one of the most important episodes of the Oromo Protest, the so-called Grand Rally of August 6, 2016?