Professionalism, Political Activism, and Networking

The chapter describes why and how Baro Tumsa, as a pharmacist and a lawyer, used his professional experiences to become acquainted with some Oromo professionals and intellectuals and built social and political networks to create an underground movement to form the Oromo Liberation Front. Using the politics of secret networking, Baro overcame tight security structures and spies while recruiting Oromo students, professionals, military officers, and intellectuals into underground study circles. The chapter also explains why the land issue and the national question became the central organizing themes for overthrowing the Haile Selassie regime, which resulted in the rise of the military government, and how Baro, with other progressive scholars, influenced the new administration to declare land reform by dismantling the private landholding system in the colonized territories such as Oromia.