Ebisa Adunya

Ebisa Adunya (circa 1970 - August 30, 1996) was an Oromo musician, poet, singer-songwriter, Oromo nationalist, political activist and member of the Oromo Liberation Front. A distinguished Oromo singer, he devoted himself to the development of the Oromo identy during a time when many of the Oromo people were undergoing an identity-crisis. He is credited for promoting Oromo culture and music. He was a fierce Oromo nationalist and he fought in the Ethiopian Civil War alongside the Oromo Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Oromo Liberation Front which was fighting for the self-determination of the Oromo people. Many of his songs were about the organization and the hope it presented for the Oromo people. In 1991, the Oromo Liberation Front, allied with the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, defeated the communist Derg regime but soon after, the two organizations fell out of each other's favours. By 1994, the Oromo Liberation Front had fallen back into the country-sides to wage a guerrilla war against the EPRDF. Ebisa Adunya, however, did not join the OLF and instead chose to stay in Addis Abeba, the capital city of Ethiopia. Nevertheless, he continued to wage a nonviolent resistance through his songs. In 1996, while he was at his home, a group of government soldiers knocked on his door asking him to come, saying it was for reasons regarding his job. Shortly after he let them in, he and his friend, Tana Wayessa, were shot and dragged on to government cars to be taken to the morgue. His death forever turned him into a martyr and a symbol of the struggle for independence of Oromia (the Oromo homeland).
Legacy
To many Oromos, Ebisa is a martyr, a legend and the symbol of Oromo nationalism.

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