Implement EU parliament resolution on the political crisis in Ethiopia
“ I entered parliament having been elected as an independent candidate. I
thought and hoped there would be a chance to raise and debate substantive
issues that matter most to the people. I expected to air them fully in the
parliament and transmit my concerns to the public through the media. But
currently what is happening in parliament is that we, non-EPRDF parliament
members, are blocked. We are not allowed to propose motions and raise
issues for discussion. We cannot put issues on the agenda. We are not given
enough time to make our different voices and opinions to be heard. We have
no opportunity to transmit our views to the people through mass media.
Taken together, the parliamentary working procedure is wholly
non-accommodative and uninviting”.
Dr. Negasso Gidada, Ex-President of Ethiopia, VOA, 11 January 2006, (trans.
by NES)
1. The Unjust and Illegal Imprisonment of Opposition leaders
As the interview above fully attests the current parliament is filled with
a ruling party majority that is afraid of a few independent voices that had
the illusion of using the parliament as a platform to voice the concerns
they care about. As it is becoming clearly evident, the ruling party
controls the parliamentary procedure and freezes out any dissident voices.
They cannot propose a motion. They are not allowed to put issues on the
parliamentary agenda. Their voices cannot be heard. It is as good as being
imprisoned in parliament. Why they stay there when they recognise all these
restrictions and oppressions to function with effectiveness is indeed
inexplicable.
What the perspicacious leadership of the opposition that finally had the
courage to boycott the current parliament feared most was exactly what Dr.
Gidada found out by joining parliament. Unless the parliamentary procedures
were designed to accommodate a range of different views, the opposition
leaders who have been thrown into jail rightly believed that they would not
be able to represent the people who voted for them. Rather than joining the
stillborn parliament, they chose to struggle to reform it to conform to
universal democratic norms.
Not only are the voices of those independent opposition elected persons
ignored and un-listened to, but even more worryingly, the people who voted
for them are being beaten, jailed and even killed in various parts of the
country. We have heard reports of repression against the people that voted
for the opposition. The regime has thus not only criminalised dissent, but
also those who voted for the opposition.
Ethiopia today has been controlled by unscrupulous men who control a
parliament that is illegal, a Government that is not legitimate, a court
that is into more drama and theatre than observing law and protecting the
presumption of innocence until once is proven guilty; indeed a court that
is denying the right of bail to popularly elected political leaders by
attempting to violently reduce them into criminals whilst the truth lies in
the fact that the regime is locking them because of its lack of democratic
toleration of difference. The only appropriate designation of regime
action is that it is the one that is committing the crime it is accusing of
the jailed opposition leaders of. It is crystal clear that the imprisonment
of those who wished to highlight the injustice of the election that
produced an illegal parliament and an illegitimate Government is itself
highly unjust, illegal immoral and disingenuous.
2. The Significance of the EU Parliament Resolution on the post- Election
Ethiopian Crises
We found the EU resolution on the post-election crises in Ethiopia
significant because the EU parliament tries to promote values of human
rights, democratic governance and rule of law by condemning those with
consistency that violate the peoples trust, voice and votes. We hope the
other bodies of the EU such as the commissions and the council would take
the unanimous resolution with one abstention by the parliament on the post-
Ethiopian election crises and implement expeditiously and scrupulously the
key and significant recommendations made by the parliament:
1. Suspend the budget substitution fund for the regime
2. Apply targeted travel and other bans on the regime’s inner cabinet and
the formal cabinet
3. Press the international community especially the USA and the UN to form
an international independent inquiry into the entire situation that brought
about the post-election killings, brutality and cruelties
4. Condemn strongly by isolating the regime for criminalising dissent and
continuing to violate its own constitution by keeping opposition leaders in
jail
5. Use every diplomatic avenue to show what the regime is doing by jailing
elected leaders of opposition parties, journalists and others is illegal,
unjust and cannot be tolerated in international public life
6. Implement the suspension of the illegal regime in Ethiopia from
all-important international councils.
We would like the USA Government to go beyond seeing the post-election
crises as if the culprit-the illegal regime, and the opposition, that
have steadfastly stood for human rights, democracy are on a par. They are
not. The regime must be confronted with the fact that it is both illegal
and unjust and is accused for vote tampering and the muzzling of democratic
voice expression. The opposition that has been falsely accused of
?treason’ and ?genocide’ is being criminalised for the expression
of dissatisfaction with the way the election has been mishandled. We call
on the Government of the USA and its various branches such as the Congress,
the Senate, the State Department and the other relevant agencies to follow
the EU Parliament’s persistence to promote value based governance based
on human rights, democracy, public ethics and the rule of law in order to
promote long-lasting global security. Support to dictatorship by
sacrificing human rights will not promote lasting security to the USA or
the world. The sooner the USA acts together with consistency with those
like the EU parliament that connect the realisation of true security with
the preservation of human rights and democracy, the better and the sooner
the world would be safe from terrorism and other scourges that have marred
no end the much expected post-cold war peace, stability and development
based on justice, human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
3. Sustainable Peace with Eritrea with the democratic transition in
Ethiopia!
We have heard reports that the USA Government has decided to send its
Assistant Secretary Frazer and General Fulford to mediate the dispute over
the border demarcation issue between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The bottom line
regarding this war is this: if Meles was prepared as he did to make a deal
with the Eritrean leadership by signing the Algiers agreement, there was no
reason in the first place for him not to have acted to forestall the war
all together by entering into mediation and talks with the same leadership
prior to the war. What was the reason for rushing into this war? What are
the hard gains and losses from this war? The only spectacular result of
this two-year war is that firstly it was one of or perhaps the most stupid
wars in the annals of world history. Secondly it resulted in nearly an
estimated 100,000 lives dead along with those who were displaced and the
ugly manifestation of ethnic cleansing that it occasioned.
We would like to bring to the attention of the USA Government that the
human rights activist leaders who are now in jail have stood steadfastly
and consistently in opposition to the 1998-2000 war. This is a historically
and internationally recocognised fact. Such principled leaders as Emeritus
Professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam highlighted with high principle and high
ethics pointing to the massive human rights violations that the war
created. They stood firmly against the massive violations of human rights
by using the principle of opposing the war and recognition that the
interest of the people in Eritrea and Ethiopia is not war but peace. They
stood firmly behind the people and not war or the warmongers and were
horrified especially by the human rights violations from the hideous
practice of ethnic cleansing regardless of who perpetrated this crime
against the people.
When the USA Government tries to assume the role of brokering ?peace’
between the Government of Eritrea and the Meles regime, we would like it to
recognise that the latter has formed an unjust and illegal Government. It
has no moral or legal right to keep the duly and legally elected leaders in
jail and try to impose an illegal peace. The Ethiopian people are right to
think and believe that the first order of business is to get their
illegally and unjustly incarcerated leaders to be released. Only a
nationally legitimate Government can make peace and not an illegal regime
that has stolen the votes of the people. Ultimately the Eritrean- Ethiopian
predicament will be solved based on the expressed will of the people on
both sides with free deliberation and peaceful and democratic engagement.
Any other backhanded deal is likely to unravel sooner or later. This is
something that both the Eritrean leadership and the Meles regime may not be
aware of. We trust the US Government would not wish to impose temporary
deals that are doomed to fail on the people of Ethiopia. The most urgent
task is to release the prisoners in Ethiopia and help stimulate the
democratic process and not suppress democracy and subordinate in the
interest of brokering peace that would probably evaporate sooner or later.
4. Concluding Remarks
We say the first order of business is to restore the badly mauled election
in Ethiopia in order to bring the much anticipated democratic transition
in the country and settle the Eritrean -Ethiopian conflict peacefully and
democratically based on the will of the people on both sides. We call on
the international community to act and guide their foreign policy on
Ethiopia with values of human rights and democracy in order to establish an
enduring security architecture in the volatile Horn of Africa region.
Underlying the disorder of present day world politics is the rupturing of
establishing lasting peace and security in the world from the diffusion
and spread of universal values of democracy, human rights, accountable,
transparent and people- empowering governance, and the rule of law. After
the end of the cold war, there was a historical opportunity to bridge and
align the establishment of lasting peace and security with the consistent
and principled promotion of the rule of values of human rights, democracy
and citizen empowering and legally protecting rights. We hope the
international community will not tolerate abusive dictators because of
their putative role in the fight and ignore jailed elected democrats.
We call on the USA Government and its various branches to take heed of the
EU parliament
and condemn rather than support the regime that puts into jail elected
leaders, kill their people and cart away tens of thousands of youth into
concentration camps. We call on the USA to recognise that the regime in
Ethiopia has unjustly and illegally incarcerated the elected opposition
leadership and accused them of false and trumped up- charges. We call on
the USA Government to impose strict sanctions against such illegal
behaviour and not reward it with 600 million dollars. We call on the USA
Government to review its aid to the regime and find ways of reaching the
Ethiopian people by finding alternative ways of disbursing the support of
the American people to their fellow Ethiopian people. We call on the USA
Government to apply the principle of protection of human rights and
democracy as the surest way of promoting security in Ethiopia, Africa and
indeed throughout the word. In the end it is democracy and freedom and not
dictatorship that is a friend of national and human security.
– 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:
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