THE
SORROWS OF ETHNIC FEDERALISM IN ETHIOPIA
At
the end of 2015 and going onto the first weeks of
2016, about 140 Oromo youth were murdered, and
about 5,000 incarcerated by forces of the ruling
Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)/Ethiopian
People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)
party. Theircrime? They participated in a peaceful
demonstration protesting the widespread
dispossession of farmlands in the Oromia regional
state bordering the capital Addis Abeba. A similar
protest, although not claiming as many lives, had
taken place nearly 2 years ago in some areas of
the regional state. The federal government and the
regional party OPDO have since halted the policy
of the expansion of the planned development into
Addis’s suburban areas. Civil disobedience, as
part of the peaceful struggle in Ethiopia,
empowered the protesters and proved once again
that Ethiopians can assert their natural rights by
engaging in peaceful, defiant acts.
Normally,
the planning and execution of a development plan
in other places would involve local inputs, a
series of consultations and environmental controls
and mitigations. However, these have not been
normal times in Ethiopia. Big and small things
alike fall within the purview of an ethnic federal
arrangement in effect since 1995 through the
instrument of a constitution – a constitution
from whose origination and adoption major
stakeholders were deliberately excluded. Under
this constitution, Addis Abeba is a chartered,
federal city while Oromia is one of 9 regional
states.
Federalism
is in a major way an outgrowth of democracy and is
a glue sticking the periphery to the center in a
clearly defined shared power. In the absence of
democratic rule as the Ethiopian case shows,
federalism is a zero sum game where groups are in
permanent competition with each other, trying to
outdo each other and maximize their gains. TPLF,
as the first among equals, usually makes the
decisions on who gains and who loses, and one of
the ways an ethnic group can maximize its gain is
by closely allying itself with TPLF and doing its
biddings.
Sadly,
Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism, initially drafted
by TPLF/OLF and Shabiya as they started ruling
what was once one country now split into two, has
resulted in multi-dimensional problems too many to
list them all here. TPLF has taken lands that were
previously in Wollo and Gondar provinces and added
them to the domain of the Tigrai regional state;
the port of Assab, despite the pleadings of the
Afar people who live around there, and the pleas
of other Ethiopians, has been ceded to the new
Eritrean state; Amharic speakers and to a lesser
extent other Ethiopians mostly engaged in commerce
and trade and living outside of “their
linguistic group’s kilil (regional state)”have
been forcefully evicted, frequently murdered and
maimed (in Wollega, Harer, Beni Shangul and the
Southern regions. There were reports that families
were thrown off cliffs in Harer). The economic
power and high political status that accompanies a
region has even triggered sub-ethnic elites within
an ethnic group to successfully lobby to be
recognized as distinct to make sure that they are
not onlookers in the loot. The Silti elites,
successfully orchestrated the split from their
ethnic brethren the Gurages despite the latter’s
opposition, and formed a “People’s Democratic
Organization” (PDO) joining the network of
corrupt, ethnic PDO parties clamoring for status
and economic gain. Following the Siltis, the
Kimants asserted their independence from Amaras in
Gondar and secured some woredas as their distinct
homes, and lives were lost in the inter-communal
clashes regarding their claim. The regime is
rumored to encouraging each group to go after the
other, and then playing an arbitrator (shimagelle)
to settle the disputes.
Who
is next in line for separate identity lobby and
clash? Those who claim affinity to long dead
linguistic groups?
The
Sidama elites were not as successful as these
others, despite their census numbers proving they
are the 5th or 6th highest
population group in the nation. Their attempt to
get their own kilil is so far unsuccessful despite
their convincing argument invoking the case of the
Hararis who are much smaller than them in terms of
numbers, and yet, because of the Hareri League
party’s close collaboration with TPLF, enjoy a
unique position to administer the city of Harer.
Then there is the sad fact of inter-ethnic clashes
between ethnic groups that is either new, or that
has gotten worse by EPRDF’s ethnic federalism.
Pastoralists and farmers competing for limited
grazing land and farmland have repeatedly clashed
in Borena and Guji. Agnuaks and Nuers have also
clashed, with Agnuaks mostly at the receiving end
of the clashes. As befits a country that is
embroiled in backward, inward looking perspective,
statues have gone up in some areas commemorating
purported past injustices. The war memorial statue
of a severed breast at Anole in Arsi is a case in
point. It would be a source of laughter had it not
been tragic to surmise the number of statues and
war memorials that could spring up in the nation
for a country with over 3,000 years of history!
The Gojjameis would need a statue to memorialize
Atse Yohannes’s pillage of war in the 19th
century during King Tekle Haymanot’s reign
there; Wolloyes would need to erect a statue of
severed hands to memorialize the cruel punishment
meted out by an angry King Tewodros.
Central and northern Amaras could erect a
statue of their victimhood under the hands of the
Oromos and Gragne Mohammed during the 16th
century Oromo northward expansion. We can go on
and on to narrate the foolishness of this
enterprise. Instead of focusing on our common
shared history to help us look forward and claim
our place in the world, we are on each other’s
throats and obsessed with finding more
differences, thanks to ethnic federalism. Some
Oromo nationalists have decided and implemented
the Latin alphabet as the alphabet for Afan Oromo.
That this was a political decision and not a
linguistic one has been extensively commented on
by Ethiopian linguists, notable among whom is
Professor Baye Yimam. Ethiopians of Oromo heritage
have immensely contributed to the development and
growth of Geez and Amharic literature: Laureate
Tsegaye Gebremedhin Qewessa, Be’alu Girma;
Solomon Deressa and Fikre Tollosa Jigssa are just
a few examples.
Afan
Oromo as the second Ethiopian language with
nationwide speakers must be considered as a second
Ethiopian official language. However, TPLF/EPRDF’s
ethnic federalism not only has prevented
that, but it has also enabled Afan Oromo and other
Ethiopian languages to run away from their
heritage Geez, a heritage not only Ethiopians, but
other Africans and the Black Diaspora are proud
of, and took refuge in a European alphabet. Other
sorrows include the constantly changing Somali
regional state where stability and peace of mind
are luxuries and unheard of in the last 20 years.
The heavy-handed policy of EPRDF coupled with
extremist actions by the Ogaden National
Liberation Front have denied the populace a
semblance of law and order for a long time. Also,
universities, incubators of revolutionary and
Ethiopian-themed radical ideas during past
regimes, under ethnic federalism, are shells of
their former glory where instead inter-ethnic
clashes occasionally flare up among students.
There
is also the case of neglected national historical
sites and memorials. In the name of power
devolution, national historical sites and
buildings are either lying in ruins, or have been
razed down for condominium type new development.
There is no meaningful national registry and
preservation of historical assets.
To
say under EPRDF, Ethiopianity and Ethiopian
nationalism have been maligned and brutalized is
an understatement. Despite the regime’s annual
celebration of “Day of Nations/Nationalities”
and its twin “Bandera Day” celebration, the
regime has not been able to move the needle in
either direction and the celebrations remain lip
services.
Ethnic
federalism is also a culprit in the fast
diminishing Ethiopian forests; in the sad fact of
ecological disaster, such as the foot print
diminishing and pollution [from chemicals used in
tanneries] of the Lakes in the Hawassa area, such
as Lakes Abayta and Shala. That the system has
created an ethnic entrepreneurial class that is
greedily amassing property and wealth cannot be
disputed. A prime example of this is none other
than the victimization of the majority Tigreans by
TPLF’s elites related by politics and marriage.
Ethnic
federalism also feeds the beast of obscene wealth
inequality in Ethiopia. Land is taken from poor
urban dwellers in urban areas, and farmlands in
rural areas with nominal compensation, and sold
off to wealthy developers and those with
government connections. The loot and hefty profits
are pocketed by middle men and corrupt officials.
**
The
political line that gave rise to ethnic federalism
goes back at least 40 years. When TPLF argued at
that time that the major issue in the then
Ethiopian politics was the contradiction between
nationalities, and that each nationality had to
fight for its liberation in its own land, and thus
multinational organizations such as EDU and EPRP
had to leave Tigrai. EPRP resolutely said no, and
showed that the major problems of Ethiopians were
poverty and the absence of democracy, and hence,
and as the Yekatit 1974 revolution illustrated,
Ethiopians could stand together to usher in a new
era. EPRP at the same time held the right of
nationalities to self- determination.
One
might generously give the benefit of the doubt to
the crafters of ethnic federalism as young
revolutionaries who innocently saw it as a panacea
to Ethiopia’s long running oppression of
languages and cultures. That is understandable.
However, after all this evidence is in over the
last 20 years, and the wreckage strewn all over
the land, to persist in this destructive path has
no other name but an act close to treasonous.
Among the purported victims of oppressed culture,
the Oromos, are now believed to be the largest
incarcerated community in Ethiopian jails, and
mostly for political reasons. Tigrai has been
turned into a grand jail where Arena supporters
and others languish. What more can show the
disastrous failure of ethnic federalism than this?
Now,
one can anticipate an argument from the
ethno-nationalists side that says the problem is
not ethnic federalism per se, but the lack of
rigorous implementation of the policy. It could be
argued that had TPLF/EPRDF devolved power as its
constitution says, allowed self-determination
under Article 39, all would be good. These
ethno-nationalists have to understand that the
census results under EPRDF and the ethnic kilil
maps themselves are still contested issues.
Conferring power and sovereignty to
nations/nationalities under Article 50, and claims
by some ethno nationalists that they are first
Tigre or Oromo before they are Ethiopians, has led
only to a zero sum game. The
competition we talked about above among ethnic
groups, especially in one of the poorest nations
in the world, would get worse and even lead to
open wars. Ethnic federalism is a formula for the
eventual breakup of the country, and for a
permanent war, or “no, war, no peace”
situation just like the condition between Ethiopia
and Eritrea now. This is not the way we want to
go. There is a better way, and that is democratic
federalism and the rule of law under one, united,
and democratic Ethiopia.
Just
before the mass protest of the Oromo youth, TPLF/EPRDF
officialdom admitted a fact known to Ethiopians
long ago: that the public does not trust them,
that the nation is a playing ground for middlemen
and corrupt officials; that Ethiopians no longer
expect justice from the courts. A common saying
out in the street is, according to the study team
that reported to the Prime Minister, “kand
mastrate, yibeltal and yesebeta mereit” (one is
better off with a slice of Sebeta land, than being
awarded a master’s degree). Our heroes of
conscience like Eskinder Nega, Wubshet Taye,
Temesgen Desalegne and Abrha Desta are languishing
in jail for precisely saying and writing about the
same things the regime’s officials now are
forced to admit. Our Moslem brothers and sisters
have peacefully and patiently protested for the
last few years and were asked by the regime to
select their negotiators, only to see their chosen
leaders (shimagelles) thrown in jail on the usual
flimsy charges.
Ethnic
federalism has generated atavistic sentiments that
seeped from notions of kilil to awraja, woreda and
even villages.
Amid
such chaos, supporters of the ethnic federalist
project must not harken back to the 1960’s
radical language and besmirch their critics as
“chauvinists”. Name calling only cements an
already blocked mind and will not allow the
revisit and rethinking of an issue.
From
Athenian democracy through Jeffersonian democracy
to Marxist thought, political philosophers have
sought to enhance –not always with success –
the spiritual and material well -being of man in a
stable, peaceful community. Ethnic federalism,
however, is an anathema that builds and encourages
a closed, retrograde, inward- looking, enemy
-seeking ethnic self that is in perpetual war with
what it perceives as the Others.
The
solution in Ethiopia is to empty the jails off
political prisoners, and embark on crafting a
democratic federalism through the mechanism of an
all-inclusive engagement. The current path is
leading to a dead end as mounting evidence amply
demonstrates.
Solomon
Gebreselassie
January
2016
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