Moving Ethiopian Democracy Forward: What is to be done?

Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES)

“Without perpetual rediscovery and reinterpretation of history, without
free access to that reservoir, the life of a single generation would be but
a trickle of water in a desert… that history has an anticipatory side. It
is the domain of the possible, the starting point of the ideal… the
creation and selection of new potentialities, the projection of ideal
goals, is, with reference to the future, the counterpart of an intelligent
commerce with the past.” Noted American Thinker Lewis Mumford, 1944
(emphasis added)

“The governing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front
(EPRDF) has the responsibility to reach out to the opposition parties to
ensure their full involvement in governance” US State Department
Statement, September 16, 2005.

“Tekawami party tebale, gebre senay dirgit tebale, yegil gazeta tebale
zoro, zoro ye Isapa cadrewotch natchew. Ye Isapa keftegna shumament
yeneberu sewotch natchew be sostum bota yalut.”
“…The opposition parties, NGOs, the free press are the cadres of the
(Derg’s) Ethiopian Workers Party (EWP), those who were former high
officials of the Derg regime are all in the three bodies viz., the
opposition parties, NGOs and the free press…” Meles Zenawi, Interview
in Abiyotaw Democracy, September, 2005

1. Learning and moving on beyond the past
Lewis Mumford has a penetrating insight on how to read history and learn
intelligently from the past. His insight is very relevant to the current
use, misuse and abuse of Ethiopia’s difficult past for sectarian ends. We
Ethiopians must learn to engage intelligently with our past. We must go
beyond the past, and not remain detained or confined by its limitations. A
rediscovery of the past means nothing else other than a commitment to
project a new ideal and new future. A reinterpretation of the past is not
done to ignore, condemn, cynically use or re-use or forget this past, but
above all, to learn from it, to escape from being caught in the reality and
memory of repeating the same mistakes of those who imposed the autocratic
temper on our nation, people and country for a long time most probably
without the willing support of the people of the time. We cannot afford to
be condescending of those who bequeathed to us Ethiopia at least free from
direct colonial enslavement, though the country has been hugely damaged by
the pressures of the colonial experience, and even more brutally by the
grotesque internal deficiency of governance and abuse of massive human
rights from which it has not fully escaped to date, no matter how sad this
is to admit at this time when the world is moving to the 21st century.

The past must not be used cynically to destroy hope or the current
collective achievement of democracy so magnificently attained by the
collective imagination of the Ethiopian people expressed in their splendid
action of going to vote and express their voice to take their own-life
chances and destiny in their own hands. Any one who wishes Ethiopia well
can only welcome this extraordinary historical attempt to break from the
country’s long autocratic past. Equally important, anyone who values
freedom and democracy can only bow in respect to the majestic doing of this
self-action for democracy by the people of Ethiopia.

We say the past is not the current major problem. The current major problem
has to do with the self-serving interpretation of the past by those who are
saddled in power now. They have chosen to bring up frequently the past that
they condemn so vehemently in order to create political opportunities for
their own sectarian advantages. That is the real problem now coming from
the ruling elite that wishes to replay a past that can only be re-enacted,
if and only if the current rulers wish to close all avenues for dialogue as
they keep threatening to do, and prepare the atmosphere for large-scale
intimidation and harassment, that they seem would follow if the people,
opposition and internal and external friends of Ethiopian democracy do not
surrender to their demands and whims. They rule out any retreat from their
demand for others to surrender so that they can continue to retain their
threatened power. They do not want to dialogue or reach out to others, they
want to close in and dig their heels, and arrogantly defy the will of
anyone who has given them advice to oblige for the larger good of the
country. We appreciate the State Department’s suggestion for the regime
to reach out to include the opposition in governance. There is no doubt
that the strong men of the regime will defy this advice as they did the
EU-EOM report by accusing the honourable European MP Ms. Anna Gomez of ?
colonial’ inclinations. We in the NES have been accused also of
supporting ?colonial viceroys’. No one can predict what these persons
may come up with- being haunted by their own intrigues, conspiratorial and
secretive mind-sets.

It is extremely disingenuous for the regime figures and their acolytes to
try to dig the past of some of the opposition leaders in order to discredit
the project of reviving the idea of Ethiopia that is shared now by all
Ethiopians from Tigray to Oromia, except perhaps for a very few demented
members of the elites like the current rulers. To their credit, the Oromo
Liberation Front has come out clearly now that they would pursue authentic
self-determination within the framework of a united Ethiopia.

We say that the blackmailing of opposition figures by tarnishing their
democratic credentials with past dictatorial association is an attempt to
prepare a violent response to the democratic challenge they posed to the
incumbent party and its arrogant rulers. It is indeed the type of
propaganda that Gobbles and Hitler used against those that they finally
used brute force to eliminate. This threat coming from those who keep
telling us that they are ?democrats, is indeed an abominable blasphemy.

We congratulate the Ethiopian people for not only exposing the fraudulent
acts of the ruling party, but above all, for rescuing and reviving the very
idea of Ethiopia through their own votes and voices. Democracy makes the
idea of Ethiopia to be nurtured and the strengthening of this same idea to
move in an irreversible arrow of time, space and trajectory. It is not
being Derg, imperial, neftegna or chauvinist to say, and say it loudly,
that Ethiopia was, is and will be forever. And it is in the interest of all
the communities in the country that democracy strengthens the idea of
Ethiopia. We must condemn the condemnation of the idea of Ethiopia by the
current rulers.

We say thanks to the good sense of the people, the idea of Ethiopia has
been resuscitated. What comes as surprising is that the current rulers wish
to continue to lord it over an Ethiopia they are happy to denounce, whose
history they hate, whose destiny they put in doubt, and whose democratic
future they threaten routinely by their obnoxious rejection to listen to
reason and respond to commonsense.

All Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia must protest the way the ruling
party elements and their acolytes keep crapping and dragging Ethiopia back
to a past that is largely no longer there or relevant to recreate or bring
back. There is no Mengistu. There is no workers party. There are only
people who have learned that their country’s future can be served best if
they choose to submit to the democratic will of the people regardless of
their particular history. The dynamics is new. The old story must not be
used as muck to soil the new democratic political dynamics in the country.

We must reject strongly the conflation of self-determination with the very
idea of Ethiopia. There is no need to destroy the idea of Ethiopia for
communities to have self-recognition, self-definition, self-determination
and self- arrangement. The right to remain different, to satisfy the needs
to speak, write and learn in different languages, worship different
deities, express different life-styles can be done within the very idea of
Ethiopia to be. Right and needs claim and demands are different from the
issue of having and defending the very idea of Ethiopia. Ethiopia, as an
idea, metaphysics, concept, nation, and country can accommodate differences
and diversities without any problem. The people in Ethiopia can express
identities in an infinite number of ways, and there is no doubt that such
identity-expression perfectly go along by retaining and in fact
strengthening their Ethiopian oneness and national identity. We must
protest against the continuation of the criminalisation of the very idea of
Ethiopia by the current regime. We must even protest strongly to make it
taboo by the regime that citizens uphold the idea of Ethiopia by showing
patriotic feelings for their country and nation. We must never give in to
such unwarranted assault by resisting tirelessly intellectually, morally,
politically, psychologically to uphold the idea of Ethiopia. All Ethiopians
must work purposefully, productively and without any retreat for Ethiopia
to stand up and move forward and unite the diverse people and communities
with democracy.

Whatever the regime elements say, the Ethiopian people by their deeds have
demonstrated a striving to settle their major problems through democracy,
peacefully and with public debate and dialogue, including the current
rulers themselves. The supreme art for the people is to use their
democracy to avoid fighting. The choice of democracy is paramount and
preserving the gains inscribed in the democratic process is thus
non-negotiable. No distraction by the current rulers will change the fact
that the people have shown maturity to enter a new era of democracy. It is
the ruling elite that is showing immaturity, being fearful that with
democracy they will lose their monopoly of force, economy, information and
political power. The democratic process in Ethiopia must and can continue
in spite of the current rulers and not because of them. We must brace to
defend this gain at any cost because the alternative-tyranny- in the long
run will kill our nation.

We would like to state a simple observation. In our country it has been
unfortunately the case that the passing of one regime after another is
distinguished more for piling up crimes against human rights rather than
democratic governance and development. Sad to say, it did not produce the
democratic context to deal with such violations of human rights. There has
not been an independent review of what happened in the past nor the
present. There has not been a framework for making judgments about the many
wrongs of the past and present. The past is still open to interpretation,
including the self- justifying interpretation so malevolently and cruelly
deployed and so often by the current rulers. Therefore no group has a
monopoly of truth regarding the past. The past should be open to inspection
and examination by an independent, impartial and non-controversial
institution that must be established as a consequence of the process of
democratisation that the country has embarked upon. For the first time, the
opportunity exists through the democratic process to examine the past, and
come to terms with it in order to align the past to be a factor for
progress, freedom and development in the country. The same applies for the
present situation. If there is any action to be taken against any
individual for political crimes, it is only after the framework to deal
with this problem has been established, not before, as the current rulers
try to exploit the past for their own selfish advantage and to complicate
the nation’s democratic trajectory.

All political groups that have been playing with the past and have been
over zealous to cash in political advantage for themselves must desist from
interpreting the past in a self-serving way to justify their own narrow and
often selfish political goals, rather than to rectify the wrongs and
injustices done to the people, nation and country for so long. As a
consequence the country has been prevented or forced to live with the
partisan interpretations of the past given by ascendant political groups.
This practice must stop; we hope democracy will stop it for good. We in the
NES believe that the time of democracy in Ethiopia is also the time to come
to an impartial and objective interpretation of the past in order to lay
the foundation for a purposeful and constructive future for all groups in
the country. This reason of changing the autocratic paradigm with a
democratic paradigm of politics in the country in order to address with a
fresh perspective all the issues that have been unsettling the country’s
future is an important matter that brooks no compromise. Ethiopia must
embark on a new direction, more hopeful, more determined and more
resourceful and peaceful to tackle its major problems with debate and
communication rather than force and deception, as has been the supreme
distinction of the conspiratorial and secretive politics of Meles and his
likes.

2. No compromise: the democratic process must continue
Let us start with the positive achievement recognised by all and sundry to
date: the forces that do not agree with each other have agreed on one
thing- that the May 15, 2005 national election is a landmark for democratic
transition in Ethiopia. Ruling party, opposition, foreign observing
missions, EU-EOM and the Carter Centre, for example, all agree that May 15,
2005 was a day that the Ethiopian people voted to change the course of
their nation’s history. We appreciate that foreign friends of the
Ethiopian people have grasped this development, whilst the ruling party is
busy finding quotations to disabuse the clear statements of the foreign
observers in favour of Ethiopian democracy. We also appreciate that
foreign observers have congratulated the Ethiopian people for their
achievement and desire to take their own destiny in their own hands through
democratic engagement and sustainable voice expression.

Where clear differences have emerged is in reading, describing, estimating
and judging the post-election developments. The Government side understates
the atmosphere of intimidation contained in its dual policies of reversing
its losses by hurrying to change its policies well past the 11th hour after
election day, that it thought did not win it votes on the one hand; and
using force, emergency law and killing to bring about a favourable
situation to extend its tenure. The protest against these measures of the
regime by the people, the opposition and the observers, and the promotion
of these measures as proper conduct and politics by the regime defined the
nature of the post-election conflict between regime and opposition groups.
The regime unleashed its propaganda machine and tried to muster a majority
in parliament by ambushing the opposition and any one who tried to point
out that the regime’s ways are improper in trying to bend the democratic
will to its advantage. It used the NEBE fully to bring back nearly most of
its discredited cabinet.

Reports after reports have stressed that the way to move forward and for
democracy to grow in Ethiopia, is to learn to work together by the creation
of an atmosphere for a vibrant multi-party political process in the
country. Nothing is more significant than learning to respecting the will
of the people and devising new rules and practices that ensure the
recognition of the voters’ interests in order to move on improving
governance and development in Ethiopia. The US State Department in its
latest press statement on 16 September 2005 urges the: “Ethiopian
government and all political parties to address the deficiencies in the
electoral process, to avoid violence, and to cooperate in advancing
democracy in Ethiopia. The State Department went to the extent of reminding
the regime the following: “The governing Ethiopian People’s
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has the responsibility to reach out
to the opposition parties to ensure their full involvement in governance”.

As far as we know through various written reports and statements from the
ruling party and the oppositions, the major hurdle to achieve an inclusive,
peaceful, vibrant and multi-party political transition in Ethiopia is the
behaviour and action of the ruling party. It has not intellectually,
politically and psychologically reached the normal conclusion that the
historic time has arrived for Ethiopia to embark on an all- inclusive and
vibrant multi-party political process to sustain the democratic transition
and process in an irreversible trajectory. For the ruling party, the
meaning of multi-party politics means an overall control of political power
by a single party. The rulers cannot conceptualise a parliament where they
do not command an absolute majority. They wish to have a rubber stamping
and toothless parliament where representatives from other parties simply
occupy seats in the parliament to vote always in a minority without making
any changes in legislative and other decisions. This invitation to the
opposition parties into parliament is no invitation to debate public
policy. It is a condemnation to surrender. In his recent interview in
?Abiyotawi Democracy’ quoted above, Meles made it clear that there is
no difference between the on-going parliament and the coming parliament.
Meles means by this that the opposition can participate in the debate but
the decision will be made by EPRDF as it has a NEBE -confirmed majority
vote. So what is the meaning of engagement in the debates in parliament, if
it is already a foregone conclusion that the debate has no relevance to
affect the nature and quality of public engagement in decision-making?

Meles unashamedly stated in his interview in Abiyotawi democracy newspaper
that his government is working to orchestrate and instigate a stiff popular
rejection against the elected opposition members in order to prepare the
way for taking legal action against them. This is in line with what we have
witnessed of the abuse and misuse of the media to prepare a cut and paste
defamatory programme against the opposition members. Harassment of
opposition MPs is what Meles has in mind as a welcoming message for the
next five-year objectives of his party. Meles categorically stated in the
newspaper that all dissenting voices including the free press, local NGOs
and the opposition parties are Derg remnants rolled into one. This
condemnation of elected opposition MPs as Derg members does not augur well
to cultivate democratic spirit and deliberation. Meles shows political
contempt to the elected MPs and by inference the people who elected them by
denouncing them as unreconstructed derg cadres liable and marked to be
assaulted by the regime at any time.

For Meles, unless the opposition parties are ready to accept the
“victory” of his party and submit to its rule, their resistance will be
met by punitive measures. No invitation for dialogue and no invitation to
work together with opposition parties and other dissenting groups.

3. Vibrant Parliament, Effective State and Engaged Society
Meles speaks as if the election story is over and EPDRF will be the
Government as confirmed by NEBE. He has called that attention must be
geared to addressing the main task of poverty reduction.

First: What Meles actually failed to notice or deliberately ignored is that
poverty will not be tackled effectively in a situation in which the civil
society, NGO groups, the opposition groups, the intellectuals, the students
and largely the Ethiopian people are disengaged, mistrustful of the
leadership, the state and the rulers that they have now fully known to come
to power through riggings and the backdoor through the generous support of
the NEBE. Poverty will not be tackled in a hostile and exclusive
environment in which the ruling group believes that its policy, rule and
diktat are the only best option. For Meles and his likes, anybody that
contradicts or opposes their position is either an enemy or ignorant.

Second: Donor funding under the present circumstances of state- society
relationship is very unlikely to contribute to poverty alleviation in
Ethiopia. It is only when there is a legitimate state whose effectiveness
and capability is derived from the existence, nurturing and sustenance of
engaged citizens and society that money from outside can be productive.
Dictatorship comes in between cementing the relationship of an effective
state and engaged society from which the capability and competence to solve
key problems is founded. Aid money usually ends in black holes when there
is a tenuous state- society relationship. The argument by some that others
from outside should pour in aid money in the absence of the pre requisites
and conditions of democratic engagement, citizen participation in public
decision- making, and constructive democratic learning and development is
misplaced and misguided. Donor money can make a difference only if there is
an effective state linked to a democratically engaged society. We should
recall that dictatorial regimes are well known in returning back the aid
money to the rich nations’ banks and businesses through corruption and
wasteful spending. Nigeria’s establishment and that of the D.R. Congo’s
have served as the notorious cases, for having used their rich mineral
resources to benefit businesses and banks of the rich nations. Unless
governance is rooted in a democratic foundation and public office holders
are made and become accountable to the people or even better the aid money
is directly controlled and invested by the people, there is a high
probability that aid money will end up benefiting the elites and the
political groups that monopolize political, economic, military and media
power rather than the people or the poor. Thus the first necessary
condition to make aid work is to create an effective state with an engaged
society that is sustained with path dependency and irreversibility. In
Ethiopia, the people have shown that democracy is their glue to mediate
between an effective state and engaged society. This is an important reason
for donors never to retreat in their stand to help deepen and broaden
democratic engagement in Ethiopia without tire. If they want their support
to have consequence that makes a difference, they must not see the
development of Ethiopian democracy expediently. They must pursue it with
principle, and not as Jeffrey Sachs wants to believe that a massive
infusion of donor money can create an ?African green revolution’ by a
particularly ugly and uncongenial obsequious flattering, strange as it may
sound, this or that African dictator he seems to like personally.
Incidentally, both the World Bank and the IMF have already said that there
is no way that Africa can meet any of the UN Millennium development goals!
What this tells us is that the issue is more than finding technical fix, it
requires serious democratisation if social and economic transformation is
take place irreversibly.

4. What is to be done now?

The Ethiopian people must continue to strive for democracy. There will be
no retreat until democratic change is fully attained. There is a need to
undertake inclusive dialogue of all the relevant stakeholders as demanded
by all those who wish democracy to be embedded in state and society in
Ethiopia. The call for dialogue and public debate must not be partial but
all-inclusive. The call by Meles to invite only the OLF for dialogue is
divisive and disingenuous. It is once more the worn-out tactic to try to
use the OLF to ward off the current threat posed by democracy to ruling
party power. Once this threat subsides, the OLF will be thrown out again.
OLF should be saying once smitten, twice shy. We have called time and time
again for the OLF to be part of the national dialogue. It should have been
invited to participate in the national election. We also believe that the
issues the OLF is keen about- the self-determination of the Oromo people-
would be solved through democratic engagement of citizens in the context of
genuine democratic transition in Ethiopia. It is important the OLF demand
with others for the foundation and establishment of an all inclusive and
deliberative democracy, dialogic democracy, communicative democracy, and
participatory democracy in order to find a shared basis to reconstitute
freshly the idea of Ethiopia and move on by creating effective states
indissolubly linked with a democratically engaged society to create
capabilities that will solve the major problems of the country with an
enduring and sustainable impact. We find the recent overture to reach out
only to the OLF by Meles highly opportunistic and diversionary. We must
recall it is the same Meles and his group who did not care to invite the
OLF to participate in the election. It is the same Meles and his group who
have refused to answer the letter of invitation by the opposition leaders
for dialogue in order to create a non-intimidating atmosphere to promote a
well-functioning vibrant multi-party democracy. With a mean spirit and
characteristic small- mindedness, Meles chooses to play politics and
refuses to deal with the problem of the next parliament and instead tries
to invite the OLF who will not be in this parliament. It will not be
surprising give the way Meles has treated the opposition parties, if they
are forced to boycott parliament. The whole world can only blame Meles and
his group, should the opposition decide to boycott parliament. The call
for dialogue is for the people, nation, elected representatives as a whole.
Meles cannot disabuse the nation for long by inviting groups one by one
opening in order to make it opportune for his own group to divide and
conquer. Ethiopia must come out for good from the shadowy, cruel,
secretive, conspiratorial, intrigue-full politics of dictatorship and
autocracy.

5. Proposals for moving forward

The next few weeks are critical and we call on the people of Ethiopia, the
opposition and friends of Ethiopian democracy both inside and outside
Ethiopia to continue struggling for Ethiopia’s peaceful democratic
transition.

1. We say: Shall the opposition waste the electoral gains of the voters?
No. We say: Should the oppositions submit to Meles’s dictum? Never. The
purpose of democracy is more important than the arena of struggle, though
choosing the arena can be decisive as well. Every electoral gain should be
used to mount peaceful and protracted popular movement to pressure the
Meles’s regime to accept negotiation, inclusiveness and a vibrant
multi-party politics. Every electoral gain should be used as a platform for
popular resistance against tyranny to facilitate the much sought after
historic democratic transition in Ethiopia in order to develop democratic
institutions and procedures to engage with the nation’s critical problems
from poverty to Eritrea in a peaceful and democratic framework.

2. There can be no retreat in deepening and widening the democratic
process. There should be no pressure on the opposition parties to accept
the electoral theft that has been witnessed during this election even if
opposition parties were to decide to enter parliament. It is a matter of
principle not to condone deception and electoral theft. Seating in a
rubberstamp parliament will not help to move forward the democratic process
in the situation in which Meles and his group have abundantly made clear
officially and several times that they will make it very difficult for the
opposition to operate and participate in the coming government. Entering
the parliament by the opposition should be made only after an agreement is
reached that the public media, the court, the police and security forces
and the election board would be structured and made to function without
party loyalty and partisanship.

3. There can be no retreat from the just and fair position that
Ethiopia’s major problems can only be solved by making it possible to
expand the democratic possibility and space and not by restricting it to
make room only for ruling party dominance in continuing to monopolise the
economy, military, politics, the legislature, the judiciary and the media.

4. There can be no surrender owing to fears of ruling party threats to
create brutality in Ethiopia, to criminalize the opposition by denigrating
elected officials as cadres of the Mengistu regime, and using the media to
connect them to a past that is not the major problem of the Ethiopian
people now. Now the problem is Meles and his ruling elites’ desire to
shore up their position and stay in power with their own exclusive control.
It is not Mengistu who is long gone, but Meles who is the problem for
democracy now. Time is ticking, but it is Meles that should be converted
either to be part of the solution or remain as he is now as the major
barrier to Ethiopian democracy. Meles has acted in a way that the people
and growing international opinion has identified him as the main problem
blocking all progress to a better democratic future and direction for the
country.

5. There can be no surrender to the oppression of the idea of Ethiopia by
those whose primary distinction is the infamy of coming to power and
clinging to it by fighting the very idea of Ethiopia including fighting
also, as it is getting clearer by the day now the very idea of a
democratically integral Ethiopia. They should be on the defensive and the
Ethiopian people must be on the offensive in defence of the unity of
Ethiopia, the country, its peoples, communities, society, culture and
identities.

6. We call and demand that Ethiopia needs a new political framework that
should be anchored in democratic and human right principles to
institutionalise democratic governance to articulate and shape its future.
We need a minimum national covenant that includes every dissenting voice to
participate in searching for a peaceful political framework that is
anchored on democratic and human rights principles. The global order must
be rebuilt on the principles of human rights, democracy and democratic
governance, and our nation must put its own house in order to be a factor
in shaping this global order of human rights, democracy and effective
democratic governance.

7. We demand that there must be an independent and impartial judicial
body that should examine past and on-going political crimes, alleged mass
killings, and other crimes associated with past and current political
movements, parties and personalities.

8. It is becoming clear now that the main barrier to effectuate
Ethiopia’s democratic transition is the ruling party. We call upon the
people of Ethiopia, the opposition parties, friends of democracy both
inside and outside Ethiopia to unite the many to pressurize the few chief
elements of the ruling party to enter into broad dialogue to find solutions
to the electoral problems in the country as a prelude to solve other key
national problems. This will be our last call for the Meles group to listen
to reason, not to go and form a Government that would be ?laughed out of
town’, to use his own words, by the people who feel cheated and abused
for the way the riggings have stolen their votes and tampered with their
true voices.

9. We call on the Meles regime to take what is becoming by the hour the
last chance for including all in a dialogue to reach a covenant for
Ethiopia’s peaceful democratic transition. We would like to notify all
concerned that the problems of Ethiopia can be solved only if the people
are part and parcel of the decision- making process, and condemn all
attempts to divide them by using selective invitations and divisive
measures. We can fully understand and the entire international community
must also comprehend, if opposition parties are forced to boycott
parliament. It is their decision and the international community should
back them and Ethiopian democracy above everything else.

10. We call on the police and armed forces never to obey an order to kill
any Ethiopian who is struggling peacefully to bring about democratic
transition. Let the armed forces know that the loss of life of one
Ethiopian diminishes us all including themselves. Do not give succour to
Meles and his hard-core inner circle to make good their threats to kill by
using you. We call upon you to defend democracy and the people and not
those who want to impose themselves on the people in perpetuity by
destroying the idea of Ethiopia and the country’s chance to become a
democratically renascent Ethiopia.

Concluding Remark

We would like to continue the struggle for democracy until the peoples
expressed will for seeing a peaceful democratic transition is realised in
practice and reality. We plan to prepare a document and circulate to all
groups- to deepen the national public debate, dialogue and establish
hopefully an agreed and shared covenant that all may be able to agree as a
shared principle to move the collective achievement of the Ethiopian people
forward. This canon or covenant will be produced in order to continue the
momentum and spectacular and unprecedented mobilisation for the democratic
rebirth of Ethiopia. Never have we witnessed such mobilisation in the
nation’s history in peace- time as people have been now for the worthy
cause of collectively shaping through peaceful deliberation their
country’s democratic future. This mobilisation must be sustained and
continued. We plan to distribute the draft document widely and seek
comments, criticisms and alterations before calling an international and
all- inclusive conference to facilitate the spreading and deepening of
democratic learning and development in Ethiopia. We hope to receive
feedback and comment from all parties involved in Ethiopian politics that
includes political groupings, civic society organisations, prominent
individuals, and other friends of Ethiopia that have been involved keenly
in the current electoral process from the EU to the US State Department and
others. We call all those who agree to continue the democratic struggle
and fully coordinate their time, their suggestions and resources to bring
about an open, deep and fully participatory and inclusive engagement to
shape Ethiopia’s future only through an all-inclusive, peaceful, just and
humane dialogue.

Finally, we recognise that supreme art of struggle is to shape Ethiopia’s
present and future without any brutality and bloodshed. This dictum can
hold true only if we unite the many to defeat Meles and his small clique
around him by even inviting those who have been misguided in mistaking
supporting Meles ?s arrogance ironically as worthwhile. We would like the
broadest possible internal and external alignment for the purpose of
spreading an unflinching commitment for instituting Ethiopian democracy in
our soil. We would even appeal and call for a new and open EPDRF, the OLF
and all other forces operating in the country to unite under the banner of
democracy to create everlasting good in the land. We appeal to all the
political forces in the country no matter who they are to care for human
life and justice and heed the call to listen to reason: We say: Open your
ears to hear, your eyes to see clearly the problem of not accommodating the
democratic will of the people, your brain to think and solve the major
problems of the country seriously with foresight and intelligence, your
heart to feel for the peoples’ well being and the country’s better
future, and your soul to gain wisdom through the art of conversation,
discussion, deliberation and communication to create a democratic and
vibrant Ethiopia for all its people without any exception.

– 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
– Cell: +45 3112 5507
– Email: [email protected] or [email protected] or
[email protected]