Ethiopia – From hard choices to one choice: Here goes the NEBE again…

Scandinavian Chapter

“The question of sharing power through negotiation will not be acceptable, as EPRDF had won the election democratically.” (EPRDF, Ethiopian News Agency, 9 August 2005)

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds…. None can stop the time” Bob Marley

The national election board of Ethiopia announced today that EPDRF could
form a government as it has won majority seats in the house of people’s
representatives. Let us take how the parties fared in NEBE’s first
announcement. On June 6,2005, the NEBE announced that EPRDF won 268 seats,
CUD alone won 115 seats, and UEDF also won 57 seats. After CUD and UEDF
mainly complained about the unfairness and irregularities in the election,
NEBE claimed to have undertaken an investigation that brought the following
numbers. On August 9, 2005, EPDRF won 296 seats that are up 28 seats, CUD
109 seats, reduced 8 seats and UEDF 52 seats, reduced 5 seats. In other
words it means after their complaints CUD lost 8 seats, UEDF lost 5 seats,
and EPDRF increased 28 seats. Given that CUD and UEDF are the major parties
that complained of voting irregularities, the NEBE seems to have gone for
punishing the complainers and the complaint by decreasing even the seats
NEBE acknowledged to them in the first place, and increasing the seats for
EPDRF, its chief ally. CUD and UEDF complained not to lose the seats they
won, but to recover the loss they were certain to reclaim. The NEBE seems
to have gone for total acceptance of anything asked by EPDRF and total
rejection of anything related to irregularities presented by the opposition
parties. It does not make intuitive sense that in all the areas that the
opposition parties complained they lost, including even in the areas where
they secured victories, as duly acknowledged by NEBE by its June 6,2005
announcement. It is the best demonstration to show that the NEBE’s
investigation is thoroughly soiled by partisanship and subservience to the
power perpetuating need of the current incumbents in Ethiopia.

There is no need to audit the statistics, much as it embarrasses us, we
have to admit that the NEBE is a national disgrace. We do not even have to
think of justice will be redressed in relation to this gross robbery of the
votes and voices of the Ethiopian people, because any attempt to go through
court and legal route is likely to confront the chairman of the election
board, who is president of the Supreme Court and also president of the
Constitutional Inquiry Commission. Meles thrust all these multiple powers
upon one person. Under the circumstances, it would be easier to get a lump
of meat from the jaws of a lion than to get electoral justice through such
a tampered legal process, as it has been recommended time and time again by
foreign observers who take the role of advising the opposition parties to
accept such injustice employing double standard on the way they treat
regime and opposition.

We find NEBE a complete embarrassment and we are clear now that the
Ethiopian people and their aspiration to democracy have been cruelly
abused. Even though we know all along that NEBE and the EPDRF work closely,
we did not want to believe that together they will descend to this depth of
depraved robbery, completely oblivious to the long-term harm that their
childish game will impart to Ethiopia’s aspiration to create, a free,
democratic and open society.

The politics of blackmail and diktat so characteristic of Meles & Co has
always had exclusive and non-reconciliatory consequences. This has been
clear from 1975 when they formed the nucleus that eventually managed to
come to power in 1991. They fought the TLF who had a similar idea and who
also was fighting the same enemy they were fighting. They fought the EDU
and the EPRP, who were fighting the same forces they were fighting. They
fought the EPLF even when they had a strategic alliance with them by
fighting with EPLF to make Eritrea a separate state. They also fought with
EPLF to remove the ELF, its competitor in Eritrea. In 1991 they dismissed
all those elements and groups they invited to form a transitional
Government that did not fully obey their line, (e.g., the OLF, the Southern
Unity Coalition led by Dr. Beyene Petros, and various individuals’
representing different groups.) They have now split the TPLF and nearly
half of the leadership is either in jail, in exile or living in the country
without any substantial public role. Related to the split in the TPLF, they
dismissed the former president and a number of other regional leaders. So
if one traces the short political history of Meles & Co, one sees that they
are ?democracy-talking but authoritarian- practising’ liars, while at
the same time remaining arrogant, inhumane, full of devious intrigues,
unscrupulous, immoral, intolerant, anti-democratic and a violent. It is
difficult to imagine they will change, even though almost all who wish the
country to put behind the violent past wish them to change and join and
share the national thirst for imbuing the country with democratic
imagination.

The key relationship that fosters a democratic energy is the development of
state-society relations. When it comes to the way the state relates, under
the Meles & Co dictatorship, to society, one sees nothing but the
imposition of crude power and knee-jerk reaction of quick ?shoot to
kill’ citizens without giving any chance to the right to dissent. Over
3,500 people have been killed as part of the violation of human rights in
the last ten years according to human right reports on Ethiopia. This
figure does not include the displaced or the death toll related to the
recent Ethiopian-Eritrean war.

For the first time May 15,2005 looked as if that Meles & Co may be changing
the paradigm, habit and routine of violent engagement with an electoral and
democratic alternative. The pre-election debates and the peaceful
demonstrations, despite reports in the countryside of various abuses,
looked on the whole that there was a flicker of hope, that something
different has emerged in the way politics unfolds in Ethiopia. Alas this
was to be rudely aborted by the way Meles & Co’s usual habit and reflex
of violence took over reason and the window of opportunity to see a
democratic possibility in the country. They announced immediately that they
had won before the counting is finalised. They took a number of measures
through the military, militia, media and the NEBE to change the
opposition’s claim of victory into defeat. Eventually they set in motion
a process that will have secured them a majority that will kill any sense
of a embedding an intelligent and vibrant democratic public culture and
debate in the country. They chose to pursue an illegitimate route to
?legitimise’ their own exclusive electoral ascendancy.

We have now reached a moment when the EPDRF has finally declared a
Government. It has been given the green light by the NEBE to form a
Government. It seems to us that they will have no incentive to enter into
any arrangement that will bring about national reconciliation for a
long-term reversal of the politics that can enable Ethiopia to move out of
the vicious circle of poverty and conflict. For myopic rulers, poverty and
conflict remain fertile grounds for keeping themselves in power by
exploiting real and imagined differences, in some cases even manufacturing
and exaggerating those differences like in the case of playing up the
Rwanda genocide to silence dissent in Ethiopia.

Is it to Govern or to Misgovern: That is the Question
It is clear that in Ethiopia that people will not believe that the regime
had won in an honest, fair and just election. There will be millions of
Ethiopians across the nation and the world, who now justifiably feel not
only is the Meles & Co cabal a prisoner of its violent history, but also it
is now a wholly lying, and cheating group that can go any length to stay in
power. The people have lost trust and confidence. They feel doubly cheated,
and ask why did they accept in the first place an election to go this far
and cheat when the people threaten through voting to reject their rule? The
people now believe the election was not carried out to make them decide on
who should govern them. It was made by Meles & Co. because of the
particular policy of this group to allow the extraordinary flow of foreign
aid, and grant into the economy. The donors have insisted that regimes that
would like to scale up the share of foreign assistance have to also accept
multiparty election. So in order to appear that they are doing what donors
wanted, they have to go through the motion of undertaking election that
they do not believe in and are not part of their style or way of their
usual politicking. This brings to mind what Addisu Legesse asked in a donor
conference. He said Ethiopia needs 122 billion dollars over a decade to
achieve the Millennium Development Goals. If they can ask so much, and they
get a lot as it is, though poverty is not growing less, they have to accept
the ?good goverance’ conditionality. Unfortunately for them, the May
15,2005 election just went beyond their plan and expectation. They expected
to be returned. But the people wanted to intern them into oblivion. They
made their coup against the will of the people, and NEBE helped to do so
being the chief instrument to carry out the work that deflated the moral
and trust of the people. This election has been mismanaged. The consequence
of this management remains costly. There is now a crises of confidence,
crises of credibility, loss of trust, crises of perception, crises of
impression that can easily create a situation where those who have forced
themselves over the people thwarting their will may not be able to govern,
and those in the opposition who refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the
NEBE manipulated result may not have the capability to control the anger of
the people… such a development creates the classic situation of a crises
of the old cannot continue in the old way and the new is having many
barriers to be born and assert its new democratic objectives. It will come
as no surprise, therefore, if the people refuse to be governed by the old
rulers.

Something critically important has taken place in Ethiopia. A people that
have been cheated will not forget or forgive such injustice. To govern with
misgovernment will not be easy. To govern a people who trust the governors
will be easy. The Ethiopian people know in their heart that this Government
has cheated them of the priceless belief they must have in government. This
makes the years to come very difficult under the rule of Meles and his
friends. The regime can attract donor money, but it will not solve the
poverty question in the country simply because the people have no trust in
those who govern them. This difficult situation could have been avoided had
there been honesty and integrity and a sense of responsibility to people,
country and nation. We do not know how the people may respond. What we know
is that the response will not submit or surrender to the current regime.
The regime probably would resort, true to form, to the use of illegitimate
force and violence to impose its diktat. This will not help to create
trust. It will deepen the mistrust. Under such conditions, the governance
will be self-serving rather than public serving. All the donor money too
will not be helpful but hurtful to the people and the country by ending up
possibly in the web of corruption and equally possibly also in financing
the regimes’ weapons of repressions.

It is extraordinary to witness how leaders of the opposition parties
behaved with statesmen like vision and how Meles misbehaved as a
small-minded village tyrant. He is reported to give the opposition the
ultimatum, saying you must decide whether you are in or out.’ In’-means
to surrender to his whim. ?Out’- means to oppose his whim. The
opposition has been in the process, and it is Meles & Co by killing
students, declaring state of emergency and all other misdoings that can
disqualify them, by having chosen to be out of the democratic process
preferring authoritarian methods to deal with the people and the opposition
parties. But to use such childish tactics- such as are you ?in’ or
?out’- for a supposed leader of a country is simply incredible.
Supposing they applied the same to him and say to him are you in the
democratic process, do you respect the democratic process, why do you
tamper with the democratic process? Why fail to undertake investigation
properly? Why use our legitimate complaint into an opportunity to return
your cadres by killing and intimidating our witnesses and using the NEBE
for such jobs including some of their members serving openly partisan
interests? All these actions suggest that the claim by the EPDRF that it is
in the democratic process is tenuous. It may have been until May 15, 2005
just, but after that its actions belie any submission to democratic
authority.

It is not only you are in or out, but also you cannot be in and out, that
Meles has chosen to dictate to the opposition as well. In addition he has
been reported to retort that the opposition if they do not accept what
Meles and others have incubated have a few other options. Meles spelt out
the options as follows: They can remain inside the country bowing to the
rulers all the time, they can go into exile, and they can try armed
struggle, they can be like the OLF and go to the political wilderness and
so on. How anyone can wish Ethiopia that has gone through armed hell for so
many years, yet another bout of armed struggle is beyond comprehension!
Meles speaking with such childish and simple-minded notions is simply a
curse and not a blessing for our country. He is completely reckless and
cruel in the way he is so casual and superficial in providing as an option
another cycle of armed violence for the country. Knowing what Ethiopia has
been through, it is condemnable and criminal to recommend armed struggle as
an option.

Given the context of Meles’s response described above, we commend highly
the way the opposition showed patience and vision to avoid any harm to the
people of Ethiopia. . We in the NES appreciate the opposition
representatives attempt to present the case for restoring public trust with
civility, humility and far-sighted vision and a sense of great historical
responsibility. The fact that they invited the EPDRF to conceptualise its
relations with other parties, the people, society and the country with
national reconciliation has been indeed noble. That the ruling group
declined their invitation shows more the myopia of Meles & Co than anything
else. Unfortunately the choices of re-run of a national re-election or a
national reconciliation conception of governance do not seem to be accepted
by the regime. The regime has declared victory and called the outcome
?democratic and legitimate.’ Where force and fraud were involved, it is
not credible to declare the election is ?democratic and legitimate’ and
expect the people to believe it. It can believe its own lies, but it must
not force those lies on the people, nor should it expect the people to
believe it.

Ethiopia has now moved from hard choice to one choice only to show to the
regime that the people do not have to accept any stealing of their voice
and their votes by anyone. They must not be bullied to surrender to accept
a broad day light robbery of their votes. They have a right to show
peacefully their protest against this injustice by using all peaceful,
popular and democratic expressions and avenues open to them. There is a
need for a worldwide peaceful movement to respect voice and vote. This
movement must be developed both inside and outside the country. All those
who stand genuinely for human rights, democracy and democratic governance,
the rule of law, and those who oppose all forms of officially sanctioned
abuse must support it. The international community that claims to stand
for human rights and democracy should support it. Any attempt to suppress
this popular movement by the regime must be recognised that it will have
the sole responsibility for any harm done to people who resist injustice.
Any use of extra- judicial killing, harassment of the millions of people
that supported and voted for the opposition parties, and did not vote for
the ruling group must be protected. The attempt to abuse them that has
started apparently by denying them fertilisers and other agricultural
inputs must be resisted.

Concluding Remark
In a series of press releases, we have tried to strive, seek and discover a
way that will bring the best possible climate to facilitate the production
of a future that rehabilitates rather than a future of violence and poverty
that kill in our ancient country. We have shown an unyielding determination
to the argument that, what the people achieved must not be stolen or lost.
We have tried to unmask the abuse of power and dismissed the arrogance of
the high office holders as wholly unbefitting to the challenges of building
a free and open society in Ethiopia.

Having said that, we in the NES would like to make it clear that our
involvement in the current struggle is driven by the highest ethical
imagination to see good done to the much abused Ethiopian people, the
country and the nation. We may not say all that needs saying in temperate
or acceptable expressions. Our language may bite, but our paramount desire
is to see good prevail in one of the three oldest nations on this earth,
that has unfortunately not made it yet to the promise land. We think and
feel that Ethiopians can learn to unite, organise and develop, and thus
finally convert the country’s current disadvantage into an advantage. It
is this optimism that fires our imagination and fuels our engagement. We
are fired by the burning desire to see that our country achieves an
irreversible civilisation-transition, to make it the civilisation-nation
that it ought to be, given its old history, by mounting and engineering a
paradigm shift through the sharpening of our collective handiwork, and the
reinvigoration of our collective national self-esteem-a national
self-esteem that has been dented and even battered by those who have chosen
to express their solidarity only after making sure that they have taken
much in terms of a particularly an uncongenial casting of the country as
the premier symbol of hopelessness and tragedy in the world. We believe a
country that has disadvantages can turn that disadvantage into an
advantage. Equally important, a country that has advantages may not realise
the fullness of what it has. Whether it has advantages or disadvantages,
the ultimate yardstick resides in the ability and capability of that nation
to turn advantage or disadvantage into freedom as development.

We have read politically that May 15,2005 is a clarion call to make an
irreversible change and move away from the earlier rule by monarchy
deriving legitimacy from the transcendental mysteries of divine election
and providence, and any of the varieties of authoritarian autocracy and
dictatorship that came afterwards such as that of the military, the current
ethnic entrepreneurial minority rule, and the agitation to whip up
regressive racial, vernacular, and narrow ideological species and
dominations. We would like to see a recrudescence in, to and of democratic
governance, that is derived and legitimated by the free voices and votes of
free Ethiopian citizens achieved vibrantly with full of interest,
freshness, industry, and vitality. We would like to see civic expression,
civic identity and civic engagement across the land. We would like the
people to be answerable only to the authority that emanates from their own
conscience, choices, preferences, moral ideas and fellowship to their
fellow human beings, and in addition also, from their sense of dedication,
commitment, responsibility to people, nation and country. We believe the
time is now to undertake the transition from rule by providence,
dictatorship and autocracy to government by the people, for the people and
of the people. We want this government to be borne not from the barrel of
the gun but from the free will of the people who express civic political
rights unhindered by any intimidation, threat and childish bullying that
has been a trademark of the politics of the last fourteen years. We believe
the opportunity is open to make the desirable transition to democracy
possible, even as we recognise the dangers posed by the regime to abort
this noble outcome by privileging selfish sectarian concerns over the good
and accomplishment of the larger national purpose. Regime acolytes tend cut
and paste intellectually dishonest views to justify the illegitimate as
legitimate, the anti-democratic as democratic. They remove the context of
the regime’s action for derailing the democratic process by its negative
engagement through the use and violence and provide a sanitised role to it
as if it were completely innocent. That is totally disingenuous and
possibly such a dishonest defence is motivated by lucrative business,
personal and other benefits that flow to the acolytes. It is very difficult
for any sensible person not to see the enormous value of undergoing genuine
reconciliation for the healthy political evolution of Ethiopia. They also
play with the widely recognised fact that the turnout of the election was
unprecedented while the election management and handling of result has
been wholly inadequate. The acolytes try to confuse by a particularly
pernicious intellectually dishonest and context-less pick up phrases and
quotes as a way of helping the regime. It shows the regime has no serious
intellectual backbone except for the childish pinpricks of the acolyte
types.

It has been said, but time can be guilty as well, as witnessed by the
convulsions that our country experienced from May 15,2005 onwards. Did we
not observe dramatic rising of emotions where at one moment the nation was
thrown into the ecstasy of millions of people voting, the next moment the
emotions dropping with the tragedy of people being massacred by the forces
that stood to damn the democratic resurgence that the people themselves so
demonstrably created. The rising and ebbing tides and swings of sudden
emotion from happiness to sadness is indeed a cruel irony experienced by
arguably one of the gentlest peoples on this planet. The people, the
country and the nation have been exposed to what turned out in the end to
be an expectant exuberant celebration followed quickly by the sheer
frustrations of not realising it in addition to the feeling of sorrow not
only for the sake of the people killed, arrested, beaten and bullied, but
also for the danger that the moment of democratic transition that arrived
so manifestly may be dimmed or even lost.

We think that today in Ethiopia democracy has manifested through the
expression of voice and vote by the people. What is threatened is the
realisation and fulfilment of this democratic expression. The significance
of this massive expression of voice and vote is that any ruler that
threatens to abuse this public revolt against dictatorship would be rudely
shocked. Rulers cannot govern by resorting to cheating and force. The
people will resist in many forms. The society will sooner or later
transform into an ungovernable situation. These myopic rulers who throw
childish tantrums will not know what will hit them when an irate population
rises and goes for them. There is a classic situation where those who would
like to govern through dictatorship cannot. The sooner they fathom the
significance of May 15, 2005, the better for all.

Power does not concede without demand. It never has and it never will, said
Frederick Douglas. There is no freedom without striving for it. The
struggle for democracy is thus in front of us. This is a struggle to make
sure that the voice and vote of the people are respected and not infringed
by arrogant power. As the people turned up to vote, they must be led to
turn up to protest any attempt at a theft of their votes and voice. Neither
fear nor appeasement/surrender to the regimes’ relentless insistence to
accept theft must be condoned. People must resist theft. It is in their
rights to resist and not surrender to any form of abuse. The right to
resist is borne in relation to the power of abuse that they experience.
Ultimately the responsibility lies in those who did wrong and not those who
try to rectify wrong.

– Professor Mammo Muchie, Chair of NES-Scandinavian Chapter
Berhanu G. Balcha, Vice- Chair of NES-Scandinavian Chapter
Tekola Worku, Secretary of NES-Scandinavian Chapter

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