Waqo Gutu

General Waqo Gutu Usu (1924 – 3 February 2006) was an Ethiopian rebel and leader of one of the earlier Oromo resistance fighter movements; the Bale Revolt, which in the 1960s had fought against the feudalistic system in place in the Ethiopian Empire. He was elected chairman of the United Liberation Forces of Oromia in 2000. In 2006, Gutu died in a Nairobi hospital, survived by 20 sons and 17 daughters.

In 2000 he formed the ULFO to unite the disparate armed and political groups fighting for the right to self-determination of the Oromo, and led as chairman from 2002 until he was taken ill and flown to Nairobi where he died after three months' hospitalisation. He was buried 11 February in his birthplace in the Bale Zone.

Little is known about his early schooling or ideological basis for his rebellion against Emperor Haile Selassie and the regimes that followed the monarch's ouster and murder. Assessments of Waqo Gutu vary greatly over his role as "founder" of Oromo separatism. However, waqo gutu was motivated by his granduncle Mohamed gada qallu last qallu of the raitu clan in dallo now known as Delo mena and Meda welabu districts in bale modern day Oromia. Mohamed gada converted to Islam in 1930's and made alliance with his raitu clansmen in eastern bale and Somali clans fought in the jeegir war and led guerilla attacks on the Ethiopian state in dallo awraja was captured and before he was assassinated in prison he gave waqo gutu Qubee Meetaa a ring for Qallu's and the story of this handover is clearly meant to signify Waqo Gutu's and the subsequent rebellion's intrinsic linkage to core Oromo values.