Ethiopia, Disappointing Victories? How could they be?

By Zerihun Tesfaye*

May 30, 2006 — Two events that occurred last week, one involving Ethiopian opposition
political movements in Utrecht, Netherlands and, the other regarding aid and
the World Bank in Washington D.C. had been the focus of much commentary both
on the ground and in the several Ethiopian websites.

As regards the first event, reactions range from those that are totally
opposed to the idea of the alliance itself; to those who are cautiously
optimistic with a wait and see attitude, and at the other end of the
continuum, those that are euphoric and who think it is a panacea to all the
difficulties the opposition was facing.
Whilst there seems to be such varied views with the first event, there seems
to be near universal condemnation to the latter event. (Government
supporters excepted.)

The declaration of several opposition groups with varying political history
and views to work together is not a novelty as such, for in the past 15
years many a coalition has come and gone. What seemed to have created a buzz
this time around is the fact that groups whose possible creation of an
alliance did not seem to be in anybody’s political radar, namely the OLF and
CUDP are part of this alliance making.
There did not seem to be a possibility for these two groups to come together
to form an alliance against the EPRDF, partly due to the incessant
propaganda of the EPRDF, partly due to the short history of the CUD itself,
and partly due to the earlier history of some of groups that formed the CUD,
and partly due to the long history of the OLF.

That this has occurred, even if nothing more comes out of the alliance is a
victory for the concerted struggle of the Ethiopian people, and a major
defeat to EPRDF’s policy of divide and rule.

But of course, as long as these movements have their people’s interest at
heart, let alone forming an alliance, the mere fact of a dialogue between
these groups will definitely bring about situations where they will end up
taking joint actions to further the people’s cause. But more importantly,
such types of activities that will occur will deny the EPRDF the opportunity
to divide the people in the hope of bolstering its strength at their
expense.

In as much as the people’s victory in the first event is evident, the
decision of the World Bank to release funds to the EPRDF, despite the many
passionate and rational presentations made by Ethiopians arguing against
such a measure, because they felt that despite what the Bank might think the
money was headed to EPRDF’S coffers and not to the intended recipients, is
apparently taken as a defeat by many. Nothing could be further than the
truth.

Surely, for the World Bank to totally deny aid is not to be expected at all
unless the world power, the U.S., itself takes the lead and is ready to
effect a regime change. Despite the serious misgivings they seem to have
towards Meles’ regime, hat does not appear to be the case at this moment.
Short of that any step taken to justify the giving of aid, to explain why,
or to attempt to place extra conditions on the regime for qualifying should
be seen as the positive outcome of all the efforts of all the people of
Ethiopia.The actions of the World Bank should thus be seen in this context.

If one backtracks and follows the tortured route the Bank had to take to
come to this decision, one will be able to see the series of victories
achieved by those who made it a point to argue their cases. For starters,
the fact that the Bank and others decided to stop direct budgetary
assistance to the Meles government is a clear rebuke to his administration
and a definite _expression of their attitude towards the regime, since the
debacle of the May 2005 elections and its aftermath. Secondly, the fact that
the World Bank initiated a dialogue with concerned Ethiopians in the
Diaspora and its willingness to listen to their concerns is by itself
another victory. Thirdly, the fact that the Bank is only releasing money for
the next 14 months and that the remaining amount slated for three more years
is going to be released after performance assessment of the released money
is another victory. When one adds up these series of victories, one can
clearly see the benefits of the various engagements that Ethiopians are
having even in the decision making process of entities such as the World
Bank.

All these small but important victories that are enumerated above will add
up to evolve in to bigger and decisive victories over the repressive Meles
regime. Every passing day, the popular movements including the one outside
the country are further exposing the regime’s true character and proving
that Meles despite having being anointed as one of (Isaias of Eritrea and
Mouseveni of Uganda are the others) the so- called new breed of African
leaders, is actually of the same ilk as the dreaded African dictators of
yesteryear.

* Zerihun Tesfaye, a retired educator residing in Southern California, he welcomes constructive opinions at [email protected]