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The Tragedy of Modern
Ethiopian History and the Challenges to its
Political Economy
Ghelawdewos Araia, PhD
February 20, 2020
Ethiopia
is a great nation with a spectacular and
magnificent civilization of antiquity, and
material as well as spiritual florescence of the
medieval to the early 17th century
period, but its modern history is bedeviled and
infested by numerous enigmatic causes that led to
the country’s disaster failures, including
countering the modicum but meaningful development
strategies that Ethiopia had initiated in its most
recent history. This article intends to expose and
uncover the plethora of actors’ (domestic and
foreign), policies and political economy agendas.
Ethiopia
has made a transition from a coercive hegemony
(the Derg rule: 1974-1991) to a benevolent
hegemony of the EPRDF (1991-2018), that is, until
the advent of Abiy Ahmed to power; I attribute
‘benevolent hegemony’ to the EPRDF because
under its rule democratic governance was unable to
flourish, but the ruling party is credited for a
double digit economic growth, foundational
economy, the establishment of forty-five
universities, major industrial parks, and public
housing etc. This is unheard of in modern
Ethiopian history, although a significant number
of the so-called opposition, stuck in self-denial,
would not like to acknowledge it. Moreover, Abiy
Ahmed, a byproduct of the EPRDF himself, seems to
counter attack and derail the worthwhile
development initiative undertaken by its
predecessor regimes; and worse, under Abiy,
Ethiopia is sliding backward and it is beset by
instability and displacement of millions of its
citizens.
The
current Ethiopian crisis does not come as a
surprise to me, because I made a political
forecast on the present turmoil, some twenty-five
years ago, as follows:
The TGE’s [Transitional
Government of Ethiopia] policy of Kilil and
self-determination is commendable, but the
consequence of fragmentation as a result of new
wave of ethnic political consciousness, and the
inability of some minority nationalities to become
economically and politically viable, would
ultimately preoccupy Ethiopians to otherwise
unforeseen problem.1
What
I have reasoned above is only to indicate the
necessity of precautionary measures in the event
of a political action program exhibits negative
outcomes, but I was never prepared for an
incredibly bizarre political behavior in which a
government will standby with callous silence when
armed brigands kill Ethiopians and loot their
property; churches and mosques are burned to the
ground; roads that link the regional states are
blocked; college students are unable to attend
classes and pursue their educational career
peacefully, and some twenty-two colleges are now
closed down; and most importantly, in the absence
of rule of law and an Hobbesian-like state of
nature of lawlessness that has become now second
nature in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian people who never
have had such an experience are terrified by a
nightmarish politics perpetrated by the inept
regime whose direction is unfathomable and whose
mission seems to satisfy foreign political goals
and not promote Ethiopian national interest. I was
never prepared for such kind of tragic political
phenomena, let alone predict it.
Medemer,
love, and forgiveness are no longer tenable and as
a result, the yesteryear popularity of PM Abiy
Ahmed has diminished considerably, but it is not
extinguished completely, especially if one follows
the February 14, 2020 massive demonstration
support for Abiy at the Jimma-Agaro area, and also
the warm welcome the PM received extended to him
by the Dubai, United Arab Emirate, Ethiopian
refugees; that means, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed
still maintains some support from some Ethiopians.
Now, the likelihood is that present Ethiopian
politics will be shaped by the confrontation
between the supporters of Abiy and those who
despise and oppose him.
Given
the current Ethiopian political landscape, thus,
the PM could further garner support from
Ethiopians via his newly constituted but untested
Prosperity Party, although as we shall see later
the majority of Ethiopians, especially those who
favor the federal system and are rallied around
federalist forces, have now become fierce
critiques of Abiy Ahmed. And in order to redeem
the nascent political deficit that has now
bewitched the Abiy regime, some government
officials have begun finger pointing at
potentially threatening rival forces for the ills
that Ethiopia has encountered now; more
specifically, they blame unknown gunmen, who have
become mysterious belligerent forces, for the
cause of instability and displacement of people
from their villages. A good example of this kind
of scapegoat is Lencho Bati, who in his interview
with Al Jazeera said, “Ethiopian people used to
live together peacefully. This [internally
displaced people] is politically masterminded,
agitated from behind in order to sabotage the
reforms…The overthrown elites, the people who
were enjoying privilege for 27 years, they want to
make sure this process [the reform] is
sabotaged.”2
Lencho
Bati’s statement is full of contradiction and
miscalculated verbose, to say the least. What does
“overthrown elites” mean? Was there any silent
coup d’etat in Ethiopia that we were not aware
of? Is Lencho implying to the TPLF when he says
“overthrown elites” or is he simply imagining
fantastic political figures in order to hoodwink
the people? Whatever his contemplation is, it is
not surprising that those kind of easy picking or
sitting duck are entertained by a spokesperson of
the Government, because Abiy Ahmed, in his recent
visit to Bale told his audience in the most
explicit fashion by mentioning the TPLF; he uses
the word ‘eat’ in the metaphoric sense and
said, “We are now eating the TPLF that ate us
for 27 years”, but the same Abiy Ahmed, during
his sojourn to Tigray a couple of years ago, told
the Tigray audience packed in an auditorium at
Addi Haqi, Mekelle, Tigray, that “they are
golden, and Tigray without Ethiopia and Ethiopia
without Tigray could not exist” and also
mentioned Tigrayan patriots such as Suhul, Marta,
Qeshi Gebru, Berhane-Meskel Reda, Tilahun Gizaw,
Meles Zenawi etc. Abiy’s statement, of course,
is now a bygone and forgotten rhetoric, and if at
all, what we see now is Abiy’s engagement
against Tigray by forging unholy alliance with
Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea.
My
advice to Abiy Ahmed, if he can listen, is that he
should pause for a moment and think twice before
he moves forward once in instigating any skirmish
against Tigray, let alone open an all out fire in
order to subdue the people of Tigray. On the
contrary, his best bet could be to make peace with
the TPLF and other political organizations like
the OLF, if indeed he genuinely wants to iron out
differences with diverse political groups, and
ultimately earn support from the Ethiopian people
and consolidate power legally and peacefully. On
the other hand, if Abiy does not make peace with
the above mentioned political parties and other
federalist forces, and wrongly assumes that he
could hang on to power via his Prosperity Party
and with the help of some feeble parties like the
Ethiopian Citizen Party, his regime will collapse
ignominiously.
Abiy
Ahmed also ought to pursue and implement an
inclusive and comprehensive policy that can bring
about Ethiopian unity and heal the nation from its
miserable condition. As a leader of Ethiopia, and
not of this or that sectarian group, he should
refrain from discriminating some Ethiopians and
some regional states such as Tigray or Afar. A
good example of discrimination is forbidding the
Chinese investor delegation who were en route from
Addis Ababa to Tigray from travelling to Mekelle
in order to sign an agreement with the officials
of the Regional State of Tigray; and because of
this sad but shameful act of the Government, the
Tigrayan leaders who were waiting the Chinese
delegation at Ras Alula Airport, were compelled to
go to Addis Ababa, meet their Chinese counterparts
and sign the agreement in the capital city.
What
I discussed above is policy matrix in its micro
sense; at a macro level, I would like to expound
the significance of public policy with respect to
the Ethiopian political economy in general and the
liberalization policies in particular. It is
abundantly clear that the Abiy regime has now made
a major departure from the Developmental State
(DS) EPRDF agenda to a liberal economic policy;
during the formative period of the new government,
Abiy told the people’s representatives of the
Ethiopian parliament that his government is geared
toward installing a capitalist system There is
nothing wrong in striving to establish a
capitalist system in which private enterprises for
profit and private ownership reign supreme; after
all; in the context of political economy and the
long odyssey of human engineered mode of
productions, it is capitalism that brought up the
most revolutionary and most efficient production
system hitherto unknown in human history. However,
unfettered capitalism is overly exploitative and
does not show any regard to the welfare of the
poor working people.
In
most affluent and middle income nations,
capitalism or the market economy, as it is
preferably and favorably known by Western
countries, had indeed created enormous wealth and
opportunities, but it could not offer equality or
even equity for some members of society to have
access to the privileges and amenities that the
rich people take it for granted. In this context,
thus, neither structural adjustment program (SAP)
nor the Washington Consensus can alleviate the
deeply entrenched poverty in Ethiopia, and Abiy
and his cohorts at the top echelon of the
government may have wrongly or inadvertently but
willingly endorsed the Washington Consensus
agenda.
Back
in 1998, in a critical appraisal of SAP, I
attempted to discuss and expose the Program’s
objectives: “The SAP as a strategy argued the
necessity of downsizing the bureaucracy, the
privatization of state enterprises, devaluation of
currency, reducing government expenditure etc in
order to boost the domestic economy. This
monetarist prescription of the supply-side
economics , however, gave more power to donors in
the planning and supervision of domestic African
enterprises, and as a result most African
countries who espoused SAP are poorer now than
they were two decades ago…At a time when the
World Bank was advocating Accelerated
Development in 1979, the purchasing power of
exports of Ethiopia, Somalia, Benin, Sierra Leone,
Mauritania, Liberia, Zaire and Zambia fell
drastically because they were unable to compete in
the unequal partnership of global trade.
Incidentally, in an effort to remedy the
‘inequality among nations’, the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in
1964 came up with a splendid idea of North/South
Dialogue and with a very noble slogan of
“equitable distribution of world’s wealth”,
but disappeared like a phantasmagoria in the cloud
of Northern interests.”3
In
light of the above extrapolation, I suggest that
that the present and future governments of
Ethiopia must not only have a sound and doable
policy framework but also a system in place that
prevents the pitfalls of Washington Consensus; it
is imperative that a system that investigates and
monitors external institutions that make inputs to
influence public policy installed in order to
safeguard domestic policies; the system should
serve as a permanent guidepost or beacon for the
overall development agenda of Ethiopia.
Formulating
and implementing policies, however, are not easy,
and as Ernesto Stein et al aptly put it,
“Policies are complex undertaking. Bringing any
particular “policy reform” to fruition is a
process that involves multiple actors through many
stages of the policy process. It requires specific
responses from economic and social agents, and
therefore necessitates several forms of
cooperation and positive beliefs about the
durability and other properties of the policy.
That is, policies require a great deal more than a
magical moment of special politics to introduce
“the right policy” in order to produce
effective results.”4
On
top of the above policy analysis, Ernesto Stein et
al further elaborate the significance of policies
as they pertain to macroeconomics, trade policy,
regulation, and the following point of argument
that I found it quite relevant to my own thesis
and the reality on the ground in Ethiopia” “It
is not trade liberalization per se but credible
trade liberalization that is the source of
efficiency benefits. The predictability of the
incentives created by a trade regime, or lack
thereof, is generally of much greater importance
than the structure
of these incentives.”5
As
shown above, while durable and sound policies are
important, they are, however, challenged by
competing global powers and more so by donor
nations. This challenge has directly affected the
inner dynamics of Ethiopian politics in general
and the policy-making spectrum in particular; and
the challenge is best exemplified by the fierce
competition in investment by China and the Western
nations – Europe and the USA; the latter
apparently lagged behind the highly accelerated
marathon-like Chinese investment in Africa and is
compelled to expedite its foothold on the African
continent.
The
aggressive Chinese investment in Africa may have
played as a wakeup call to Western nations; in
other words, it may inadvertently compelled the
USA and Europe to revise their respective policies
to the extent of having an upper hand in Africa,
and if possible brush aside or kick out the
Chinese from the continent, which I believe is
impossible to attain at least in the short haul,
but they could score some achievement in terms of
weakening and/or retarding Chinese investment in
Africa. In order for the West to be successful,
however, it has to stave off China’s aggressive
involvement by mimicking the Chinese focus on
foundational economy, and not simply by condemning
and punishing African governments that have had
good relations with China.
The
Africa continent-wide China investment vs.
Europe/USA investment in Africa is best captured
by Todd Moss: “While the traditional donors have
generally held aid levels, new actors have
arrived. China’s rapid and dramatic push into
Africa has shaken much of the aid community. China
has long been involved in Africa – for example,
building most of the stadiums and railroads
constructed there after independence. Yet in
recent years China’s engagement on the continent
has accelerated spectacularly. The anecdotes are
compelling: Chinese companies and workers are
building major infrastructure projects in almost
every African country, and China has announced
some enormous financing package deals for new
projects, such as $9 billion in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and $13 billion in Ghana.”6
There
is no doubt that China, like Western nations, is
also interested in African resources, especially
petroleum and strategic minerals, but what makes
it different from the West is that it enabled
African nations to stand on their feet by avoiding
donor aid entrapments. To be sure, Africa, as a
whole had $10 billion debt to China that has
reached $30 billion by 2016, but the Chinese
government has given debt relief to African
nations either by cancelling the loans partially
or by reducing the debt in half as in the case of
Ethiopia. The Chinese Export-Import Bank (EX-IM)
that facilitates debt management to African
countries has outshined all OECD countries,
especially in infrastructure, agriculture, mining,
and the new wave in industrial parks. China is now
very much involved in the development sectors
mentioned above in much of Africa, but in
particular in Ethiopia; the Chinese, in fact, view
Ethiopia as their gateway to the rest of Africa.
The
government of Ethiopia, be that of Abiy or future
leaders must have unflinching political stances in
choosing Western or Chinese partnership in the
promotion of Ethiopian development projects, more
so, if the government is endowed with astuteness
and wisdom, it should choose the best of Western
and/or Chinese models. The choice between the West
and China is not going to be easy, because by its
very nature it is complicated and hypersensitive
and could push a seating government to a
high-strung decision-making process, and it goes
without saying that Ethiopia needs leaders with
great vision, patriotic zeal, and altruism.
Unfortunately,
however, in is most recent history, Ethiopia is
confronted by the lack thereof the type of
leadership mentioned above, and in the absence of
those leadership qualities, the tragedy of
Ethiopia could be further exacerbated and its
political economy could falter to the point of
meaninglessness. At any rate, I personally am in
favor of an independent decision of the Ethiopian
government in respecting the sovereignty of
Ethiopia while at the same time negotiating debt
and/or grant with the economic superpowers, and it
does not really matter whether the aid comes from
China or the United States or from both, insofar
strings are not attached and a new cold war makes
Ethiopia in particular and Africa in general a new
chessboard of the superpowers.
In
the light of the above context, thus, we can now
examine Abiy’s role in Ethiopian politics. When
Abiy Ahmed came to power, following the smooth
transference of authority, he was full of promise
in the way he presented himself as “a man of the
people”; his ideas of Medemer (inclusiveness or
joining hands), love, forgiveness, and unity of
Ethiopians, were formidable mobilizing themes; his
attractive personality and his eloquence in a
public square were equally mesmerizing, and
practically he attainted the semblance of good
governance by restructuring the state apparatus,
and appointing ten women ministers amongst the
total twenty ministers. But in less than two years
in his stay in power, gradually but surely he
began contemplating ideas and presenting them in
his speeches that put him at variance to his
original good intentions; he placed himself,
unwittingly perhaps, in contradistinction to his
previous political agendas and government
policies. He began contradicting his own words,
without perhaps ever recalling the many EPRDF
government actions in alleviating the poor
condition of Ethiopians and making Ethiopia a
successful nation. It is in this kind of
contradictory standpoints and measures that the
Ethiopian tragedy became abundantly clear and came
out glaringly in public; and it is this tragedy
that may altogether fracture and dismantle the
country’s political economy.
And
it is in the midst of this tragedy that the US has
committed $1 billion in aid and a separate $37
million for the upcoming Ethiopian election, but
the most important thing and which I think would
have an indelible impact on Ethiopian politics, is
that of Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s speech
to the business leaders in Addis Ababa on
Wednesday, February 19, 2020. According to
Reuters, “US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took
a veiled swipe at China during a speech to
Ethiopian business leaders on Wednesday in an
apparent amplification of US criticism that
Chinese lending for big infrastructure pushes poor
countries into debt…The Trump Administration is
seeking to counter significant Chinese influence
on the continent with its new Prosper Africa trade
and investment strategy and a newly establishment
financier, the US International Development
Finance Cooperation.” 7
What
is to be done now? A major test for Abiy is
whether his government begins to act like a
government or not! Until this moment, it is
apparent that the Government has demonstrated a
shadowy existence in domestic politics and showed
more commitment to external linkages such as
Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirate,
and as of recent Somalia-Somaliland. While
Abiy’s claim of attaining peace in the Horn of
Africa is indisputably palatable to some
observers, the peace initiatives and brokerage in
Somalia and South Sudan by Ethiopia is a sole and
single achievement of the EPRDF government and
Abiy has continued same policy on an already paved
way. However, while the EPRDF twenty-seven year
rule was accompanied by a strong bulwark against
foreign enemies such as Al Shabab and as a result
maintaining peace and order in Ethiopia and at the
same time enhancing diplomatic relations with all
nations, the Abiy government is presiding overall
a fragile and defenseless Ethiopia. Doing business
and/or political relations with foreign government
could be a major failure if the Ethiopian
government is unable or unwilling to resolve
internal disputes and contradictions, and the Abiy
regime seems to neglect this fundamental truth in
politics.
Some
observers, in fact, think that Abiy’s Horn of
Africa policy could actually backfire; one of
these observers is Michael Rubin, who wrote an
opinion to the Washington Examiner:
“Ethiopia’s naïve peacemaking could lead to
war…For the sake of the region, let us hope that
regional leaders, European officials, and
Secretary Mike Pompeo will try to talk sense to
Ethiopia’s egotistical leader before he makes a
move, which can undo decades of progress and cost
tens of thousands of lives.”8
Michael
Rubin’s concerns are appreciated and well-taken,
but whether Abiy’s shuttle diplomacy in the Horn
and beyond result in an all-out war could be
questionable; it may or may never happen, but it
could serve as a major distraction from the more
pressing problems in domestic Ethiopian affairs,
the multiple socioeconomic issues mentioned above,
and the controversy surrounding the Grand
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), to which
Ethiopians have now reached a tacit agreement in
viewing it as treason if the Government indeed
yields to Egyptian interests.
Nevertheless,
contrary to war, if peace and stability are sought
in the Horn of Africa, the problem associated with
hegemonic stability as explicated by Duncan Snidal
should be seriously considered. Snidal argues,
“The theory of hegemonic stability ignores the
impact of bargaining, negotiation, strategic
rationality and cooperation through collective
action.”9 It looks that Abiy and his
Government delegation to the GERD negotiation with
Egypt has completely ignored what hegemonic
stability ignores, and this is in large measure
due to the very incapable, incompetent, and
inexperienced leaders in the Ethiopian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
Irrespective
of the chaotic political atmosphere in Ethiopia
now, the government has an obligation to set
priorities in terms of transposing Ethiopia from
its current tragic affairs to a more peaceful and
stable nation marching forward to prosperity and
welfare of the Ethiopian people. At the end of the
day, if the upcoming election is going to be
conducted in a
fair and free manner, the main contending
parties are going to be the National Forum of
federalist forces and Abiy’s Prosperity Party
(PP) that emerged in the wake of the so-called
reform initiative in the last two years, but while
Forum is the making of indigenous genuine forces,
the PP could be the mirror image of a borrowed
name; it is very likely that PP is influenced by
the Trump/White House new policy known as Prosper
Africa or by the African Union Agenda 2063 “to
build an integrated, prosperous, and peaceful
Africa…”.
By
way of concluding, I believe Ethiopians should
unite and pull together irrespective of their
differences and contribute constructively for a
better, peaceful, and prosperous Ethiopia.
Ethiopians also must act in unison to pressurize
the Government to prioritize Ethiopia’s national
interests, and keep at bay Ethiopia’s deadly
enemies from interfering in the internal affairs
of their country. There is no choice and/or
alternative for Ethiopians but to unite at this
juncture of their history; they must remember what
their great grandfathers scored a resounding
victory at Adwa a hundred twenty four years ago,
that we will be celebrating with pride on March 1,
2020.
Notes
1.
Ghelawdewos Araia, Ethiopia: The Political Economy of Transition, University Press of
America, 1995, p. 166
2.
Al Jazeera, “Is Ethiopia
sliding backwards under Abiy Ahmed?”, February
14, 2020
3.
Ghelawdewos Araia, “Africa
and the New World Order”, African
Link, Volume 7, No. 1, 1998
4.
Ernesto Stein et al, The
Politics of Policies, Inter-American
Development Bank/Harvard University, 2005, p. 15
5.
Ernesto Stein et al, p. 16
6.
Todd Moss, “Reflections on
Africa’s Rocky Love-Hate Relationship with
International Capital”, in John W. Harbeson and
Donald Rothchild, Africa
in World Politics, Westview Press, 2017, p. 32
7.
Giulia Paravicini, Reuters,
Addis Ababa, February 19, 2020
8.
Michael Rubin, Washington
Examiner, Opinion, February 17, 2020
9.
Stephen Gill and David Law, The
Global Political Economy, Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1988, p. 47
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