NES – Ethiopia’s future in the next five years
Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES)
Ethiopia’s future in the next five years: Seize the moment and seize the time
“If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down that dark corridor of time
reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without
morality and strength without sight.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“?Enesu dar honew ayimokutem, abrewe yemkatelu mehonachewene megenezib
yinorebachewal?.” Meles Zenawi, July 01, 2005
“From now on, the opposition cannot stand by the side to enjoy the heat of the
fire; they must realise they will be burnt too.” Meles Zenawi, July 01, 2005
History does not open critical political moments easily and frequently. Such
historical moments are rare especially in countries like Ethiopia where
political change has been for a long time under the grip of a particularly
virulent and violent authoritarian selection. Like earlier critical turning
points that did not come as mere accidents, the current opportunities for
democratic transition or dangers for continuing authoritarian rule often
arrive as crystallised consequences of processes amongst the multiplicities of
possible outcomes through protracted, often unplanned and intractable internal
conflicts and struggles with the addition of equally contradictory backings
for the internal feuding groups from the wider world. Very often, the defeat
of one force by another has marked a critical political turning moment, as
does the victory of one force or another, as it happened in 1974 and 1991 in
Ethiopia. The exhaustion and ruin of all the forces prepare the ground for a
turning point, as may be the expected possible change from decay to rebirth.
In emerging democratic countries, elections can also serve as critical
political turning points, as in the cases of Eastern Europe’s velvet, and rose
and orange transitions from authoritarian rule to elected democratic
governments.
1. The Significance and Meaning of the Moment
Critical political turning points offer opportunities or dangers, and
sometimes also opportunities that can turn into dangers, and dangers that can
turn into opportunities. They become indeed a country’s dilemma and historical
crossroad, bearing on the balance of probability, bad or good, wrong or right
direction in shaping and articulating a country’s political future.
It matters very much then, how such critical historical moments are grasped to
shape a nation’s destiny, to veer away from danger and land into opportunity
and new historical possibility. It would be for the sake of building the
nation’s future that all must strive to seize the moment and seize the time,
right now. This is thus not the time to fear the future but to grasp the
conjuncture to unlock the projection of a new and fresh vitality to the
contemporary politics of Ethiopia. We are passing through a historical time
when a nation either has to seize its destiny with courage, transit to a new
settlement that will define the major contours/directions of future politics
or traverse the beaten path of authoritarian subjugation. How come our country
is confronted now with the big choices of either going for more danger or
turning danger into opportunity? What is behind this new development?
What makes the new historical moment in Ethiopia special is that a real chance
exists for the first time for Ethiopians to come together, to deliberate and
debate to shape their nation’s future and lay down firm foundations for
solving the key problems blocking the country’s comprehensive progress and
transformation. It does not matter what the starting point of the politics of
various groups, or how contradictory and disparate they are, the opportunity
exists to create a conceptual framework to articulate their demands with
communicative rationality and action peacefully and productively. In other
words, at long last the country may not take the wrong turn as it has done in
all the historical opportunities it had lost in the past. The signs show that
Ethiopia can embark on a new and positive direction. All the relevant actors
must learn to behave with a larger purpose, and must do all they can for
Ethiopia not to lose this rare historical opportunity. Historical moments can
be lost; or lead to the wrong turn. Once they are lost, historical moments
take a long time to be regained. We cannot predict when the threshold of human
struggles will provide the reasons for their re-occurrence and enactment. All
must concentrate in making sure that this current historical moment ushers in
shaping and articulating Ethiopia’s democratic destiny. Fingers crossed,
Ethiopia may just make it this time around. Let us all desire and make this
time, ‘for Ethiopia, now means, forward ever, and, backward never.’
The principal credit for creating the moment goes to the Ethiopian people. By
their wisdom and action, they have created their own political truth and
present, thereby inspiring the prospect of launching of a better future for
the country. Ethiopia’s contemporary great historical moment is created by the
fact that 26 million of its citizens registered to vote, of which nearly 25
million actually voted. This is a new phenomenon hitherto unknown in the
country’s long history. It has taken place and its meaning and significance
need to be fully grasped. We would like to perspectivize this episode as
Ethiopia indeed ushering in a time where it can live with a radically new
configuration of political realignment in the country. Today Ethiopia is truly
poised to make new history. There is no turning back. There is thus reason to
defeat the feeling of despair and see the likely contours of new political
dynamics that may eventually inscribe a system of governance that is based on
the foundation of the free vote and free citizens for years to come.
The world has been surprised by the way the people responded so overwhelmingly
and convincingly to exercise the franchise. The political parties did debate
and present their respective programmes and certainly have contributed to the
birth of the critical moment. To their credit, the people paid attention, they
cared to listen, cared for their country’s future sufficiently to throng in
droves and come out often as early as 4 a.m. and until the wee hours of the
night to vote. Nothing has been as elating and electrifying as the spirit
manifested in the huge popular turn out.
The ruling party did not seem to expect this response from the people, nor the
votes of referendum against its rule. It reacted with hostility to the loss of
authority it suffered and saw Addis Ababa as hostile territory by declaring a
state of emergency and taking severe and lethal action against students by
invading their campus. No political party, not least the EPDRF, should rush to
usurp all credits for this big turn out. On the contrary, the people turned
out to demonstrate their protest against what they perceived and believed to
be the misrule of the EPDRF. We say, respect the people for what they have
achieved, and recognise that they are the principal architects and subjects of
their own historicity, their own especial moment, and their present, and
indeed their future.
Arguably, it is the Ethiopian people that have the primary role in the
creation of this unique critical historical turning point. The next step is
how the people’s will is carried through the representatives they have
elected. How well or badly do the representatives, elected by the people,
carry out the mandate of hope and possibility entrusted to them by the people
and draw vitality and strength from the historical moment? If the political
parties degenerate into squabbles undoing the best work that has been achieved
by the people, Ethiopia will be forced to lose. If those whose agenda is
anchored on power acquisition and sectarian concerns prevail, they can also
open the people to danger, inviting once more the dreaded repression possibly
from forces implicated and steeped in loot and crime.
A remarkable fact after two months is that in Ethiopia the election result is
still unknown. Two election deadlines have passed. Two states of emergency
months have elapsed. The deselected propaganda minister who apparently is
frantically trying to make a comeback by demanding a re-election ,
desperately seeking to cling to power to join his boss Meles, now speaks of
tempers subsiding and the passion to keep struggling for democracy waning. He
said the reason for not extending the unconstitutional state of emergency for
a third month has to do because his regime sensed the cooling off of
enthusiasm for struggle. Bereket did not say their regime lifted the state of
emergency because of regime admission that what they took was an illegal and
anti-democratic measure in the first place. He singled out the fact that
emotions have run out of steam as the rationale for the lifting of the state
of emergency, thus suggesting all those who would like democracy to be rooted
in the country are tired and prepared to stop the struggle. His is, of course,
wishful thinking. Nevertheless, the people must remain vigilant and must
struggle peacefully to save their country from dictatorship and perpetual
humiliation. But have passions really run aground, as Bereket claimed? Is it
right to say that the major reason for lifting the state of emergency is to
declare arrogantly that emotions have run dry? Supposing according to their
logic the cooled off passions are re- ignited and re- enflamed, are Meles and
Bereket going to resort to the measure once more that will justify killings
and intimidations? Are they going to implicate the opposition, invoke anti-
constitutional the peaceful action and peaceful citizens choosing to exercise
their right of assembly, association and demonstration, and unleash the
military to use Meles’s own words using inhumane epithets such as ‘crush’ them
or ‘burn’ them? We think Meles and Bereket are diehard dinosaurs who speak
with desperation to cling to power by any means necessary, using trick,
deception, the gun, blackmail, intimidation or any assorted arsenal they can
call to help their wish not to surrender or share power for the sake of the
Ethiopian people. They are deliberately and arrogantly using self-serving and
self-justifying diagnosis to communicate violence loaded with threatening
message.
We think people are still passionate for the principles that so many people
have died for generations. In Ethiopia, the passion for democracy has never
been this high in recoded time and history. It is hard to claim that this
energy and spirit will be cowed or will melt into air because of fear of the
regime’s threats and frightened abuses. The struggle for democracy must be
intensified by exercising freedom of association, assembly and the right to
demonstrate peacefully. Justice needs to be done also against the authorities
that used the cover of an illegal emergency law to kill arrest and harass so
many innocent people. If justice is not done, the regime will continue to
resort to such measures every time it wakes up with a nightmare that its power
may be threatened. The regime should be taught lessons and letting it off the
hook is an invitation to make it repeat similar human rights abuses and crimes.
2. The Longest Election Result in the World
We never recall an election result that has taken this long. It is still not
certain if and when the election result will be announced, and whether the
defeated would concede to the victors, and the later will treat with civilised
courtesy the parties ostensibly defeated.
We are very alarmed by the incompetence and the sheer embarrassing charges of
lack of neutrality of the NEB. The NEB has found it difficult to discipline
itself and do the job of investigating all the reported irregularities and
come out with a result that rescues the credibility of the election process
itself. Even Meles Zenawi admits that he is open to re-run the election,
perhaps unwittingly betraying lack of confidence in the very NEB he has
handpicked a decade ago.
Given the open partisanship of the NEB to the incumbent and the numerous
irregularities it failed to clear up in time, one would have thought that such
a rigged election would have handed power to the regime on a silver platter.
It does not seem that such an election walk-over is possible given the way the
whole world has been watching this extraordinary development in Ethiopia.
Paradoxically the investigation where there are independent observers from the
EU and the opposition parties seem to bring out new facts on the ground. The
NEB is so thoroughly discredited that it is possible that thorough and
independent investigation can reveal some of the outrageous riggings and
irregularities. The NEB has sown confusion, spread disinformation, and use
calculated and cascading announcements of voting tallies showing EPDRF
victory, foot-dragged on allegations of widespread riggings to promote the
EPDRF to retain power.
We recognise that the NEB has not been able to carry out investigations with
integrity. Under such circumstances, a re-election may be a possible remedy to
clear up the situation. However, some sections of internal and external
opinion forward the proposition that the election must run its course. We do
not believe that the election investigation will restore faith and
credibility, as we have said time and time again. Our view is that whatever
the election results from this badly managed and handled election, we propose
that all the parties turn a bad situation into an opportunity by converting
the post-election result and development into the festival and celebration of
authentic national reconciliation. We suggest that the country and its
citizens from every corner of the world enter into a grand national social
contract to reconcile the diverse and often conflicting interests and open a
space for the creation of a vibrant public sphere where all can contribute in
the next five years for habituating a political settlement that will endure
the rivers of time. Let the five years be invested for bringing about the most
inclusive national reconciliation by reaching out to all segments of
Ethiopia’s varied and diverse communities to learn to work together for the
higher good of making dictatorship and poverty history. Let us not forget the
mishandling of the election, but take the courageous actions for building
something positive for the country from it. There is always a positive in the
negative, as there is a negative in the positive. The agreement by all
stakeholders to go for national reconciliation can be the positive off shoot
of a badly managed election result. It directs attention to the larger purpose
of building a shared future by respecting the protestors whose lives have been
sacrificed to save the election from being invaded by fraudulent action. We
say national reconciliation is an idea whose time has come, a key strategy to
construct the Ethiopian peaceful, democratic and developmental-structural
transformative engine inscribed in a grand national social contract. The next
five years should be a time for setting up and learning to lay down the
conceptual framework to prepare the necessary condition to solve all the key
issues of the country through social innovation of restoring national trust
and spirit, so essential to make Ethiopia stand up tall, free and strong.
3. Towards a National Unity Government of Concord
Since 1991 there has been a demand for national reconciliation. National
reconciliation is not new. What is new is the current political situation that
is conducive to implement a strategy of national reconciliation. In the past,
this demand often came from the side of the opposition groups and civic
associations, but it was rebuffed by the Meles regime. The opposition groups
and civic associations did not have the opportunity to show that they had the
required popular base and backing to warrant the claim that they can partner
with the Meles regime to bring about a national reconciliation Government. The
Meles regime for its part was not keen to accommodate the opposition groups.
It banned the Oromo Liberation Front. It made sure that the relationship
between the Ethiopian and Eritrean people is radically simplified
between “liberation” and “slavery.” This violent reduction did not seem to
have produced a context for creating a lasting resolution of the problem. It
ridiculed parties that wished to express pan-Ethiopian positions
as “chauvinist”, Amhara Nefetegna and used other derogatory epithets. It went
for what the people describe as “satellite parties and groups” bringing in one
orbit all those who show or owe loyalty first to the Meles regime, those who
were grateful for being invited by Meles. It ridiculed all other opposition
and showed a sort of violence of omission and exclusion rather than exercising
a generosity of inclusion and reconciliation. In the two elections that were
carried out prior to this election, the freedom to wage free and fair election
was not available. It was a show by the regime appearing more done to
demonstrate it is fulfilling the donor conditionality of multiparty elections
than driven by the higher purpose of embedding a democratic tradition and
culture internally in Ethiopia.
For the first time during this 3rd election a relatively free, but not fair
election was carried out. Meles said he took a’ calculated risk’ to make a
free election. An election is said to be largely free when the turn out of the
registered population is above 50 % in the context of competitive elections.
In Ethiopia we had a record high of 90 %!! While there is no doubt that the
election is largely free, it cannot be said to be neither fully fair nor
just. In fact it was unfair or unjust because the election has been marred by
intimidation, arresting and killing of opposition supporters, and did not
allow independent observers exposing polling stations to wide spread abuses.
Above all the national election board has been behaving like the national
rigging board. The fact that after two months Ethiopians are still waiting to
know the results makes the whole episode not only unjust but also bizarrely
unheard of. We think it will be an impossible task to restore any sense of
credibility in an election that has been managed with so many flaws, and
complaints. Even after the agreement of June 10 by the parties to clear up the
irregularities, and even with the external observers, it appears that getting
around the NEB’s mismanagement is as difficult as defying the laws of
gravity. We suggest the only positive way out of these crises is to rescue the
process by projecting the ambition to launch a new political dynamics that
transforms and translates the support of the people through votes to the
opposition to produce a new environment conducive to create authentic national
reconciliation.
The opportunity to create a broad-based national government of concord has
arrived. We think the critical political moment would not be lost if
Ethiopians collectively embark in realising a shared government that can
prepare the country for successive and sustainable democratic elections and
transitions of power from one set of parties to another. The next five years
should provide the mandate for the nation to find the breathing space to heal
its many wounds and sores accumulated over such a troubled and often unsettled
modern political history. This means political parties that claim or assume
power must not lose the opportunity to combine intention, policy and practice
to create a new national reconciliation environment. We know the opposition
parties have been calling for this until this election. Supposing if it were
possible for opposition parties to come to power after the investigation is
over, we think they should continue to make national reconciliation the
cornerstone of their policy for the next five years. We think it may be easier
for the opposition parties to realise this policy since they have been working
for this objective for a long time. We hope they have thought it through and
will put in place machineries to heal our society and put a curtain on the
unsettled political past that continues to incite vengeance, grief, pain and
loss in nearly all Ethiopians to some degree, intensity and extent or other.
If, for the sake of argument, the opposition parties were to come to power,
they should not be tempted from abandoning this important phase that the
country must pass in order to prepare its future on a more predictable
pedigree in a difficult world. When the river of time is full and overflowing
with turbulence, Ethiopia must find a stone to stand rock-firm in order to
weather all the storm and sail through to fulfil its historical destiny. It
has been recognised that national reconciliation can be the political
foundation to steer the country’s future forward by putting firmly behind all
the memories that trigger violence, hate, terror and grief. Ethiopia will come
out of a violent political history and bask hopefully in the sun-shine of
national spirit and self-engagement to solve all its problems by relying on
the full energy and dedication of all its citizens.
Equally important, it looks that it is a foregone conclusion that NEB will
certify and confirm the continuation of the power tenure of the current
rulers. They must recognise the fact that to return to power possibly by an
arithmetical majority would not provide a certificate that can cleanse away
all the dirt of riggings that the regime has been soaked in. They cannot take
any majority as an unsullied figure. The only way injustice can be redressed
is not when they re-invite un-elected ministers in preference to the elected.
It is when they are prepared to open Government to a broad based national
reconciliation strategy for the next five years. Meles has invited before an
unselected loyal minister to serve him. There is no reason why he will not
find tricks to try to impose unselected ministers once more on the people
unless there is strong opposition to his schemes. The regime must recognise
that the call for national reconciliation when made by the opposition is no
longer to be doubted that the voice of the people that elected them is behind.
This recognition and respect of the people’s voice is critical and must be
acknowledged by the regime by taking seriously and engaging with the strategy
of national reconciliation. In fact the regime should be the first to call for
such a policy to bring into the process as widely as possible the range of
views in the country in order to create a shared purpose to address the key
problems of the land collectively and with the concept of total inclusion. A
winner takes all strategy excludes. National reconciliation includes. The time
Ethiopia is passing through needs inclusion and not exclusion to prepare the
procedures and systems to unhinge the country’s democratic and developmental
gridlock.
When a regime stays for a long time in power having ascended to power through
a violent overthrow of its predecessors and ruling with authoritarian grip,
there is nothing that would stop it from indulging into abuse and commit human
rights violations, and crimes of extending its hand to the public purse. In
particular when an individual like Meles stays for fourteen years, and is
highly eager to add another five years, it compounds the temptation to be more
arrogant and abuse human rights. As soon as a regime commits human rights
violations as a routine and commits crimes of looting, it finds it hugely
difficult to give up power. In Ethiopia, one needs at the minimum two terms to
carry out ones ideas to change society. If one cannot get it right within a
decade, if one adds another five or even two five terms, the likelihood of
stealing will be higher than governing with democracy and development. A clear
example in the case of Ethiopia is how the regime misuses the rule of law
today. The protection of the rule of law is read as breaking it by Government
to kill citizens who should be protected by it. Meles is quoted at the outset
showing how he speaks carelessly with the metaphors of crushing, fire,
burning, literally, as if he does not care if people die. It is extremely
alarming that a gentle nation and people is lumbered with such a crude and
violent individual who seem to play out his hatred, his various insecurities
and existential desire to remain in power by demonising, demeaning and talking
down Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people. For Meles it is ‘unconstitutional’ if
people demonstrate peacefully against the NEB and the rigged election, and he
will be prepared to crush, and burn the people because he anticipates the
intention of the demonstration may be related to contesting his rule,
authority and power. This is nothing but a threat that everyone must not see
lightly. The danger that Meles will order the military is clearly expressed
with his own words. It shows that Meles is prepared to rely on the gun, as he
did on June 8, 2005 massacre to continue intimidation and disperse the
country’s aspiration to democratic governance based on the rule of law.
4. The Abuse of the Rule of Law by the Meles Regime
A rule of law means law rules and not persons. It also means everyone no
matter what station their lives is subject to law. In a country where law
rules, Meles are equal to an unemployed youth that he thinks can be easily
disposable so shamelessly. The action that claimed the lives of 40 Ethiopians
was justified in the name of protecting the rule of law by the regime. When
one examines deeply who actually broke the law, one sees quickly it is the
Government and not the students. The students demonstrated inside their
campus. The Government sent troops inside the university to beat them up and
kill them. When word got out that the regime’s army is attacking students, it
triggered spontaneous and largely unorganised action from mothers and the
urban youth, and later taxi drivers. Who is responsible for breaking the law
in this case? It is the Government when it made an unconstitutional state of
emergency by anticipating a rose and orange situation or what it perceived
danger against itself, mind you, because it has been a script in a book by an
opposition figure!! Having made that, it violated the university by entering
the campus and sending troops. It is tragic the university administration
could not stand up to the regime and did allow such a free ride by soldiers to
violate what should be protected always as the citadel of academic freedom.
Those who should be the custodians have broken the rule of law. They have
committed a crime. They took action because they anticipated threat and as a
pre-caution to protect the rule of law. Having anticipated threat they wanted
to pre-empt that threat by taking military action. Having thus broken the rule
of law, the Meles regime uses it to protect itself from demands that it
accounts for its crimes by arguing that the anticipated protection of the rule
of law forced Meles to order through his military the military action and
killings. Meles refused to apologise to the loved ones and holds to the view
that an imagined threat in the form of an imaginary insurrection existed to
make his action within the law. He has even been bragging that any recourse to
peaceful demonstration would be to play with fire and he is prepared to
unleash the military action that would burn lives. Meles has lost authority by
his own misdeeds and insensitivities. The normative authority of the rule of
law has been undermined by the way Meles and his group, having broken the law,
invoke it also to protect themselves, when, in reality the moral and normative
authority of the rule of law is built from the protection of people and not
from undermining their rights and liberties.
The first key reason why we need a national reconciliation Government is to
create a rule of law where not only the subjected citizens under Meles, but
those who subject and those who are subjected can become equal under a rule of
law that applies to any wrong doer no matter what station his or her life is.
5. Putting Behind the Abuse of Human Rights
The second key reason, following from the rule of law, is the rule that
respects human rights in the country with universal standard applied to all
citizens.
The reason why national reconciliation is critical at this time in Ethiopia’s
history is to
create and prepare a political environment where past human right violations
and those under the current regime would be investigated with an impartial and
independent machinery to put firmly into history all the anguish, sores, pain,
sorrows and wounds, as much as humanly possible, that the politics and elite
driven conflicts have perpetrated. There is no other way of resolving human
rights abuses carried out in a mass scale by all the armed groups that
justified such killing owing to their giving more priority to their political
objectives than to the lives of the ordinary people that they recruited or
civilians that they killed. They all used armed violence. Armed violence
kills. Those who have killed may be able to clear their actions of wrong doing
by the higher good that they think their particular politics bestows. But in a
highly diverse society, the goodness in the politics of one is bitter medicine
to another. Each political group cannot justify and validate its own politics
by its own yardstick, and exonerate itself from all the orgy of killings it
has inflicted on Ethiopian citizens to advance its own sectarian politics. For
example both the ANC and the apartheid regime entered into an agreement to
subject themselves to a truth and reconciliation machinery where the issue of
human rights violation, therapy and justice in healing society were the main
goals. In South Africa, they managed to go through a national reconciliation
process. We believe the country is better off than taking the negative option
of reprisals that would lead to nowhere, and would not end the cycle of
violence.
In Ethiopia political groups still use cynically the various terrors the
country has been subjected to justify their rule and their own terror and
gross human rights violations. This hypocrisy has to be stopped once and for
all. All those who killed regardless of the reasons must be made accountable
based on an immunity of persecution to be agreed by the courts in order to
implant the seeds of long term reconciliation by dealing as a people, nation
and country with the numerous human rights violations of the past in order to
set standards by forestalling any future human rights violations. This issue
of bringing about to an end of human rights violation is a major argument for
conceptualising and implementing a national reconciliation Government. If
there is any major obstacle that we may anticipate, it would be from Meles,
Bereket and their group as they have been trying to measure their self-
validated success by the misdoings and human rights violations of the earlier
regimes. They have also used the red terror for their own political reasons.
Any final attempt to come to terms with this past by creating a national
reconciliation situation may not be in their interests to continue to rule by
invoking a past that Ethiopia must put firmly behind with justice and
reconciliation.
6. Impressing Ethiopian Oneness by promoting variety and diversity
The third reason is to defeat the violence of exclusion and omission, and the
preference to promote the representation of only the loyal to the power holder
of the time, and to sideline all those who have legitimate claim to
representation in Ethiopian public life. This has a double message. There is a
need to work out how the right to be similar and universal as Ethiopians must
be connected to the various and rather conflicting demands to the right to be
different and particular. There is also a need to settle how self-defining
communities can live under one roof with a united Ethiopian civic
identification.
Once again, this election is a milestone in opening and revisiting the
opportunity to vindicate pluralism by collectively steering the sustainable
building up of Ethiopian identity and unity. Ethiopia is more than the sum of
its contradictions. It is more than the mosaic of peoples, languages, ethnic
diversities and parts. Ethiopia has been passed to us as a myth, an idea,
glue, a dream, and a vision and hope. It is the ideational weapon and spirit
that wards off our fears of dispersal and answers to our aspiration to belong
with each other, reach out and author a shared future from a fragmented and
fractious past. Ethiopia is more than a country, and more than a nation. It is
an ideal to complete and build a national project to eradicate collectively
poverty and national humiliation.
Ethiopia should not be conceptualised with instrumental reason alone that
reduces or degrades public life to the hostage of the politics that plays out
between different group identities for this or that piece of land, this or
that turf. Ethiopia is both an ideal and real, and rooted and pervasive in our
being, in our desire and aspirations to change our collective condition and
the well being of the extraordinary lives of the very ordinary Ethiopian
people. It is this historically bequeathed transcendence, power, and
projection that should egg us on to feel, desire and make the strongest
possible united national purpose, historical imagination and project to pull
together our intellect and creativity to eradicate with dictatorship and
poverty for good from Ethiopian soil.
Instrumental reason threatens to make us all Ethiopians by
accident. But we are Ethiopians by history, and by the design of a shared
destiny. Whether we continue to fight and learn to come together and laugh, we
are connected by one garment of destiny. All talk by some of the elite to undo
Ethiopia and talk down Ethiopia is simply perverse. The notion that infinite
variety and diversity is anathema to the expression of Ethiopian oneness is
also myopia. Ethiopia can accommodate any variety and diversity and still
remain united with a national soul and purpose. We think it is a welcome
challenge to build an Ethiopia that is open to permit the playing out of
diverse ideas, languages, faith, opinions, communities, variations and beliefs
that strengthen our togetherness, and regardless of whatever vantage point we
start from, impress an Ethiopian oneness.
The next five years will be critical to settle this issue fairly
and with intellectual honesty and integrity. A democratised Ethiopia has ample
opportunity to find credible solution to this issue more than a self-serving
ethnic elite which has no shame in imposing a clientele and loyal network
based on its ethnic core recruits and others that are willing to be fellow
travellers.
The era that privileges the aspiration to dominate the majority
people by the elite of a minority by recruiting elements that are opportunists
from the other majority communities must come to an end. Representation must
be real and participation must not be manipulated. The political space must be
open and Ethiopia must find a healthy national settlement that includes, for
example, the Oromo Liberation Front, which has shown willingness to work
within a shared Ethiopian national framework by expressing its difference
whilst strengthening the larger Ethiopian aspiration to eradicate poverty and
root in democratic institutions.
7. People Anchored Principle and Policy to Bring Fundamental
Resolution to the Unending and Festering Eritrean Problem
The fourth reason is to find a lasting solution to the Eritrean problem.
This problem has become even more complicated under the current regime than it
has been under the previous two regimes. There is a need to put principle and
not opportunism as paramount to settle this issue fairly and with justice by
inviting the Eritrean people to state clearly what the problem is and dealing
with this issue by relying entirely on the wisdom and public support of the
Ethiopian people. What is needed is a settlement that bonds the people on both
sides of the Mereb River to develop a shared common interest on the future
whether they live separately or together. The problem must not be allowed to
go on and on. Under one state, fighting; with two states, still fighting…
this is not acceptable. A generation of conflict has consumed a nation. We
must not and cannot afford another generation of conflict. This conflict
continues all our lives. It has consumed not only physical lives but also the
nation’s intellectual energy. There must be an end to it without repeating the
recent tragic war that the elites of Eritrea, and Tigray in Ethiopia ignited
consuming nearly 123,000 causalities for a cause which has not been clear to
this day invoking remarks of a “stupid war” or the “war amongst the brothers.”
The relationship has remained tense with the likelihood of an outbreak of
another ‘stupid war’ if Meles and Co remain to make policy in Ethiopia. A new
national reconciliation Government must conduct a root and branch review of
this problem and seek a long-term solution that is backed fully by the people.
There must be an end to the Eritrean problem for Ethiopia, and the issue at
all times must be resolved if democracy prevails over dictatorships on the
foundation where strong people to people relationship is fostered and
encouraged.
8. Translating National Reconciliation and Erecting its Modalities in Governance
The fifth point is to argue against the objection of how bringing into one
government different parties with diametrically opposed aims is possible at
all. We think finding key minimum principles for bringing these contradictory
elements together and establishing rules and procedures of behaviour that will
promote the peaceful completion of the agreed and negotiated tasks can get
around some of the nasty and rigid positions held by various groups. For
example, as far as we are aware, the fact that some of the groups that wish to
form a seceding state as a strategy have shown they can revise their rigid
position is welcome news. Why we call the next five year period a time for
national reconciliation is to create principles, procedures and systems in
place to make sure that contraire forces, parties, civil society groups and
persons can come together and for the larger good of the nation, they can work
together by establishing Government and a system of democratic governance.
The main objection to this suggestion has come from the regime side, claiming
that groups with contradictory aims will not be able to work within the
framework of one Government. But, if there is a political will, there will
always be a way.
In Africa we have a number of examples where forces that used to fight have
joined Government together though the circumstances are different in each
case, the desire to construct a shared approach to solve key national problems
is something that resonates to the circumstances Ethiopia finds itself in at
present. Whilst we are not suggesting copying these cases, there is good
reason to visit each case to learn lessons that may inspire the various
stakeholders in Ethiopia to iron out their contradictory objectives and
construct a shared foundation for national reconciliation that locks all in a
process that results in the creation of a revitalised national consciousness.
The very recent example is Sudan. They just formed a national transitional
unity Government where the SPLA and the existing Sudanese regime voluntarily
negotiated a new transitional authority. The other older examples are from
Zimbabwe and South Africa. Their problems were more intractable than ours in a
certain sense. In 1980 Zimbabwe provided the first case of a national unity
Government where ZANU, ZAPU and Ian Smith’s unilateral independent white
regime united in Government, legislature and army.
In South Africa, the ANC and people who led the apartheid Government were in
one cabinet. They did create a national unity Government and those who used to
fight worked in one Government. They also created a truth and reconciliation
mechanism to deal with all the crimes committed by all sides, something that
Ethiopia can learn from to put behind us all the justified anger and grief of
the numberless crimes committed by all those who picked up the gun to pursue
their political aims regardless of how they justify their own aims.
Regime elements are using the NEB to make sure that they have a 50 + 1 elected
representatives to form an exclusive Government. The problem with this
unilateralist push is that it overlooks the fact that the election has
suffered from the shadow of riggings and suffers from a credibility gap. There
will always be a shadow over the outcome who ever wins. A winner takes all is
thus not a wise conclusion from any mathematical majority any party musters.
If the would be winner is not arrogant, it must learn to humble itself and
concede the fact short of a re-run of the elections, nothing would clear up
the doubts over the election process. The best and positive way out is for all
the parties to decide to follow a shared strategy of national reconciliation.
Of course our problems are not racial unity or tolerance. Ours is a deficit in
political tolerance, and making sure that the right to be similar to be
Ethiopian national citizens is not sacrificed by demands to the right to be
different or particular so that all can be accommodated and strengthen through
their diversities the Ethiopia we all wish to see grow, prosper and
spiritually and politically united, together, in order to transform the
country and bring it out of the humiliations of dictatorship, poverty and
hunger. The key challenge is democratic institution building and to accomplish
this task we need a politics, which is above politics, and politicians who are
also above the concerns of their own specific interests. We say the mandate of
May 15, 2005 will have meaning and significance if and only if the
establishment of such a Government of national concord is achieved. It becomes
even more important that the parties should engage to form such an arrangement
in the event one or the other side of the major contestants refuse to accept
the results giving as the reason the fact of credibility gap that is evident
in this election that has taken so long to complete. If the parties accept the
election result, and the people back them, it will still be still even more
important to prepare the foundation for national reconciliation during the
next five years. How the specific arrangement to embody the spirit and letter
of national reconciliation is carried out should be left to the parties, civil
society and prominent national personages to negotiate with the steering
capability of a representative national reconciliation council that is
empowered by parliament to manage the transition to a new governance
arrangement.
Concluding Remarks
If we trace Ethiopia’s confrontation with modernity since the European powers
were persuaded to send ambassadors instead of missionaries and armies after
the country’s definitive victory in Adawa in 1896, Ethiopia has suffered more
from the numerous conflicts and contradictions within, from, and of the
modernist elites and their contradictory ambitions than the unsettled tensions
between the drives to Ethiopian modernity and the resistances of Ethiopia’s
varying traditions. It is time that the modernist elites learn to curb their
ambitions for singular domination by using particularistic mobilisations, and
turn instead their disparate and often clashing ambitions to unite and free
the people and the country. We think seizing the time and seizing the
historical moment to build with national reconciliation Ethiopia’s future for
the next five years should be the call of all those who would like Ethiopia to
come out of its current difficulties for good.
In recent years, Ethiopia had two historical moments in 1974 and 1991. Both
historical moments did not lead to healing the many wounds and sores in
Ethiopian society. They opened opportunities that remained unfulfilled. The
dream of a fully democratic and liberated Ethiopia with a healthy national
soul remains yet to be fulfilled. We hope the current critical political
moment provides the opportunity to write a new history to put behind us all
the political problems the country has been forced to live with. We expect
from the political leaders to learn to be politicians beyond politics, and
committed democrats that behave in the spirit of Jawaharlal Nehru. We shall
recall how jealously Nehru took the implantation and nurturing of building
democratic institutions in India. He was so wary of the risks of authoritarian
autocracy that he has been reported to do this: at the crest of his rise, he
wrote using nom de guerre an article warning Indians of the danger of giving
dictatorial temptation to Jawaharlal Nehru. He also showed contrition for
criticising a judge for fear he may have imperilled the independence of the
judiciary. In Ethiopia we have intellectually and morally weak persons that
violate or break the rule of law in order to protect it. We need to get out of
this hypocrisy and clear the road for democratic engagement and create a sure
tradition through national reconciliation for the respect of the free vote of
free citizens. No matter how the election result plays out, the key challenge
is that any political group has to be prepared to reach out as far as possible
to make the next five years a genuine celebration of national reconciliation.
This is the only way to go forward, look forward, and above all, to put firmly
behind us all the ugly wrongs, killings and abuses, and even more stop
invoking such abuses to numb us to tolerate current abuses. We say optimism of
the intellect and optimism of the will for Ethiopia’ future!
– Professor Mammo Muchie, Chair of NES-Scandinavian Chapter
– Berhanu G. Balcha, Vice- Chair of NES-Scandinavian Chapter
– Tekola Worku, Secretary of NES-Scandinavian Chapter
Contact address:
– Fibigerstraede 2
– 9220- Aalborg East,
– Denmark
– Tel. + 45 96 359 813 or +45 96 358 331
– Fax + 45 98 153 298
– Email: [email protected] or [email protected] or
[email protected]