Ethiopia: Second election anniversary shame on us!
The Second Anniversary of the May 15, 2005 Historic Election
and the Elected are still in Jail: Shame on all of us!
?All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and
justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest
good will exert upon events in the political field.? – By Albert Enstein
By Prof. Mammo Muchie
May 16, 2007
1. DEMOCRACY STILL IN JAIL
It is exactly two years since Ethiopia experienced one of the most open
elections in its history. All of us who expected finally our country is
going to make it by seeing a lawful, legitimate, citizen anchored,
citizen choosing, citizen voting change from one set of parties and
persons to another found ourselves in the unhappy situation where the
usual mind set of those in power refuse to concede to the citizenry.
Today those that have been elected are still in prison. Far from
democracy fully blossoming in the veins, arteries and soul of this
ancient nation, we have democracy itself in prison. How else can one
describe the difficulties of putting those who have done nothing but
run in elections to express the highest form of citizenship, except to
say in bewilderments continuing to imprison them is to continue to
imprison democracy itself.
The space that was open in Ethiopia in the pre-election phase
undoubtedly created opportunities for some 25 million Ethiopians to
manifest a will to self-govern. One can understand that the fight, the
debate, the commotion and excitement to be unusually electrifying and
vibrant. There is no doubt also given the context of a free election
any reaction can spill into overreaction. But nothing can justify the
regime?s action to convert a vibrant political process where the stakes
have been so high to use the subsequent killings effected by the
overreaction (if not wilful) actions of its own security services into
a legal wrangle against the popularly elected citizens such as Engineer
Hailu Shawl, Weizero Birtukan, Dr. Berhanu and all others that are
still unjustly in jail. Changing the political process into a criminal
legal process is hypocritical and unfair. The regime cannot prove that
those in jail now have even an iota of criminal intention. They never
had. They never will. They had the noble intention of seeing their
nation achieve what it never had in its long history: enter the era of
the rule of law where those in power submit to law, respect for
democratic freedoms and human rights and democratic political system
and governances, and not use trickery and deception to practise
dictatorship while talking democracy!
2. VICTIMS OF DOUBLE-STANDARD
Exactly a year ago in May 2006, there was a self-initiated momentum of
world wide protest, and the unity of the opposition despite many
attempts to disrupt it was the highest it has perhaps ever been. After
May 2006, the opposition groups started disagreeing and the momentum
slowed down. There is a need for the opposition to unite and agree in
making sure that those in jail are released long before the Ethiopian
millennium. It will be a shame on all of us and above all on the Meles
regime to enter the next 1000 years with democrats in jail which is
tantamount to democracy itself being in prison! There are those who say
calling for the prisoners to be released is not the same thing as
calling for the release of democracy that has been symbolically jailed
with their imprisonment. There is no doubt that calling for the release
of the prisoners is the same as calling for democracy to be released.
All the opposition forces, if there is anything that they can unite on
must be on this issue of the prisoners to be released in order to
release the incarcerated democracy in our country. It will be shame on
all of us not to see this dialectic and call for the unconditionally
and earliest possible release of those citizens freely voted and chosen
by Ethiopians who manifested a will to govern themselves through their
legitimate representatives.
It is also a shame on those who drive world politics and who say they
stand for the values of freedom, human rights, the rule of law and
democracy to fete those who continue to jail those whose record speaks
a million for standing for the same values. Prof. Mesfin has stood for
these values by educating citizens through ERCHO and other press for a
very long time. There is absolutely no justification to put a man of
his distinction who stood to implement such lofty values in jail. For
the world to remain silent and look the other side when such injustice
is visited to an elderly man is indeed a failure of will and a triumph
of narrow interest. Ever since the US policy thinkers have used the
Cold War paradigm to frame that country?s National Security Strategy by
differentiating enemies and friends with the language of those who are
not with us are against us, it has been possible for opportunist
politicians to lure the USA to serve its current strategic concerns. On
20 September, 2001, President Bush addressed the joint session of
Congress and the American people outlining the defining doctrine of the
post September 9/11 worlds: ?Every nation, in every region, now has a
decision to make. Either you are with us, you are with the terrorists?
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html). The
problem with this formulation is that whoever claims to fight terrorism
whether that regime upholds democracy, human rights and rule of law or
not is open to be feted by the Bush Administration. The doctrine, just
like in the Cold War days, opens the opportunity for those who run into
domestic trouble to entice the US Government to back their misdeeds by
getting US power to look the other way. The US Government also opens
itself to the legitimate charge that it follows a double standard. One
of its standards is to uphold values of freedom and democracy and the
other standards are to pursue its interests. For the US Government
especially the Bush Administration fusing the two and finding
sustainable allies based on principles and values have since become a
huge problem. Ethiopia?s search for a democratic history has been
influenced by the Bush?s contradictory posture inherent in the tension
of the current post September 9/11 doctrines.
Our own election has suffered from the context of double standard from
the international community. Our prisoners are still in jail mainly for
two reasons: internal opposition division and not being able to unite
on a minimum programme, and the double standard from the international
community.
3. A RENEWED CALL!
Always in the middle of crisis lies opportunity. We call for the
opposition to unite and redouble its efforts to get the prisoners
released without delay.
Ethiopia has before it a millennium coming. It will be a shame to enter
the millennium divided: the church is divided. The political parties
are divided. Communities are ethnically divided. There is alarming talk
of a growing religious divide. Ethiopia may not avoid these divisive
fissures, but it can never afford it. It is a challenge to all of us in
Ethiopia and the region from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean to make
sure that we promote rule of law, democracy and human rights and
intuitionalise democratic governance as a sure remedy to deal with the
myriad conflicts and create a community of security and development not
only in Ethiopia but in the entire Horn of Africa region as a whole.
We call on the international community to stop using double standard
and demand that it privileges and prioritizes values of democracy,
human rights and rule of law over narrow national interests and global
projections of narrow paradigms to distinguish enemies from friends. We
call them to use every possible influence and the Ethiopian millennium
to get the imprisoned democrats released and demand that they express
outrage against the criminalisation of those who have been duly elected
freely as part of a consistent upholding of the values they say they
hold dear.
If both the unity of Ethiopians for democracy, human rights and rule of
law and the international community to respect these same values above
any narrow national and foreign policy concerns and interests evade us
then Einstein is right in his statement above and also in the statement
here:? Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and
I?m not sure about the universe.?
NES challenges us all to show the limitless capacity to human stupidity
is not infinite!!! Act and unite to release the prisoners now!!
* Prof. Mammo Muchie is chair of the Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES)
Scandinavian Chapter. He can be reached at [email protected]