|
Press
Release No. 8
By
the Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES) -
Scandinavian Chapter
July
19, 2005
Ethiopia�s
future in the next five years:
Seize the moment and seize the time
�If
we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down
that dark corridor of time reserved for those who
possess power without compassion, might without
morality and strength without sight.� Martin Luther King Jr.
"�Enesu
dar honew ayimokutem, abrewe yemkatelu
mehonachewene megenezib yinorebachewal�." Meles
Zenawi, July 01, 2005
"From
now on, the opposition cannot stand by the side to
enjoy the heat of the fire; they must realise they
will be burnt too." Meles Zenawi, July 01,
2005
History
does not open critical political moments easily
and frequently. Such historical moments are rare
especially in countries like Ethiopia where
political change has been for a long time under
the grip of a particularly virulent and violent
authoritarian selection. Like earlier critical
turning points that did not come as mere
accidents, the current opportunities for
democratic transition or dangers for continuing
authoritarian rule often arrive as crystallized
consequences of processes amongst the
multiplicities of possible outcomes through
protracted, often unplanned and intractable
internal conflicts and struggles with the addition
of equally contradictory backings for the internal
feuding groups from the wider world.
Very often, the defeat of one force by
another has marked a critical political turning
moment, as does the victory of one force or
another, as it happened in 1974 and 1991 in
Ethiopia. The exhaustion and ruin of all the
forces prepare the ground for a turning point, as
may be the expected possible change from decay to
rebirth. In emerging democratic countries,
elections can also serve as critical political
turning points, as in the cases of Eastern
Europe�s velvet, and rose and orange transitions
from authoritarian rule to elected democratic
governments.
1.
The Significance and Meaning of the Moment
Critical
political turning points offer opportunities or
dangers, and sometimes also opportunities that can
turn into dangers, and dangers that can turn into
opportunities. They become indeed a country�s
dilemma and historical crossroad, bearing on the
balance of probability, bad or good, wrong or
right direction in shaping and articulating a
country�s political future.
It
matters very much then, how such critical
historical moments are grasped to shape a
nation�s destiny, to veer away from danger and
land into opportunity and new historical
possibility. It would be for the sake of building
the nation�s future that all must strive to
seize the moment and seize the time, right now. This
is thus not the time to fear the future but to
grasp the conjuncture to unlock the projection of
a new and fresh vitality to the contemporary
politics of Ethiopia. We are passing through a
historical time when a nation either has to seize
its destiny with courage, transit to a new
settlement that will define the major
contours/directions of future politics or traverse
the beaten path of authoritarian subjugation. How
come our country is confronted now with the big
choices of either going for more danger or turning
danger into opportunity? What is behind this new
development?
What
makes the new historical moment in Ethiopia
special is that a real chance exists for the first
time for Ethiopians to come together, to
deliberate and debate to shape their nation�s
future and lay down firm foundations for solving
the key problems blocking the country�s
comprehensive progress and transformation.
It does not matter what the starting point of the
politics of various groups, or how contradictory
and disparate they are, the opportunity exists to
create a conceptual framework to articulate their
demands with communicative rationality and action
peacefully and productively. In other words, at
long last the country may not take the wrong turn
as it has done in all the historical opportunities
it had lost in the past. The signs show that
Ethiopia can embark on a new and positive
direction. All the relevant actors must learn to
behave with a larger purpose, and must do all they
can for Ethiopia not to lose this rare historical
opportunity. Historical moments can be lost; or
lead to the wrong turn. Once they are lost,
historical moments take a long time to be
regained. We cannot predict when the threshold of
human struggles will provide the reasons for their
re-occurrence and enactment. All must concentrate
in making sure that this current historical moment
ushers in shaping and articulating Ethiopia�s
democratic destiny. Fingers crossed, Ethiopia may
just make it this time around. Let us all desire
and make this time, �for Ethiopia, now means,
forward ever, and, backward never.�
The
principal credit for creating the moment goes
to the Ethiopian people. By their wisdom and
action, they have created their own political
truth and present, thereby inspiring the prospect
of launching of a better future for the country.
Ethiopia�s contemporary great historical moment
is created by the fact that 26 million of its
citizens registered to vote, of which nearly 25
million actually voted. This is a new phenomenon
hitherto unknown in the country�s long history.
It has taken place and its meaning and
significance need to be fully grasped. We would
like to perspectivize this episode as Ethiopia
indeed ushering in a time where it can live with a
radically new configuration of political
realignment in the country. Today Ethiopia is
truly poised to make new history. There is no
turning back. There is thus reason to defeat the
feeling of despair and see the likely contours of
new political dynamics that may eventually
inscribe a system of governance that is based on
the foundation of the free vote and free citizens
for years to come.
The
world has been surprised by the way the people
responded so overwhelmingly and convincingly to
exercise the franchise. The political parties did
debate and present their respective programmes and
certainly have contributed to the birth of the
critical moment. To their credit, the people paid
attention, they cared to listen, cared for their
country�s future sufficiently to throng in
droves and come out often as early as 4 a.m. and
until the wee hours of the night to vote. Nothing
has been as elating and electrifying as the spirit
manifested in the huge popular turn out.
The
ruling party did not seem to expect this response
from the people, nor the votes of referendum
against its rule. It reacted with hostility to the
loss of authority it suffered and saw Addis Ababa
as hostile territory by declaring a state of
emergency and taking severe and lethal action
against students by invading their campus. No
political party, not least the EPDRF, should rush
to usurp all credits for this big turn out. On the
contrary, the people turned out to demonstrate
their protest against what they perceived and
believed to be the misrule of the EPDRF. We
say, respect the people for what they have
achieved, and recognise that they are the
principal architects and subjects of their own
historicity, their own especial moment, and their
present, and indeed their future.
Arguably,
it is the Ethiopian people that have the primary
role in the creation of this unique critical
historical turning point.
The next step is how the people�s will is
carried through the representatives they have
elected. How well or badly do the representatives, elected by the people, carry
out the mandate of hope and possibility entrusted
to them by the people and draw vitality and
strength from the historical moment? If the
political parties degenerate into squabbles
undoing the best work that has been achieved by
the people, Ethiopia will be forced to lose. If
those whose agenda is anchored on power
acquisition and sectarian concerns prevail, they
can also open the people to danger, inviting once
more the dreaded repression possibly from forces
implicated and steeped in loot and crime.
A
remarkable fact after two months is that in
Ethiopia the election result is still unknown. Two
election deadlines have passed. Two states of
emergency months have elapsed. The deselected
propaganda minister who apparently is frantically
trying to make a comeback by
demanding a re-election , desperately
seeking to cling to power to join his boss Meles, now speaks of
tempers subsiding and the passion to keep
struggling for democracy waning. He said the
reason for not extending the unconstitutional
state of emergency for a third month has to do
because his regime sensed the cooling off of
enthusiasm for struggle. Bereket did not say their
regime lifted the state of emergency because of
regime admission that what they took was an
illegal and anti-democratic measure in the first
place. He singled out the fact that emotions have
run out of steam as the rationale for the lifting
of the state of emergency, thus suggesting all
those who would like democracy to be rooted in the
country are tired and prepared to stop the
struggle. His is, of course, wishful thinking.
Nevertheless, the people must remain vigilant and
must struggle peacefully to save their country
from dictatorship and perpetual humiliation. But
have passions really run aground, as Bereket
claimed? Is it right to say that the major reason
for lifting the state of emergency is to declare
arrogantly that emotions have run dry? Supposing
according to their logic the
cooled off passions are re- ignited and re-
enflamed, are Meles and Bereket going to resort to
the measure once more that will justify killings
and intimidations?
Are they going to implicate the opposition,
invoke anti-constitutional the peaceful action and
peaceful citizens choosing to exercise their right
of assembly, association and demonstration, and
unleash the military to use Meles's own words
using inhumane epithets such as 'crush� them or
'burn' them? We think Meles and Bereket are
diehard dinosaurs who speak with desperation to
cling to power by any means necessary, using
trick, deception, the gun, blackmail, intimidation
or any assorted arsenal they can call to help
their wish not to surrender or share power for the
sake of the Ethiopian people.
They are deliberately and arrogantly using
self-serving and self-justifying diagnosis to
communicate violence loaded with threatening
message.
We
think people are still passionate for the
principles that so many people have died for
generations. In Ethiopia, the passion for
democracy has never been this high in recorded
time and history.
It is hard to claim that this energy and spirit
will be cowed or will melt into air because of
fear of the regime�s threats and frightened
abuses. The struggle for democracy must be
intensified by exercising freedom of association,
assembly and the right to demonstrate peacefully.
Justice needs to be done also against the
authorities that used the cover of an illegal
emergency law to kill arrest and harass so many
innocent people. If justice is not done, the
regime will continue to resort to such measures
every time it wakes up with a nightmare that its
power may be threatened. The regime should be
taught lessons and letting it off the hook is an
invitation to make it repeat similar human rights
abuses and crimes.
2.
The Longest Election Result in the World
We
never recall an election result that has taken
this long. It is still not certain if and when the
election result will be announced, and whether the
defeated would concede to the victors, and the
later will treat with civilised courtesy the
parties ostensibly defeated.
We
are very alarmed by the incompetence and the sheer
embarrassing charges of lack of neutrality of the
NEB. The NEB has found it difficult to discipline
itself and do the job of investigating all the
reported irregularities and come out with a result
that rescues the credibility of the election
process itself. Even Meles Zenawi admits that he
is open to re-run the election, perhaps
unwittingly betraying lack of confidence in the
very NEB he has handpicked a decade ago.
Given
the open partisanship of the NEB to the incumbent
and the numerous irregularities it failed to clear
up in time, one would have thought that such a
rigged election would have handed power to the
regime on a silver platter.
It does not seem that such an election
walk-over is possible given the way the whole
world has been watching this extraordinary
development in Ethiopia. Paradoxically the
investigation where there are independent
observers from the EU and the opposition parties
seem to bring out new facts on the ground. The NEB
is so thoroughly discredited that it is possible
that thorough and independent investigation can
reveal some of the outrageous riggings and
irregularities. The NEB has sown confusion, spread
disinformation, and use calculated and cascading
announcements of voting tallies showing EPDRF
victory, foot-dragged on allegations of widespread
riggings to promote the EPDRF to retain power.
We
recognise that the NEB has not been able to carry
out investigations with integrity. Under such
circumstances, a re-election may be a possible
remedy to clear up the situation. However, some
sections of internal and external opinion forward
the proposition that the election must run its
course. We do not believe that the election
investigation will restore faith and credibility,
as we have said time and time again. Our view
is that whatever the election results from this
badly managed and handled election, we propose
that all the parties turn a bad situation into an
opportunity by converting the post-election result
and development into the festival and celebration
of authentic national reconciliation. We
suggest that the country and its citizens from
every corner of the world enter into a grand
national social contract to reconcile the diverse
and often conflicting interests and open a space
for the creation of a vibrant public sphere where
all can contribute in the next five years for
habituating a political settlement that will
endure the rivers of time. Let the five
years be invested for bringing about the most
inclusive national reconciliation by reaching out
to all segments of Ethiopia�s varied and diverse
communities to learn to work together for the
higher good of making dictatorship and poverty
history. Let us not forget the mishandling of the
election, but take the courageous actions for
building something positive for the country from
it. There is always a positive in the negative, as
there is a negative in the positive. The agreement
by all stakeholders to go for national
reconciliation can be the positive off shoot of a
badly managed election result. It directs
attention to the larger purpose of building a
shared future by respecting the protestors whose
lives have been sacrificed to save the election
from being invaded by fraudulent action. We say
national reconciliation is an idea whose time has
come, a key strategy to construct the Ethiopian
peaceful, democratic and developmental-structural
transformative engine inscribed in a grand
national social contract. The next five years
should be a time for setting up and learning to
lay down the conceptual framework to prepare the
necessary condition to solve all the key issues of
the country through social innovation of restoring
national trust and spirit, so essential to make
Ethiopia stand up tall, free and strong.
3.
Towards a National Unity Government of Concord
Since
1991 there has been a demand for national
reconciliation.
National reconciliation is not new. What is
new is the current political situation that is
conducive to implement a strategy of national
reconciliation.
In the past, this demand often came from
the side of the opposition groups and civic
associations, but it was rebuffed by the Meles
regime. The opposition groups and civic
associations did not have the opportunity to show
that they had the required popular base and
backing to warrant the claim that they can partner
with the Meles regime to bring about a national
reconciliation Government. The Meles regime for
its part was not keen to accommodate the
opposition groups. It banned the Oromo Liberation
Front. It made sure that the relationship between
the Ethiopian and Eritrean people is radically
simplified between "liberation" and
"slavery." This violent reduction did
not seem to have produced a context for creating a
lasting resolution of the problem. It ridiculed
parties that wished to express pan-Ethiopian
positions as �chauvinist�, Amhara Nefetegna
and used other derogatory epithets. It went for
what the people describe as �satellite parties
and groups� bringing in one orbit all those who
show or owe loyalty first to the Meles regime,
those who were grateful for being invited by
Meles. It ridiculed all other opposition and
showed a sort of violence of omission and
exclusion rather than exercising a generosity of
inclusion and reconciliation. In the two elections
that were carried out prior to this election, the
freedom to wage free and fair election was not
available. It was a show by the regime appearing
more done to demonstrate it is fulfilling the
donor conditionality of multiparty elections than
driven by the higher purpose of embedding a
democratic tradition and culture internally in
Ethiopia.
For
the first time during this 3rd election
a relatively free, but not fair election was
carried out. Meles said he took a� calculated
risk� to make a free election. An election is
said to be largely free when the turn out of the
registered population is above 50 % in the context
of competitive elections. In Ethiopia we had a
record high of 90 %!! While there is no doubt that
the election is largely free, it cannot be said to
be neither fully fair nor just.
In fact it was unfair or unjust because the
election has been marred by intimidation,
arresting and killing of opposition supporters,
and did not allow independent observers exposing
polling stations to wide spread abuses. Above all
the national election board has been behaving like
the national rigging board. The fact that after
two months Ethiopians are still waiting to know
the results makes the whole episode not only
unjust but also bizarrely unheard of. We think it
will be an impossible task to restore any sense of
credibility in an election that has been managed
with so many flaws, and complaints. Even after the
agreement of June 10 by the parties to clear up
the irregularities, and even with the external
observers, it appears that getting around the
NEB's mismanagement
is as difficult as defying the laws of gravity. We
suggest the only positive way out of these crises
is to rescue the process by projecting the
ambition to launch a new political dynamics that
transforms and translates the support of the
people through votes to the opposition to produce
a new environment conducive to create authentic
national reconciliation.
The
opportunity to create a broad-based national
government of concord has arrived. We think the
critical political moment would not be lost if
Ethiopians collectively embark in realising a
shared government that can prepare the country for
successive and sustainable democratic elections
and transitions of power from one set of parties
to another. The next five years should provide the
mandate for the nation to find the breathing space
to heal its many wounds and sores accumulated over
such a troubled and often unsettled modern
political history. This means political parties
that claim or assume power must not lose the
opportunity to combine intention, policy and
practice to create a new national reconciliation
environment. We know the opposition parties have
been calling for this until this election.
Supposing if it were possible for opposition
parties to come to power after the investigation
is over, we think they should continue to make
national reconciliation the cornerstone of their
policy for the next five years. We think it may be
easier for the opposition parties to realise this
policy since they have been working for this
objective for a long time.
We hope they have thought it through and
will put in place machineries to heal our society
and put a curtain on the unsettled political past
that continues to incite vengeance, grief, pain
and loss in nearly all Ethiopians to some degree,
intensity and extent or other. If, for the sake of
argument, the opposition parties were to come to
power, they should not be tempted from abandoning
this important phase that the country must pass in
order to prepare its future on a more predictable
pedigree in a difficult world. When the river of
time is full and overflowing with turbulence,
Ethiopia must find a stone to stand rock-firm in
order to weather all the storm and sail through to
fulfil its historical destiny.
It has been recognised that national
reconciliation can be the political foundation to
steer the country�s future forward by putting
firmly behind all the memories that trigger
violence, hate, terror and grief. Ethiopia will
come out of a violent political history and bask
hopefully in the sun-shine of national spirit and
self-engagement to solve all its problems by
relying on the full energy and dedication of all
its citizens.
Equally
important, it looks that it is a foregone
conclusion that NEB will certify and confirm the
continuation of the power tenure of the current
rulers. They must recognise the fact that to
return to power possibly by an arithmetical
majority would not provide a certificate that can
cleanse away all the dirt of riggings that the
regime has been soaked in. They cannot take any
majority as an unsullied figure. The only way
injustice can be redressed is not when they
re-invite un-elected ministers in preference to
the elected. It is when they are prepared to open
Government to a broad based national
reconciliation strategy for the next five years.
Meles has invited before an unselected loyal
minister to serve him. There is no reason why he
will not find tricks to try to impose unselected
ministers once more on the people unless there is
strong opposition to his schemes. The regime must
recognise that the call for national
reconciliation when made by the opposition is no
longer to be doubted that the voice of the people
that elected them is behind. This recognition and
respect of the people's voice is critical and must
be acknowledged by the regime by taking seriously
and engaging with the strategy of national
reconciliation. In fact the regime should be the
first to call for such a policy to bring into the
process as widely as possible the range of views
in the country in order to create a shared purpose
to address the key problems of the land
collectively and with the concept of total
inclusion. A winner takes all strategy excludes.
National reconciliation includes. The time
Ethiopia is passing through needs inclusion and
not exclusion to prepare the procedures and
systems to unhinge the country's democratic and
developmental gridlock.
When
a regime stays for a long time in power having
ascended to power through a violent overthrow of
its predecessors and ruling with authoritarian
grip, there is nothing that would stop it from
indulging into abuse and commit human rights
violations, and crimes of extending its hand to
the public purse. In particular when an individual
like Meles stays for fourteen years, and is highly
eager to add another five years, it compounds the
temptation to be more arrogant and abuse human
rights. As soon as a regime commits human rights
violations as a routine and commits crimes of
looting, it finds it hugely difficult to give up
power. In Ethiopia, one needs at the minimum two
terms to carry out ones ideas to change society.
If one cannot get it right within a decade, if one
adds another five or even two five terms, the
likelihood of stealing will be higher than
governing with democracy and development. A clear
example in the case of Ethiopia is how the regime
misuses the rule of law today. The protection of
the rule of law is read as breaking it by
Government to kill citizens who should be
protected by it. Meles is quoted at the outset
showing how he speaks carelessly with the
metaphors of
crushing, fire, burning, literally, as if
he does not care if people die. It is extremely
alarming that a gentle nation and people is
lumbered with such a
crude and violent individual who seem to
play out his
hatred, his various insecurities
and existential desire to remain in power
by demonising, demeaning and talking down Ethiopia
and the Ethiopian people. For Meles it is
'unconstitutional' if people demonstrate
peacefully against the NEB and the rigged
election, and he will be prepared to crush, and
burn the people because he anticipates the
intention of the demonstration may be related to
contesting his rule, authority and power. This is
nothing but a threat that everyone must not see
lightly. The danger that Meles will order the
military is clearly expressed with his own words.
It shows that Meles is prepared to rely on the
gun, as he did on June 8, 2005 massacre to
continue intimidation and disperse the country's
aspiration to democratic governance based on the
rule of law.
4.
The Abuse of the Rule of Law by the Meles Regime
A
rule of law means law rules and not persons. It
also means everyone no matter what station his or
her life is subject to law. In a country where law
and not persons rules, Meles is equal to an
unemployed youth that he thinks can be easily
disposable so shamelessly. The action that claimed
the lives of 40 Ethiopians was justified in the
name of protecting the rule of law by the regime.
When one examines deeply who actually broke the
law, one sees quickly it is the Government and not
the students. The students demonstrated inside
their campus. The Government sent troops inside
the university to beat them up and kill them. When
word got out that the regime�s army is attacking
students, it triggered spontaneous and largely
unorganised action from mothers and the urban
youth, and later taxi drivers.
Who is responsible for breaking the law in
this case? It is the Government when it made an
unconstitutional state of emergency by
anticipating a rose and orange situation or what
it perceived danger against itself, mind you,
because it has been a script in a book by an
opposition figure!! Having made that, it violated
the university by entering the campus and sending
troops. It is tragic the university administration
could not stand up to the regime and did allow
such a free ride by soldiers to violate what
should be protected always as the citadel of
academic freedom.
Those
who should be the custodians have broken the rule
of law. They have committed a crime. They took
action because they anticipated threat and as a
pre-caution to protect the rule of law. Having
anticipated threat they wanted to pre-empt that
threat by taking military action. Having thus
broken the rule of law, the Meles regime uses it
to protect itself from demands that it accounts
for its crimes by arguing that the anticipated
protection of the rule of law forced Meles to
order through his military the military action and
killings. Meles refused to apologize to the loved
ones and holds to the view that an imagined threat
in the form of an imaginary insurrection existed
to make his action within the law. He has even
been bragging that any recourse to peaceful
demonstration would be to play with fire and he is
prepared to unleash the military action that would
burn lives. Meles has lost authority by his own
misdeeds and insensitivities. The normative
authority of the rule of law has been undermined
by the way Meles and his group, having broken the
law, invoke it also to protect themselves, when,
in reality the moral and normative authority of
the rule of law is built from the protection of
people and not from undermining their rights and
liberties.
The
first key reason why we need a national
reconciliation Government is to create a rule of
law where not only the subjected citizens under
Meles, but those who subject and those who are
subjected can become equal under a rule of law
that applies to any wrong doer no matter what
station his or her life is.
5.
Putting Behind the Abuse of Human Rights
The
second key reason, following from the rule of law,
is the rule that respects human rights in the
country with universal standard applied to all
citizens.
The
reason why national reconciliation is critical at
this time in Ethiopia�s history is to
create
and prepare a political environment where past
human right violations and those under the current
regime would be investigated with an impartial and
independent machinery to put firmly into history
all the anguish, sores, pain, sorrows and wounds,
as much as humanly possible, that the politics and
elite driven conflicts have perpetrated. There is
no other way of resolving human rights abuses
carried out in a mass scale by all the armed
groups that justified such killing owing to their
giving more priority to their political objectives
than to the lives of the ordinary people that they
recruited or civilians that they killed. They all
used armed violence. Armed violence kills. Those
who have killed may be able to clear their actions
of wrong doing by the higher good that they think
their particular politics bestows. But in a highly
diverse society, the goodness in the politics of
one is bitter medicine to another. Each political
group cannot justify and validate its own politics
by its own yardstick, and exonerate itself from
all the orgy of killings it has inflicted on
Ethiopian citizens to advance its own sectarian
politics. For example both the ANC and the
apartheid regime entered into an agreement to
subject themselves to a truth and reconciliation
machinery where the issue of human rights
violation, therapy and justice in healing society
were the main goals. In South Africa, they managed
to go through a national reconciliation process.
We believe the country is better off than taking
the negative option of reprisals that would lead
to nowhere, and would not end the cycle of
violence.
In Ethiopia political groups still use
cynically the various terrors the country has been
subjected to justify their rule and their own
terror and gross human rights violations. This
hypocrisy has to be stopped once and for all. All
those who killed regardless of the reasons must be
made accountable based on an immunity of
persecution to be agreed by the courts in order to
implant the seeds of long term reconciliation by
dealing as a people, nation and country with the
numerous human rights violations of the past in
order to set standards by forestalling any future
human rights violations. This issue of bringing
about to an end of human rights violation is a
major argument for conceptualising and
implementing a national reconciliation Government.
If there is any major obstacle that we may
anticipate, it would be from Meles, Bereket and
their group as they have been trying to measure
their self-validated success by the misdoings and
human rights violations of the earlier regimes.
They have also used the red terror for their own
political reasons. Any final attempt to come to
terms with this past by creating a national
reconciliation situation may not be in their
interests to continue to rule by invoking a past
that Ethiopia must put firmly behind with justice
and reconciliation.
6.
Impressing Ethiopian Oneness by promoting variety
and diversity
The
third reason is to defeat the violence of
exclusion and omission, and the preference to
promote the representation of only the loyal to
the power holder of the time, and to sideline all
those who have legitimate claim to representation
in Ethiopian public life. This has a double
message. There is a need to work out how the right
to be similar and universal as Ethiopians
must be connected to the various and rather
conflicting demands to the right to be different
and particular. There is also a need to settle
how self-defining communities can live under one
roof with a united Ethiopian civic identification.
Once
again, this election is a milestone in opening and
revisiting the opportunity to vindicate pluralism
by collectively steering the sustainable building
up of Ethiopian identity and unity.
Ethiopia is more than the sum of its
contradictions. It is more than the mosaic of
peoples, languages, ethnic diversities and parts.
Ethiopia has been passed to us as a myth, an idea,
glue, a dream, and a vision and hope. It is the
ideational weapon and spirit that wards off our
fears of dispersal and answers to our aspiration
to belong with each other, reach out and author a
shared future from a fragmented and fractious
past. Ethiopia is more than a country, and more
than a nation. It is an ideal to complete and
build a national project to eradicate collectively
poverty and national humiliation.
Ethiopia
should not be conceptualised with instrumental
reason alone that reduces or degrades public life
to the hostage of the politics that plays out
between different group identities for this or
that piece of land, this or that turf. Ethiopia is
both an ideal and real, and rooted and pervasive
in our being, in our desire and aspirations to
change our collective condition and the well being
of the extraordinary lives of the very ordinary
Ethiopian people.
It is this historically bequeathed
transcendence, power, and projection that should
egg us on to feel, desire and make the strongest
possible united national purpose, historical
imagination and project to pull together our
intellect and creativity to eradicate dictatorship
and poverty for good from Ethiopian soil.
Instrumental reason threatens to make us
all Ethiopians by accident. But we are Ethiopians
by history, and by the design of a shared destiny.
Whether we continue to fight and learn to come
together and laugh, we are connected by one
garment of destiny. All talk by some of the elite
to undo Ethiopia and talk down Ethiopia is simply
perverse. The notion that infinite variety and
diversity is anathema to the expression of
Ethiopian oneness is also myopia. Ethiopia can
accommodate any variety and diversity and still
remain united with a national soul and purpose. We
think it is a welcome challenge to build an
Ethiopia that is open to permit the playing out of
diverse ideas, languages, faith, opinions,
communities, variations and beliefs that
strengthen our togetherness, and regardless of
whatever vantage point we start from, impress an
Ethiopian oneness.
The next five years will be critical to
settle this issue fairly and with intellectual
honesty and integrity. A democratised Ethiopia has
ample opportunity to find credible solution to
this issue more than a self-serving ethnic elite
which has no shame in imposing a clientele and
loyal network based on its ethnic core recruits
and others that are willing to be fellow travelers.
The era that privileges the
aspiration to dominate the majority people by the
elite of a minority by recruiting elements that
are opportunists from the other majority
communities must come to an end. Representation
must be real and participation must not be
manipulated. The political space must be open and
Ethiopia must find a healthy national settlement
that includes, for example, the Oromo Liberation
Front, which has shown willingness
to work within a shared Ethiopian national
framework by expressing its difference whilst
strengthening the larger Ethiopian aspiration to
eradicate poverty and root in democratic
institutions.
7. People Anchored Principle and Policy to
Bring Fundamental Resolution to the
Unending and Festering Eritrean Problem
The fourth reason is to find a lasting
solution to the Eritrean problem. This problem has
become even more complicated under the current
regime than it has been under the previous two
regimes. There is a need to put principle and not
opportunism as paramount to settle this issue
fairly and with justice by inviting the Eritrean
people to state clearly what the problem is and
dealing with this issue by relying entirely on the
wisdom and public support of the Ethiopian people.
What is needed is a settlement that bonds the
people on both sides of the Mereb River to develop
a shared common interest on the future whether
they live separately or together. The problem must
not be allowed to go on and on. Under one state,
fighting; with two states, still fighting... this
is not acceptable.
A generation of conflict has consumed a
nation. We must not and cannot afford another
generation of conflict. This conflict continues
all our lives. It has consumed not only physical
lives but also the nation�s intellectual energy.
There must be an end to it without repeating the
recent tragic war that the elites of Eritrea, and
Tigray in Ethiopia ignited consuming nearly
123,000 causalities for a cause which has not been
clear to this day invoking remarks of a �stupid
war� or the �war amongst the brothers.� The
relationship has remained tense with the
likelihood of an outbreak of another 'stupid war'
if Meles and Co remain to make policy in Ethiopia.
A new national reconciliation Government must
conduct a root and branch review of this problem
and seek a long-term solution that is backed fully
by the people. There must be an end to the
Eritrean problem for Ethiopia, and the issue at
all times must be resolved if democracy prevails
over dictatorships on the foundation where strong
people to people relationship is fostered and
encouraged.
8.
Translating National Reconciliation and Erecting
its Modalities in Governance
The
fifth point is to argue against the objection of
how bringing into one government different parties
with diametrically opposed aims is possible at
all. We think finding key minimum principles for
bringing these contradictory elements together and
establishing rules and procedures of behaviour
that will promote the peaceful completion of the
agreed and negotiated tasks can get around some of
the nasty and rigid positions held by various
groups. For example, as far as we are aware, the
fact that some of the groups that wish to form a
seceding state as a strategy have shown they can
revise their rigid position is welcome news. Why
we call the next five year period a time for
national reconciliation is to create principles,
procedures and systems in place to make sure that
contraire forces, parties, civil society groups
and persons can come together and for the larger
good of the nation, they can work together by
establishing Government and a system of democratic
governance.
The
main objection to this suggestion has come from
the regime side, claiming that groups with
contradictory aims will not be able to work within
the framework of one Government. But, if there is
a political will, there will always be a way.
In
Africa we have a number of examples where forces
that used to fight have joined Government together
though the circumstances are different in each
case, the desire to construct a shared approach to
solve key national problems is something that
resonates to the circumstances Ethiopia finds
itself in at present. Whilst we are not suggesting
copying these cases, there is good reason to visit
each case to learn lessons that may inspire the
various stakeholders in Ethiopia to iron out their
contradictory objectives and construct a shared
foundation for national reconciliation that locks
all in a process that results in the creation of a
revitalised national consciousness. The very
recent example is Sudan.
They just formed a national transitional
unity Government where the SPLA and the existing
Sudanese regime voluntarily negotiated a new
transitional authority. The other older examples
are from Zimbabwe and South Africa. Their problems
were more intractable than ours in a certain
sense. In
1980 Zimbabwe provided the first case of a
national unity Government where ZANU, ZAPU and Ian
Smith�s unilateral independent white regime
united in Government, legislature and army.
In
South Africa, the ANC and people who led the
apartheid Government were in one cabinet. They did
create a national unity Government and those who
used to fight worked in one Government. They also
created a truth and reconciliation mechanism to
deal with all the crimes committed by all sides,
something that Ethiopia can learn from to put
behind us all the justified anger and grief of the
numberless crimes committed by all those who
picked up the gun to pursue their political aims
regardless of how they justify their own aims.
Regime
elements are using the NEB to make sure that they
have a 50 + 1 elected representatives to form an
exclusive Government. The problem with this
unilateralist push is that it overlooks the fact
that the election has suffered from the shadow of
riggings and suffers from a credibility gap. There
will always be a shadow over the outcome who ever
wins. A winner takes all is thus not a wise
conclusion from any mathematical majority any
party musters. If the would be winner is not
arrogant, it must learn to humble itself and
concede the fact short of a re-run of the
elections, nothing would clear up the doubts over
the election process. The best and positive way
out is for all the parties to decide to follow a
shared strategy of national reconciliation.
Of
course our problems are not racial unity or
tolerance. Ours is a deficit in political
tolerance, and making sure that the right to be
similar to be Ethiopian national citizens is not
sacrificed by demands to the right to be different
or particular so that all can be accommodated and
strengthen through their diversities the Ethiopia
we all wish to see grow, prosper and spiritually
and politically united, together, in order to
transform the country and bring it out of the
humiliations of dictatorship, poverty and hunger.
The key challenge is democratic institution
building and to accomplish this task we need a
politics, which is above politics, and politicians
who are also above the concerns of their own
specific interests. We say the mandate of May 15,
2005 will have meaning and significance if and
only if the establishment of such a Government of
national concord is achieved. It becomes even more
important that the parties should engage to form
such an arrangement in the event one or the other
side of the major contestants refuse to accept the
results giving as the reason the fact of
credibility gap that is evident in this election
that has taken so long to complete. If the parties
accept the election result, and the people back
them, it will still be even more important to
prepare the foundation for national reconciliation
during the next five years. How the specific
arrangement to embody the spirit and letter of
national reconciliation is carried out should be
left to the parties, civil society and prominent
national personages to negotiate with the steering
capability of a representative national
reconciliation council that is empowered by
parliament to manage the transition to a new
governance arrangement.
Concluding
Remarks
If
we trace Ethiopia�s confrontation with modernity
since the European powers were persuaded to send
ambassadors instead of missionaries and armies
after the country�s definitive victory in Adawa
in 1896, Ethiopia has suffered more from the
numerous conflicts and contradictions within,
from, and of the modernist elites and their
contradictory ambitions than the unsettled
tensions between the drives to Ethiopian modernity
and the resistances of Ethiopia�s varying
traditions. It is time that the modernist elites
learn to curb their ambitions for singular
domination by using particularistic mobilisations,
and turn instead their disparate and often
clashing ambitions to unite and free the people
and the country. We think seizing the time and
seizing the historical moment to build with
national reconciliation Ethiopia�s future for
the next five years should be the call of all
those who would like Ethiopia to come out of its
current difficulties for good.
In
recent years, Ethiopia had two historical moments
in 1974 and 1991. Both historical moments did not
lead to healing the many wounds and sores in
Ethiopian society. They opened opportunities that
remained unfulfilled. The dream of a fully
democratic and liberated Ethiopia with a healthy
national soul remains yet to be fulfilled. We hope
the current critical political moment provides the
opportunity to write a new history to put behind
us all the political problems the country has been
forced to live with. We expect from the political
leaders to learn to be politicians beyond
politics, and committed democrats that behave in
the spirit of Jawaharlal Nehru. We shall recall
how jealously Nehru took the implantation and
nurturing of building democratic institutions in
India. He was so wary of the risks of
authoritarian autocracy that he has been reported
to do this: at the crest of his rise, he wrote
using nom de guerre an article warning Indians of
the danger of giving dictatorial temptation to
Jawaharlal Nehru. He also showed contrition for
criticising a judge for fear he may have
imperilled the independence of the judiciary. In
Ethiopia we have intellectually and morally weak
persons that violate or break the rule of law in
order to protect it. We need to get out of this
hypocrisy and clear the road for democratic
engagement and create a sure tradition through
national reconciliation for the respect of the
free vote of free citizens. No matter how the
election result plays out, the key challenge is
that any political group has to be prepared to
reach out as far as possible to make the next five
years a genuine celebration of national
reconciliation. This is the only way to go
forward, look forward, and above all, to put
firmly behind us all the ugly wrongs, killings and
abuses, and even more stop invoking such abuses to
numb us to tolerate current abuses. We say
optimism of the intellect and optimism of the will
for Ethiopia' future!
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
Email: mammo@ihis.aau.dk
or berhanu@ihis.aau.dk
or tekola.worku@bromma.stockholm.se
|
