by Ermias Tasfaye

Since June, the Sidama campaign for a new federal state in southern Ethiopia was on a rollercoaster, riding the political contortions of a diverse and divided region and country.

Now, after a violent dip back in mid-July, it is on the verge of probable triumph. The electoral board announced in late August that an unprecedented referendum on regional statehood would be conducted and now up to 2.3 million people are set to vote in Sidama Zone today, November 20.

“The fixing of the date in August renewed hope,” said Kinkino Kia, a Sidama legal activist. “The situation proves the resilience of the Sidama quest, and the consequent crisis for the southern ruling party.”

While a tortuous autonomy struggle does indeed appear to be in the final stretch, there are still potential obstacles and critical unanswered questions. This may intensify threats to the integrity of the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples state (SNNP), a multi-ethnic region containing around one-fifth of Ethiopia’s more than 100 million people.

Paramount among unresolved issues is the fate of a rump SNNP region, which will lose its commercial and administrative capital if Sidama—the most populous and prosperous part of it—leaves, taking Hawassa city with it. Southern leaders are also faced with constitutional demands to become regions from ten other zones, which will be harder to contain if Sidama sets a precedent.

The challenges are rooted in constitutional arrangements that prioritize group rights and self-determination. There are tensions within ethnic federalism between autonomy and efficiency, and volatilities as political actors exploit the growing weakness of a recently upended ruling coalition that has imposed its will on Ethiopia for the last quarter of a century.

Novel challenge for Ethiopia’s constitutional system

Over recent decades, a Southern Question has emerged: to what extent should the constitutional right to greater administrative autonomy be exercised? Christophe Van der Beken, an Associate Professor at the College of Law and Governance Studies at Addis Ababa University explained the disagreement over this question as being partly driven by a “serious tension between constitutional provisions on the right to territorial autonomy and the predominant political tendency of ‘holding together’.”

While ‘holding together’ may have been a prevalent dynamic since 1991, more recently, Ethiopia’s federation and its key guardian, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), have been closer to falling apart.

Upheaval in the country for more than four years stemmed from discontent with, and within, the ruling coalition, which Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has chaired since March 2018. His leadership seemed to present an opportunity to restructure the south according to local desires, as EPRDF authority suffered from unabating protests, internal upheaval and divisions.

Over the last year, the south’s inherent diversity and unrestrained political aspirations have threatened its constructed unity. Ethnic zonal administrations have used the opening created by turmoil within the ruling coalition to lean on an inviting constitution and seek their own regional states, whose number has remained steady at nine since the constitution listed them in 1995.

The zonal leaders are doing so during a destabilizing transition supercharged by Abiy’s ambitions, the twists and turns by factions of a flailing regime, and a renewed national struggle over federal arrangements. This presents a novel challenge for Ethiopia’s constitutional system, whose most decentralizing provisions have rarely been tested in the past, primarily due to the ruling coalition’s vice-like grip on state and society.

Deflation

Mirroring Kinkino’s current optimism about the impending referendum, early in July the proponents of the planned Sidama National Regional State were also in a buoyant mood. The campaign’s strength had been demonstrated through large rallies in February and April in Hawassa city. Many Sidama, members of youth movement Ejetto (a term describing a ‘heroic’ subset in Sidama’s stratified society), legal campaigners from Hawassa University, diaspora activists, and Sidama officials from various tiers of the federation appeared united.

“Welcome to Sidama State” signs were visible near proposed future regional borders and a constitution was drafted as the movement prepared to ignore legal procedure and self-declare a region on July 18, 2019, the date that marked the expiry of a one-year window for the regional government to hold a referendum.

Yet before the end of July, a deflated Sidama statehood movement lay in tatters.

On July 17, the eve of self-declaration, Sidama Zone’s now suspended chief administrator Karre Chawicha and some campaigners had changed tack because the day before the electoral board belatedly promised the delayed referendum.

The board argued that the one-year countdown started from November 22, 2018 the day it received the referendum request from the State Council. However, Article 47 of the constitution stipulates that the right of any Nations Nationalities and Peoples entities (NNPs) to form its own state is exercisable when its referendum demand has been presented in writing to the State Council and the latter has organized a referendum within one year.

It appeared as if the electoral board was seeking to justify additional time in light of the Sidama self-declaration plan. But its interpretation of when the one-year countdown began contravened the constitution, Van der Beken says. As confusion reigned, the Ejetto tried to attend a public meeting-place in Hawassa on July 18 to seek answers, but clashed with security forces, and set up roadblocks of burning tires. Shots were fired by police, killing four, and chaos spread into Sidama Zone.

Recalling the authoritarian methods of Ethiopian rulers throughout the ages, rather than those of a self-declared democratic administration, the government used lethal force against rioting Sidama, some of whom reportedly killed local minorities, as occurred the previous July during unrest in Hawassa. At least 53 people were killed in the unrest across Sidama Zone in the days following the aborted self-declaration.

The authorities put in place a regionwide de facto state of emergency on July 22. More than 1,000 were arrested with activists jailed and the welcome signs torn down. Leading figures from Ejetto, Sidama Media Network, and Hawassa University legal activists were detained. The Committee to Protect Journalists said the arrests from the satellite broadcaster raised questions about the government’s commitment to freedom of expression.

SNNPR administrative map, 2017, OCHA

Although on July 17, a day prior to the outburst of anger, the authorities had set a deadline for the referendum, Kinkino only saw a smokescreen: “All the political machinations, including portraying the Sidama case as a security threat and installation of military control of security, while suspending zonal leadership and eliminating Ejetto, showed there was an intention to curb the Sidama quest.”

The security approach was in keeping with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s warning in parliament on July 1 that anyone taking the law into their own hands would be treated the same as the former government of Somali region, whose abusive president was removed by a federal military intervention in August 2018, reportedly as he was preparing secessionist procedures.

On July 25, Hawassa City and Sidama Zone officials were suspended for agitation by the ruling party. Indicating the broader problems, the ruling Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement (SEPDM)—a fragmenting member of an embattled, disoriented, and divided ruling coalition—also suspended officials from Hadiya Zone, another administrative area seeking to become a state by carving itself out of Southern Nations.

For a few weeks thereafter, the authorities looked to have suppressed the Sidama, as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi did in 2006. According to academic Lovise Aalen, Meles’s tactics at the time included replacing a pro-statehood Sidama Zone leader with one who opposed it, a move resembling the recent one. But Meles’s intervention was part of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF) political management of competing interests in a diverse federation; an ability that today’s disorientated coalition has largely lost.

Despite the brutality, due presumably to Abiy’s relative popularity and the recently emboldened opposition to ethnic federalism, but also concerns over potentially spiraling instability, domestic criticism of the crackdown was limited. Former backers of the Sidama movement, such as Oromo activist Jawar Mohammed, also stayed silent, possibly as they did not want to speak out against the Prime Minister at that time.

The relief for statehood opponents, however, was short, as constitutional obligations and the strength of the Sidama campaign led the electoral board to schedule the referendum. Still, the authorities have still not made progress in resolving the broader debate over self-rule in southern Ethiopia, which has been ongoing since group rights were promoted in the 1995 constitution.

Chaos theory

Amid EPRDF disarray, the Sidama took the first steps towards statehood in July 2018, collecting petitions at wereda level and then voting for a referendum at the zonal council. Bucking its integrationist tendencies, SEPDM, whose chairwoman Muferiat Kamil is from Silte Zone, gestured towards greater self-determination at its Congress on September 29.

Following the Sidama, the other zonal councils also voted for referenda and, reportedly, made written requests to the State Council, in line with constitutional requirements. On November 26, presumably spooked by the prospect of wholesale southern fragmentation, SEPDM returned to form, as it criticized the salvo of requests.

Perhaps as a consequence of the ruling party position, only the Sidama request was sent by the region to the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia, which is mandated by law to hold referenda. While other SNNP elites claim double standards, a Sidama insider says the inconsistency is justified. He suggests the subsequent statehood requests only occurred because non-Sidama SEPDM leaders mobilized their own zonal councils to request referenda to try and prevent Sidama breaking free. “The premise was that if everyone asks then nobody gets,” the insider said.

Wolayta activists say that is a Sidama-centric narrative is designed to delegitimize other autonomy claims, and is symptomatic of the manner in which Sidama elites and activists dominate the discourse. The Sidama insider says ongoing political struggle between the Sidama and non-Sidama members of the regional council has occurred for decades. In this instance, the alleged wheeze to dilute the Sidama claim backfired anyway, as statehood movements in Wolayta, Gurage, Hadiya, and Keffa have gathered their own momentum, although it is yet to be seen whether they will gather the force of the Sidama’s.

Zones requesting statehood (population in millions, recent official estimate)

Regardless of political shenanigans, the Sidama movement prepared for statehood and then intensified self-declaration mobilization, even after the SNNP region made the formal referendum request, as regional and federal authorities still appeared paralyzed by the prospect of fragmentation. SEPDM eventually showed some signs of urgency, holding a 10-day meeting of its Central Committee until July 15. It deliberated on an expert study and pledged to address demands, yet its gnomic concluding statement elicited bemusement. A day later, the electoral board made its last-minute intervention—chaos and confusion ensued.

Legal activist Kinkino, who is based in Belgium, believes there was a plan to delegitimize the statehood movement. He makes the same allegation of covert external provocation that Ethiopian political actors often employ, despite lacking evidence, when violence occurs following elite agitation. “The moment Abiy said Sidama was a national security threat and warned of imminent military intervention, those opposing Sidama state planned to create instability and attacks on property by using unknown mobs,” he says. “The purpose was to justify federal control of security and send a message that demands for new regions have produced serious violence, so they should not be granted.”

Whether the violence was the result of Ejetto frustration at the last-minute deviation or, as Kinkino claims, the result of external incitation, the arrests, suspensions, and crackdown has had the somewhat perverse effect of calming the political situation and focusing minds on the referendum.

Sidama activists are now set to achieve statehood and there have been positive signs for months. In September, the regional council removed its Sidama leader Million Mathewos, who backed the autonomy campaign, and replaced him with Ristu Yirdaw from Gurage Zone. That looks like preparation for a Sidama state, with Muferiat and allies now focused on holding the rest of the region together after accepting Sidama would leave, and so withdrawing the carrot of regional leadership from the departing elite. Demonstrating the zero-sum tendencies ingrained in the existing Ethiopian federal politics, an emerging concern is that the Wolayta and Keffa statehood campaigns will be energized by a belief that Gurage Zone will benefit disproportionally in terms of government resources now that it occupies the regional presidency.

Political science

Generally, rather than adopting a democratic approach to dealing with the various interest groups imposing their demands, the reoriented ruling party and authorities have so far favored a familiar mix of force and top-down, sometimes opaque, procedures.

On December 8, 2018, SEPDM announced a “scientific” restructuring study to assess the statehood demands over a period of six months. This was actually more a re-restructuring study because a similar process led to the decision a month before to create three new zones and 44 weredas, demonstrating that regional administrators are familiar with administrative upheaval. The changes included splitting Gamo-Gofa Zone in two and Konso receiving a zone after campaigning against a 2011 amalgamation into Segen Zone.

These processes recalled earlier ones, such as the successful restive 1998 campaign for the Wolayta to administer their own zone rather than be part of North Omo Zone with the Gamo, Gofa and Dawro. That also featured a controversial integration effort after the composite Wogagoda language was created—its name stemmed from the first two letters of each group—only to then be violently rejected.

On July 22, 2019, the study group disclosed three possible scenarios: maintaining the southern region as it is; dividing it into two or more regions; or freezing the statehood demands. It claims that the people of the region preferred the first option. Like the electoral board’s late intervention, the conclusions seemed more political than legal; let alone “scientific”, as they were based on a sample size of less than one percent of the region’s population. The SEPDM-commissioned research appeared to be part of the latest effort to hold the south together.

Members of SEPDM Central Committee, October 2018

These EPRDF political failings aside, the constitutional rights to self-determination also present significant legal challenges. Coerced integration and untrammelled fragmentation both contain risks.

The administrative chaos and deadly conflict in the former Segen Zone, which is bordered to the west by South Omo Zone and to the north by Gamo Zone, is just one recent worrying example of the possible fate of the entire southern region. Segen, formed against the wishes of some leaders from the eight ethnic groups that it incorporated, was dissolved in 2018 following persistent Konso requests and protests. Though the demand followed legal procedure, SEPDM delayed and denied, before being compelled to comply. This led to the suspension of Segen Zone, which left the administrative status of the Amaro, Burji, Dirashe and Ale Weredas pending. A destructive conflict ensued. After some delay, the remaining weredas are to become special weredas and the division of property in the former seat of the Segen Zone has begun.

According to the SNNP constitution, zone and special wereda councils have the power to determine the working language of their district; protect rights to develop and write their languages and preserve their history; enact laws on matters uncovered by federal and regional laws; approve its budget; and appoint a speaker, deputy speaker and chief administrator. Weredas are in charge of local plans for social service and economic development and implementing rules and policies issued by higher authorities.

Diversity in amalgamation

SNNP was created 24 years ago as an administrative home for no less than 45 (now, 56) officially recognized ethnic groups, whose ascribed classification into ‘nations’, ‘nationalities’ or ‘peoples’ has been subject to ambiguity and controversy since the regional state’s conception. As such, it constitutes a microcosm of Ethiopia’s unity in diversity; a multi-ethnic federation within a multi-national federation.

Its population, now more than 20 million, made it a suitable fourth regional pillar in the EPRDF system. It acted as a counterweight to Amhara and Oromia, the regions dominated by two groups that have historically impinged on southern communities’ autonomy, who now possess around 29 and 37 million people respectively, according to extrapolations from the 2007 Population and Housing Census. The political component of the set-up was the SEPDM, which, like its sister EPRDF parties and their affiliates, not only controls all elected seats, but has been largely indistinguishable from the state itself.

The recent flurry of statehood requests have created bitter disagreement between integrity and statehood advocates. The key proponent of cohesion over the years has been the SEPDM leadership. It was formed in 1992 as the Southern Ethiopian People Democratic Front (SEPDF), an amalgamation of 14 Political Development Organizations that the victorious rebels proceeded to create and merge after taking power from the Derg in 1991.

Political Development Organizations that formed SEPDF

SEPDF was renamed SEPDM in 2003 as a result of the renewal (tehadso) campaign of 2001 which sought to consolidate support for Meles’ leadership in the EPRDF after his own Tigrayan party split over the Eritrea war and ideology; some of the dissidents purged by Meles had been primarily responsible for developing the southern PDOs, according to historian Christopher Clapham. More recently, SEPDM was chaired by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who hailed from Wolayta, giving it more federal leverage. Now, SEPDM threatens to disintegrate into something like its original units, as the NNPs push against the integrationist tendency.

The SEPDM position rests on the achievement of a “southern identity” rooted in respecting diversity and Ethiopian unity. Often supported by academics like Kinkino, statehood advocates argue for dignity through equal recognition, as smaller groups such as the Harari received a region when the federation was designed. The SEPDM leadership argues that SNNP is a cost-effective arrangement, while activists and local elites claim that smaller regions would be more administratively efficient. For example, Keffa, a western Zone with a history of autonomy is a long way from Hawassa. Arguably, even the relatively sparsely populated South Omo Zone—whose extreme ethnic diversity, with its many agro-pastoral peoples—adds yet another layer of complexity and could potentially become a viable region with a seat at Jinka. Much will now depend on how Sidama fares in its unprecedented bid to become the federation’s tenth member.

Granting rights

Among the criticism of Sidama leaders’ autonomy drive is that they already largely control Hawassa City administration and run Sidama Zone, as well as using the Sidama as the main administrative working and primary education language. However, there are substantive political and economic reasons why Sidama and other zones may want to become regions.

Critics are likely to cast Sidama’s achievement of statehood, including full control of Hawassa city, as the final step of decades of Sidama’s political elites increasing their influence over its administrative institutions through their dominance in the SEPDM party apparatus. A gradual process which, van der Beken says, has negatively affected governance of the city and soured relations with non-Sidama representatives.

Another consequence of the existing situation is that SNNP can intervene upon SEPDM’s instruction in any zone or special wereda’s business any time it considers necessary, even if such interference has no formal legal basis. The only option for complaints by sub-regional authorities is to the regional and then national upper parliamentary chambers.

Despite the autonomy granted on paper, SNNP did not devolve powers such as taxation to the zones or special weredas, as Tigray has. Instead, the region controls taxation, including concurrent powers with the federal government; economic, social and development policies; and administration of land and other natural resources. Therefore, a driver of Sidama statehood is economic self-determination; Sidama could advance self-rule by levying taxes and administering land and natural resources.

Fiscal decentralization in Ethiopia allocates federal transfers to regions by estimating their revenue raising capacity and expenditure needs in order to calculate fiscal gaps, which become the percentage share of the overall grant allocated to each region. The proportion allocated to each region is roughly equivalent to population share, with the south in the past raising more from federal subsidies and less from business taxes than other EPRDF-run states.

The federal government annual grant to SNNP this year is 27.8 billion birr out of a total national regional subsidy of 140.8 billion birr. In total, the region says it currently generates its own revenue of 8 billion birr. Sidama statehood would reduce the basic federal grant to SNNP by a considerable amount because of Sidama’s large population. Another factor determining regional needs is ethnic diversity and related costs of the legislature, which in the south includes the Council of Nationalities, a regional version of the House of Federation, which interprets the constitution and rules on identity and inter-regional disputes.

According to the regional government, Hawassa City administration generates revenue of 1.5 billion birr, while SNNP gives matching fund subsidy of up to 200 million birr for infrastructure construction to Hawassa. There is no other subsidy from the region to Hawassa. The lakeside city partly has strong revenues because it is the regional capital and a popular tourist destination. Hotels benefit from visitors and trips by officials for meetings throughout the year, while investment has been strong.

Federal subsidies

It is tricky to estimate the winners and losers of a reconfiguration, as, for example, businesses and investment may locate from Hawassa due to political tensions and because it is no longer the wider regional capital, although, significantly, the State Council has decided it could stay in the city for up to two full election cycles. Attention is likely to decrease if the capital is moved, and politics is already having an impact: some non-Sidama business-owners complain of discrimination by the Sidama-dominated city government. This situation has reportedly shifted investment to other major southern towns.

Currently, Sidama Zone is lumped in with other lower revenue-raising capacity zones and special weredas in SNNP, while Hawassa City is the only self-sustaining administration in the region. SNNP provides a subsidy of 3.2 billion birr to Sidama Zone, which has livestock and cereal and is the leading coffee-producing zone in Ethiopia, the single largest grossing export commodity. More than 40 percent of Ethiopia’s washed coffee comes from Sidama, but it has no powers to levy taxes on this production, which could lead to a regional request that primary commodities have similar federal-regional tax revenue-sharing arrangements to extractive industries.

By comparing with other regions, the data suggests that a new Sidama region might receive a more than 50 percent increase in its federal subsidy, although there are many factors to consider, such as how House of Federation number-crunchers would account for Hawassa’s relatively high-level of development and revenue-raising capacity.

Largely as a product of EPRDF’s unitary-like de facto control of a de jure radically devolved system, despite the right to raise taxes, regions rely on federal grants and, despite the right to grant weredas and zones revenue-raising powers, weredas and zones rely on regional transfers. Moreover, there is little tax competition between states, again presumably because it is EPRDF and affiliated parties that have jointly set policy.

With the EPRDF system more strained than ever before, these federal dynamics could begin to shift. And with increased inter-regional tensions, better performing states may start objecting to subsiding those that rely more on federal grants. Regional administrations would be in a better position to adjust to this new scenario than zones or special weredas because of regions’ constitutionally guaranteed revenue-raising rights.

Defective inception

Appreciating Ethiopia’s Southern Question, which could destabilize the entire country, requires understanding the groups’ history and how they were fused into one region. During the pre-Menelik II period, the south was largely under customary administrative systems. Some groups with large population like Kaffa and Wolayta had formed kingdoms, creating localized hegemony. Communities were relatively autonomous until forcibly incorporated into Emperor Menelik II’s administration after he led territorial expansion southwards in the 1890s. The communities were then forced to pay tribute to new local rulers appointed by the center.

Menelik II’s rule and that of subsequent emperors involved economic exploitation, social domination, including slavery, and political inferiority for southerners. But the forcible incorporation of the south also sowed seeds of resistance in southern areas like Sidama, which would periodically surface in struggles for greater autonomy under Haile Selassie I, in the form of Sidama Liberation Movement under the Derg and under the early imposition of ethnic federalism by EPRDF, and now during the current power vacuum.

After the last emperor, Haile Selassie I, was overthrown in a 1974 socialist revolution, the military Derg regime put “Ethiopia First”, leaving ethnic autonomy trailing. A fresh opportunity for self-rule came during the transitional period from 1991 to 1994 where priority was given to the rights of what became known as NNPs—whose definition in the Ethiopian constitution borrowed from Joseph Stalin’s theory of nationalities and definition of the nation.

The 45 southern groups during the Transitional Charter period

With ethnic groups in Ethiopia accordingly designated as “nations, nationalities and peoples” (NNPs), this implied a hierarchical categorization based generally—there were plenty of exceptions—on population size that influenced their administrative status within the federation, despite the terms having the same definition. Some ethnic groups (‘nations’) such as Afar, Amhara, Oromo, Somali and Tigray were thus granted regional statehood, while other often smaller groups (‘nationalities’ and ‘peoples’) were lumped together into multi-ethnic regional states—notably the southern NNPs, but also the Agew in Amhara, and the five communities that administer Benishangul-Gumuz and Gambella. Yet regardless of how they were originally classified, all groups were granted the same right to self-determination, up to and including secession from the federation, encouraging potentially never-ending demands for increased autonomy.

In the Transitional Charter, 63 NNPs were grouped into 14 regions, with the original 45 NNPs of the south spread across five multi-ethnic districts.

Yet the constitution, drafted by a commission selected by transitional parliamentarians, eventually compressed the five regions into one. The official reasoning was partly a concern about a lack of qualified civil servants, according to a recent SNNP government-commissioned study. The Sidama and others saw the consolidation as inconsistent with the creation of Harari, Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz regional states, which had much smaller populations than a number of southern NNPs, and this triggered the ongoing disagreement.

2007 populations of select regions and SNNP zones (millions of people, SNNP zone unless stated)

Legal confusion

In its July 16, 2019 statement, the electoral board detailed issues that it said needed to be negotiated prior to the referendum, including the future rights of non-Sidama minority groups and the division of assets in Hawassa. It also requested a security plan from the region. The preconditions raised opposition—although opposition was muted as activists did not want to interrupt the path to a referendum with legal challenges—as the board is only mandated to organize elections and referenda. Sidama Zone said local minorities would face the same legal situation as in any other Ethiopian region as the constitution guarantees their rights.

But it is not only some of the board’s interventions that have caused controversy among activists. There are also reasons to be concerned about aspects of the legal procedures themselves.

The EPRDF’s travails combined with the democratization agenda, which should mean respecting the rule of law, are leading to the constitution being tested more than ever, according to Ethiopian federalism expert Van der Beken. He stresses that critical parts of the constitution have now become important practical considerations after lying largely dormant. Provisions such as Article 39, the secession clause, and Article 47, the rules for statehood requests, were largely theoretical, as there had only been the Somali case for secession in the early years of the federation, a short-lived claim by the Berta in 2001 for separate statehood from Benishangul-Gumuz, as well as a previous Sidama statehood push in 2006.

For example, if, rather than threatening self-declaration, the Sidama had followed procedure and appealed to the House of Federation, a 2001 law defining the chamber’s procedure says their case would be seen within two years. If there was then no decision during that period, the law is silent on what is supposed to happen next. This could create a future dilemma for the Wolayta, who promise to follow legal procedures in their so far unanswered pursuit of statehood.

And despite the constitution promising that an NNP that votes to become a region “directly” becomes a member of the federation “without any need for application”, federalism expert Yonatan Fiseha has suggested a constitutional amendment may be necessary, which would need approval by a simple majority in two-thirds of State Councils and by a two-thirds majority at a joint session of both houses of federal parliament. A source suggested some officials at the Prime Minister’s Office and electoral board support this position.

Because of recent developments, there needs to be debate on potential new laws that would detail issues like how a State Council should manage statehood referendum requests, for example by explaining the relationship with the electoral board, and detailing preconditions, said Van der Beken. “Outstanding issues created by loopholes such as those in Article 47 and the division of powers between the federal and regional governments should be discussed, not only as political issues but also as legal ones,” he said.

Disunity

The Southern drama is not just a product of local divisions. If Sidama activists claim rights to statehood as part of democratization promised by Abiy, opponents of ethnic federalism see it as a classic example of the blinkered ethno-nationalism they say is tearing the country apart. Instead, they want Hawassa to become an autonomous city accountable to the federal government like Addis Ababa; and possibly a campaign for that eventuality will emerge if Hawassa City is shown by disaggregated results to have voted against statehood. Abebe Gellaw, the Managing Director of ESAT, has crowed that fragmentation in Southern Nations would provide conclusive evidence that ethnic federalism has failed.

While Oromo nationalists received widespread support when they stoked unrest against the EPRDF, and against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in particular, under Abiy, there is no reason for opposition elites that back the prime minister to support ethno-nationalist agitators. Sidama might have expected support in July from Oromo activists like Jawar, but he was not forthcoming. Other than the Oromo Liberation Front, Oromo parties sat on the sidelines, presumably because they faced the no-win outcome of upsetting either the government or Sidama campaigners.

While these types of positions are part of the broader debate surrounding the Southern Question, the most acute issue is within the ruling coalition. Under assault from opponents, EPRDF has also been internally fraying due to suspicion and competition among its members, as shown by the heated rhetoric between Tigray and Amhara’s ruling parties following the June 22 assassination, which put the bad blood on public display. The TPLF position that SEPDM should handle the statehood requests (basically, by accepting them; contravening the TPLF’s earlier stance during the Meles era) and the latter’s rejection of that interference was another sign of ruling coalition’s internal trauma.

Members of SEPDM Executive Committee, October 2018

The EPRDF has been ruled by each of its four parties having a quarter of the share of the vote in the coalition’s decision-making committees, regardless of their demographic weight. This arrangement is already under pressure with the country’s most populous region, Oromia, in the ascendancy, and would come under increasing strain if one or several new southern states emerged. Some Sidama leaders want to remain part of the SEPDM even after statehood is fully achieved, at least until after the next elections—although they fear resistance to that plan from the Ejetto.

But the broader risk is that the EPRDF’s unraveling could be triggered by the disintegration of SEPDM, if its efforts of holding together the region fail, which would then undermine its own raison d’être. Abiy’s answer is for EPRDF’s bickering members to merge into a single national organization, while also adding the affiliated ruling parties from five other regions into the mix of what would be called the Prosperity Party.

But this untested and bold move—for which a new method of apportioning voting weights between regional chapters has not yet been agreed upon—could create further instability in the federation. The first signs of this are indicated by Jawar’s criticism and TPLF’s vote and statement in opposition to Abiy’s proposal. Yet, the move to merge also contains the potential for positively re-balance the political spectrum by at least moving the EPRDF beyond its current travails, albeit into an uncertain future.

Federal democracy

The SEPDM has admitted that its internal affairs are partly responsible for the escalation of regional insecurity in Sidama. Meanwhile, the party continues to deliberate on outstanding statehood demands; keen to avoid a ripple effect which in the worst case could lead to not only the break-up of the Southern Nations, but would make the SEPDM itself superfluous. Contingency continues to reign, however, as the status of other requests is far from certain, with the electoral board set on only starting the one-year countdown from the day it officially receives demands to conduct referenda over statehood, and the de facto state of emergency dampening political activity across the region.

One lesson from the recent deadly saga over Segen is the folly of imposing administrative structures against the will of the concerned people. Unless they answer the Southern Question through genuine political and public consultation, SEPDM leaders risk making the same mistake on a much larger scale.

As far as a protagonist in the Segen drama was concerned, who at different times found himself under attack from activists and imprisoned by local officials, the root problem was vicious zero-sum politics that characterized the EPRDF era. “Impartiality and independence are not acceptable in Ethiopian politics,” said Yakob Yatane, now a senior official at Konso Zone. Mirroring that complaint, the Sidama insider said that during the July unrest he felt “sandwiched” by, on the one side, the regional and federal elite, and, on the other, militant Sidama youths.

The situation suggests that SEPDM must approach statehood demands in a more pro-active, communicative, and transparent manner—taking into account the historical background of the formation of SNNP, seeking to de-escalate the current tension, and upholding the constitutional basis of the right to self-determination, although perhaps on a modified basis.

In the case of Sidama, statehood advocates have pursued legalist arguments to advance their cause, making recourse to specific articles of the Ethiopian constitution. However, the unresolved Southern Question exposes far deeper problems inherited from the early 1990s transitional period and a constitution that invites agitation for greater autonomy.

Where upgrading administrative status to a regional state, however, becomes a real possibility, as is the case of Sidama Zone, a string of political, economic, and socio-cultural issues and recalibrations are suddenly at stake. Yet it is almost impossible to guarantee a just outcome for all actors involved and the danger is that any outcome of a referendum would only pit winners and losers against each other.

Still in the background, sensitive issues such as the geographic location of the Gedeo community, who suffered mass displacement from Oromia last year, and which would be cut off from the rest of Southern Nations if Sidama Zone upgrades into a region, are yet to come to the fore. This could add further discomfort on the rocky Southern road ahead. To date, there has been little discussion by a single-minded Sidama campaign of how to mitigate that group’s disadvantages and risks, even though further aggravation of the momentarily calmed Gedeo-Guji crisis could have wider political ramifications.

The broader contours of the Southern Question, which has returned with vengeance under Abiy, continues to divide opinions over ethnic federalism.

On one hand, opponents of ethnic federalism imply that demands for greater autonomy would disappear under a liberal or pan-Ethiopian government. This seems a rather simplistic claim which does not acknowledge the problems that dismantling ethnic federalism would create. On the other hand, the contention that untrammeled self-determination—given the uneven and inconsistent application across the federation—is a sustainable system appears equally untenable. Either way, the path ahead seems to pass through more political turbulence, with the constitution under increasing pressure.

In July and September, Prime Minister Abiy visited Wolayta Soddo and Kaffa to promote his Green Legacy Ethiopia tree-planting initiative, which even policy analysts supportive of Abiy’s reforms consider primarily a campaign for national unity. During the visit Abiy discouraged the statehood aspirations in the Southern Nations. An intervention which advocates for greater autonomy may well consider an affront, and one that is in keeping with the top-down approach of previous EPRDF leaders.

Rather than inhibiting greater autonomy, supporters of the federal system initially hoped that Abiy’s premiership would seek to uphold its democratic potentials and guarantee constitutional rights. In its handling of the Sidama demands—use of lethal force and mass arrests, a lack of adherence to due process, and a de facto state of emergency—the supposedly reformed and soon to be merged EPRDF under Abiy Ahmed has looked more like the original version in terms of its ruthlessness—but without any of the past purpose, organization, or discipline.

Meanwhile those claiming greater rights are still largely locked in a destructive cycle with the state. Until activists expect an impartial application of the law, they are likely to retain violence as an option to press constitutional claims—thus partly legitimizing a further authoritarian response.

Given this, it is questionable whether further statehood demands in Southern Nations can be contained or worked out peacefully. But breaking that chain could be a vital first step in unlocking a convoluted and entrenched set of disputes—and beginning to formulate an answer for Ethiopia’s increasingly confounding Southern Question.

Query or correction? Email us

Editors: William Davison and Jonah Wedekind

Editing assistance from Christophe Van der Beken and Chris Preager

Main photo: Overview of Hawassa; Mimi Abebayehu

Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. Cite Ethiopia Insight and link to this page if republished. 

Related Insight

May 5, 2019 Sidama declares state of impatience

Dec. 30, 2018 Segen shambles shows sense in splitting South

Nov. 28, 2018 As Southern Nations break free, pressure mounts on EPRDF

Nov. 3, 2018 Sidama take another step towards statehood

July 18, 2018 Fugitive mediator clubbed by activists then charged with sedition as protests cleaved Konso

By Yared Tibebu – November 17, 2019

Introduction

Wallelign Mekonnen’s article “On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia” was published 50 years ago today on Nov 17, 1969. From the outset Wallelign admits that “the article suffers from generalizations and inadequate analysis”. It is no exaggeration if I say this five-page article influenced the fate of Ethiopia for the next five decades. It is also important to underline that there has not been a significant discussion and national debate on this article, except for the excerpts that ideologues on both sides used to advance their agendas based on the perceived beliefs.

Even though in 1972 the Ethiopian Students Union in North America (ESUNA) split on this very same question between the old guards like Andreas Eshete and the young activists like Mesfin Habtu, owing to the tumultuous and hasty sequence of events that ensued, subsequent studies and debates were lacking. But true to Ethiopian tradition, positions were hardened and splits occurred before adequate, meaningful, and substantive discussions could be held. This weakness, the inability to debate issues thoroughly before hardening one’s position, has remained to be a weakness of the political culture witnessed in our country for the past 50 years. Looking back, what still amazes me is the lack of will and effort exhibited by Ethiopian intellectuals and political leaders to engage in a constructive political discourse since the publication of the article.

Wallelign’s Basic Arguments

Wallelign expresses the sentiment of the period in that certain fundamental issues were kept in the dark for fear of being misunderstood, and he found the question of nationalities to be one of these fundamental issues that needed to be addressed. Then he goes on to affirm that some people call it tribalism but that he calls it nationalism, and proceeds to explain why he called it nationalism instead of tribalism.

Wallelign tells us that there were serious discussions amongst a small minority on this “delicate” issue beginning in 1968, but that the discussions although private, were leaked to the student population, thus creating misunderstandings, exaggerated rumors and backbiting. He proceeded to say that “the only solution to this degeneration, as witnessed from some perverted leaflets running amock [amok] these two weeks, is open discussion.” Hence, we learn that it was under a very divisive and dangerous situation that the article was released to the student body. Wallelign paid heavily for his courage, being sentenced to five years in prison but ended up serving only a few months before being released on pardon.

Wallelign asks the question “what are the Ethiopian people composed of?” and proceeds to answer by stating that Ethiopia is not a single nation, and defines what a nation is as follows:

“I stress on the word peoples because sociologically speaking at this stage Ethiopia is not really one nation. It is made up of a dozen nationalities with their own languages,

ways of dressing, history, social organization and territorial entity. And what else is a nation? Is it not made of a people with a particular tongue, particular ways of dressing, particular history, particular social and economic organization? Then may I conclude that in Ethiopia there is the Oromo Nation, the Tigrai Nation, the Amhara Nation,… and however much you may not like it the Somali Nation.”

Wallelign wrote this before Professor Levine published Greater Ethiopia. I say this because Levine compellingly argued why there was a nation called Ethiopia. On receiving an award from

SEED in May 2014, Professor Donald Levine (ፊታውራሪ ሊበን ገብረ ኢትዮጵያ as he preferred to call himself within his Ethiopian circle), reiterated what he wrote in his two books on Ethiopia, saying:

“Indeed, Adwa has long stood in my mind as a potent symbol of Ethiopia’s distinctiveness. Those who would deny Ethiopia’s long existence as a multiethnic society must be embarrassed by the Adwa experience. If the empire consisted of nothing but a congeries of separate tribal and regional groups, how then account for the courageous collaboration of 100,000 troops from dozens of ethnic groups from all parts of the country? How then explain the spirited national patriotism of such diverse leaders as Rases Alula, Mengesha, and Sibhat of Tigray, Dejazmatch Bahta of Akale Guzay, Wag Shum Guangul of Lasta, Ras Mikael of Wallo, Negus Takla- Haymanot of Gojjam, Ras Gobena and Dejazmatch Balcha of the Mecha Oromo, Ras Wele of the Yejju Oromo, Fitawrari Tekle of Wollega, Ras Makonnen of Harar, as well as Ras Gebeyehu (who died fighting at Adwa) and Ras Abate of Shoa–sustained, please note, by massive material support to the war effort by the entire population, from north to south?”

Compared to Wallelign’s narrow definition of the term nation and declaring that Ethiopia is a prison of nationalities and concluding that these nations have a right to secede, Levine’s deeper search for Ethiopia’s distinctiveness is much more appealing to the student of Ethiopian history and politics today.

Wallelign never accepted the existence of Ethiopian nationalism. He argued that “there is of course the fake Ethiopian Nationalism advanced by the ruling class and unwillingly accepted and even propagated by innocent fellow travellers”. He thought Ethiopian nationalism was the language and culture of the ruling class, that of the “Amhara -Tigrean supremacy”. Of course, this fails to answer the question as to how Ethiopia survived as an independent state if it had no nationalism that binds its multi-ethnic forces in a common front against invading enemies. Wallelign seems to have ignored this fact and ended up declaring Ethiopian nationalism as fake. Wallelign further declares:

“Ask anybody what Ethiopian culture is? Ask anybody what Ethiopian language is? Ask anybody what Ethiopian music is? Ask anybody what the “national dress” is? It is either Amhara or Amhara-Tigre!!”

My recollection about the national culture of the time is different than what Wallelign tried to paint. It was common to watch various ethnic songs and dances during the weekly Hibre T’r’iit (ኅብረ ትርዒት) shows, and what was occasionally depicted at the National Theatre, and in the annual festivities of T’mqet, Mesqel, and other national religious festivities. I distinctly remember attending a show at the National Theatre, most probably the same year Wallelign wrote the article, that was hosted in alliance with UNESCO, where all ethnic cultures were presented on stage, and I remember being distinctly infatuated by the folk dance from Sidamo where Aselefech Ashne and other female dancers looked as if they were kissing with their male counterparts on stage. Hence Wallelign’s assumption that the cultural heritage of other ethnic groups of Ethiopia were not recognized as being Ethiopian is wrong.

But of course, there was subtle discrimination in the cities based on facial features, tone of skin, and one’s linguistic skills in speaking the Amharic language well, etc. However, it is important to note that the Amharic skill issue was more of an urban rural divide, where even provincial folks from Shoa, Wollo, Gojjam and Gondar were being ridiculed for being “country”, not being

modern or as commonly called (ፋራ) and were made targets of light-hearted jokes based on their regional accents. But these subtle discriminations never materialized as state policy in denying citizenship rights to members of other ethnicities in jobs, training, scholarships for higher education etc. To my understanding and long observation of the Ethiopian political scene for the last half century, the question of nationalities in Ethiopia was more of recognition, equal treatment and RESPECT. Of course, the question of land ownership was the central issue since as an agrarian society land ownership was the measure of one’s honor and even one’s humanity. Hence the peasants who were dispossessed from owning land were also treated with disrespect, thereby adding insult to injury. The primary issue was the implementation of a just and fair land tenure system that primarily ensures a decent livelihood to the farmers who are the core drivers of the agrarian economy of Ethiopia.

On Ethiopian Nationalism

In his own way, Wallelign attempted to deconstruct Ethiopian nationalism as Amhara-Tigre chauvinism by arguing:

“to be a ‘genuine Ethiopian’ one has to speak Amharic, to listen to Amharic music, to accept the Amhara-Tigre religion, Orthodox Christianity and to wear the Amhara-Tigre Shamma in international conferences. In some cases to be an “Ethiopian”, you will even have to change your name. In short to be an Ethiopian, you will have to wear an Amhara mask (to use Fanon’s expression). Start asserting your national identity and you are automatically a tribalist …”.

I wonder if this presentation of the facts is acceptable to the follower of Ethiopian politics and history. What we are dealing here is more a problem of perception than reality, more of an urban life with a conformed norm built on multi-ethnic presence than a targeted strategic identity modification. What is not questionable is that the Ethiopian state never issued any verbal or written policy accepting a given dress code as acceptable as formal wear, or excluding certain cultural outfits as unacceptable or rejecting non-Amhara names. It never had such a policy. Individuals were changing their names willingly to fit the mood of the period. Currently with the ascendancy of Oromo power, we are witnessing individuals accenting their Oromo heritage or preferences to fit the mood of the period. It used to be common, and still is, among Chinese immigrants to change their first names when they become naturalized Americans and get their citizenship. Now with China becoming a world power, the Chinese may not even emigrate let alone change their names. It is important to remember that Ethiopians like Dejazmatch Balcha Safo, Dejazmatch Geressu Duki, Ato Bulcha Demekssa, Dr. Duri Mohammed, Dr. Abdul Mejid Hussein, General Jagama Kello, the Deressa brothers…many, many more rose to prominence and served with distinction without changing their names or cultural identities. The choices individuals made due to opportunism to shape their career, or fit in a society that has evolved in a way that promotes urban identity cannot and should not be mistaken for a state endorsed policy. I think Wallelign failed on that front, in his inability to differentiate between state policy and individual preferences. Those who changed their names should take responsibility for their individual decisions instead of blaming the Ethiopian state.

Let me add another argument.

At the time of Wallelign’s paper (1969), the level of urbanization in Ethiopia was only 5%. Most of these urban dwellers were Amharas, Gurages, Dorzes (Gamo) or Amharic speaking Oromos. The rural life was largely unaffected by government interference. The state’s encroachment into the life of the peasant stood between negligible to non-existent. As long as the peasant pays his taxes through the local tax collectors, he didn’t have to deal with the state. As a result, the peasant was free to speak his language, adhere to his tradition, demonstrate his culture, wear his cultural outfit, and celebrate life with songs in his own language. In addition to this when one considers the non-missionary policy of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, one will be at a loss to understand the significance of national oppression in Ethiopia. It is therefore appropriate to conclude that Amhara-Tigre supremacy was a highly exaggerated, ideologically induced concept. The ethnic contradictions were limited to the urban areas where elite competition in schools, trades and businesses could have been prevalent. And even that was undermined by the camaraderie in the student movement, a camaraderie where students from other ethnic groups were playing leadership roles. Haile Fida, Berhane Meskel Redda, Aid Ahmed, Mulugeta Mosisa, Aboma Mitiku, Yohannes Letta, Yohannes Benti, Gebru Mersha, Gebru Gebrewold, Yirga Tessema, Tilahun Gizaw, Mesfin Habtu, Tesfu Tesfaye etc. were all non Amharas. The student movement both at home and globally accepted these individuals as its leaders throughout the life of the movement. And as a result, there was little doubt that elevating the ethnic issue for equality would endanger the existence and continuance of Ethiopia as a multi ethnic society. It was believed even recognizing the agenda of the right to self-determination including secession will solidify the brotherhood and rank of the progressive forces thereby denying the possibility of the disintegration of the state due to ethnic tensions (what was coined as national oppression). That is why we find Wallelign’s indulgence in accentuating the right to secession at a time when a truly ethnic disenfranchisement was practically non -existent. Calling Ethiopia’s ethnicities as nations was like administering an adult dose of antibiotics to an infant with cold symptoms. Ethiopia was misdiagnosed and given the wrong medication and the wrong dosage.

Wallelign’s Solution

Wallelign diagnosed Ethiopia’s malady as being, practicing national oppression and moved to the question of how this can be resolved. He wrote his perception of a “genuine national” state as one that operates on the basis of equality for all as a solution. He declared in his article:

“what is this genuine national-state? It is a state in which all nationalities participate equally in state affairs, it is a state where every nationality is given equal opportunity to preserve and develop its language, its music, and its history. It is a state where Amharas, Tigres, Oromos, Aderes [Harari], Somalis, Wollamos [Wolaytas], Gurages, etc. are treated equally. It is a state where no nation dominates another nation be it economically or culturally.”

That was the promised land and vision of Wallelign, but Zemecha Wallelign, the final campaign that facilitated the ascension of the EPRDF forces to the seat of power at the palace of Emperor Menelik, delivered what he did not anticipate. After the decimation of the progressive forces both by the Dergue, the TPLF and their own mistakes the vanguard that was to keep Ethiopia’s unity was missing from the political landscape.

As a result, two ethnic parties for all regions except Tigray were formed, the constitution was framed with Wallelign in mind, ethnic homelands were formed as Kilils for the larger ethnic groups. Every ethnicity was free to use its language in schools, courts, and local governments, and in some cases, a new language was created (WeGaGoDa “ወጋጎዳ” concocted from Welayta, Gamo, Gofa, Dawro) and forced upon people as a medium of instruction in schools. This was done out of sheer spite, and it was an ill-conceived notion of clearing the minds of the people from the perceived influence of the Amhara through the use of Amargna.

It has become apparent that what our ethno-nationalists aspire was contrary to the great strides we have taken to address the ethnic issue in the past 50 years since Wallelign wrote his article on the question of nationalities. Unfortunately, despite the several efforts to reform the political system, the demand for a separate homeland is still harbored by the ethno-nationalistic groups without considering the socio-economic fabrics that have woven the current Ethiopia; perhaps without learning from the lessons of other countries that chose to secede and have failed to fulfil the promise of utopia in a new homeland.

In the past half century, the advent of capitalism even in its limited statist form, has only consolidated the demand for more individual rights as the propertied class in each ethnicity learns its separate nationalism from its market, in its bid to control it alone. This will only get intensified as the economy expands widening the appetite of the ethnic entrepreneur not only to control his own market but also to dominate other markets within its reach. How to curb this insatiable appetite for more markets and control and end the competition and rivalry among the different ethnic business and political elites, remains an agenda for the present generation to address. Changing the constitutional framework from a unitary state to that of ethnic federalism and granting more rights to the federal entities has only empowered the ethnic entrepreneurs only to demand for more rights and drive the issue to its fringes.

Thirty years ago when TPLF and OLF ascended to power non-Oromos, but mainly Amharas became the targets and hundreds were slaughtered in Arbagugu, Bedeno, Weter etc. A year ago, when OPDO came to power hundreds were killed in Burayu, Legetafo, and other places in what is known as the Oromo kilil. The Burayu killings seemed to be politically motivated as the targets were a minority group called the Gamo. Two weeks ago, Amaras were targeted for looting and killing in Dodola, Bale zone. As I write these lines Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries are being burnt in Eastern Hararghe, the laity of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faith and its priests are continually targeted for persecution. There are reports that over 15,000 died just in the last three years alone. Most of these killings are concentrated in areas where Oromo moslems reside. It is not difficult to understand that this is a calculated move to destabilize the country and continue to benefit from the chaos and misfortune of innocent victims.

Is Wallelign’s Solution Working?

Foreign Policy magazine in its January 15, 2019 edition warned Ethiopia is moving in the direction of Yugoslavia articulating:

“Empowering ethnic groups through territorial autonomy has been a double-edged sword: While allowing self -government has reduced tensions stemming from the dominance of a particular group, it places ethnic belonging at the center of politics, links it to territory, and therefore risks an eventual increase in ethnic tensions.”

Showing a way out of this quagmire FP pointed “Without careful management of the delicate transition, Ethiopia risks a dangerous fragmentation along ethnic lines.”

Comparing Ethiopia’s situation with that of Yugoslavia FP noted:

“Some differences work in Ethiopia’s favor. First, the units of the Ethiopian federation did not previously exist as separate states. Second, loyalty to the Ethiopian state irrespective of ethnic or national allegiance and identification is strong. (Even the few extreme nationalists, such as the Oromo Liberation Front, are generally reacting to rampant injustice in the past rather than challenging the existence of the state.) Third, the bond among nationalities appears stronger. After all, all groups remember the common struggle against the Italian invasion…”

Now, with the federal arrangement assured into the foreseeable future, some ethno nationalists are still nervous about its guarantee. In their bid to squeeze more advantages for their ethnic group they are demanding self-rule and total control of their resources. Even though theoretically no one opposes self-rule and controlling of one’s resources, the interpretation of these concepts has become destabilizing. To the young Oromo nationalist Jawar Mohammed and his Qeerroo young hooligans, self-rule and controlling one’s resources is interpreted as dislocating non-Oromos from “Oromo land” and confiscating the businesses of non-Oromo Ethiopian entrepreneurs, evicting Ethiopians from their hard earned wealth and built houses. Hundreds of businesses are closed, and those which are open work under duress, paying heavy illegal penalties to the Qeerroo for every business engagement they make. And the ruling party in the region watches on the sidelines or collaborates with the hooligans who are just a fortnight away from becoming the Interahamwe of Oromia.

What Oromo nationalists of the Jawar ilk do not understand is that the so-called Oromo land belonged to other Ethiopians before the Oromo Migration since 1520. Ethiopians who live there should have equal rights to the resources and politics of the region and any attempt to continue to disenfranchise and ultimately dislocate non-Oromos will be resisted. It is only by redefining and negotiating the terms of self-rule and control of resources that a stable political system can be a reality. The present status where hooligans became the police and the court, and where the ruling party ODP collaborates by standing on the side or openly assisting the Qeerroo cannot continue for long. It must come to an end.

At present, the other contentious issue is that of Addis Ababa. The Oromo nationalists want to have a special privilege and interest over the city. In principle, self-rule cannot be granted to the Oromo Killil and at the same time be denied to the residents of Addis Ababa. It is in the nature of the principle of law that it is either all-encompassing or void (non-existent). Ethiopia’s resources have been invested in the capital for over a hundred years. The majority of the loans

borrowed by Ethiopia are invested in Addis Ababa. The residents have lived in the city for over 130 years. They are its natural owners. The fact that Meles drew an administrative line for the Oromo around the capital should not grant special privileges to the Oromo Kilil. Ethiopia did not start with Meles or Menelik. There were Oromo Migration, Ahmed Gragn, Gelawdewos, Zerayakob, Amde Tsion etc. before them, and a king called Dawit and his city called Berara in what is now called Addis Ababa. Hence playing with the self rule of Addis Ababa by Oromo nationalists will undermine all the efforts done so far to create a lasting peace in a shared view of the future.

What is to be Done?

What we have witnessed in Ethiopia over the past few years is an alarming outcome of the ethno-nationalist agenda propagated by the various actors with varying vested interest and mandate in the current political environment and enabled primarily by the powers to be. This sets a dangerous precedent, lest we learn from the mistakes of countries like Rwanda, we are heading towards a dangerous path. Unless appropriate actions are taken swiftly to bring to justice the perpetrators and ensure peace and stability, the silent majority might rise up to defend its existence, and that would be a day of reckoning we all should pray not to see.

As I write these lines TPLF is being pushed out of the coalition it created 30 years ago because of an abrupt ideological shift within EPRDF and forced to think of alternatives such as creating an independent state of Tigray. It has already committed to run its own election on time and creating a de facto state. This move may make Eritrea nervous and can lead to a preemptive strike by Isayas, and the Ethiopian government may push the Amhara region to push for territorial demand from Tigray, engulfing the whole region into endless chaos and destruction. The Prime Minister should show leadership to avert such a catastrophe. If slowing the EPRDF merger process could keep the TPLF within the coalition, the PM should reconsider his position of ‘party merger at any cost’. Party merger can wait the election can wait, transitional justice can wait while we Ethiopians as a nation embark on National Reconciliation.

It is time for Ethiopia to finally debate the issue initiated by Wallelign 50 years ago. All stakeholders including the TPLF should come to the table and discuss and negotiate in good faith. All issues must be placed on the table. Those who seek session should not be shy to utter their interest. Those who believe in sanitized homeland where no other language speaker should inhabit their “God given” land should feel free to share their passion. Those who believe why a unitary state is a panacea for the country’s problems should reason out their positions. Those who think ethnic federalism empowers them better while keeping Ethiopia’s unity intact should feel free to share their thoughts. And finally, those who think federalism is a better option, but its present ethnic arrangement is destabilizing should present their option. It is only through a transparent and full debate followed by negotiations that we can resolve our current predicament and allow ourselves to concentrate on other economic and job creation issues. But to embark on this protracted and long voyage, all of us should start with the intent of preserving Ethiopia’s unity and make every effort to make it a reality.

Ethiopian unity must be preserved because as the Israeli nationalist Yoram Hazony said:

“the national state offers a great improvement in the possibilities for the collective self-determination of the tribes [ethnicities]. This is because the great obstacle to the self-determination of clans and tribes [ethnicities] when they are armed and politically independent is the incessant harm they do to one another through their relentless warfare.”

A unified Ethiopia will save its ethnicities, that Wallelign wrongly called nations, from relentless warfare and create mutual loyalty based on the shared history of resisting colonialism and Fascism. I believe a multi-ethnic federation is possible as long as we dedicate ourselves to a common nation-state called Ethiopia where every citizen lives anywhere in the country with full economic and political rights.

By Damo Gotamo

The vote on a referendum for the Sidama autonomy in Awassa and Sidama Zone took place on Wednesday, November 20, 2019. We were told by government officials and journalists that the voting process was peaceful, free, and fair. But, the reality on the ground was a complete opposite of the claims of the people associated with the government. The residents of Awassa observed a fraud they had never seen before and were dismayed by the false claims the officials. In this short article, I will state what had transpired on the date in Awassa. I hope what had taken place in Awassa will give readers a glimpse of the entire process in the Sidama zone where no independent election observers were stationed.

To begin with, the government officials said the polling stations would be open at 6 a.m. local time. Contrary to what the residents of Awassa were told, almost all the stations in the city were open at 2 a.m. local time. This was done on purpose by the Sidama extremists to allow illegal ID holders, who came from villages in the Sidama zone, to cast their vote in the absence of the watchful eyes of the residents of Awassa. Thousands of Illegal residents of the city cast their ballot in Awassa and left immediately for their villages to vote again. The residents of Awassa saw thousands of strangers driven by several buses and offloaded at the polling stations in awassa. There were no government officials or security forces to prevent the illegal activity at the polling stations. The ‘observers’ and those who opened the polling stations were the remnants of the Ejjeetto sympathizers who had been disturbing the peace of Awassa.

After 6 a.m., in several polling stations in Awassa, many strangers were seen standing in line to cast their votes. A few residents of the city who chose to cast their ballot were dumbfounded to see strangers waiting to cast their ballot. The city residents whom I spoke told me they felt strangers themselves among the people who came from different villages in the Sidama zone.

Two polling stations in the city were closed because of the confrontation between the strangers and city residents, who could not stand what was taking place in front of their eyes. I heard many innocent people were rounded up and thrown into jail by the Sidama police, which was left to do whatever it wanted. There were no officials from the Command Post at the stations to maintain law and order. It was clear to everyone from what was taking place in Awassa that the government of Abiy gave the Sidama extremists the green light to do whatever they wanted. Nothing was done in the days that preceded the voting when the Sidama extremists engaged in massive fraudulent activities, including issuing thousands of illegal IDs to none residents of Awassa.

Many residents of Awassa were appalled by what they saw on the voting day. They said the 27 years of the TPLF elections were by far more transparent and more open than the Sidama referendum for the statehood. At least, they said, the TPLF rigged the election behind closed doors, away from the watchful eyes of the people. However, last Wednesday, the voter fraud was taking place in open and in front of the public. The fraudulent referendum has proven to the residents of Awassa beyond any doubt that the government in Ethiopia is in name only.

The vote ‘observers’ and those who were tasked to open and close the voting stations hailed from the same group voting for statehood. They instructed people to cast their votes in the box that favored a Sidama statehood and closely monitored people where they cast their ballots. A few Awassa residents who who decided to participate in the farce vote and cast their ballots against the Sidama statehood were scolded by the ‘observers.’ I heard many were threatened by the thugs who were masquerading as ‘observers.’ As I write this article, two individuals were caught engaging in criminal activities. An individual by the name of Tesfaye Dengiso was caught leading none residents of the city to vote and intimidating Awassa residents to cast their vote for the Sidama statehood. Another individual was apprehended transporting several sacks of illegally cast registration cards from one location to another. The two incidents, however, don’t describe the extent of the fraudulent activities that took place on Wednesday in Awassa.

In Bahel Adarash Kefle Ketema, Adare Kebele, where only one ethnic Sidama lives, 800 voter cards were cast for ‘Shafeta,’ in favor of Sidama statehood. In the same district, where 600 residents voted against the statehood and 300 in favor, the official result was removed illegally and reversed in favor of the Sidama statehood. I also heard in many districts in Awassa the votes were disqualified because of the angry profanity the people of Awassa scribbled on voting cards belittling the entire illegal process that took place in Awassa.

In Awassa, there was not a single independent person from the so-called National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) to observe the vote. The members of the military were also absent at the polling station to prevent the criminal activities that were taken place in open and to prevent the Sidama extremists from harassing the people of Awassa at the stations.

The government officials who were bombarding the people of Ethiopia with false claims about the referendum should be ashamed of themselves. Everything they said on TV about the vote was a blatant lie. The so-called press conferences and statements leading up to the vote and on the date of the vote were embarrassing to say the least. They didn’t have the gut to call the fraudulent activity illegal and declare it null and void.

The residents of Awassa have a message to Birtukan Medekesa; resign effective immediately. It is an enigma to the people in the city why the woman who made a name for herself by fighting the TPLF criminals and standing for the truth ended up associating herself with a fraudulent and illegal activity that tarnishes her reputation? Birtukan should not have associated herself with a scam whose outcome was already determined.

The Sidama referendum was conducted illegally. It was not free and fair as the government officials tried to tell us. The officials of the SNNPR, including the president, lied to the people of Ethiopia about the transparency of the referendum. They did nothing when none residents of Awassa in thousands were allowed to vote in Awassa. Nothing was also done to stop the Sidama ethnic thugs from intimidating the residents of Awassa to vote in favor of the Sidama statehood. The newly elected mayor of Awassa also did absolutely nothing when illegal activities were taking place under his watch. It was for everyone to see that both officials cooperated with the Sidama extremists to compromise the results of the Sidama referendum.

Abiy and his government are sinking the country into a new low by allowing mass murders to do whatever they wanted and watching on the sidelines. Thousands of people and members of the military died for a sham referendum whose outcome was already determined by the government and its cadres. The people of Ethiopia will not be surprised if Abiy’s government illegally hands over Awassa, which was established and developed by the hard work of the people of Ethiopia to a few ethnic thugs who migrated to Awassa a decade ago.

By Prof, Alemayehu G. Mariam

Special Author’s Note: For years, I have memorialized the month of November by remembering the hundreds of innocent Ethiopians who lost their lives or were maimed and disfigured in the Meles Massacres of 2005.

Indeed, I joined the Ethiopian human rights movement in 2005 ONLY because of the Meles Massacres. [1]  Prior to that time, my interest in Ethiopia was purely academic.

It is said that in the course of human events, most people face their own “defining moments”. Often that “moment” is a point in time when we gain a certain clarity about things that may have eluded us in the past or cloud our judgment.

The Meles Massacres were the defining moments in my life. [2]

As I remember the victims of the Meles Massacres in November 2019, I am both deeply saddened and supremely elated.

I am deeply saddened because 1) it seems I am the only one in the world who cares enough to remember the victims of the Meles Massacres, and 2) the criminals who committed the crimes against humanity have yet to be brought to justice.

I must say, however, I have received a measure of satisfaction in seeing at least one of the central criminal figures in the massacres, Meles Zenawi’s right hand man, today is standing before the bar of justice although on different charges.

I am glad to say I have “indicted” that criminal against humanity for prosecution in the court of world opinion, if not in a court of law.

I am supremely elated because my prophesy about the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front has come to pass.

Indeed, I can say my prophesy was fully realized this past weekend when the various political parties in Ethiopia came together to create “Prosperity Party”.

For years, I had counselled the TPLF to redeem themselves from their evil ways or they will surely be consigned to the dustbin of history and inherit the wind.

In my June 2010 commentary, I told the TPLF leaders to mend their ways or prepare for their “rendezvous with the dustbin of history.”

In November 2019, the TPLF had its final rendezvous with the dustbin of history.

In my February 2013 commentary, I told the TPLF in the end they will inherit the wind because of all the evil they have done:

Scripture teaches that “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.”  Meles and his worshippers have profoundly troubled the Ethiopian house and they shall inherit the wind!

For 27 years, the TPLF troubled the Ethiopia House. Today, the TPLF has inherited the wind.

In January 2016, the TPLF mocked and laughed at me:

Al Mariam still believes that EPRDF’s days are numbered. The only change, if you can call it that, is a patent slippage from certainty to ambiguity in the time-line of his latest forecast of Woyane’s predetermined doom – a move which might possibly have taken the clever among his readers by unexpected surprise.

How could they whilst they are too busy praying for at least one of Al Mariam’s seemingly endless prophecies to come true?

Slaughter is no laughing matter!

I don’t think the TPLf is laughing at my “seemingly mindless prophesies” now.

Well, suffice it to say, “He who laughs last laughs best.”

Today, the washed up. low down and down and out leaders of the TPLF are drowning their sorrows in vodka and whiskey holed up in bar rooms and pubs.

They are hanging out in Ethiopia’s skid rows chomping on khat and getting high smoking shisha, pot and whatever else they can get their hands on.

I don’t want to gloat, but I just gotta say it: “I DONE TOLD YOU SO TPLF!”

Ha!

They say, “Let lying dogs lie.”

I say, “Let those lying liars of the TPLF (LF stands for Lie Factory) in the dustbin of history lie to themselves that they will one day come back to power.” (That is when hell freezes over and the devil goes ice skating. )

But not all is lost.

There is still redemption for the TPLF. I truly believe that!

I say to the TPLF leaders, “Be wise. Be reasonable. Be contrite. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t be haughty. Don’t be stubborn and stupid. Join your brothers and sisters in peace, forgiveness and love.”

We have tried hatred. We have tried revenge. We have tried domination one group over another. We have FAILED MISERABLY!

TPLF, you have failed with your gospel of hate, division and antagonism.

Heed wise counsel in the prophesy,  “The wrath of God pales beside that of man.”

If you continue your arrogant and evil ways, only two words will describe your legacy and destiny:

RIP, (Rust in Pain) TPLF!, 

The best Days of Ethiopia are yet to come…

I always knew Ethiopia’s best days were to come. It was always crystal clear to me that Ethiopia and Ethiopians are unique people.

I called that “Ethiopian exceptionalism” and offered my evidence to support my contention.

In May 2013, I wrote a poem foretelling my vision of Ethiopia rising from the graveyard of ethnic apartheid tyranny.

I knew without a doubt in 2013 the TPLF’s ethnic apartheid would be buried in the very grave dug up for Ethiopia through the struggle of Ethiopia’s young people when I wrote my poem:

Ethiopia up-Rising! Africa Rising!

Ethiopia Africa’s bright gem
Shall rise up from the ashes of tyranny
Like the spring sun rising at dawn over the African horizon
Like the full moon rising over the darkness of the African night
Ethiopia shall rise and shine!

Ethiopia shall rise from the heights of Ras Dejen
To the peaks of Kilimanjaro
From the pits of the politics of identity
To the summit of national unity and diversity
Ethiopia shall rise and shine!

Ethiopia of the wise
Shall rise above the streetwise
Its people to galvanize, mobilize and organize
To humanize, harmonize and compromise
Ethiopia shall rise and shine!

Ethiopia Africa’s hope and destiny
Shall rise and its tyrants shall fall
Their lies, cruelty and corruption
Buried with them in the steel coffin of history
For “justice will rise in Ethiopia like the sun, with abundance of peace forever.” 

Ethiopia shall rise by the sinews of her youth
Up-rise on the wings of her persevering children
Ethiopia shall rise and rise
Her youth will up-rise
Rise Ethiopia, up-rise.

In a risen Ethiopia, there shall be no place for a philosophy that holds one ethnic, religious, linguistic or gender group superior to another.

There shall no longer be first class and second-class citizens in a risen Ethiopia.

In a risen Ethiopia, ethnicity, religion, language, region or gender shall have no more significance than the color of  one’s eyes.

In a risen Ethiopia, human rights shall be guaranteed to all.

In a risen Ethiopia, there shall be peace and justice!

The thousands of victims of the Meles Massacres will not rise.

But because of their supreme sacrifices, their country shall rise like the rising sun.

That is why I remember the thousands of victims of TPLF massacres over 27 years while they were in power and countless others they victimized in the bush.

I REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER 2019 THE VICTIMS OF THE MELES MASSACRES:

I will always remember in November, and in December and in January and in February and in April…

Rebuma E. Ergata, 34, mason; Melesachew D. Alemnew, 16, student; Hadra S. Osman, 22, occup. unknown; Jafar S.  Ibrahim, 28,  sm. business; Mekonnen, 17, occup. unknown; Woldesemayat, 27, unemployed; Beharu M. Demlew, occup. unknown; Fekade Negash, 25, mechanic; Abraham Yilma, 17, taxi; Yared B. Eshete, 23, sm. business; Kebede W. G. Hiwot, 17, student; Matios G. Filfilu, 14, student;Getnet A. Wedajo, 48, Sm. business; Endalkachew M. Hunde, 18, occup. unknown; Kasim A. Rashid, 21, mechanic; Imam A. Shewmoli, 22,  sm. business; Alye Y. Issa, 20, laborer; Samson N. Yakob, 23, pub. trspt.; Alebalew A. Abebe, 18, student; Beleyu B. Za, 18, trspt. asst.; Yusuf A. Jamal, 23, occup. student; Abraham S. W.  Agenehu, 23, trspt. asst.; Mohammed H. Beka, 45, farmer; Redela K. Awel, 19, taxi Assit., Habtamu A. Urgaa, 30, sm. Business.  Dawit F. Tsegaye, 19, mechanic; Gezahegne M. Geremew, 15, student; Yonas A. Abera, 24, occup. unknown; Girma A. Wolde, 38, driver; W/o Desta U. Birru, 37, sm. business; Legese T. Feyisa, 60, mason; Tesfaye D. Bushra, 19, shoe repairman; Binyam D. Degefa, 18, unemployed.

Million K. Robi, 32, trspt. asst.; Derege D. Dene, 24,  student; Nebiyu A. Haile, 16, student; Mitiku U. Mwalenda, 24, domestic worker; Anwar K. Surur, 22, sm. business; Niguse Wabegn, 36, domestic worker; Zulfa S. Hasen, 50, housewife; Washun Kebede, 16, student; Ermia F. Ketema, 20, student; 00428, 25, occup. unknown; 00429, 26, occup. unknown; 00430, 30, occup. unknown; Adissu Belachew, 25, occup. unknown; Demeke K. Abebe,uk, occup. unknown; 00432, 22, occup. unknown; 00450, 20, occup. unknown; 13903, 25, occup. unknown; 00435, 30, occup. unknown. 13906, 25, occup. unknown; Temam Muktar, 25, occup. unknown; Beyne N. Beza, 25, occup. unknown; Wesen Asefa, 25, occup. unknown; Abebe Anteneh, 30, occup. unknow; Fekadu Haile, 25, occup. unknow; Elias Golte, uk, occup. unknown; Berhanu A. Werqa, uk, occup. unknown.

Asehber A. Mekuria, uk, occup. unknown; Dawit F. Sema, uk, occup. unknown, Merhatsedk Sirak, 22, occup. unknown; Belete Gashawtena, uk, occup. unknown;  Behailu Tesfaye, 20, occup. unknown; 21760, 18, occup. unknown; 21523, 25, occup. unknown; 11657, 24, occup. unknown; 21520, 25, occup. unknown; 21781, 60, occup. unknown; Getachew Azeze, 45, occup. unknown; 21762, 75, occup. unknown; 11662,45, occup. unknown; 21763, 25, occup. unknown; 13087, 30, occup. unknown; 21571, 25, occup. unknown; 21761, 21, occup. unknown; 21569, 25, occup. unknown; 13088, 30,  occup. unknown; Endalkachew W. Gabriel, 27, occup. unknown.

Hailemariam Ambaye, 20, occup. unknown; Mebratu W. Zaudu,27, occup. unknown; Sintayehu E. Beyene, 14, occup. unknown; Tamiru Hailemichael, uk, occup. unknown; Admasu T. Abebe, 45, occup. unknown; Etenesh Yimam, 50, occup. unknown; Werqe Abebe, 19, occup. unknown; Fekadu Degefe, 27, occup. unknown Shemsu Kalid, 25, occup. unknown; Abduwahib Ahmedin, 30, occup. unknown; Takele Debele, 20, occup. unknown, Tadesse Feyisa,38,  occup. unknown; Solomon Tesfaye, 25, occup. unknown; Kitaw Werqu, 25, occup. nknown; Endalkachew Worqu, 25, occup. unknow; Desta A. Negash, 30, occup. unknown; Yilef Nega, 15, occup. unknown; Yohannes Haile, 20, occup. unknown; Behailu T. Berhanu, 30, occup. unknown; Mulu K. Soresa, 50, housewife, Teodros Gidey Hailu, 23, shoe salesman; Dejene Yilma Gebre, 18, store worker; Ougahun Woldegebriel, 18, student; Dereje Mamo Hasen, 27, carpenter.

Regassa G. Feyisa, 55, laundry worker; Teodros Gebrewold, 28, private business; Mekonne D. G.Egziaber, 20, mechanic; Elias G. Giorgis, 23, student; Abram A. Mekonnen, 21, laborer; Tiruwerq G.Tsadik, 41, housewife; Henok H. Mekonnen; 28, occup. unknown; Getu S. Mereta, 24, occup. unknown;W/o Kibnesh Meke Tadesse, 52, occup. unknown; Messay A. Sitotaw, 29, private business; Mulualem N. Weyisa, 15, Ayalsew Mamo, 23, occup. unknown; Sintayehu Melese, 24, laborer;  W/o Tsedale A. Birra, 50, housewife; Abayneh Sara Sede, 35, tailor; Fikremariam K. Telila, 18, chauffer; Alemayehu Gerba, 26, occup. unknown; George G. Abebe,36, private trspt.; Habtamu Zegeye Tola, 16, student; Mitiku Z. G. Selassie, 24, student; Tezazu W. Mekruia, 24, private business; Fikadu A. Dalige, 36,  tailor; Shewaga B. W.Giorgis, 38, laborer; Alemayehu E. Zewde, 32, textile worker; Zelalem K. G.Tsadik, 31, taxi driver; Mekoya M. Tadesse, 19, student; Hayleye G. Hussien, 19, student; W/o Fiseha T. G.Tsadik, 23, police employee; Wegayehu Z. Argaw, 26, unemployed.

Melaku M. Kebede, 19, occup. unknown; Abayneh D. Orra, 25, tailor; W/o Abebch B. Holetu, 50, housewife;  Demeke A. Jenbere, 30, farmer; Kinde M. Weresu, 22, unemployed; Endale A. G.Medhin, 23, private business; Alemayehu T. Wolde,24, teacher; Bisrat T. Demisse, 24, car importer; Mesfin H. Giorgis, 23, private business, Welio H. Dari, 18, private business, Behailu G. G.Medhin, 20, private business; Siraj Nuri Sayed, 18, student; Iyob G.Medhin, 25, student; Daniel W. Mulugeta,25, laborer; Teodros K. Degefa,25, shoe factory worker; Gashaw T. Mulugeta, 24, student; Kebede B. Orke, 22, student; Lechisa K. Fatasa, 21, student; Jagama B. Besha,20, student; Debela O. Guta, 15, student; Melaku T. Feyisa, 16, student; W/o Elfnesh Tekle, 45, occup. unknown; Hassen Dula, 64, occup. unknown; Hussien Hassen Dula, 25, occup. unknown; Dejene Demisse,15, occup. unknown; Name unknown; Name unknown;  Name unknown; Zemedkun Agdew, 18, occup. unknown;  Getachew A. Terefe, 16, occup. unknown; Delelegn K. Alemu, 20, occup. unknown; Yusef M. Oumer,20, occup. unknown.

Mekruria T. Tebedge, 22, occup. unknown; Bademe M. Teshamahu, 20, occup. unknown; Ambaw Getahun,38, occup. unknown; Teshome A. Kidane, 65, health worker; Yosef M. Regassa, uk, occup. unknown; Abiyu Negussie, uk, occup. uk; Tadele S. Behaga,uk, occup. unknown; Efrem T. Shafi,uk, occup. unknown; Abebe H. Hama, uk, occup. unknown; Gebre Molla, uk, occup. unknown; Seydeen Nurudeen, uk, occup. unknown; Eneyew G. Tsegaye, 32, trspt. asst; Abdurahman H. Ferej, 32, wood worker; Ambaw L. Bitul, 60, leather factory worker; Abdulmenan Hussien, 28, private business; Jigsa T. Setegn, 18, student; Asefa A. Negassa, 33, carpenter; Ketema K. Unko, 23, tailor; Kibret E. Elfneh, 48, private guard; Iyob G. Zemedkun, 24, private business; Tesfaye B. Megesha,15, private business; Capt. Debesa S. Tolosa, 58, private business;Tinsae M. Zegeye,14,  tailor;Kidana G. Shukrow,25, laborer;Andualem Shibelew, 16, student; Adissu D. Tesfahun, 19, private business; Kassa Beyene Yror,28, clothes sales; Yitagesu Sisay,22, occup. unknown; Unknown, 22, occup. unknown.

Police and security officers killed by friendly fire (security officers  killed in each other’s crossfire):  Nega Gebre, Jebena Desalegn,  Mulita Irko, Yohannes Solomon, Ashenafi Desalegn, Feyia Gebremenfes.

I remember the hundreds of victims maimed, injured, battered and mutilated.

List of prisoners massacred while trapped in their cells at Kaliti Prison on November 2, 2005:

Teyib Shemsu Mohammed, age unknown, male, charged with instigating armed insurrection. Sali Kebede, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Sefiw Endrias Tafesse Woreda, age unknown, male, charged with rape. Zegeye Tenkolu Belay, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Biyadgligne Tamene, age unknown, male, charges unknown. Gebre Mesfin Dagne, age unknown, male, charges unknown. Bekele Abraham Taye, age unknown, male, charged with hooliganism. Abesha Guta Mola, age unknown, male, charges unknown. Kurfa Melka Telila, convicted of making threats. Begashaw Terefe Gudeta, age unknown, male, charged with brawling [breach of peace]. Abdulwehab Ahmedin, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Tesfaye Abiy Mulugeta, age unknown, male, charged with instigating armed insurrection. Adane Bireda, age unknown, male, charged with murder. Yirdaw Kersema, age unknown, male, no charges indicated.

Balcha Alemu Regassa, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Abush Belew Wodajo, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Waleligne Tamire Belay, age unknown, male, charged with rape. Cherinet Haile Tolla, age unknown, male, convicted of robbery. Temam Shemsu Gole, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Gebeyehu Bekele Alene, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Daniel Taye Leku, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Mohammed Tuji Kene, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Abdu Nejib Nur, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Yemataw Serbelo, charged with rape. Fikru Natna’el Sewneh, age unknown, male, charged with making threats. Munir Kelil Adem, age unknown, male, charged with hooliganism. Haimanot Bedlu Teshome, age unknown, male, convicted of infringement. esfaye Kibrom Tekne, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Workneh Teferra Hunde, age unknown, male, no charges indicated.

Sisay Mitiku Hunegne, charged with fraud. Muluneh Aynalem Mamo, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Taddese Rufe Yeneneh, charged with making threats. Anteneh Beyecha Qebeta, age unknown, male, charged with instigating armed insurrection. Zerihun Meresa, age unknown, male, convicted of damage to property. Wogayehu Zerihun Argaw, charged with robbery. Bekelkay Tamiru,  age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Yeraswork Anteneh, age unknown, male, charged with fraud. Bazezew Berhanu, age unknown, male, charged with engaging in homosexual act. Solomon Iyob Guta, age unknown, male, charged with rape. Asayu Mitiku Arage, age unknown, male, charged with making threats. Game Hailu Zeye, age unknown, male, charged with brawling [public disorder] Maru Enawgaw Dinbere, age unknown, male, charged with rape. Ejigu Minale, age unknown, male, charged with attempted murder. Hailu Bosne Habib, age unknown, male, convicted of providing sanctuary. Tilahun Meseret, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Negusse Belayneh, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Ashenafi Abebaw, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Feleke Dinke, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Jenbere Dinkineh Bilew, age unknown, male, charged with brawling [public disorder].

Tolesa Worku Debebe, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Mekasha Belayneh Tamiru, age unknown, male, charged with hooliganism. Yifru Aderaw, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Fantahun Dagne, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Tibebe Wakene Tufa, age unknown, male, charged with instigating armed insurrection. Solomon Gebre Amlak, age unknown, male, charged with hooliganism. Banjaw Chuchu Kassahun, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Demeke Abeje, age unknown, male, charged with attempted murder. 58. Endale Ewnetu Mengiste, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Alemayehu Garba, age unknown, male, detained in connection with Addis Ababa University student  demonstration in 2004.  Morkota Edosa, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. 

JUSTICE FOR Yenesew Gebre 

On 11/11/11, Yenesew Gebre, a 29 year-old Ethiopian school teacher and human rights activist set himself ablaze outside a public meeting hall in the town of Tarcha located in Dawro Zone in Southern Ethiopia. He died three days later from his injuries.  Before torching himself, Yenesew told a gathered  crowd outside of a meeting hall, “In a country where there is no justice and no fair administration, where human rights are not respected, I will sacrifice myself so that these young people will be set free.”

Immortalizing the Victims of the Meles Massacres 

The Ethiopian massacre victims now belong to the whole of humanity.

They must be remembered by all freedom-loving peoples throughout the world, not just Ethiopians.  By remembering the atrocities and spreading word about gross human rights abuses in Ethiopia, we not only keep alive the memory of the innocent victims of 2005 but also hasten the day when the criminals will be brought to justice.

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.” Affirmatively stated, I believe all that is necessary to triumph over evil is for all good men, women and young people to do something.

The slaughter of 2005 must be made a warning to each new generation of Ethiopians of what happens when human rights are abused, the rule of law trashed, democracy trampled and freedom crushed.

To paraphrase Elie Weisel, we must seek justice for the victims of yesterday not only because it is the right thing to do, but also to protect the youth of today, and the children who will be born tomorrow from similar injustice and wrong. We do not want the past to become the future of our children and grandchildren.

That is why all of the criminals responsible for the 2005 massacre must be held accountable. Delaying justice to the Ethiopian massacre victims is to invite the harsh verdict of history upon ourselves and future generations: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

================ 

Footnotes:

[1] For the first time in my life, I understood the true meaning of the expression, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.” More specifically, for young men and women to do nothing.

[2] For nearly fourteen years, I have stood against the evils perpetrated by the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and its leaders. following the Ethiopian parliamentary elections in May 2005, security and police forces under the direct command and control of Meles Zenawi, the late leader of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), massacred and seriously injured hundreds of unarmed protesters in the streets and scores of defenseless inmates at Akaki prison.

An official Inquiry Commission established by Meles Zenawi documented 193 unarmed men, women and children demonstrating in the streets and scores of other detainees held in a high security prison were intentionally and deliberately shot and killed by police and security officials. An additional 763 suffered life-threatening gunshot injuries.

The killings occurred on June 8, 2005 in Addis Ababa and elsewhere throughout the country during November 1-10, 2005 and November 14-16, 2005.

Based on my personal discussion of the Inquiry Commission chair, there were likely to be many hundreds of additional victims who were excluded on other dates but were outside the scope of the Commission’s investigative charge.

For additional data, graphic photographs of the victims of the Meles Massacres, see Testimony of Yared Hailemariam, Ethiopian Human Rights Defender, “CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY IN ETHIOPIA: THE ADDIS ABABA MASSACRES OF JUNE AND NOVEMBER 2005” before the EXTRAORDINARY JOINT COMMITTEE MEETING THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES ON DEVELOPMENT AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AND SUB-COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS May 15, 2006.

The Inquiry Commission completely exonerated the victims of the massacre and pinned the entire blame on the police and paramilitary forces.  The Commission concluded, “There was no property destroyed [by protesters]. There was not a single protester who was armed with a gun or a hand grenade as reported by the government-controlled media that some of the protesters were armed with guns and bombs. [The shots fired by government forces] were not intended to disperse the crowd but to kill by targeting the head and chest of the protesters.”

A 2007 official Inquiry Commission report on post-election “disturbances” examined 16,990 documents, and received testimony form 1,300 witnesses. Commission members visited prisons and hospitals, and interviewed members of the regime’s officialdom over several months. In the end, the Commission determined that the police shot and killed 193 persons and wounded 763. Further, the Commission documented on November 3, 2005, during an alleged disturbance in Kality prison that lasted 15 minutes, prison guards fired more than 1500 bullets into inmate housing units leaving 17 dead, and 53 severely wounded.

Commission Chairman Judge Frehiwot commented: “Many people were killed arbitrarily. Old men were killed while in their homes, and children were also victims of the attack while playing in the garden.” Over 30,000 civilians were arrested without warrant and held in detention.

The Commission made specific factual conclusions about the “disturbances”: 1) The persons killed or wounded during the violence were unarmed protesters. “There was not a single protester who was armed with a gun or a hand grenade (as reported by the government-controlled media that some of the protesters were armed with guns and bombs)”. 2) The shots fired by government forces into crowds of protesters were not intended to disperse but to kill by targeting the head and chest of the protesters. 3) There was no evidence that any security officers involved in the shootings were attacked or killed by the demonstrators: “Security forces which are alleged to be killed by demonstrators were not taken to autopsy, even there is no evidence of either photograph or death certificate showing the reason of death and couldn’t be produced for police as opposed to that of civilians.”

Understanding the Historic Significance of the Meles Massacres  

On March 21, 1960, South African police without provocation slaughtered 69 unarmed black protesters in the township of Sharpeville and wounded 180, exposing the savagery of the apartheid system for the world to see.

In 2005, security forces loyal to Meles Zenawi slaughtered 193 unarmed protesters and wounded 763 others. As the Ethiopian protesters were “targeted in the head and chest” and shot, as documented by the Inquiry Commission, nearly all of the black South Africans in Sharpeville were shot in the back as they tried to flee the scene.

Sharpeville and the massacres in Ethiopia were not random events.

Both the apartheid and Zenawi’s regimes used cold blooded massacres as a deliberate tactic to ruthlessly crush and wipe out all political opposition. It was their way of saying that they will do anything to stay in power.

The Sharpeville massacre was intended to “teach the kaffirs a lesson” they will not forget.

Zenawi intended to teach his opposition a lesson they will not forget by indiscriminately massacring men, women and children in the streets or in their homes, as the Inquiry Commission has documented. It was a deliberate and calculated act designed to break the backbone of the opposition and make sure that no opposition will ever rise again.

Sharpeville caused the apartheid regime to intensify its repression by tightening the pass laws (pass books required for black South Africans to travel within their country) and rigidly enforcing regulations to keep black South Africans in the Bantustans (black African “homelands” or “reservations”). Sharpeville also stoked the imagination of black South African youth and energized and inspired all freedom-loving South Africans to fight against apartheid with determination.

The Meles Massacres caused the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front and its boss Meles Zenawi to become extremely repressive. In 2010, Meles Zenawi declared he had won the election by 99.6 percent. His underlings claimed to have won 100 percent of the seats in parliament in the 2015 election

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.” -Mahatma Gandhi

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.” -Mahatma GandhiEthiopia rising from the ashes of ethnic apartheid

For decades, we have heard of the “Asian Miracle”.

Beginning in the early 1960s, the “Four Asian Tigers” — Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan – managed to industrialize and attain extraordinary economic growth and today are hubs for high tech manufacturing and international finance.

Are we beginning to see an “African Political Miracle” and the rise of an “Ethiopian Lion”?

The political transformation that has taken place in Ethiopia over the past 19 months can best be described as miraculous.

I use the word in both its original Latin root meaning “miraculum” (“object of wonder”) and common understanding suggesting divine intervention in human affairs creating an object of wonder.

In January 2018, all indications were the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was hunkering down to defend its ethnic apartheid system.

The TPLF leaders always bragged without them at the helm of power, there will be no Ethiopia. Everyone feared the TPLF leaders will not hesitate to blow up the country into smithereens if they felt they were going to lose power.

In February 2018, I had given up all hope of a peaceful democratic transition.

I was convinced Ethiopia was on the precipice of a civil war.

I wrote in The Hill, “To save Ethiopia from civil war, solutions must work from the ground up.” I concluded, “Time is running out for Ethiopia and the point of no return nears.”

By April 2018, the game had changed. It was clear the TPLF was in the throes of its final battle to remain in power.

On April 1, 2018, the day before Abiy Ahmed officially became prime minister, I wrote, “After 27 years nearly to the month, there is no doubt that T-TPLF wounded beast is in retreat but not in defeat.”

On April 2, 2018 when Abiy Ahmed was named prime minister, the TPLF and Ethiopia had crossed the point of no return.

The TPLF was going down, down, down into the dustbin of history!

Ethiopia was going up, up, up from ethnic apartheid into multiparty democracy.

On November 24, 2019, the TPLF bit the dust. More poetically, the TPLF was dumped into the dust bin, garbage heap, of history.

That was surely miraculous!

Since the TPLF took power in 1991, its leaders had bragged and boasted about how mighty, invincible and untouchable they are.

They used to brag about how the mountains would shake, rattle and tremble at their mere presence.

The late Meles Zenawi used to taunt the opposition with contempt. “We got power by shedding our blood. If you want to get power, you must fight your way to power just like we did. The TPLF will remain in power for a hundred years.”

The tragedy is Meles Zenawi and his gang came to power by shedding their blood and stayed in power for 27 years by shedding the blood of others.

Then came Abiy Ahmed and declared, “To kill is to be defeated. Victory must be achieved only in the battlefield of ideas.”

He proclaimed we “shall beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks.”

No more lifting sword against one another nor against neighbor.

In less than a month, Abiy Ahmed and Isaias Afeworki removed the dark clouds of war and made pece.

Abiy Ahmed was named the  Nobel Peace Laureate for 2019.

In 2010, Meles Zenawi told American diplomats how he will teach a lesson the opposition will not forget: “We will crush them with our full force… and they will vegetate like Birtukan (Midekssa) in jail forever.”

In 2019, Birtukan Midekssa is the Election Commissioner of Ethiopia and Meles Zenawi and the TPLF are dead, forever.

The little big man Meles Zenawi did not understand the greatest men and the empires they forge are nothing more than sands in the hourglass. Nor did he understand, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

The evil Meles Zenawi and his TPLF gang have done will live after them. But there is a major cleanup of evil underway today.

The TPLF and its 27-year rule of oppression, corruption, human right violation came to an end suddenly, not with a bang but a whimper.

In December 2015, I had wondered what the “end of the story will be for the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.”

I argued the only outstanding question was whether the TPLF story will end with a bang or a whimper.

Two months later in February 2016, I knew the TPLF’s end would come with a whimper.

I knew the TPLF was an evil beast with feet of clay. When gazed upon, the TPLF appears awesome, formidable and infinitely powerful. It has guns, tanks, rockets, planes and bombs. Though the TPLF has legs of iron, its feet are made of clay.

In May 2016 when the TPLF celebrated its silver jubilee (25^th anniversary) extravaganza, I prophetically warned them their end is near but they cannot see it because they are blinded by arrogance and ignorance. “There is no doubt about it. The day of reckoning for the T-TPLF will come ‘unexpectedly, like a thief in the night.’”

On November 20, 2019, the end came like a thief in the night for the TPLF Alibabas and the Forty Thieves.

What poetic justice!

The TPLF whimpered in a public statement and a letter, delivered it and then put its tail between its legs and moped into the sunset, beckoned by the garbage heap of history, hanging their heads low and blustering, “We will create a de facto state.”

How strange these TPLF blokes (or is it blockheads) are?

Are the TPLF Schrödinger’s cat saying they are legally dead but are alive in fact?

They will soon realize, if they have not already, the true meaning of Napoleon Bonaparte’s regrets. “Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die every day.”

“Parting is such sweet sorrow” TPLF. We hope to never to see you on the morrow.

R.I.P. (Rest in Pain) TPLF!

The Ethiopian political miracle

The Ethiopian Miracle can be stated simply as follows: 1) Ethiopia’s youth managed to defeat one of the most repressive and brutal regimes in the world with nonviolent resistance and massive civil disobedience. 2) Ethiopians are today structuring a genuine issue-, -program and -ideology-based (not ethnic) multiparty political system.

Ethiopia’s nonviolent political revolution is simply unique in the history of post-independence Africa.

I have always believed the way of nonviolence change will prevail in Ethiopia.

I have always been an advocate of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience.

When I first joined the Ethiopian human rights movement, I launched my “new career” by writing two commentaries on nonviolent struggle.

In my first commentary (April 2006,) I argued civil disobedience and nonviolence in the face of oppression is both an act of uncommon virtue and valor, and an extraordinary act of patriotism by an individual in a given society.

In the second commentary (May 2006), I explained Gandhi’s use of “truth/love force” (Satyagraha) as a tool for human freedom, and how this force could revolutionize social ideals and do away with despotisms.

In my July 3, 2006 commentary, I announced nonviolence is the only way out of TPLF oppression: “I believe we prove the righteousness of our cause not in battlefields soaked in blood and filled with corpses, but in the living hearts and thinking minds of men and women of good will.”

I became a laughingstock at the time. My friends and relatives pitied me for my naiveite.

I knew all too well the saying, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

They said I have been away from home too long. I don’t understand the depth of evilness and depravity of the TPLF. They seized power by the power of the barrel of the gun. They can only be removed by the power  of the barrel of the gun.

But I had no doubts the TPLF would be defeated and not in the battlefield with the crash of guns.

They would be defeated in the epic and final battle for the hearts and minds of Ethiopians.

I knew from history how Gandhi led Indians to victory over British colonialism in a nonviolent struggle.

I also knew Gandhi was so convinced of the efficacy of his nonviolent methods that even Abyssinians (Ethiopians) could prevail over fascist Italian aggression using his method.

Gandhi explained, “if every Abyssinian man, woman and child refused cooperation, willing or forced, with the Italians, the aggressor would have to walk over the dead bodies of their victims and to occupy the country without the people.”

In a strange vindication of Gandhi, over 80 years later, young Ethiopians refused cooperation with the TPLF masters of ethnic apartheid who had clung to power for 27 years and won without firing a single shot.

That is simply miraculous!

Ethiopia’s miracles never end…!

In the first six months of his administration, H.E. Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed had completely transformed the Ethiopian political landscape.

Abiy Ahmed came to power preaching the gospel of Ethiopiawinet, Ethiopian unity and Ethiopian reconciliation, forgiveness and love.

Abiy Ahmed declared there will be no collective punishment, mass arrests, mass persecution and massacres. Due process of law will be the law of the land in Ethiopia.

Abiy Ahmed ended the TPLF’s “state of emergency”.

Abiy Ahmed released some 30 thousand political prisoners.

Abiy Ahmed set the media free to do their thing and the internet is accessible without restriction.

Abiy Ahmed brought peace and reconciliation to contending religious factions in and out of the country.

Abiy Ahmed made peace with Ethiopia’s neighbors and played a leadership role to stabilize the Horn region.

Abiy Ahmed invited all exiled opposition to peacefully participate in the political process and organize as parties to seize power in elections.

Abiy Ahmed insisted there will be a free and fair election in May 2020 and he will be ready to earn the people’s mandate to govern.

Abiy Ahmed is no idealist. He is a man of action. A man of vision. A man with a mission.

His mission and vision: Transition Ethiopia from dictatorship to multiparty democracy without bloodshed, bloodletting, and bloodguilt.

On his first day on the job, Abiy Ahmed proclaimed:

Killing to remain in or to grab power is the politics of losers. Real winners do not kill, they heal. We have only one country and the only way we can solve our problems peacefully is through dialogue without mouths, not through the barrel of an AK-47.

Abiy Ahmed, nineteen months after taking office, has delivered on his promises.

Abiy Ahmed has cleaned out the cesspool swamp of TPLF corruption and criminality.

But the TPLF political garbage accumulated over 27 years will take more than 19 months to completely clean out.

Yet, the Chicken Littles and social media hounds  continue to cluck and bark and heave sounds of anger and fury signifying nothing.

Abiy Ahmed and his team continue to plug away with their shoulders to the wheel and noses to the grindstone,

Best of all, Abiy Ahmed has presented his blueprint (Medemer) for TPLF trash removal and now he has his clean up and construction crew (Prosperity Party) fired up and ready to put the pedal to the metal and drive Ethiopia on the highway to progress, prosperity and peace.

Medemer replaced “revolutionary democracy” and “developmental state”

After the TPLF came to power, it put a cloak of “revolutionary democracy” over its allegiance to Stalinist-inspired “Albanian socialism” and established a dictatorship.

The TPLF used “revolutionary democracy/developmental state” to suck Ethiopia dry to the bone.

Meles Zenawi blathered about “revolutionary democracy” and the “developmental state” but he never articulated either except use them as empty slogans.

He allegedly wrote a master’s theses on “revolutionary democracy” but he never had the intellectual confidence to publish and defend it in the court of public opinion. But the two slogans were Meles’ cure all for everything.

I knew Meles Zenawi was the master of cut-and-paste, the consummate charlatan and a phrase-monger.

He cut and pasted Marxist phrases and slogans to talk about “revolutionary democracy” and other such nonsense.

Meles was a shockingly hollow and shallow man.

I remember when Meles Zenawi defended his anti-terrorism law as the best in the world and “flawless.”

Meles Zenawi cut-and-pasted bits and pieces of legal language from anti-terrorism laws of different countries and called it “flawless”.

I tried to explain to him on his level that his cut-and-paste anti-terrorism law could be likened to the creation of an imaginary biological creature:

One cannot create a lion by piecing together the sturdy long neck of the giraffe with the strong  jaws of a hyena, the fast limbs of the cheetah and the massive trunk of the elephant. The king of the jungle is an altogether different beast. In the same vein, one cannot clone pieces of anti-terrorism laws from everywhere onto a diktat and sanctify it as “flawless in every respect”.

That was exactly how Meles and his TPLF gangsters used “revolutionary democracy and developmental state”.

They would collect words and phrases and babble them with an air of intellectual respectability.

One scholar who studied so-called revolutionary democracy commented, “Abyotawi [revolutionary] democracy seems neither revolutionary nor democratic… [It] is a powerful political tool, rather than a genuinely revolutionary programme. [It has been used] as a tool to fight and exclude internal and external enemies.”

Suffice it to say “revolutionary democracy” was nothing more than TPLF snake oil!

A bosom buddy of Meles Zenawi once asked him, “Why can’t we include the smaller minority parties in our coalition in their own right?”

Meles answered with arrogant dismissiveness, “Because they are pastoralists and they don’t have the institutions to practice revolutionary democracy.”

But PM Abiy declared, “Not only do we want the smaller minorities to join our party, we want them to become leaders and prime ministers.”

Today, Ethiopia is following a new road map called “Medemer”.

With “Medemer” road map in hand, there is no need for a guide, leader or follower.

Anyone can find his or her way to a shining City Upon a Hill called Ethiopia.

Ten things I like about Prosperity Party

On November 22, 2019, the new Ethiopian “Prosperity Party” came into existence.

The creation of Prosperity Party from the crucible of an ethnic apartheid coalition created by the TPLF is simply stunning. It is historic.

No one would have predicted such an occurrence even a year ago.

With the exception of the moping TPLF, the three other members of Prosperity Party include the  Amhara Democratic Party (ADP), the Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), and Southern Ethiopia Peoples Democratic Movement (SEPDM) formed “Prosperity Party”.

Prosperity Party has published its party programs and procedures.

The core mission of Prosperity Party is to ensure the material prosperity of all Ethiopians in dignity and freedom.

Prosperity Party means no ethnic-based parties.

It means the end of ethnic apartheid party system in Ethiopia.

No kililistans! No divisive ethnic politics.

Only agreements and disagreements on political programs, ideology and philosophy.

Prosperity Party and the other political parties that are coming together for the 2020 election herald the dawn of a new day and new politics in Ethiopia.

With Prosperity Party and others competing in a genuine multiparty system based on ideology and programs, Ethiopia can now experience true federalism that recognizes and respects the diversity and contributions of all Ethiopians.

I have supreme confidence that with the formation of Prosperity Party and the other parties Ethiopians will be able to prove to the whole world Gandhi’s maxim, “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.”

But I want to congratulate and express my appreciation to all political parties who are getting ready for the 2020 election.

I have no doubts Ethiopians, with a robust multiparty system, will soon prove to the world the beauty of their unity in their diversity!

The formation of Prosperity Party, on the grave site of ethnic apartheid,  is simply a miraculous act accomplished with divine intervention.

I know it was not the work of ordinary men and women, only inspired men and women.

I have read Prosperity Party’s political programs, bylaws and procedures.

There is a lot I like about Prosperity Party.

I will list just a few below.

First, I like the fact that Prosperity Party, unlike the TPLF’s EPRDF, will now include people from all ethnic groups, including those considered “pastoralists” and other groups considered too small to make a difference.

I applaud Prosperity Party for its open declaration that people who belong to minority groups will have as much chance to be leaders at all levels as those in the majority.

It is said, “A civilization is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” For me, a nation is measured by how it treats its poor, unrepresented, ignored, defenseless minority citizens.

As I wrote back in 2014, “I am always for the underdog. It could be the homeless veteran at a freeway exit asking for spare change or the throngs of young people I have never met in Ethiopia who are unjustly imprisoned merely because they spoke their minds or expressed their opinions in a publication. I guess I was born that way. That is why I never get discouraged even if others believe my efforts are ultimately in vain.”

I defended and advocated for the poor people living around Lake Koka when their water was being poisoned.

I was an environmental activist for the people of the Omo River Basin when they were displaced by the TPLF without proper environmental impact statement.

I defended the people of Gambella when they were victimized by the TPLF and World Bank-ruptcy.

Second, I like the fact that Oromiffa, Tigrigna, Somali, and Afar languages will also serve as national languages in addition to Amharic.

For the past 27 years, the gods of the TPLF built a “Tower of Babel” in Ethiopia dividing the people not only by ethnicity, religion and region but also language.

For 27 years, the TPLF shut the doors of opportunity by forcing groups in society to speak only “their languages” and by preventing the use of a common language for communication.

The Prosperity Party has declared it will open the language space if elected. Oromiffa, Tigrigna, Somali, and Afar languages will serve as national languages in addition to Amharic. Why not? That is the beauty of our diversity!

There is no greater proof of the value of multilingual proficiency than Abiy Ahmed himself. He speaks Oromiffa, Amharic, Tigrigna, English. I have even heard him speak in Arabic in certain forums. Because of his language proficiency, he can communicate with the diverse people of Ethiopia.

I look forward to the day when the coming generation of Ethiopians will be able to speak four or five languages like Abiy Ahmed. 

Mandela said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”

That is how Abiy Ahmed has been talking to the “heads” and hearts of Ethiopians over the past nineteen months.

Third, I like the fact that Prosperity Party will seek the best and the brightest Ethiopians and will appoint them to office based on merit rather than “ethnic balancing”.

The TPLF uber boss Meles Zenawi once said words to the effect, “We don’t care if you have a Ph.D. We value loyalty more than merit.”

Fourth, I like the fact that Prosperity Party will abandon the self-serving TPLF nonsense of  “revolutionary democracy/developmental state”. Prosperity Party will be led by Medemer philosophy and has pledged to open the economy to foreign investors and to strongly support the country’s private sector.

Fifth, I like the fact that the guiding principles of Prosperity Party are popular consent, democracy , rule of law, ethical professionalism and national and social unity.

Simply stated, Prosperity Party is about Ethiopiawinet. That suits me just find since I am the PROUD ETHIOPIAN.

Sixth, I like Prosperity Party’s values of human/people’s dignity, justice and national unity.

That’s suits me just fine too because that is what I fought for day and night and every week and month for the last nearly 14 years.

Seventh, I like the fact that Prosperity Party is open to any Ethiopian citizen to join by simply submitting a written application.

Unlike the TPLF’s EPRDF, Prosperity Party will enroll into its ranks those who meet the Party’s transparency and accountability requirements, e.g. knowledge, understanding and acceptance of the Party’s bylaws, strong belief in national unity and social diversity, commitment to public service and renunciation of corruption. A political party can be effective only if its leaders and members are well-informed, well-organized and well-intentioned.

Eighth, I like the fact that Prosperity Party will maximize the participation of young people and women.

Over the past nineteen months, PM Abiy has proven beyond any doubt that women and young people are playing an unprecedented role in the country’s political life. Ethiopia’s President, Chief Justice and one-half of all ministerial posts are held by women, mostly young women. Young  men are equally well represented.

That gives me great pleasure because I have been a defender and advocate for Ethiopia’s Cheetah’s (young people) for the past nearly 14 years.

Ninth, I like the fact that the Prosperity Party program places a high premium on accountability and transparency. What is even more impressive is the fact that ordinary party members have the right to demand accountability of the highest leaders by following established procedures.

Tenth, I like the fact that Prosperity Party has buried “democratic centralism”, the TPLF’s  Leninist practice of top down binding decision-making process in which the rank and file have virtually no voice.

Prosperity Party places a high premium on party member engagement, participation and discipline. Party policy making is intended to be a two-way street. Members as well as leaders can propose party policies based on shared ideas, values, programs. Unlike democratic centralism, the voices of the ordinary members will be heard by the leaders who will in turn engage the members. Such an approach should maximize party allegiance, cohesion and efficacy.

Tyrants and murderers always fall!

Democracy and truth crushed to earth shall always rise!

I am very glad to see the formation of a national, non-ethnic, -religious, -regional, -linguistic based political party in Ethiopia.

Truth be told, I never thought I would see the day when a national party could be forged out of ethnic parties after 27 long years of TPLF scheming, conspiracy, intrigue, collusion, machination and double dealing.

But the impossible has become not only possible but the die is cast fro multiparty democracy.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela in his inauguration speech said, “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.”

I remember that moment vividly.

As I sat on the couch watching, tears welled up in my eyes and I thought, “Will there ever come a time in my lifetime when I can feel so confident to say to myself, ‘Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land of Ethiopia will again experience the oppression of one by another.”

And so it is…

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Indeed, a national political life of forgiveness, reconciliation and love to come!

I wish all Prosperity Party members, “Live long and prosper in peace.”

I wish all other parties preparing for the 2020 election, “Live long and prosper in peace.”

Congratulations to all who worked so hard in good faith and goodwill to form Prosperity Party!  

You have done the impossible!

Believe, Ethiopia’s best days are yet to come!

Bileh Jelan/ Addis Standard

Addis Abeba November 29/2019 – Ethiopia’s State Minister of Finance, Eyob Tekalign (PhD), said Ethiopia was in the process of conducting evaluations including technical and social impact assessments and validation of factories covering all the thirteen sugar projects in Ethiopia with plans of privatizing six of them in the first quarter of the year 2020.

The Ministry has also prepared a draft Sugar Industry Administration Proclamation, which, among other things, establishes a Sugar Board of Ethiopia with tasks that include regulating the sugar industry and licensing and registering millers.

This was revealed at a day-long public consultation on the sugar industry was organized by the ministry on Nov 27 at Sheraton Addis. The event saw the presence of representatives of key government officials such as Eyob himself, Weyo Roba, CEO/Ethiopian Sugar Corporation, Beyene Gebremeskel, Director General/ Public Enterprises Agency and Dr. Brook Tayeb, Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Finance along with representatives of different stakeholders and local and foreign investors.

“As you know, the Ethiopian government is undertaking homegrown reforms where one of its agendas is to turn the focus on public enterprises,” Said Eyob and clarified that the purpose of the consultation was to inform, educate and consult the public about the reform process the sugar industry is undergoing. The sugar policy is “changing the way the telecoms policy changed,”he said.

The objectives “are to fulfill domestic demands, to generate exports and to create jobs,” he said, adding, “to attract investors and make the industry attractive so Ethiopia could reach its high potential, are important.”

Weyo Roba, the CEO of Ethiopian Sugar Corporation, complimented Dr. Eyob when he said, “our roadmap is to make our factories more efficient and reach our highest potential.”

In the introductory remarks given by Henok Assefa, Founder of Precise Consult International and Co-Founder of Angel Investors Network Ethiopia, said, “The sugar industry is a priority sector, and the government invested billions and billions of dollars in it.” Highlighting the goals of the consultation and explaining that an eco-system that sees participation from all stakeholders would “make the industry excel locally and compete globally.”

Dr. Eyob Tekalign in his opening remarks on the sugar industry privatization and government priorities made the point of explaining that the whole idea of homegrown reforms was to have better understanding and have better results. “The government is building on past successes while achieving and pushing for its own”, the state minister said. Speaking on the importance of homegrown reforms the state minister added, “Reforms should be family anchored and relatable to the Ethiopian socio-economic factors.” He added that through the reform process the government was aiming at seeing the sugar industry fulfill its potential, creating an inclusive environment for the private sector to take lead in the industry and having the country become the regional leader in sugar production.

A presentation by Dr. Tewodros Mekonnen on the sugar industry privatization, assessing policy and regulation highlighted that the industry is performing below potential, has an infant out grower schemes, is inefficient in logistics and distribution, is affected by low export competitiveness and high import demand and affected by the high excise tax that stands sat 33%. DR. Tewodros said “Estimates of sugar consumption in the country put it at 6-7 kg per capita, some estimates put it as high as 12 kg which is still below African standards,” he added, “Consumption will rise according to research in diet.” In his presentation he suggested separation of out growers development schemes from the sugar board, reasonable adjustment of the excise tax, adjustment to domestic and international trade policies and price stabilization could help push for positive results.

A presentation on sugar regulatory reform needs and key features of the draft sugar proclamation by Getahun Walegn followed. The presentation tried to answer questions raised about the need for a separate regulatory framework for the sugar industry. The product’s political sensitivity and importance to key industries such as food processing and pharmaceuticals, the peculiar characteristics of the industry, private sector interest, industry protection from global distortion and its role in jobs creation for rural communities were given as primary reasons. The presentation also discussed the Draft Sugar Proclamation that saw the establishment of both the Sugar Board and the Sugar Arbitration Tribunal and further discussed the technicalities of the Sugar Academy & Research institute.

Michael Hinge, a Senior Analyst at LMC International Ltd, gave a presentation on global, regional & domestic sugar markets and its implications on the Ethiopian industry. He discussed supply and demand in Ethiopia and put the official figure for sugar consumption at 5-6 kg per capita with 550-660 thousand tonnes produced annually from 8 functioning factories, which is below neighboring coastal countries where unofficial sugar inflow increases per capita consumption. He also put the unofficial inflow of sugar at 150-225 thousand tonnes in 2018/19 fiscal year and predicted that consumption will rise by 3-4% annually. On the supply and demand in export markets, Mr. Hinge noted “Ethiopia is located in a deficit region in Africa.”

A plenary Q&A session followed with Henok Assefa as moderator, Beyene Gebremeskel of the Public Enterprises Agency, DR. Brook Taye of the Ministry of Finance, Fasil Gebremeriam of the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation, Dr. Tewodros Mekonnen, the Country Economist at IGC, Getahun Walelgn and Michael Hinge of LMC International Ltd as panelists. Answering a question regarding the potential of job creation Beyene Gebremeskel said, “The industry currently employs 30,000 people. When all factories commence operations, that could increase 10 folds and indirect jobs created may surpass into the millions.” Dr. Book Taye, discussing the issue of who will have monopoly over the industry said, “We want to make sure nobody has monopoly over the sugar industry and no-one has monopoly over how the sugar board is structured.” Underlining the nature of the newly established Sugar Board, Fasil Gebremeriam said, “The board is not a regulatory board, it is a consulting body representing different associations and professionals in order to manage private and public interests.”

Responding to Addis Standard on delays in PM Abiy Ahmed’s promise to have factories on the pipelines begin to operate within six shortly after he assumed his premiership, Weyo Roba of the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation said, “When PM Abiy Ahmed took office only six factories were operational. The delay was due to old contracts terminations, technical issues and the re-evaluation process for some of the projects.” He added, concluding, “A factory will go operational in 6 months, other factories are under construction and the Omo-Kuraz plant will start construction in a month’s time.”

In October this year, Bloomberg News reported that Ethiopia was “investigating possible misappropriation of funds meant for the expansion of 10 state-owned sugar factories that are part of the industry now slated for privatization.”

AS

November 30, 2019
Tegenaw Goshu

“The African Union Organizes the 6th Annual Continental Forum of Election Management Bodies’?”

This is the title of a report I read on Satenaw website (English). The report reports that the Department of Political Affairs of the African Union “organizes the 6th Annual Continental Forum of Election Management Bodies November 28 and 29 in Nairobi, Kenya.”  It sounds great as far as the general perception of making elections as democratic and participatory as they should be is concerned. The report reminds us about the importance of the Forum by saying that it is “to advance democratic and participatory governance in Africa”.

I would like to argue that this continental body that was established  in 1963 (56 years ago) with the name OAU (Organization of African Unity)  has made a remarkable success story with regard to  its most important objective and role of dealing with the challenges of decolonization , enabling the newly independent countries  to be viable ,  providing those people who were struggling to become independent and those  who were languishing under a very inhuman political systems such as apartheid or the brutal rule of white supremacy  with necessary support.

The problem arises when we try to look into the very question of what happened after decolonization or political independence.  Did those politicians who claimed themselves as leaders of liberation keep the promise and hope they preached, or did they become brutal and cynical masters of their own people? Sadly enough, the truth was and is the later. Yes, they succeeded in getting the objectives I mentioned above (decolonization and political independence) accomplished. Unfortunately enough, they couldn’t make the continental body (OAU or the present AU) an instrument for the prevalence and development of democratic political culture which is said to be the second most important chapter of the political history of the continent.  They rather used it as a club to deal with their own agenda and interests of how to rule and how to reconcile their differences and conflicts of interest in order to avoid public resistance and uprising against their undemocratic and illegitimate political power. They used the body as the forum to stand together and condemn any resistance movement of the people which they believed to be a threat to their limitless and abusive political power.  This very ugly and cynical way of doing politics has continued in a more systematic and deceitful manner throughout the history of the continental body OAU and now AU.

I do believe that nobody with his or her rational/reasonable mind disagrees with the very horrifying reality on the ground on one hand, and “the success story” by those dishonest politicians and bread winner employees of the Union on the other hand are terribly falling apart. Needless to say, all aspects of people’s lives on the ground in almost all African countries are deeply and widely different from the highly flowery/rosy political rhetoric by those self-aggrandizing and stupidly hypocritical political leaders of Africa who have of course made the Union the very club of their own highly dramatized and orchestrated political game at the very expenses of the people.

To argue that the continental body (AU) and its varies departments like the so-called Forum of Election Management Bodies that have nothing to do with genuine and independent management of elections can deliver meaningful input is either a political stupidity or the very evil-driven mentality of “who cares as long as the Body and its Parts remain the sources of our delightful life styles by the very standard of the poverty-stricken and politically oppressed people of Africa”.

It is self-evidently clear that the change of its name (AU) which was declared to be the Union of the people rather than the very CLUB of brutally undemocratic or nominally and deceivingly democratic leaders has never been realized. It still serves as the same CULB with a systematically cosmetic elements of changes that can be done even by a typical body of dictatorship. Almost all leaders of member counties are still trying hard to maintain their political power by brutally suppressing or oppressing or deceiving their own innocent people in their own respective countries.

It was in 2002 (17 years ago) that the name OAU was changed to AU (African Union) and the difference was/is said to be a transformation from the Union of leaders (the club of leaders) to the Union of the people . Alas, what a hypocritical and disingenuous political game at the very expenses of terribly impoverished people of Africa!

What is painfully frustrating is when it comes to the question/issue of to what extent African leaders were and are real agents of democratic systems of governments and by doing so a real or meaningful agents of changes of peoples’ lives particularly since the change of the name AU (17 years ago).  Sadly enough, compared with what the people should deserve, African leaders have horribly failed.  Let me make myself clearer as follows:
a) The very perception or assumption of making the Union the Union of the people was and is totally bogus or fake and an insult to the innocent people of Africa because it has never been the case in practical terms.The very reality on the ground clearly shows that the Union has continued to be a very CONVIENIENT CLUB of the leaders (rulers) of each member country.

Though it is true that very few are relatively better than the very majority of them, the totality of the their policies and programs have failed because of the cynical, disingenuous, hypocritical and brutally misleading behavior of those leaders who have come to power by hook or crook and go away by giving in to the next political elites who continue doing the same if not the worst way of ruling. This is still the very painful vicious cycle of African politics.
b) Understandably enough, the very majority of the leaders (rulers) are not statesmen at all. They are not skilled, experienced, respected and above all willing to lead by the power of practical example that goes beyond a generations. They are elites of self-serving by any means including cynicism, hypocrisy, and hit-and -run type of political game. They have never been independent of those former colonial rulers and other powerful actors of world politics who have no any real sense of concern about the untold sufferings of the people as long those severely corrupt leaders are willing to advance their (foreign powers’) respective national interests. Leaders in our continent do play  a “friendly” relationship with those powers in order not only get their voracious self -interests satisfied but also to make them (their own self-interests) fatter and more “delightful” at the very expenses of the people who continued to be hit hard by all aspects of the horrifying situations.

1. c) They (African leaders) are highly if not incredibly corrupt to the extent of exchanging the very interests of their own people (national interests) for their own wildly limitless self- interests and the interests of those around their palace politics. That is why although they claim themselves as a “true representatives” of the people of their respective countries and the people of the continent in general in the arena of international relations such as UN and its organs as well as programs, they have never been effective as they claim to be because they always watch not how to fight for the interests of  people to the end, but how to win the support and favor of the former colonial powers and other developed countries  of the western hemisphere. Not only this, but they also try hard to maintain their tyrannical political power and by doing so to get their monstrous self-interests satisfied by playing unwritten cold war style policy. They do dance between China and Russia on one hand, and the western powers on the other hand.

I really wonder how these African leaders who were not willing and able to build their own Headquarters got it built by China and accepted it back as a “great gift” can have a real sense of moral and political ground. It is very sad to see a vast continent endowed with great natural and human resources being unable to afford the financial resources to build its own Headquarters. This is why it is very difficult if not impossible to believe that the continent can play a significant role in balancing the power of world politics that can meaningfully favors the very interests of the people of Africa.

1. d) I do really wonder what kind of advancement of democratic and participatory governance they are talking about. How many member countries are showing a real or meaningful progress let alone establishing a meaningful good governance that should be characterized by a truly democratic way doming politics? When, Where, and how they courageously and effectively help the people of Africa who have continued paying huge and bitter sacrifices in order to make their dreams for a democratic political system reality? Are they (African leaders) not doing the opposite (against people’s struggle for freedom and justice)?

What did they do when the innocent people of Ethiopia had to face intimidation, harassment, brutal interrogation, mental and physical torture and incredibly inhuman killings for the last quarter of a century for the simple reason they tried to exercise their basic democratic and human rights?  Didn’t they declare all the very undemocratic, brutally and systematically orchestrated elections of TPLF/EPRDF free, fair and democratic? It is these people who are now telling us about their Annual Form of making elections democratic, fair, and free in a much more historic fashion. What a terribly deceitful and disingenuous political discourse and behavior!

There is no doubt that these disingenuous politicians and bread winner employees of the Union will repeat the same disgraceful and terribly deceitful testimony about the upcoming election by the current government of ODP/EPRDF or may be the so-called unified Prosperity Party (the rebranded EPRDF) to be wonderfully democratic, free and fair. It is an open secret that this continental body and its various political arms were used to declare the very tragic elections for the last quarter of a century to the extent of admiring an extremely hypocritical and brutally dictatorial regime of the late Ato Meles Zenawi. Needless to say, they are in the process of repeating the same if not the worst wrong doing at this very critical moment in our country by giving their “blessing of historic victory” to the current ruling circle and government in the upcoming elections.

To this end, they have a good for nothing personals of the so-called the National Election Board of Ethiopia led by Ms. Birtukan Mideksa who terribly became the very good playing card (puppet) of the very cynical, hypocritical, disingenuous and conspiratorial political elites of the former TPLF/EPRDF and the current ODP/EPRDF or the rebranded Prosperity Party that is the very replica of EPRDF. It is painfully disturbing to see individuals like Ms. Birtukan Mediksa who got the admiration of the Ethiopian people and international recognition because of their political role in the struggle for the prevalence of genuine democracy in the country and the high price they paid being used as speaking tool for a very doomed to failure political game of EPRDF’s politicians.

It is in this very ugly political and socio-economic situation that the very interests of the people of the continent in general and the people of each country in particular are totally lost.

Look at the PHOTO UP at the top of the report very carefully and try to compare and contrast this very cheap way of doing politics on the much untold sufferings of the people that is self-evidently clear on the ground. This is how they play their brutally disingenuous if not tragic political game.

Do not get me wrong that what I am saying is nothing positive happened. No at all!  This is because there is and there will be positive things in any brutally dictatorial or tyrannical regimes leave alone in organization like the one we are talking about . What I am saying is that compared to where the people of Africa are now in every aspect of their lives, it is not far from the truth that the very idea of transforming this continental body from OAU to AU in order to make it the Union of the people was/is totally absurd if not terribly  hypocritical.

Whatever the case we may raise and argue, one very bitter truth will remain seriously challenging. As long as the people of Africa remain not fortunate enough to get timely and effective help from their educated and courageous children in order to make their dreams for democracy  reality in their respective counters,  this continental body (call it OAU or AU) will remain the very CONVEINEIT CLUB of disingenuous, disgraceful, disgusting, corrupt politicians and the beneficiaries .

This has a very significant implications to our own case which is going not only in a very wrong direction but also a very devastating destination. That is why I strongly believe and argue that we cannot remain indifferent to the very behavior and practice of leaders or politicians of this continental body (AU) if we have to bring about a democratic system in our country that could have a powerful cross boundary positive influence!

The people of Africa  cannot effectively and irreversibly bring about a truly democratic system in each member country unless they give due attention and do something about  the very critical question of how to make this continental body a body that should be responsible and answerable to the very will and interest of the people.  This is because it would be foolish enough for us to expect the emergence and development of the culture of democratic system and good governance in a political environment in which leaders present themselves as witnesses and defenders of each other’s undemocratic if not dictatorial behaviors and practices. Needless to say, the AU has been used and still is being used as the forum for advancing not the very just cause of the people (democracy and justice), but the very self-aggrandizing and voraciously power mongering leaders and disgustingly opportunist political elites and intellectuals.

Let me conclude with the following.  If we want to see not only a democratic country of Africa but also democratic countries of Africa and gradually a democratic Africa, we have to recognize the challenges we are facing with a strong sense of understanding and try hard to find out appropriate and effective strategies and plan of actions and to act up on those strategies and plan of actions with a real sense of common concern and concerted efforts.  The very proverb “If there is a will, there is a way” is so powerful if we are serious enough about the very essence of freedom, justice, rule of law, human rights, equal opportunity,  sustainable peace , compassion,  shared prosperity .

By Alemayehu G, Mariam

Author’s Note:  I have written this commentary as a wake-up call to diaspora Ethiopians, particularly those in the United States. Fundamental and structural changes are taking place in Ethiopia.  Ethnic apartheid is taking its last gasps of air. The masters of ethnic apartheid are living out their last days in the Ninth Circle of Hell. No doubt, they shall continue to toil in darkness to spread their gospel of hate and division.

Henry David Thoreau correctly observed, “Things do not change; we change.”  I am afraid most of  us in the Ethiopian diaspora, especially in the United States, are not changing with the change. We are watching the change in Ethiopia on the sidelines fretting, anxious, perplexed and paralyzed from taking action. Indeed, many of us are numbed to the change a few turned comatose. Some of us are sleepwalking through the change. The rest of us refuse to change our ethnic-colored eyeglass lenses which turn roses into corpse flowers.

The change that is taking place in Ethiopia will continue with or without us. We have a choice of being part of the change – a dynamic and synergistic element – or opt out and be left behind. I have often remarked using the old maxim, Ethiopians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” We have a great opportunity to become part of the change and help our long-suffering people.

But we have a more compelling reason to be on the side of change: Enlightened self-interest as diaspora Ethiopians! If we miss this opportunity, if we don’t wake up and smell the coffee, we shall surely end up being roommates with the TPLF in the dust bin of history!

Diaspora Ethiopians gotta wake up and know what time it is in Ethiopia!

In July 2006, I gave a speech entitled, “AWAKENING GIANT: Can Ethiopians and Ethiopian Americans Living in America Make a Difference in their Homeland?”

I answered my own question in the affirmative.

I argued diaspora Ethiopians in America are like a sleeping giant, a powerful and irresistible political force that has not realized its potential to effect positive change in Ethiopia.

To wake up meant to purge and cleanse ourselves of the poison of ethnic hatred that has paralyzed, incapacitated and put us to sleep for so long.

Over the past nineteen months, the leaders who are spearheading the massive campaign to change hearts and minds in Ethiopia have been doing their level best to purge the toxin of ethnic hatred coursing in the Ethiopian body politic.

They are working day and night to turn the long night of TPLF oppression, hate and division into a new dawn of forgiveness, reconciliation and national unity.

Unfortunately, by and large, those of us in the Ethiopian diaspora seem to have turned catatonic or are sleepwalking right through the change.

Most of us today are sitting on our  duffs, twiddling our thumbs, scratching our heads and periodically sticking our index fingers into the air to feel which way the wind of change is blowing.

Far too many of us in the Ethiopian diaspora have become like the “foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.”

The fact of the matter is that there are mighty winds of change sweeping over Ethiopia today.

They are tornadic winds of freedom, democracy and rule of law clearing out the accumulated garbage of the ethnic politics accumulated over the past 27 years.

The answer to our long standing questions are blowing in the winds of change blowing over Ethiopia today.

Just like Bob Dylan’s sang it.

How many years must some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
And how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see – the answer
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

The answer, my diaspora Ethiopian friends, is blowing the gusting winds of change in Ethiopia!

The time for change is not, not in years to come.

The time is right for change and wrong to turn our heads from the direction of change.

So, as diaspora Ethiopians, today we face the defining question of their lifetimes: Are we going to catch the wind of change and put it in a bottle to use in airbrushing a new bright future for Ethiopia or will we remain hopeless windbags complaining and gabbing the tired old identity politics until we are blown into the dustbin of history?

What time is it, diaspora Ethiopians?
It is time to catch the wind of change in a bottle and transform it into a tornado of freedom, democracy and rule of law in Ethiopia!

In our time…

For nearly a decade and half, diaspora Ethiopians in the United States have worked tirelessly to dismantle the ethnic apartheid system of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front in Ethiopia.

We have marched the streets and walked the halls of Congress.

We have organized grassroots efforts to hold the TPLF accountable for its gross human rights violations.

We have taken to the houses of faith and civic associations to create allies in our struggle.

We have taken to the newspapers, radio and television stations across the land to spread our message and mobilize Americans to help us fight TPLF tyranny.

We have even petitioned U.S. presidents to intervene and moderate the oppression of the TPLF.

It is true many of us in the diaspora have engaged in street protests, legislative advocacy, social media activism, scholarship and analysis.

We have been somewhat successful in our efforts.

I am proud to say I have played my part in all of these efforts.

But of late, we seem to have lost our sense of vision and mission.

Most diaspora Ethiopian academics, professionals, activists and advocacy communities seem to have developed an over inflated sense of our own self-importance and role in bringing about change in Ethiopia.

Change came to Ethiopia despite the role played by diaspora Ethiopians.

Change came to Ethiopia because Ethiopia’s young people and their young leaders paid for it in their blood, sweat, tears and sacrifices.

The young people and their leaders brought about change by facing TPLF’s live fire every day and by going to jail in large numbers.

The young people brought about change by suffering torture and prison conditions once described as among the absolutely worst in the world.

The young activists and their leaders who guided the nonviolent resistance won the day by outthinking, outsmarting, outplaying, outfoxing and outmaneuvering the mighty TPLF with feet of clay.

They brought about change and ended the entrenched power of the TPLF without firing a single shot.

They are the wunderkinds of political change in all Africa.

The fact of the matter is that “We” diaspora Ethiopians are not the driving force which drove the TPLF ethnic apartheid regime out of power and into the trash heap of history.

But in a feat of incredible fantasy, many of us in the Ethiopian diaspora, particularly in the U.S., have convinced ourselves we are the OWNERS of the change in Ethiopia and we must control the process and pace of change.

Truth be told, we never had skin in the game. We played the change game by remote control online.

The irony of change in the Ethiopian diaspora

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

The irony of change in Ethiopia is that when change came to Ethiopia, diaspora Ethiopians refused to change.

If the change taking place in Ethiopia could be described in a single word, it would be “Peaceful”.

Peaceful change in its essence means those in power and the government do not engage in arbitrary killings, arbitrary arrests, arbitrary detention, arbitrary prosecutions and arbitrary denial of due process of law.

The TPLF committed gross human rights violations in the name of defending the rule of law.

Today, I hear diaspora Ethiopian activists, organizers, academics, professionals, clergymen, community and civic leaders urging the PM Abiy “to take action”.

When I ask them specifically what “action” the PM Abiy or the government should take, they become hopelessly vague. “The government has to do something about one individual or another. The government must stop the lawlessness. The government must do something!”

They are intellectually dishonest to admit what they are asking for is a return to the old days of arbitrary killings, arrests, detentions and so on in the name of law and order.

They want the government of PM Abiy to soak its hands in the blood of innocents in the name of law and order.

That is not change. That is called “insanity, or “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” 

Dr. Martin Luther King taught: “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.”

PM Abiy said, “The day the Derg was defeated was when it killed 60 people arbitrarily and without due process of law.” The Derg started with 60 people and ended up killing over 500,000 between 1976-78.

In my view, the TPLF was decisively defeated when Meles Zenawi ordered his troops to massacre hundreds of innocent protesters after the 2005 election. At that moment, the TPLF crossed a point of no return on its way to the dust bin of history.

Real change means an Ethiopia where we “shall beat our swords into plowshares, and our  spears into pruninghooks.”

Real change means an Ethiopia where brother shall not lift sword against brother.

Change means an Ethiopia where the young people shall no longer learn the vice of war any more.

When change came to Ethiopia, I changed. Some said literally overnight.

I am proud to say I support the current change and its leaders fully and not because the change is perfect.

I support them because, to be brutally honest, what they have done is nothing short of miraculous.

To give the TPLF their walking papers without a single shot fired is MIRACULOUS!

I always keep an open mind. If someone, anyone, comes with a better idea for change than what we have today, I will jump to it.

The fact of the matter, which we all know but do not have the intellectual courage to admit, is that today we have one and only one choice. PM Abiy Ahmed and his leadership team.

I challenge anyone, anywhere to name anyone one-half Abiy Ahmed’s caliber to lead Ethiopia today.

Ethiopia has a gift in Abiy Ahmed, though for some that gift may be a gift of pearl before swine.

In June 2013, I prophesied:

Ethiopia’s Cheetahs will rise and shine and soar to new heights. They will lift up and carry Ethiopia on their wings… Ethiopia’s Cheetah Generation is the only generation that could rescue Ethiopia from the steel  claws of tyranny and dictatorship. It is the only generation that can deliver Ethiopia from the fangs of a benighted dictatorship and transform a decaying and decomposing garrison state built on a foundation of lies into one that is deeply rooted in the consent and sovereignty of the people.

That prophesy has come to pass.

That is why change was not very difficult for me.

I changed literally overnight from being the unrelenting critic of the TPLF regime to the unapologetic supporter of PM Abiy and his government.

I respect fully those who do not support PM Abiy and his administration. It is their democratic right.

To oppose something is easy, but to propose something better is exceedingly hard!

I support PM Abiy and the change he is leading because I share his vision of an Ethiopia at peace with itself and it neighbors. 

I had long told the TPLF that I will change from being their relentless critic to their number one supporter if they changed their evil ways.

No arbitrary killing. No arbitrary jailing. No arbitrary denial of due process. No, absolutely no, torture.

Over a decade ago, I thought there was the possibility of redemption for the TPLF.

But to no avail because evil is coded in the TPLF’s DNA.

Many of us in the Ethiopian diaspora suffer from metathesiophobia (morbid fear of change).

The supreme irony in diaspora Ethiopian politics is that many of those who worked to bring about change – from TPLF dictatorship to democracy, from TPLF ethnic division and ethnic apartheid to national unity – changed their minds when change came and became reactionaries against change.

Many of us in the Ethiopian diaspora became the caricature of the proverbial man who wanted to harvest crops without ploughing the ground but covets and seek to lavishly feast on the harvest produced by the sweat of his neighbor.

Diaspora Ethiopians, particularly those in the U.S., talk about change but most of us are clueless about the kind of change they want.

We want change but we do not want to do our fair share in the heavy lifting to bring it about.

We want change and believe we can bring it by criticizing and belittling those who are doing the heavy lifting implementing change.

We want to change Ethiopia but we do not want to change ourselves. We do not understand “those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

We want change but we do not want to be the change we want to see.

We want to change but we are trapped in herd mentality and groupthink.

We want change but only on our terms: “Our way of change or the highway. Take our change or leave it.”

We want change but we have nothing to offer to bring about change. We have no coherent ideas, no blueprint and no plans to offer.

Diaspora Ethiopians, particularly those in the U.S., think we can bring about change in Ethiopia by complaining, moaning, groaning and preaching victimology.

We think we can bring about change in Ethiopia by posting and disseminating fake news, fake stories, lies and disinformation on Fakebook, YouBoob and Twit-ter.

We think we can bring about change in Ethiopia gathering in front of public building and frothing at the mouth shouting slogans.

We think we can bring about change in Ethiopia by collecting donations on GoFundMe to line our pockets.

We think we can bring about change in Ethiopia by wishing upon a star: “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder change could suddenly fall from the sky.”

We think we can bring change by trash-talking Ethiopia. “Ethiopia is a failed state. Ethiopia is a civil war waiting to happen.”

We think we can bring about change in Ethiopia by finger-pointing, bellyaching, teeth-gnashing and heart-aching.

We don’t seem to realize “change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle”.

Above all, we don’t seem to understand change is a labor of love and a trans-generational legacy– love of humanity, love of hum-unity (unity of humanity) love of dignity, love of liberty and and love of duty to do the common good and the generations to come.

To be not to be part of the march to freedom and democracy.

To be or not to be part of the march for freedom and democracy is the Shakespearean question Diaspora Ethiopians must face and answer as Ethiopia undergoes tectonic transformation.

The foundations of the ethnic apartheid state established by the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in 1991 are in tatters now. They are being dismantled piece by piece.

The TPLF spent hundreds of millions of birr to stop the changes in their tracks and if that is not possible plunge the country into civil war.

There is nothing the TPLF can do to stop the change and get back in the saddle of power to complete their vaunted 100-year rule.

Long ago, I prophesied the TPLF is destined for the dustbin of history if they continued in their evil ways and in the end will inherit the wind.

That prophesy has come to pass!

In May 2009, I wrote a commentary and detailed the “psychologic of the T-TPLF’s paranoia” of being pushed out of power and prophesied how the TPLF regime would end:

They [T-TPLF] have been riding the Ethiopian tiger for nearly two decades. But one day they know they have to dismount. When they do, they will be looking at the sparkling eyes, gleaming teeth and pointy nails of one big hungry tiger!”

In my March 2015 commentary, I told the TPLF they are looking at their end days.

I believe the T-TPLF leaders know with absolute certainty that they are sitting on a powder keg.  As I have written previously, the T-TPLF has built its castles in the sand. The only question is whether those castles will be swept up by a tidal wave of deep public discontent or blown away by the tornadic wind of the people’s fury. In either case, the T-TPLF will be vacuumed and deposited in the dust bin of history. I am afraid the volcano that has remained dormant for the last 25 years is “growling” and “grumbling” and the T-TPLF has come to the ultimate realization that it is sitting on the cryptodome of the volcano. The heat and pressure are increasing  inside the Ethiopian volcano as the T-TPLF  ramps up its oppression, repression, and brutality. I am afraid the T-TPLF is now looking straight into the eyes of the tiger. Behold the eye of the tiger!

By 2016, the TPLF came face to face with the hungry tiger. Actually, the TPLF Hippos came face to face with the angry Ethiopian Cheetahs.

The cryptodome of the Ethiopia youth volcano had blown over and a tidal wave of hot magma was oozing out to consume the TPLF.

The Cheetahs peacefully subdued the TPLF Hippos and let them go in peace.

But the TPLF Hippos thought the peaceful gesture was a sign of weakness and continued with their evil ways setting ethnic fires throughout the country.

The changes have been the equivalent of a volcanic earthquake with endless aftershocks.

The first full-fledged eruption took place in 2016 and shook the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front to the core.

Today, as Prosperity Party announced its official establishment, the TPLF is finally interred under the volcanic magma that began flowing in 2016.

Ethiopian diaspora never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity

I hate to say it. Really.

But as a man who prides himself for speaking truth to power, I can’t help it.

The truth is diaspora Ethiopians and the TPLF appear to be doomed to share the same destiny.

Both seem to be destined to never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

The TPLF shapeshifters today wallow in a twilight zone of delusion, illusion and fantasy.

They are confused, perplexed and simply stumped.

They don’t know if they are coming or going.

They change like the weather in Chicago.

One day the TPLF leaders say they are out of the game. They will establish a de facto state.

Another day, they say they are neither in nor out of the game because they have not read the party program and their statement that they are out of the game is “based principle”.

The following week they intimate they will secede and create their own country. They have discovered oil reserves and such. They can be self-sufficient.

Then they say, they might join but they need time to think about it.

The TPLF reminds me of Schrödinger’s cat. They are both dead and alive at the same time.

The fact of the matter is the Prosperity Train has left the station as the TPLF watched in total confusion and discombobulation. Choo, choo!!! (Or as the old song from my day of youth goes, “Elem ale baburoo, wetat yizo bemulu. “The train left the station filled with young people.”)

The old men of the TPLF are watching the Prosperity Party maglev train zipping away.

Here we are the grand old men and women of the Ethiopian diaspora in the good ole U.S. of A.!

We, diaspora Ethiopians, are also standing on the platform of the proverbial train station listening/singing that New Shining’s song:

Too many questions remain unsolved and I wonder why
God knows I’m in desperate need of some kind of clarity
But I just can’t make up my mind
But I just can’t make up my mind

The TPLF just can’t make up its mind.

Neither can the Ethiopian diaspora in America!

Truth be told, whether the TPLF makes up its mind is a matter of mind over matter for me.

I don’t mind because the TPLF does not matter to me, except when it comes to exposing their crimes against humanity, the cruelty of their politics of identity and the poison they used to pollute Ethiopian unity.

But…

Diaspora Ethiopians do matter to me and I mind the fact they can’t make up their mind

I am afraid diaspora Ethiopians are heading in the same dead-end direction of the TPLF.

The so-called diaspora intellectuals, activists, advocates and the rest can’t seem to make up their minds about the change taking place in Ethiopia.

Some of them belittle and contemptuously dismiss the change and heap insults and denigration on the change leaders.

The brainless tsetse flies of social media spread lies and damned lies about the change and leadership of the change on Ethiopia.

The silent majority of the Ethiopian diaspora is silent as the (brain) dead. They are sleepwalking through the change.

The silent click-bait majority is silently asleep dreaming nightmares from all the fake horror stories they gather on social media and online.

They too, like the TPLF, are standing on the station platform as the train is leaving the station.

Let’s own a piece of the change…

I have one and only one set of concerns about the role of diaspora Ethiopia in the ongoing change in Ethiopia.

I don’t want diaspora Ethiopians to be left at the train station or the dock looking at the ugly faces of the TPLF.

I want diaspora Ethiopians to be on the Change Train.

The TPLF had many opportunities to act in their enlightened self-interest but rejected it.

But it is the fate of the TPLF to never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

They kicked the opportunity to enjoy their stolen wealth in the spirit of national unity and peace.

The TPLF today is in the dust bin of history. Nobody gives a damn!

As diasporans, our motto must be “seize the day (carpe diem)”.

Above all, we as diaspora Ethiopians must act in our enlightened self-interest.

We must not follow in the footsteps of the TPLF and walk straight to the dust bin of history.

We MUST realize that the change will continue with or without us.

We have the choice of standing in front of the freight train called “Change” or get aboard and ride it.

There are some things in this world that simply cannot be stopped, no matter how hard we try or cry.

Such is the change in Ethiopia today.

We cannot stop the change. We cannot delay the change. We cannot wish it away.

We can either be part of the change or by not being part condemn ourselves to the dust bin of history just like the TPLF.

In the interest of the enlightened self-interest of diaspora Ethiopians: Why I am so concerned about a role in the change taking place in Ethiopia

As I see the pace and direction of change in Ethiopia, I see two options for diaspora Ethiopians.

We can continue our old and outmoded opposition politics and attain irrelevance in the dustbin of history.

Or we can pursue our enlightened self-interest unapologetically.

I am not apologetic in articulating the interests of diaspora Ethiopians in Ethiopia.

We must make sure our voices are heard and considered by whomever the powers that be in Ethiopia.

Of course, as diasporans we share a lot with our Ethiopian brothers and sisters.

But truth be told, as diasporans we have special concerns and needs.

I want to make sure we are given our rightful place in the coming order.

There are many things that most diaspora Ethiopians seek in the New Ethiopia.

For instance, the vast majority of diaspora Ethiopians who had been forced by the Derg and TPLF to give up their citizenship, want dual citizenship.

That is the one question I am asked most often when I travel to speak to diaspora groups in the U.S. and Canada.

But there are many issues of special interests for diaspora Ethiopians. This is what they tell me:

We want to go back to their motherland and no be seen as foreigners or be identified by the label “diasporan”.

We want our children to become citizens and take pride in their ancestral heritage.

We want to participate in the political process of our motherland. We want to vote, run for office, influence decisions and shape policy. We don’t want to be treated like ferenjis.”

We want to work in our motherland without needing a work permit or visa.

We want to be guaranteed residence and own property just like everybody else. We don’t want to be discriminated because we are diasporans.

We want to invest but do not want to be treated like other foreigners because of our other nationality.

Ethiopia is an emerging market transitioning from dictatorship to democracy. The middle class is expanding and standards of living are improving. We want to play a central role in the country’s development.

We want to launch Ethiopian diaspora-led businesses and enterprises to create jobs and  spur economic growth.

We want to promote development through diaspora entrepreneurship using technology and innovation.

When H.E. Prime Minster Dr. Abiy Ahmed visited the U.S. in July 2018, he challenged diaspora Ethiopians to tender their proposals for dual citizenship. To my knowledge, no individual or group has taken the challenge and present such a proposal.

But to have a voice and a role, we have to do our part and support the change.

We cannot get something for nothing.

Only beggars expect something for nothing.

PM Abiy once zinged us with a particularly sharp comment. “Diaspora Ethiopians ask me 10 question at once but are not willing to give a dollar (a day to the Ethiopian Diaspora Trust Fund.”

The late uber boss of the TPLF once said, “Diasporans (Ethiopians) can start something but they never finish anything.”

Many of us in the Ethiopian diaspora have become the hollow men (and women) in T.S. Eliot’s eponymous poem:

We are the hollow men/ We are the stuffed men
Leaning together/Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when/ We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless

Our dried voices crying out in America today are quiet and meaningless.

We blow a lot of smoke but there is little fire left in us.

If we don’t like the change that is taking place, let’s challenge the government with better ideas. Let us give them better alternatives.

Let’s accept PM Abiy’s challenge and win against his party in the marketplace of ideas.

There is an election coming up in May 2020.

It will be free and fair and under the eyes of international observers.

The government to be elected in that election will have a public mandate to transition the country to multiparty democracy and ensure equality and justice for all.

In my view, whatever government is elected, there will be no return to the ethnic apartheid party system in Ethiopia.

Divisive ethnic politics will play a much-diminished role.

Ethiopia will join the rest of civilized countries where leaders are chosen in free and fair elections.

Only agreements and disagreements on political programs, ideology and philosophy. No violence.

A word to the wise diaspora Ethiopians: When in America, live and learn from the Americans

I doubt many diaspora Ethiopians in the U.S. are familiar with the Alexis de Tocqueville’s seminal work, “Democracy in America” (1835).

In that book, de Tocqueville discussed Americans’ natural tendency to come together voluntarily in “enlightened self-interest” to advance their own individual self-interests by promoting the interests of their group. He wrote:

The Americans are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist each other, and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state.

Enlightened self-interest is the hallmark of American political and social life.

As Ethiopian Americans, we should work in our enlightened self-interest and help in Ethiopia’s transition to democracy, progress and prosperity.

It is in our enlightened self-interest to see a free, democratic and just Ethiopia.

Let’s face facts.

The days of protesting in front of the U.S. State Department are over. Only the granite slabs will listen to us stone cold deaf.

We can walk the halls of Congress until our shoe soles run holes. But no one is listening over there.

I have a simple message my fellow diaspora Ethiopians, particularly in the U.S.: “Make up your mind and your heart to accept and become part of the change in Ethiopia and swing with it.

The alternative you do not want to even contemplate but it is sure to happen just like the sun will rise tomorrow:

Prepare to join the TPLF in the dustbin of history.

Wake and and smell the original Ethiopian coffee diaspora Ethiopians!

Let’s not repeat our history. Let’s miss this ONE opportunity to miss an opportunity!

There is almost no prospect of a swift and painless democratic transition in Ethiopia

Authoritarian regimes in Ethiopia—Imperial, Derg, and EPRDF alike—irrespective of ideologies they pursued, imposed their wishes on Ethiopian societies. All were finally forced to surrender to waves of public anger.

It was in 1960s when the renowned Ethiopian writer, Hadis Alemayehu, in his famous book “Fiker eske Mekabir” referring to the then Imperial Regime, prophesied that ‘’people take decision in their own hands when their hope in God is eroded’’.

Despite positive steps at every regime change during the second half of 20^th century, the underlying contradictions were not resolved. The new governments that took office pursued their own group’s parochial self-interest.

Both Derg and EPRDF had “democracy” in their regimes’ names, but never put democracy into practice. Now we have entered another transition. This is not only about elections. It is about the process and outcome over a longer span. There is, however, almost no prospect of a swift and painless democratic transition in Ethiopia.

There are five main reasons for this transitional trauma:

1. EPRDF’s parlous state
2. Prosperity Party paradox
3. Politicised security forces
4. Politicised civil service
5. Weak opposition
6. Weak democratic institutions

EPRDF’s parlous state

To reduce the pain, the government must be ready to hand over power. That means, the EPRDF coalition and partner parties must hold that commitment. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has reiterated that he will hand over power if his party is defeated at next election. The conundrum is whether his party colleagues are equally committed to leaving office.

Currently the dynamics in regional states vary and may quickly change as the situation is fluid. There has been no linearity in EPRDF; the leadership could not speak on behalf of the entire coalition. There is no more democratic centralism.

Additionally, the boundaries between the ruling and opposition parties are not thick in some regional states, such as Somali and Afar. Clan relations will continue to play central roles in Somali politics and require a balanced mix of clans in both ruling and opposition parties. ONLF and the current ruling party in Somali Region may likely maintain their strategic alliance despite inter- and intra-party skirmishes. In Tigray, TPLF has taken a defensive position, towards which their cadres are highly agitated, leaving little space for dissent. It appears TPLF is not yet ready to concede power.

For better or worse, the change-makers are in the Oromia and Amhara parties. Yet there is no strong reason to believe that Abiy’s ODP is committed to multi-partyism in Oromia. Several of its officials are part and parcel of the old EPRDF regime and perceived to have been plunderers that may fear being criminalised once relieved of power. ODP is playing cat-and-mouse with the Oromo Liberation Front and Oromo Federalist Congress, making the political situation unpredictable. There is squabbling among OLF factions, which most Oromos see as a symbol of resistance against central rule.

ADPs came through a path similar to ODPs and there is also no strong reason here to believe their commitment to multiparty democracy. It seems that ADP is engaged in competition and collaboration with NaMA at the same time, possibly aimed at retaining power by pushing out parties like Ezema from Amhara Region. Democratic space in the region is stifled, and the security situation is volatile after the chaos in June.

That incident stemmed partly from ADP-NaMA’s unholy marriage but seems to have saved ADP from bowing to NaMA and its violent youths. In general, Amhara political elites still take it for granted that Ethiopiawinet is synonymous with Amharization and seem not to have dropped the imperial ambition of Amhara cultural hegemony where assimilation was an official line of citizenship and other cultures and languages were denigrated.

ADP’s ambition for hegemony throughout EPRDF is littered with skirmishes and collaborations. ADP and ODP are putting immense pressures on each other: ADPs want ODPs to subdue OLF factions and Oromo activists like Jawar Mohammed, whereas ODPs want ADPs subdue NaMA and other amorphous rightist groups like Eskinder Nega’s Baladera Council.

Prosperity Party paradox

Recently, it was difficult to think of EPRDF as a genuine coalition. Paradoxically, Abiy’s preferred solution is to merge it into one national party. There are two critical issues with this. The first is incompatibility of the current coalition members, and the second is how to bring on-board fully the so-called partner parties from Somali, Afar, Gambella, Benishangul-Gumuz and Harari.

Abiy has driven through the merger, but it is not clear how it will work in practice. Should EPRDF dissolve and get replaced by a leadership group directly elected by members, or should the coalition parties including the so called ‘partners’ be given quotas in the leadership depending on certain criteria, such as existing party membership and population size?

EPRDF and partners’ merger to form Prosperity Party (PP) means dissolving all the regional parties and replacing them with PP. Again, there are two serious questions—regional representation and party programme.

How many people would be represented from each region and on what basis at different levels of leadership-executive committee, central committee, etc. Should this be rules-based or simply hand-picked by the chairman or leadership?

Technically, if PP is a new party to replace EPRDF, it will be required to choose a new leadership group including its chairman. Abiy Ahmed cannot automatically assume the post as he was not elected by PP members. Furthermore, the so-called partner parties were not part of the EPRDF Council that elected him chairman of the front in March 2018.

On the other hand, can PP come up with an agreed party programme that reenergises the movement? TPLF has already rejected the merger in the absence of an agreed programme, and now key ODP senior figure Lemma Megersa has spoken out in opposition. But the conundrum goes beyond that. The elites lined up behind the regional parties have polarised views, putting pressure on every regional branch and leaving with them little room to manoeuvre.

Some of the major dividing issues are: the nature of federal structure, resolution of administrative-territorial disputes (Addis Abeba, Dire Dawa and Welkait, for example), critical issues in Ethiopian history, and the language question. PM Abiy’s Medemer has become a buzz word and seems to have been perceived as an instrument or lens to provide a way out of the conundrum. However, Medemer cannot replace a political programme.

It is only with a party manifesto that PP can go out and campaign for election. Can PP have different programmes for people living in different regions, particularly for the contentious issues mentioned above? Can they tell contradictory messages to people living in different parts of the federation? How cohesive will this national party be?

It appears that the merger can go ahead even if TPLF rejects the move, although some legal issues are outstanding. It appears the merger is not ultra-risky in the short term if PP is able to forge a programme acceptable to all its members. The serious risk which may possibly lead to explosion is incompatibility of Abiy’s attempt to appeal to pro-ethnic federalists and anti-ethnic federalists at the same time; a dilemma Lemma’s opposition has highlighted. The other danger may arise in relation with the election if EPP tries to close the space before the polls or tries rigging the election itself.

The PP bylaws and programme has been approved by the EPRDF executive and central committee and some party congresses. They have made it clear that all EPRDF coalition members and partner parties will be dissolved. Their language decision has already trigger anger on social media—it brought back Amharic at the centre in all the regional branches. If this intent is followed by regional governments, it would complete PM Abiy’s aspiration to inherit the imperial regimes’ legacy.

Politicized security forces

EPRDF security structures—military, intelligence, police, militia—were highly attached to the political leadership both in ideology and through individual network with officers. Uncertainties remain with regional security structures (police, special force and militia).

It is not clear how much force regional security structures have both in terms of personnel and armaments. The Somali Region Special Force under Abdi Iley, for example, was a serious threat not only to other regions, specifically Oromia and Afar, but also to the Federal Government.

The current security structure, mainly the regional special police, is the most dangerous threat to the orderly transition. All parties must take this as a serious concern before moving to general election. Abiy has said that the security apparatus is under reform. But it seems the regional special police is out of his reach. Divorcing it from party politics is a primary requirement for democratic transition.

Politicized civil service

The nature of Ethiopian civil service is another bottleneck for a democratic transition. Ethiopia has not seen in its history the Weberian type of civil service or the Douglas North type of institutions. Under the emperors, the bureaucracy was just an extension of monarchies. Under Derg and EPRDF, the civil service was enmeshed with the ruling parties.

There is no formal rule to do a favour for civil servants of party members. However, civil service is considered a warehouse of future political leaders and mechanisms were put in place to attract civil servants to party membership; including preferential treatment for further education, better job, promotion, guaranteed job, key civil service posts and moving to key political appointment posts. And therefore, members and non-members are treated differently, as members are considered loyal to the ruling party’s agenda.

The following is a simple and live example of appointments that evidently will be problematic unless addressed early on. Currently, the number of weredas in Ethiopia is estimated to be more than 1,200 (rural and urban). If we estimate the number of zones (zones are one level up from weredas) to be just 100, together with the weredas we have 1,300 tiers below regional level. If we assume minimum 10 politically appointed officials at each wereda/zone, we will have 13,000 political appointees below regional government tiers. What will happen to those people if the opposition wins partially or fully? Should the opposition parties retain them while knowing these people are members of EPRDF who were appointed without meritocratic qualification?

On the other hand, retaining those people in their posts will not be acceptable to the supporters of the incoming opposition parties. If we add the number of political appointees at regional and federal government levels, it is obvious how the numbers soar. Therefore, democratic transition is integrally linked to the livelihood and very survival of EPRDF members and families in the current Ethiopia. In preparation for 2010 election, wereda officials were forewarned that defeat of EPRDF in their wereda would cost them their jobs. PM Abiy recently has said that he is not concerned for his job if his party loses the upcoming election. It is not about the prime minister losing his job, it is far beyond that: it is thousands of party officials.

Weak opposition 

The so-called EPRDF’s dominant party system has proved a failure. Democratic elections require not only existence of opposition parties but also commitment to peaceful competition. Opposition parties are numerous but only a few of them meet the criteria of an ‘’opposition party’’. Some are creatures of old EPRDF while others are bread-winners without real political objectives.

Therefore, unlike what we hear in the media, the number of meaningful opposition parties is not more than eight. In my view, all real oppositions are regional parties as their bases are bound by ethno-nationalist identities, including Ezema, which has an Amhara flavour. This means there is a need for a coalition of likeminded regional parties to form country-level parties if Ethiopia is to move to a meaningful multiparty system.

Polarisation or extremism is another concern with oppositions. For example, what would happen if OLF, NaMA, TPLF, ONLF, SLM, Ezema win elections in Oromia, Amhara, Tigray, Somali, Sidama and Addis Ababa respectively? What would the deal look like and how can they come to terms without resorting to violent conflicts?

Weak democratic institutions

It would be naïve to think the election board and judiciary were neutral in the previous elections under EPRDF. There is no strong evidence yet that the new board members and judicial officials who have been appointed to these institutions last year will prove to be neutral.

Two precursors underlie my concerns: firstly, key posts in these institutions seem to have been filled with like-minded anti-ethnic federalists who may likely want to seize the opportunity to act in their ideological interests if the power dynamics turns out to allow them; and secondly, the election board’s interventions outside of its mandate regarding the Sidama referendum. The board’s mandate was to administer the referendum. It was not, for example, to organise debate among non-Sidama elites in Addis Ababa nor enquire about the status of Hawassa post-election.

While lack of capacity and experience is another concern, if the decisions of the board or the judiciary are perceived to have gone against the expected standards in favour of certain groups, it is likely to trigger election-related violence. The neutrality and transparency of these institutions are crucial from the very beginning.

Destructive ambiguity 

So far Abiy has tried to please all domestic actors as well as the international community. This is impossible. Abiy’s stock is falling fast among Ethiopians because his flowery rhetoric is not able to cover up his irreconcilable positions. He glorifies our imperial past, but he tells us he believes in a multinational Ethiopia. His Medemer is not detailed enough to show how to reconcile the extremes.

He wants to lead a transformative transition to democracy but is wedded to an authoritarian state and the constitutional electoral schedule. There is a danger that increasingly only a narrow elite around Abiy remains committed to his aspirational ambiguous project, while those who project a clearer vision, such as Jawar Mohammed, increase their popularity. These political problems combined with the aforementioned structural fragilities make Ethiopia’s transition a perilous one. Further trauma is expected if the ruling elites fail to end the ambiguity.

Query or correction? Email us

Editors: William Davison and Jonah Wedekind

By Assefa A. Lemu

Exordium

The book titled “Medemer” and written by Ethiopian Prime Minister Dr. Abiy was launched  on  October 19, 2019 at a Millennium Hall in Addis Ababa (Finfinne). At a launching ceremony, the Author and Prime Minster of Ethiopia Dr. Abiy Ahmed cut a cake baked by the Government owned Hotel and Tourism Training Institute under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The ceremony was also streamed live on the Government owned Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation’s TV channel. I hope the cost of the cake and other costs of the launching ceremony were not paid from public funds because Medemer condemns “tie wearing thieves in government offices” who use public resources for their personal benefits and take bribes.  I also hope that neither public resources were used for the publication and distributions of the book nor gifts were accepted under the cover of “sponsor” for these purposes because corruption is one of the redlines of Medemer.

The proceeds from the sale of the book is said be used for the expansion of education in rural Ethiopia and I hope there are many Authors, including myself, who are willing to donate their books for such social development purposes if they get similar support, coverage, and publicity because the aim of some of the Authors is to share ideas more than getting income from the sale of their books. According to Dr. Abiy, Medemer was written to save Ethiopia from vanishing. In fact, it is not surprising to hear politicians saying they did this and that for the benefit of the people.  The former Prime Minister of Ethiopia Hailemariam Dessalegn who failed to govern the country and forced to resign told us that he resigned for the benefit of Ethiopian peoples. President Evo Morales of Bolivia who was forced to resign also claimed that he resigned for the benefit of the Bolvian people.

On the launching ceremony, Dr. Abiy disclosed that he has four published books under the pen name of “DRAZ” and Medemer is his fifth published book and the first book published under his real name. Writing a book by politicians to win election or to stay in power is not a new thing. Last year, in 2018, one of Madagascar’s multi-millionaire and politician Andry Rajoelina wrote a book which has 271 pages and titled “Initiative pour l’Emergence de Madagascar” (Initiative for the Emergence of Madagascar (IEM)) in which he outlined his political and campaign programs. He used his money and IEM to win Madagascar’s 2018 Presidential election and became the President of Madagascar in January 2019. IEM was Rajoelina’s and his party’s (Tanora malaGasy Vonona (TGV) or Young Malagasies Determined) vision written with the help of international and national experts to seek a concrete solution for Madagascar’s development (https://www.dw.com/en/andry-rajoelina-plans-political-comeback-in-madagascar/a-44984197). Unlike IEM, Medemer is said to be a philosophy and written by one man for sale like any other books.

In his October 29, 2019 article written in Amharic and titled “ካለንበት ወዴት?”, Major Dawit Woldegiorgis listed some of African leaders who wrote a book and claimed that they are philosophers and teachers of political philosophy (https://www.ethiopanorama.com/?p=110443&lang=en). His list includes Muammar Gaddafi of Libya who wrote a book titled “Direct Democracy”, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia who wrote a book titled “Patriotic Reorientation and Construction”, and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) who wrote a book titled “Authenticite”. These African leaders “followed” Plato’s advice in which he said the best form of government is that which is ruled by “philosopher king”; thus the kings (the rulers) should become philosophers or that philosophers should become kings (rulers).

In his Medemer book launching speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM72u1oI53Q) Prime Minister Dr. Abiy invited comments and critiques on the book. This makes him different from the rest of “African philosopher kings” and may be help to save Ethiopia from becoming another Libiya or another D. R. Congo. This review/comment is in response to Dr. Abiy’s invitation to offer comments and critiques. In addition, Dr. Abiy said that the contest for the next Ethiopian election will be based on the written and bounded ideas. Therefore, we need to carefully evaluate the ideas which are written and bounded and presented to us by our politicians so that we will be able to differentiate those who stand for our interest from those who try to cheat us.

In contract law, there is a principle which says, when a government enters into business contract, it loses its sovereignty status and becomes no different than a mere private corporation or individual. In other words, when the government enters into a contract to do business with a private firm or individual, it lays down its sovereignty and takes the character and status of a private citizen. In such a case, the sovereign government and non-sovereign firm or individual are treated equally. As a private citizen, I thank Dr. Abiy Ahmed for publishing a book under his name and inviting us to critique it because this shows his willingness to be treated as a private citizen in relation to his book called Medemer.  His descending to the level of a mere private citizen encourages us to provide our frank opinion on the book without fear of repercussion from his government.

The Medemer book was published in September 2019 and has 280 pages divided in four parts and sixteen chapters.  Even though the book was written in Amharic and Afan Oromo languages, the version which was officially launched at the presence of the Author is the Amharic version. Therefore, this review is based on the version which is considered by the Author as an “official” version.

Medemer is defined differently by different individuals and groups. Some say, Medemer means “unity”, “togetherness”, “reconciliation”, “synergy”, “synthesis”, “consolidation”,  “combination”, or “cooperation”, but others say it is “putting everyone in one melting pot to create homogeneous society out of heterogeneous society”, “unitary”, “elimination of identity and diversity by the means of aggregation”, “domination through combination or expansion”, “clustering”, “bundling”, “merging”, or “cannibalization”. The Author defined Medemer by referring to three Amharic dictionaries as “coming together”, “to be combined”, “to be accumulated”, “to stand together”. He also said Medemer is “an idea” (example on pages, II, IV, V, 35, 42, 44), “a framework” (example on page iv), “a philosophy” (example on pages III, 4, 49, 73), “an outlook” (example on page 4). However, since the Author repeatedly said Medemer is “a philosophy”, I would like to consider Medemer as a philosophy.

It should be noted that Medemer (addition) is not only about increase, but also about decrease. For example, +6 + (+4) = 6 + 4 = 10 and shows increase. However, +6 + (-4) = 6 – 4 = 2 and shows decrease. In other words, the addition of numbers with like signs leads to an increase and the addition of numbers with unlike signs leads to decrease. Therefore, when we do addition, we must know the natures (signs) of what we are adding together because our addition may result in negative, rather than positive.

In terms of form, except for not including the titles of the four parts of the book into the tables of contents and not correcting a word in line three, paragraph one, on page IV, the Medemer book looks well proof read. I will offer my review of its contents under each chapter so that the readers can go to the relevant chapter and evaluate the reasonableness of my comments. Since the book has four parts, not to bore the readers, I would like to make my review in four parts. Here is the review of Part One of Medemer.

Acknowledgement

In the acknowledgement section, Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed, herein after the Author, thanked his friends, coworkers, and comrades who accepted the idea of Medemer and helped him to develop it.

Preface (Pages I-V)

The Author opened the preface with a saying in Afan Oromo but written in Sabean/ Ge’ez / Amharic alphabet: “Bashasha, olmaafi galiin bilasha”.  He translated this Afan Oromo saying to Amharic and the Amharic meaning shows that what he wanted to say is “Bashasha, olmaafi galli bilasha” meaning “in Bashasha you can spend a day and return home without incurring cost”. “Galii” and “galli” have two different meanings. The first one means “income” or “revenue” and the second one means “going back home”. Therefore, the Afan Oromo saying written in Sabean alphabet about Bashasha doesn’t convey the message the Author wanted to convey. This is a simple example that shows why Sabean (Amharic) alphabet doesn’t suit for writing Afan Oromo. I hope Medemer philosophy understands this fact and will not ask Oromo to abandon Qube Afan Oromo to proof that they are “added”.

In this section, the Author told the reader that Medemer was with him since he started thinking about life and grew with him. I wish he also told us how Medemer and his aspiration to be the seventh king of Ethiopia grew side by side with him without contradicting each other. He said the two contributors to Medemer idea are Ethiopian values and the law of nature. I wish also he listed these Ethiopian values which are different from the values of non-Ethiopians and contributed to Medemer philosophy. He said, Medemer idea took the shape of philosophy after he made it part of leadership value and institutional building in the institutions he worked as an employee. He believes that Medemer offers key solutions for Ethiopia’s key problems. He argues that there is no problem that Medemer can’t solve.  Congratulations to Ethiopia! He says, in Ethiopian history, the successes achieved including the victory of Adwa were the results of Medemer. Based on this statement, one can say that Medemer is not a new idea, but existed even before the Author was born.

In addition to expressing Medemer as a concept which he said grew to be a philosophy, the Author presented it as a framework in which he compiled alternative solutions to overcome political, economic, and social problems and which can bring changes in leaps and bounds.  The Author explained that he developed the Medemer idea based on his previous research works and papers. He also tried to give authoritative power to the ideas in the Medemer book by saying “as a leader who has an interest to plan the current and future goals of the country, I present this Medemer idea as a key solution to the problems of the country….”(page V).

Introduction (Pages V-VIII)

In the introduction section, the Author argues that Ethiopia’s problems will be solved by being inward looking rather than looking for solutions either from the West or East. He says, we have to follow the principle of “domestic solution for domestic problem” rather than looking for solutions from outside. It is not clear how this inward looking principle solve all problems that Ethiopia faces and brings progress to Ethiopia in the globalized world. In his September 2019 interview with Sheger FM Radio journalist Meaza Birru, the Author said when he came to power in April 2018, Ethiopia was a country that was not able to pay the salaries of Ethiopian Government employees and debts but he solved these problems by securing millions of dollars from foreign assistances (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyQIVgOZ10k).  The question is how come Medemer philosophy which has grown with him and hoped to offer domestic solution for all domestic problems didn’t solve the problem of incapability to pay salary for domestic Ethiopian Government employees?

PART I: THE BASIS FOR MEDEMER IDEA

Chapter one: Human-beings’ Increasing Needs and Capacity (Pages 1-12)

In this chapter, the Author discussed about human needs. He divided human needs in to two main categories 1) Direct Survival Needs (need to protect oneself from danger and to live) and 2) Indirect Survival Needs [a) needs to eat, drink, and shelter; b) needs to be valued and honored, respected and glorified; c) need to be free] and argued that these needs can be met only by coming together (Medemer), not by working individually. This statement reminds me the argument in favor of cooperatives and villagization as well as the justification for establishing different associations such as farmers association, women’s association, youth association, labor union, etc. under Socialist Ethiopia.  The Author argues that human needs are survival needs and not addressing these needs is considered as playing with human-beings’ survival needs. He says, human beings have the capacity to cooperate or to compete and to fulfill the survival need, understanding these capacities is a must.

Chapter Two: The Contradiction of Two Ideologies (Pages 13-34)

In this chapter, the Author discussed Liberalism and Socialism. He says Liberalism gives priority to the need to be free, but Socialism gives priority to the need to be equal. According to the evaluation of the Author, Liberalism/Capitalism and Socialism as well as Social Democracy which emerged as a middle point between Liberalism and Socialism and attempted to reconcile the principles of both ideologies, failed to address the need of the majority. He also tried to show how Socialism and Liberalism (Developmental State) failed to work in Ethiopia and how the effort to bring Social Democracy through Revolutionary Democracy failed in Ethiopia.

According to the Author, the instabilities that Ethiopia faced were the outcomes of the conflict between the knowledges acquired from abroad and the conditions in the country. He argues, Liberal Democracy is based on the European liberal culture and it doesn’t fit to Ethiopia who is not in a position even to feed itself (page 34). In the Author’s opinion, Ethiopia needs independent and Ethiopian philosophy, i.e. Medemer. I wish he showed us how Medemer which advocates for coming together can address the needs of the majority where Socialism which is based on the principle of “Workers of the world unite!” failed. He argues introducing Liberalism to a country with illiterate and hungry population is wrong. I wish he explained in this chapter how Medemer fits to a country with illiterate and hungry population so that most developing countries that have illiterate and hungry people can use it.

Chapter Three: The Verdict of Medemer (Pages 35-48)

In this chapter, the Author presented the definition of Medemer. He has a subtitle which says “Medemer Means” (page 36), but instead of providing the definition of Medemer under this subtitle, he explained the objective of Medemer. It seems that he intentionally wanted to leave his readers in the dark regarding the meaning of Medemer.

On page 40 of the book, the Author shared the meaning of the word Medemer obtained from three Amharic-Amharic Dictionaries. The common meaning of the three dictionaries for the word Medemer is “to bring together to make one”. On the same page, the Author said something is created by coming together of small things, from their accumulation and this is what is called Medemer. This is why pro-federal system groups are suspicious to the idea of Medemer. They are wary of what Prime Minister is doing and see Medemer as his plan to take the country back to the unitary system where power is accumulate at the center.

The Author says the main objective of Medemer is to build upon the political and economic gains, to correct mistakes done, and achieve the needs and benefits of the future generation. He says, in terms of political analysis Medemer is indigenous; in terms of finding solutions it was designed by taking domestic and foreign knowledges. Here, the ideologue admitted that Medemer is using knowledge obtained from outside Ethiopia, the act he said in the previous pages a mistake and criticized. He also said Medemer is a concept/theory which touches upon all private and social life including political, economic, and social sectors.  Here, Medemer looks like a religion which governs the holistic life of an individual and a society. The Author argues, unless we bring together our ideas, money, knowledge, etc and add one on the top of another, individualism will lead us to decay and extinct. If this statement is true, I wonder how the Western capitalist countries where the concept of individualism is prevalent managed to survive.

The Author explained the benefit of building upon the achievement of the past instead of destroying what were done in the past and focusing on the clearing the debris of the past. He also repeated the explanation about the benefit of building on the achievements of the past on page 57. If that is the case, why wasting that much time and energy to destroy what were done by EPRDF, especially revising the federal structure, selling public enterprises and ongoing projects.

On page 42, the Author says “Since Ethiopia lived in isolation for epochs by burring itself within mountains and closing its doors, she has been in solitary deficit”. This contradicts with the statement that he made on page 33 of the book where he said the instabilities that Ethiopia faced were the outcome of the conflict between the knowledges acquired from abroad and the conditions in the country.  Such conflicting statements are some of challenges a reader may face while reading the book and while trying to see consistent flow of ideas in the book.

The Author identified “common goal” and “taking initiative” as fundamentals of Medemer. He also divided Medemer’s process into three: being passerby (ignoring Medemers concepts, being an observer, and external), being a gust (showing interest for Medemer and learning its concepts), and being resident (understanding and following Medemer theory). It is like issuing Red, Yellow, and Green cards for someone based on his/her position towards and knowledge about Medemer. I have no idea what color of card the opponents of Medemer should be given.

The Author also identified “unity of the country”, “respect for citizens”, and “prosperity” as the values of Medemer. He said the fate of nations and nationalities of Ethiopia are only to live together, not to live alone. Unity of the country is the matter of survival, not a matter of choice. Here, the Author resembles Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam who sent thousands of Ethiopians to war to keep Eritrea within Ethiopia and to protect territorial integrity of Ethiopia by force. Until I read this statement, I never compared Lieutenant Colonel Abiy Ahmed with Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam. The Author also contradicts the principle of self-determination of nations and nationalities enshrined in the Ethiopian constitution. This clearly shows that the value of Medemer is contradictory to the values of Ethiopian constitution because Medemer says nations and nationalities have no other choice except living within Ethiopia in unity and accuses anyone who thinks different from this as a racist (page 47-48).

Chapter Four: The Problems of Addend  (Pages 49- 76)

The Author says Medemer is measurable philosophy and our closeness to Medemer can be expressed in Medemer meter. I wish I knew how many meters I am close to Medemer or how many meters I am away from it.

The Author says Medemer has two main problems of addend: Problems of idea and problems of practice. He categorized extreme ideas, dependency on time (fixing one’s idea in the past, or in the present, or in the future rather than linking them together), simplifying things rather than looking at them as a complex whole, disrespecting professions, being revolutionary, mockery, and opportunist as problems of idea. On the other hand, he categorized lack of conscience (insensibility or heartlessness) and sluggishness as a problems of practice and Medemer’s redlines and behaviors which Medemer despise.  He said Medemer will not tolerate corruption and laziness. This reminds me National Control Committee under Derg and Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission under EPRDF both of which were established to control corruption but failed to achieve their objectives.

In this Part I of the book, the Author advised Ethiopians to stop using words and terms which put someone in a certain category such as chauvinist, narrow nationalist, anti-peace, anti-development, anti-people, and reactionary, but as stated on page 46 of the book, he created another labeling words such as “passerby”, “guest”, and “resident” of Medemer.

Frankly speaking, even though the Author repeatedly used  the phrase “Medemer philosophy”  in the Part I of the book, I didn’t get how discussing ordinary topics like the needs of human being which everyone discusses at a family level, the need to come together which every Ethiopian discusses at Edir and Equb gatherings in their villages, liberalism and socialism which were discussed enough in Ethiopia for the last 45 years, discussing the benefit of accumulating wealth which is even known by “tie wearing thieves in the Government offices”, and telling how bad corruption and laziness are which are well known even among the Tuk-tuk (Bajaj) drivers considered  a philosophy and the only solution which can save Ethiopia and its people from vanishing. I hope, I will be able to get answer and clarification for this question from the rest parts of the book.

PART II: THE FRACTURE OF ETHIOPIAN POLITICS AND ITS MAINTENANCE OPTION

In his Medemer book launching speech of September 2019, His Excellency Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed said, “ If one party and Medemer are considered not useful, let the brave person put his whisky aside and come up with the alternative idea and write a book titled Multiplication” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHwNmvrN_3E). What Dr. Abiy didn’t realize is that rejecting the idea of Medemer doesn’t require writing a book under the title of one of the remaining three mathematical operations—Multiplication, Division, or Subtraction. Rejection can be expressed by action or inaction.

When I hear the above quoted statement of Dr. Abiy, two questions came to my mind: 1) what is the relationship between drinking whisky and writing a book? 2) Why he focused only on male and asked them to write “Multiplication” book? Anyways, until we write a recommended book under the title of “Multiplication”, we will continue reviewing Medemer (Addition).

Chapter Five: Oppression and the Survival of Ethiopian State (Pages 77-90)

At the opening of Chapter Five, the Author said, “ In one hundred and twenty years of modern history of our country,  we repeatedly noticed situations where the fall of one government has posed a danger of dissolution of the country” (page 77).  Here, the Author confirmed EPRDF’s discourse that says Ethiopia was established by Emperor Menelik II and has only 120 year of history as a state under one sovereign government and with the defined boundary. This is a big departure from fairytale of never changing 3,000 year of “history of Ethiopia”. The Author admitted the truth that Ethiopian State was founded by Menelik II who was Emperor of the Ethiopian Empire from1889 to his death in 1913. Therefore, counting the age of present day of Ethiopia starting from 1889 makes sense.

The Author also argues that the leaders of Ethiopia, especially the kings, were busy with addressing external and internal political issues and didn’t get time to design policies which could prosper and civilize the country. The kings spent their whole time and age on stabilizing the country. Even though he didn’t specify the name of these kings, one may assume the Author is referring to Emperors Menelik II and Hailesellasie because these were the two kings who ruled Ethiopia after it was formed as a state.

The Author says, the main reasons for the absence of the required development and civilization in Ethiopia is because of lack of legitimacy of Ethiopia as a state. He says those who governed Ethiopia spent great deal of their time in bringing legitimacy to Ethiopia as a state rather than meeting the need of the peoples. Since the peoples in Ethiopia didn’t give legitimacy to the government and the state of Ethiopia, Ethiopian kings and authorities spent their times averting internal and external dangers posed against the very existence of Ethiopia as a country.  Because of this, they didn’t get time to meet the needs of the peoples and failure to meet these needs created discontents which in turn led to revolts and overthrowing of these authorities/leaders.

According to the Author, oppression has been the main instrument to maintain the very existence of state and government in Ethiopia and Ethiopian elites contributed to these oppressions. He argues that most of Ethiopian elites want to directly implement what they read instead of analyzing and matching it with the reality in the country. He accuses the Ethiopian elites as lazy and careless.

The Author says oppression could be divided in to two: 1) Manmade oppression which comes from the evil thinking and intention of humans and implemented based on the wish and plan of the humans; 2)Structural oppression which comes from the structure of the system and targets certain individuals or groups. Manmade oppression comes from individuals and oppresses everyone, but structural oppression comes from the system and targets selected groups. He proposes that the solution for ending manmade oppression is to make power come from the ballot box rather than from the barrel of the gun and to end structural oppression, reform should be made.

Chapter Six: The Plan to Create Ethiopian Democracy (Pages 91-108)

In Ethiopia, there has been the problem of legitimacy of government power. In the past, Ethiopian Orthodox Church was the one who used to give legitimacy for the rulers/ authorities. The bases for getting legitimacy were linage and force. Derg changed such legitimacy which comes from church and linage.  However, Derg failed because it was not able to implement democracy which is the basis for the new legitimacy of power. EPRDF also failed because its assumption which says legitimacy will come from achieving economic development didn’t work and the demand for democracy increased.

Out of the three demands which challenged the Ethiopian feudal system, namely, equality, liberty, and fraternity, the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution which tried to address the question of land holding (economic question) and the 1991 Revolution which tried to address the questions of nations and nationalities focused only on “equality”. The demands for liberty and fraternity didn’t get the necessary attentions. Even though there are still demands for equality, the main reasons for the continuous instability in Ethiopia are absence of the values of liberty and fraternity. I agree with the assessment of the Author in this regard.

In this chapter, the Author discussed the concepts of direct and representative democracy as well as the concepts of majority vote and consensus. He also briefly touched upon the arguments which are promoted by the so called “civic nationalist group” which says “if individual rights are respected, group rights will be respected  automatically” and by the so called “social nationalist group” which says “if group rights are respected, individual rights will be respected automatically”  and criticized both for failing to give balanced attention for manmade and system-made oppressions. He said both civic nationalists and social nationalists are trying to treat one disease with the medicine made for another disease.

According to the Author, the solution for eradicating oppressions and achieving equality, liberty, and fraternity is implementing “Medemer Democracy” which balances civic nationalism and social nationalism as well as uses consensus democracy by loosening the tension among the elites of different ethnic groups. In his opinion, Medemer Democracy which he said is based on the Ethiopian values and cultures can solve Ethiopian problems. He said the end goal of Medemer Democracy is to build Ethiopia in which democracy will be based on developed civic culture and competition of ideas and where there will be no more contradiction between democracy and the very existence of the country.

The effort to change Revolutionary Democracy to Medemer Democracy and transforming Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) to Ethiopian People Medemer Democratic Front (EPMDF)  formally known as Prosperity Party (PP) is underway.  You can read the political program of Prosperity Party which is based on Medemer Democracy here https://addisstandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Exclusive-Prosperity-Party-Regulation.pdf. If the Author really believes that Ethiopia shouldn’t be a laboratory where different ideas will be tested, I wonder why he wanted to test Medemer Democracy on Ethiopia.

Chapter Seven: The Challenge to Affirm the Legitimacy of the State (Pages 109-125)

According to the Author, legitimacy of state means where the people or the elites consider that the state is their representative that can implement their needs. When there is legitimacy of the state, the citizens will accept that state is the only legitimate entity that can use physical force. He says, the legitimacy of state comes from the consensus of elites because the state that doesn’t have the acceptance of elites will not get acceptance from the people.  In addition, he says the political elites have different stories and interpretations about what happened during the formation of Ethiopia and because of that there will be instabilities and conflicts. Thus, the works which are underway to solve the chaos related to the formation of the state cannot bring lasting solution but may bring quick answers to the problems.

The Author argues that the reason why nationalism has become noticeable in Ethiopia is because of the existence of national oppression. When there is oppression based on identity, people rally around identity politics.

The Author reiterated the fact about the formation of Ethiopian state at the end of 19^th century through expansion from north to south. This expansion is seen by some as colonialism, by some as national oppression, and by others as state building (page 115). Ethiopia’s state building has been followed assimilation policy and remains suspended or half done.  Because of that, it has been a point of debate among the elites of the country. Ethiopian state building partly gave birth to civic nationalism because it was half built and on the other hand created social nationalists because it was an aborted endeavor. This made Ethiopian politics to be pulled between civic nationalists and social nationalists. (If you are interested to know more about nationalism in Ethiopia read the article I posted on this subject and available here:  http://www.aigaforum.com/article2019/Nationalism-in-Ethiopia.htm)

The Author argues that the way Ethiopian state built and the identity politics associated with the way it was built created negative attitude against the legitimacy of the Ethiopian state. Because of that, the value of common identity has been eroded from time to time and there is no common stance even on the main national issues. The tension between civic nationalists and social nationalists reached at the point where it posed the danger of ripping  the country into pieces and leading the peoples in the country to another endless war.

According to the Author, to end oppression and build democratic Ethiopia as well as to make sure that the Ethiopian state has legitimacy, national reconciliation and consensus are necessary, and to make this practical, the existence of independent institutions are necessary.

Chapter Eight: The Formation of Free, Independent, and Capable Institutions (Pages 126-133)

The Author argues that even though Ethiopia was able to establish strong central government like countries in Europe and Asia, it couldn’t build a political system where supremacy of law and accountability are implemented.  Because of that, it has been suffering from lack of stability and backwardness. According to the Author, one of the reasons why the attempt to build Developmental State in Ethiopia  for the last 27 years was not successful is the limitation to build capable institutions which are the sources of strength for the developmental state. The institutions on which the state has based have problems of mixing the responsibilities of party and government, lack of capacity and independence, and not renewed with social and economic changes.

The Author identified two main problems of Ethiopian institutions: 1) weaknesses which came from patrimonialism/neo-patrimonialism and cronyism, and 2) conservativeness (lack of interest/willingness to change and modernize).  To form free, independent, and capable institutions in Ethiopia, the Author argues, changing the attitude about public service delivery, organization, procedures, and processes as well as reforming the civil service are necessary.

Chapter Nine: Changing the Political Leadership from Boss to Leader (Pages 134-143)

According to the Author, one of the reasons why Ethiopia didn’t  get out of poverty using her natural resources is the failure of leadership. According to Ethiopian traditional thinking, leaders mean a boss who has inviolable authority.  Unless the Author is referring to the Habesha culture which is hierarchal and based on Getoch (master) versus Gebar (serf) relationship, his generalization is not true. For example, under Oromo Gada system, leaders are not considered as bosses and the system doesn’t allow them to act like bosses.

The author explained the difference between a boss and a leader: boss is one who imposes his dreams on others by force and creates followers by force, but leader is one who creates supporters by convincing and positively influencing. He says to build developed democratic society, we need to get out of the boss mentality. According to the Author, lack of ability to create common dream, lack of excellence to control emotions, challenges to reconcile leadership skills, and group composition are the challenges of leadership in Ethiopia. He says ethnic representation is one of the problems of group composition which weakens merit-based leadership. He also says most Ethiopians are dumb citizens (fiz zegoch) who run after their personal interest rather than focusing on the interest of their country (page 142). His proposed solution for such kinds of problems is to have leaders who have visions, who can share these visions with their followers, and who can motivate/provoke their followers (yemineshitu). He argues, rather than eliminating the leadership capacity of the country, it would be better to build upon what the country has, to accumulate the dispersed ability of the citizens. I hope the readers understand that in this article I am reviewing what he wrote in the book under review not what he is doing as a head of Government of Ethiopia.

Chapter Ten: Building Political Culture, the Lasting and Reliable Solution (Pages 144-154)

According to the Author, institutional building by itself is a flesh without soul. The institutions will get soul only when the culture that can support them has been created. Human beings have the ability to twist nature let alone other things. Therefore, unless democratic culture is developed, there is nothing that can stop human beings from twisting the independent institutions and make them means of oppression. He argues that the reason why some countries who built independent institutions and more or less held free and fair elections face vicious circles of conflict is because of lack of developed political culture.

The Author argues that building democratic culture at country level is a complex task that requires higher level of struggle and long time. Democracy requires civic culture and civic culture is strongly linked to all rounded economic and social developments. He says people whose economic and social developments are at the low level, can’t get out of the competition of regional interests and they are strangers to the competition based on ideas. According to this conclusion, the competition between South and North Italy, the questions of Catalonia, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Quebec are because of their backwardness.

He says less developed peoples are busy with narrow agenda and focus on material things and not suitable for the democratic system based on the competition of ideas. According to the Author, civic culture is not being careless about politics and following up of international politics and decisions. In the civic culture, refusal, being stranger, and carelessness have no places. It requires following up of politics and participating in politics. Civic culture is a culture where the citizens get out of regional agenda and competition for ethnic interest and concerned with country wide political direction and decision.

It is interesting that under Medemer philosophy, discussing grass root problems is considered as backwardness and being concerned about international politics shows the degree of civilization. Internationalism which was condemned in part one of Medemer is appreciated in this part two of the book. Part three of the book may tell us even more interesting things.

PART III: THE FRACTURE OF ETHIOPIAN ECONOMIC SYSTEM AND ITS MAINTENANCE OPTION

Chapter Eleven: The Achievements of Ethiopian Economy and The Challenge of Quality of Development (Pages155-164)

In this chapter, the Author recognized the economic development and social change achieved in Ethiopia in the last twenty eight years. He says,  the gross domestic product which was $7.9 billion dollars in 1991 was increased to $84.4 billion dollars in 2018, which is more than ten-fold. The number of population living below poverty line which was 44.2 % in 2000 reduced to 23.5% in 2016. The per capita income which was $164 in 1993 increased to $883 dollars in 2018 and average life expectancy which was 47 years in 1980s increased to 65 years in 2017. He also says the education coverage has been increased.

According to the Author, the achievements in the economic and social sectors happened mainly as a result of public investment in social services and physical infrastructures. The conducive international political environment also created an opportunity for the economic and social development of Ethiopia. As a result, Ethiopia got huge amounts of foreign aid and loans. The finance collected by domestic banks also supported the development of Ethiopia. However, he says, the economic and social developments have problems of quality. He listed high cost of living, unemployment, mismatch of saving and interest for investment, mismanagement of public projects, weaknesses in export sector and shortage of foreign exchange, budget deficit; slowness in structural transformation, contrabands, and illegal trades as a symptoms of lack of quality of the development.

The Author identified two main symptoms of what he said the disease of Ethiopian economy: (1) lack of fair benefit from the development (large gaps in wealth and income among the citizens) and (2) macro-economic problems (budget deficit, debt burden, mismatch of saving and investment, problem of trade balance, and shortage of foreign exchange).

In economics, there is a theory of immiserizing growth proposed by Indian-born American economist Dr. Jagdish Bhagwati in 1958. The immiserizing growth theory refers to the situation where economic growth could result in a country being worse off than before the growth. According to this theory, the economic growth may bring about an increase in level of production in the growing economy and the wealth effect may even be positive but there can be a decline in the welfare of the nation and the lives of the majority may become worse off than before. In other words, the economic growth makes people more miserable. This may happen because various reasons including the deterioration in the terms of foreign trade.  Even though the Author didn’t refer to this theory, his argument show that the economic growth achieved in the last 28 years in Ethiopia was immiserizing growth where few got the benefit and the majority became more miserable. Validating or refuting this argument requires detail research.

Chapter Twelve: Causes of Fracture of the Economic System (Pages 165-196)

According to the Author, there are three causes of fracture of the Ethiopian economic system. These are:

1. Inadequacy of Market– Inadequacy of market happens in the market led economy where goods and services do not follow the principles of supply and demand. The inadequacy of market in Ethiopia is related to weak private sector, lack of productivity, competitiveness, and profitability. To correct the inadequacy of market, the government needs to take policy and control measures. The author says government must not leave the economy to the market; rather the government must continue interfering in the market in selected and strategic areas.
2. Inadequacy of Government– Inadequacy of government is related to the problems caused by a government either when it interferes in the market and makes mistakes or when it fails to discharge its responsibility because of negligence and imbalance of production and distribution of wealth happened. The monetary and fiscal policies that government uses may  positively or negatively affect the way market operates and the way wealth is distributed. The Author says the illegal relationship between business persons and high government officials, in other words, corruption and favoritism which he call theft, and government intervention in the market are the two main inadequacies of Government.
3. Inadequacy of System– According to the Author, establishing a system is about establishing rules of the game. He says per Medemer’s understanding, lasting and healthy economic development will be achieved with the participation of government, private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and education institutions. It seems that the idea of private sector-led economic development which brought proven economic development in the Western world has not been appreciated by Medemer. Medemer wants the collaboration and coordination of what it calls the main actors of the economy: government, private sector, NGOs, and education institutions.

According to the Author, the fractures of Ethiopian economy will be treated by fully utilizing the capacities of the economic actors (education institutions, NGOs/civic organizations, government, and private sector) and by using the principle of Medemer. Out of these actors, the Author considers government as the main force of development (page 189).

Chapter Thirteen: Forces of Production As Potential of the Country (Pages 197-215)

According to the Author, forces of production- human resources, natural resources, financial and physical capital- are the potential of the country. However, unless there is accountable system which protects these inputs from embezzlement, their existence alone cannot increase productivity. That is why the lives of citizens of some of the countries which have rich natural resources like petroleum worsen rather than improving. He also says the existence of good management alone doesn’t lead to prosperity. The development of the potential of a country depends more on the forces of production rather than on the management efficiency. Especially, natural resources and labor have significant contributions for prosperity.

The Author regurgitates EPRDF’s approach to achieving development through Agricultural Development Led Industrialization (ADLI), which mainly focuses on harnessing the three available resources- land, water, and labor- and then transforming to industrial development.

He says, following the land policy which came as a result of “land to the tiller”, an increase in the number of population happened in 1960-1985 Ethiopian Calendar (page 198). The proclamation to provide for the public ownership of rural lands of Ethiopia was issued in Yekatit 1967 Ethiopian Calendar(on March 4, 1975). Therefore, the statement he made about the population growth either has factual error or typo. In addition, he didn’t explain how the public ownership of land resulted in population growth. He also says economic development is the prerequisite for peace and security of Ethiopia (page 203). This is just echoing EPRDF’s policy of Developmental State.

The Author says the youth and productive manpower could be used to bring social and economic development and considers the number and composition of population as sources of national potential. He discussed the challenges to meet the growing demands of youth and weaknesses in the utilization of natural resources. In short, the Author’s perspective of economic development is not different from that of EPRDF. For example he says 1) Ethiopia should follow youth focused economic development otherwise the jobless youth will be disappointed and disturb the peace and security of the country; 2) agriculture is the mainstay of the economy and need to be modernized and made market focused.

Chapter Fourteen: Structural Transformation of the Economy as a Springboard (Pages 216-238)

The Author says the structural transformation of an economy mainly happens between agricultural and industrial sectors as a result of the movement of labor from rural to urban. He argues, agriculture is dependent on natural resources like land and water and applying technology and labor will not make its productivity to go beyond its last threshold. In fact, every production has a threshold where an addition of a factor of production results in decrease in the marginal output of a production, if all other factors of production stay constant. This is called  the law of diminishing returns and he didn’t explain what makes agriculture different from other sectors in this regard.

He says, the transformation of agriculture to industry is inevitable and that is why agriculture is called “growing mortal”. He also says, if structural change is to be made in Ethiopian economy, it must be made first in agricultural sector. This is another regurgitation of EPRDF’s policy because EPRDF has been promoting this idea and to this end established the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA)  in December 2010 which also serves as the Secretariat of an Agricultural Transformation Council chaired by the Prime Minister.  It seems that Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed is trying to sell EPRDF’s ideas by rebranding and repackaging.

Other subjects discussed in this chapter are:

1. The challenges of industrial development which are related to skill and productivity of manpower, distributions of factories, domestic market, foreign exchange, and competition in the foreign market;
2. Technological development which is related to equipment and tools, human skill, system and process, decision making, communication flow and storage; and
3. Building knowledge based economy.

Regarding industrialization, the Author recommends labor intensive and capital saving industries (page 221). He says, Ethiopia has large and inexpensive labor force but compared with other countries the skills and productivity of Ethiopian labor force is low.

According to the Author, 28 years ago the Ethiopian Government asked itself how to get the citizens out of famine and poverty, how to provide services that improve their lives. But today, the question posed by the citizens to the Ethiopian Government is to have a political economic system that can enable them to convert creativity and assiduity to prosperity. In his opinion, the backlogs of poverty could be cleared and prosperity will be achieved through Medemer philosophy. This implies the relationship between Medemer philosophy and Prosperity Party (PP).

PART IV: ‘MEDEMER’ AND  FOREIGN RELATION

This is the final part of “Medemer” book review which has been provided in four parts. Now a days, not only Medemer Philosophy, but also the sale of Medemer Book became the project of the Government of Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed. Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), Ethiopian Embassies, and other Ethiopian Government institutions are busy implementing this project (https://youtu.be/gGDNdVZXGh0 ). As the saying goes, “the request of the king is tantamount to an order” and it seems that everyone is working hard to fulfill the order. If the proceeds from the sale of the book are collected with the official revenue collection receipt of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MOFED) to go to the treasury and to be used for the procurement of goods and services for public purposes, there is no problem of investing public funds in its sale. Otherwise, it is considered misuse of government institutions and the time of Government employees. The process is worrisome because, in a country where the Prime Minister takes public resources with pinches, the ministers will take with shovels and other government officials with buckets.

Chapter Fifteen: International Situations and Their Implication on Ethiopia (Pages241-249)

The Author argues that forces and structures of international relations are volatile; the situations are in big change and revolt. He listed terrorism, migration, increasing number of international actors, and climate change as main changes surfacing in international relations. He says, the two main international issues which have significant impact on Ethiopia are 1) the confrontation of superpowers and the increase of actors of international relations, and 2) increase in populism and acceptance of ethnic based parties.

1. The Confrontation of Superpowers and the Increase of Actors of International Relations

The competition among the developed countries for political influence beyond their boundaries became one of the realities of international relation. America’s dominance which was seen after the end of Cold War is challenged by the emergence of other powers who are striving for geopolitical and economic influence. Transnational companies and non-governmental organizations (NGO) are also the actors in international relations. The Author says, the revival of Russia and the emergence of China are posing challenge to the United States and the fake news disseminated through Facebook, Twitter, and Google are posing challenge to other countries. He also says, the political situation around Persian Gulf and Middle East, the Iran-Saudi competition, the competition between Egypt and Turkey, the war in Yemen and the Nile issue have direct impact on peace and security in the Horn of Africa and around the Red Sea. American, French, Chinese, UAE, and Saudi Arabian military camps around the Red Sea and Indian Ocean and the competition of these countries to have friends in this region are also another challenges in international relations. Therefore, the Author says, these dynamic international and regional conditions should be given attention equal to building accountable, representative, and effective domestic political economic system.

2. Increase in Populism and Nationalism

The Author argues that the financial crisis of 2008 and the stagnation of economic growth and social crises that followed it resulted in increased populism and nationalism. Political organizations that accuse the status quo for political and economic problems and who want to change the existing system emerged. Instead of ideology, principles, national and international relations, populism and nationalism became the governing ideas. He listed Sweden, Austria, Finland, Denmark, Italy, Belgium, Norway, Mexico, USA, France, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe as countries where populists and conservatives won election. He says, the anti-immigrant and nationalist behavior of populists is posing challenge to the international trade and multilateral organizations.

He argues, the rise of nationalism and acceptance of ethnic based parties at international level have significant impact on Ethiopia. An increase in the numbers of political forces who rather than designing agenda which address the basic question of the people inflame grievances and hate immigrants is a challenge for the multicultural Ethiopia. However, the Author didn’t explain how an increase in populism and nationalism at international level create challenge to Ethiopia. In addition, it worth noting that Prime Minister Abiy himself is one of the populists who exploited the grievances of the people to mobilize support and take power ( http://aigaforum.com/article2019/Populism-in-Ethiopia.htm).

Chapter Sixteen: Medemer and Foreign Relation (Pages 250-267)

According to the Author, one of the sectors where Ethiopia built capacity without backlog is foreign relations and diplomacy. The good international works done by previous Ethiopian leaders can be huge capital for the foreign relations that the country is following. He identified three causes of war- greed, fear, and dignity- and said Ethiopia enters into war only for her dignity and used the battle of Adwa as an example that Ethiopia fought for defending its dignity. Ethiopia’s peace keeping role in Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, and Liberia and its role in mediation also increased her influence.

As the Author puts it, Medemer’s foreign relation depends on cooperation and competition. It will continue the basic principles of foreign policy of the country by correcting the weaknesses rather than starting brand new. He says our foreign relation should give priority to relations rather than for pursuing interest and problems could be solved primarily by renewing relations. Renewing relation requires one party to take the initiative otherwise they will be in “Hobbesian Trap” where fear leads to an increasing fear and then to conflict. He says Medemer does not agree with the idea of “there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies” rather it believes in the idea of “there is no such thing as friend and enemy”. He also says Ethiopia’s foreign relation will give attention to relations with neighboring countries with the focus on economic integration, peace and security and will assure national dignity which includes the dignity of citizens and having strong defense force (army, marine, air force, and cyber).  He also discussed the importance of being influential at international level.

EXIT (Pages 268-270)

The Author says Ethiopia got golden opportunities to start new chapters, but failed to use them and those opportunities were wasted. Now, another golden opportunity is in front of us- are we again going to waste or are we going to add the country and generation together and transform the country to the higher level? This chance is not what we usually get and, may be, this will be the last. Therefore, we all must rise up and write glaring history on the record. The Author tried to create sense of urgency to rally people behind his ideas. He also tried to convince the readers that this is the last chance for the country to see change.

According to the Author, the idea of Medemer is the conscious way through which we realize our common goals by exhaustively utilizing one’s ability and reducing wastage. It is a conscious way because it enables to reconcile principles with realities rather than leaving the problems of life to ideology. He says, if we follow Medemer’s way, it will take us to prosperity and civilization. If we are added together, we will solve our problems and ascend to the higher level. The Author concluded that the very existence of the country and the security of the people will be realized only through Medemer. In short, the Author is saying “my way or the highway”.

Medemer can be said a political roadmap rather than philosophy. It is a plan to allure unwary supporters. Time will tell if Medemer brings prosperity or poverty to the country, if it lifts the country to the higher level or douse it in the swamp of despair, if it brings stability or restiveness, if it unites or widen the rift among the peoples in Ethiopia.

In the 280 pages Medemer book, we find only one quotation on page 180 and that quotation is not done correctly (it is indented, in quotation marks, and in bold font and has no page number of the book from which it was quoted. Not using references and quotations and presenting ideas in the general terms based on assumption are some of the weaknesses of the book. In addition, one can observe that the author categorizes intergovernmental or public international organizations as NGOs (page 244) and he used incorrect timeframes (page 198).

The Author provided the list of books (bibliography) at the end of the book, but these doesn’t help the reader which idea is taken from which book or which idea is supported by which author. This diminishes the quality of the book and the credibility of his arguments.

I listened to numbers of panelists who tried to stretch the contents of Medemer to cover everything and make it one size fits all.   Even, I heard that the idea of Medemer came from Oromo Gada system and will work for other Horn of Arica countries too; but this argument is not true. Therefore, the readers shouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t find the ideas which panelists patched together regarding Medemer. The assignments of some of these panelists are to convince their audiences by hook or by crook.

===============================The End===========================

By Girmachew Alemu, For Addis Standard

Between revolution and continuity

Addis Abeba, December 03/2019 – Ethiopia is going through a political transition to democracy that began under the incumbent Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of four ethnic-based political groups that ruled the country since 1991.  Despite its authoritarian past, the EPRDF initially committed itself to transition to democracy that is open to all opposition political parties. After a few months into the transition, the ruling EPRDF fractured following serious political differences between leaders of the party who support democratic reforms and those who want to retain the status quo.

On November 22, 2019, the chairman of the EPRDF, Pm Abiy Ahmed, announced the decision to merge three of the four members of the EPRDF coalition to establish a new national incumbent successor political party named Prosperity Party.  Other hitherto independent regional parties are also expected to join the Prosperity Party (incumbent successor party). This commentary reflects on why the birth of the new incumbent successor party is a step forward in the transition to democracy and highlights three major issues (ethnicity, dealing with the past, and personal rule) that are crucial for the strength and stability of the new party.

Party and party system institutionalization

Ethiopia’s leaders pledged, among other reforms, free and fair multiparty elections in May 2020. Yet, the country is home to highly fragmented, volatile and weak political parties and party system marked by lack of party cohesion, high regional fragmentation, weak financial resources, and clientelism.[1]  Over the years, the ruling EPRDF engendered the weak institutionalization of opposition political parties through direct repression and indirect pressure such as inducing internal rivalry, and monopoly over state institutions including the media.

The weak party
institutionalization has in turn resulted in a weak party system institutionalization
which negatively affected the ability of opposition political parties to forge
strong alliances, connect and establish stable linkage with voters, shape and
mediate mass political negotiations, and
be strong contenders against the ruling party.[2] Also,
the EPRDF’s failure to go
through the transition to democracy in one piece and the political wrangling
between its leaders has exacerbated the volatility and fragmentation of the
party system and weakened the transition to democracy.

The formation of
the new Prosperity Party committed to transition to democracy is an opportunity
to reduce the volatility and fragmentation of the party system.  The crucial role of an incumbent successor
party such as the Prosperity Party in democratic transition may sound counterintuitive
especially because of its authoritarian past and continued dominance of the
political space. Yet, those are the qualities that make an incumbent successor
party instrumental in pushing for high party system institutionalization and
competitive electoral democracy.[3]

In the transition
to democracy, the incumbent successor party will apply its capacity, resources,
networks, and dominant status inherited from its authoritarian past to win democratic
elections. The process will have the incumbent shaping and controlling the rules
and institutions of democracy including party registration and competition,
electoral and democratic institutions with what Riedl calls the ‘unintended
consequences’ of pushing opposition political parties to have cohesion and
stronger alliance even when the rules and institutions are favorable to the
incumbent.[4]

Also, a strong
incumbent successor party in Ethiopia is highly likely to produce robust
short-term and long-term policies, programs and plans. Such clarity will help
opposition parties to forge a strong anti-incumbent cleavage and come up with
solid policy and program alternative for voters and their constituencies.  The absence of agitation of voters and
constituencies by opposition political parties for the May 2020 general elections
left with only six months shows, among other things, the confusion over the
incumbent strategy and the extreme volatility and fragmentation of the party
system.

Parties representing regional states of Somali, Afar, Harari, Benishagul Gumuz and Gambella have joined Prosperity Party, signaling the opening of the national political space to a large number of citizens who were effectively marginalized by the discriminatory political set up of the EPRDF that limited membership to ethnic groups represented in the coalition. Such move will enable the Prosperity Party to mobilize large number of voters and constituencies across the country. The broad base of the Party will contribute to the stability of the party system by bringing smaller regional parties to a common negotiation forum. Moreover, the policy will likely push opposition political parties to form strong alliances against the incumbent thereby reducing the fragmentation and volatility of the party system.

Ethnicity and Pluralism

EPRDF has recognized the ethnic and religious
diversity in the country. The accommodation of ethnic and religious pluralism
is a constructive policy that should be maintained by the Prosperity Party.
EPRDF has also directly and indirectly encouraged the formation of ethnic
political parties, a policy that should be rejected by the Prosperity Party for
many reasons.  To begin with, a party
system dominated by ethnic parties
like ours is not compatible with the idea of accommodation of pluralism
and democracy. Ethnic parties are rigid because they ‘derive their support from
an identifiable ethnic group and serve the interests of that group’.[5]  As such, ethnic parties exclude those who
cannot identify with the ethnic group they claim to represent.  In a multi-ethnic country like Ethiopia, the
proliferation of ethnic parties created ‘several one-party ethnic states’
generating an extremely fragmented and fragile party system.[6]  Also, ethnic parties offer little or no policy
choice for voters that belong to the ethnic groups they claim to represent. Studies show that in a party
system dominated by ethnic political parties, citizens ‘feel that they are
trapped in ethnic-party zones and that they lack the freedom to form and choose
parties other than the one or two parties who claim to represent their ethnic
groups.’[7]  In effect ethnic communities become hostage
to the whims of ethnic elites who obstruct political mobilization and alliances
on grounds that are common to all communities in the country.

Another strong
policy reason for the Prosperity Party to tone down ethnicity as a tool of mobilization
is its extreme politicization that went on for the last several years. It has
become common to hear ethnic political parties accusing each other of
‘anti-x-people’ policies and actions. Semantics aside, it is now clear that the
EPRDF led politicization of ethnicity has eventually created numerous highly
fragmented and volatile ethnic political parties that are bent on dragging communities
that lived peacefully for generations into violence.

Granted, ethnicity will continue to be a strong tool of political mobilization in Ethiopia as in most agrarian societies.  Nonetheless, the Prosperity Party has an opportunity to set a new tone on the basis of an ideology of tolerance and mobilize voters and constituencies across a set of diverse issues and interests including class, gender, economic, social, and ethnic cleavages. The strategy will enable the party to be a ‘bridging’ and negotiation forum for diverse set of voters and constituencies including the youth, civic groups and ethnic groups. [8] In the long run, the policy will induce opposition parties to come up with equally robust and meaningful policy alternatives rather than focus and capitalize on ethnic differences among communities.

Dealing with the legacy of the past

The EPRDF party
brand has collapsed. Paradoxically, the strength and weakness of the Prosperity
Party is closely linked with the legacy of the EPRDF.  The Prosperity Party draws strength from its
inheritance of, among others, the financial and human resources, mass networks,
and political, economic, and social achievements of the EPRDF.  Conversely, the Party carries what Loxton calls
‘authoritarian baggage’ from the past such as human rights violations, high-level
corruption, massive financial mismanagement and other undemocratic practices
and policy failures of the EPRDF.[9]  Loxton identifies four strategies of dealing
with ‘authoritarian baggage’ by new incumbent successor parties in the context
of transition to democracy: contrition, obfuscation, scapegoating, and
embracing the past.[10]

Contrition involves
a process of breaking with the past through acts such as the admission of wrong
policies and actions of the past, opening up the political space, and renaming
and restructuring the incumbent party. Obfuscation is denying the connection of
the successor party with the failures of the past while scapegoating is blaming
a few top leaders of the old authoritarian party for all failures and
violations. Embracing the past is a strategy that accepts and celebrates all
acts and policies of the authoritarian past.

The current government
has taken steps that are meant to open up the political space in the transition
to democracy. For instance, several political prisoners were released. Numerous
opposition political parties are allowed to operate in the country. In his June
2018 speech to the parliament, the current Prime Minster and chairman of the
EPRDF made a rare and historic admission of the massive human rights violations
that were carried out under the EPRDF. Also, the process of establishing the
Prosperity Party can be taken as part of a strategy of breaking with the past. Nonetheless,
these actions on their own do not forestall authoritarian regression. They are
rather first steps in a long and arduous road in the transition to democracy.

The Prosperity Party
should adopt a forward-looking strategy that openly rejects the excesses of the
past and, more importantly, guarantees non-repetition in the future. There are
many challenging issues that swing between inheritance and authoritarian
baggage for the Prosperity Party. For instance, while it is beneficial to
inherit the EPRDF mass base of members and cadres, it requires a lot of work to
orient and align them with democratic and rule based political processes and
behavior. Similarly, setting accountable party administration and building
processes such as transparency on party ownership of economic institutions, and
the state-party relation are challenges of the new Party.

Personal Rule

Personal rule is
an elitist governance system run by a strong man ruler and a handful powerful politicians.
Personal rule can stand on its own or can run through a network of institutions
including political parties loyal to the ruler.[11]  Personal rule weakens political parties by
making them subservient to the whims of a few politicians. Political parties
under personal rule are not only inefficient and corrupt but are also threats
to the party system and the consolidation of democracy. Personal rule is one of
the authoritarian legacies of the EPRDF that should be rejected by the
Prosperity Party.  The Prosperity Party can
curb personal rule by using mechanisms that limit the power of political
leaders internally and externally.

Internally, political
leaders should be committed to the objectives and programs of the Party.

In the words of
Bizzarro et al. ‘constraints on
leaders stem from the process of leadership selection, which in a strong party
favors individuals with a demonstrated commitment to the party, usually those
who have risen through the ranks.’[12]  Strong political parties select and socialize leaders
on a basis of a succession plan that takes into account, among other factors, capacity,
levels of responsibility, and generational time frames.  Also, the tenure of leaders in strong parties
is limited. Political parties with strong leadership framework are instrumental
in checking executive power even in the absence of constitutional limitations.[13]

Externally, the
power of political leaders is limited by the objectives and programs of other
competitive strong parties within the party system. At different junctions of
the transition to democracy, leaders of the Prosperity Party are expected to negotiate
with opposition political parties and their supporters to avoid polarization of
voters and the wider society. Such negotiations would ideally end up in
political compromise that should be observed by parties and their leaders. Moreover,
externally, party leaders are also constrained by the commitments and promises
they make to voters and their constituencies. Strong parties specify consequences
for party leaders who fail to meet the commitments made to voters and
constituencies.[14]

Editor’s Note: Girmachew Alemu is Associate Professor, School of Law, Addis Abeba University (AAU). He can be reached at ganeme@gmail.com

_______________________________________//__________________________________

Footnote:

[1] See Asnake
Kefale (2011), ‘The (un)making of opposition coalitions and the challenge of
democratization in Ethiopia, 1991–2011’, Journal
of Eastern African Studies, 5:4, 681-701.

[2] See
Scott
Mainwaring, Fernando Bizzarro, and Ana Petrova, ‘Party
System Institutionalization, Decay, and Collapse’ in
Scott Mainwaring (ed.),
Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay, and Collapse (2018, Cambridge University Press) on
party system institutionalization.

[3] See Rachel Beatty Riedl, Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party
Systems in Africa, (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp.1-5.

[4] Ibid, p.1.

[5] Pippa
Norris and Robert Mattes, ‘Does Ethnicity Determine Support for the Governing
Party? The Structural and Attitudinal Basis of Partisan Identification in 12
African Nations’, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Faculty
Research Working Papers Series, RWP03-009, February 2003, p.5.

[6] Robert A. Dowd, and Michael Driessen, ‘Ethnically
Dominated Party Systems and the Quality of Democracy: Evidence from Sub-Saharan
Africa’ Afrobarometer, Working Paper No. 92, 2008, p.15

[7] Ibid.

[8] Pippa
Norris and Robert Mattes, ‘Does Ethnicity Determine Support for the Governing
Party? The Structural and Attitudinal Basis of Partisan Identification in 12
African Nations’, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Faculty
Research Working Papers Series, RWP03-009, February 2003, p.5.

[9] James Loxton,
‘Authoritarian Successor Parties Worldwide: A Framework for Analysis’, Kellogg
Institute for International Studies, Working Paper # 411, June 2016, pp 16-17.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Jackson, Robert H. and Carl
G. Rosberg, ‘Personal Rule: Theory and Practice in Africa’, 1984, 16(4) Comparative Politics, pp.423-424; Mehran
Kamrava, Politics and Society in the
Third World (Routledge, New York, 1993), p.18.

[12] Fernando Bizzarro et al, ‘Party Strength and Economic Growth’, World Politics, 1-46, 2018, p.6.

[13] Ibid, pp.6-7.

[14] See Gustavo A. Flores-Macías, ‘The Macroeconomic Consequences of PSI’,
in Scott Mainwaring (Ed.), Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization,
Decay, and Collapse (Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 408-425.

The post Opinion: Why Ethiopia needs a strong incumbent political party in the transition to democracy appeared first on Addis Standard.

By Tesfaye Demmellash

The apparent reshuffle of existing ethnic-partisan groups within the EPRDF “coalition” into a single united political entity recently announced by PM Abiy came on the heels of the latest eruption of unspeakably brutal killings by Oromo mobs of scores of innocent Ethiopian citizens and the burning of churches and destruction of homes and businesses.

But no sooner had we heard of the supposed party unification than we learned of ‘opposition’ to it by Lemma Megersa, a top leader within the moribund ruling coalition. Evidently, PM Abiy had not secured adequate support for the ‘change’ even within ODP, the Oromo faction in the EPRDF whose Chairman he is, before attempting to unify the front as a whole. Unless, of course, the surprising but not wholly unexpected episode of “dissent” from the proposed change was more staged than real, the dramaturgic work of the shifty Abiy-Lemma duo itself.

The political theater, if that it was, might, perhaps, have been aimed at creating the impression that our dear leader Abiy ran into opposition in the Oromo partisan-tribal complex as he tried to do a good thing, to advance political, and possibly national, “unity” beyond the mere additive sum of ethnic factions. Who knows for sure about the Abiy regime anymore?

In any case, by all indications, the seeming reorganization of EPRDF into a “new” party, named the Prosperity Party (PP), is predicated on existing ethnocentric ‘constitutional,’ ‘federal’ and ‘kilil’ structures. And the continuity of structural conditions of tribal rule aside, ethnocentrism is likely to have ongoing spectral presence in the new political outfit, if such an outfit has actually taken shape and come into being at all.

What party “unity” means under these circumstances is unclear. It is not worked out in thought. The much bandied about notion of medemer does not here help much. Replete with sweeping analogical assertions, the nebulous notion has, strictly speaking, neither theoretical serviceability nor practical utility in resolving chronic polarization in Ethiopian polity and society, particularly in its present acute form of crisis of national-regional governance.

The attempt, real or feigned, at reorganizing the EPRDF appears to have been hastily undertaken by the Abiy regime to create the appearance that it is doing something tangible in response to the latest atrocities or, perhaps, to draw attention away from them. It seems to have been intended more as a distraction than anything else.

Largely symbolic rather than substantive, the ‘change,’ may be characterized as a short-run tactical move undertaken by the regime to deflect from itself broad public criticism at its inability or unwillingness to maintain basic law and order in the country and to bring about systemic change. By now, this pattern of simulated, short-term, crisis-to-crisis responses by the Abiy regime should be quite evident to the Ethiopian people.

It has also become abundantly clear over the last year and a half that every big idea that has currency in the existing pattern of regime verbal gestures or symbolic acts, like “unity” and the concept of “change” itself, is of dubious quality. It has little systemic, conceptual or principled significance beyond prettifying and aiding and abetting brute, killer tribalism that is foreign to Ethiopian national values and solidarity.

That Abiy personally has an ideological core may be in doubt, but his attachment to ethnocentrism, specifically in connection with the political project of “Oromiya,” is not so suspect. He has a stake in this project in common with other Oromo ethnoationalist groups and individuals, including Lemma Megersa, with whom he might have limited strategic or tactical differences.

So, absent effective movement toward structural change, Ethiopian national life would remain stuck in an interregnum between the blight of one (falling) ethnic dictatorship and that of another (rising) tribal tyranny. I don’t know if the nation had been through darker times than these. There appears to be no end in sight to the decay of Ethiopian nationhood set in motion in the revolutionary era, going back to the fateful Student Movement. Left unchecked, the decay could bring about a crisis of such proportions that could destroy our national life as we know and value it.

True to past pattern, the latest deadly upsurge of attacks by Oromo mobs on defenseless individuals, families and Orthodox Christian priests, was followed by a response – repugnant legally and morally – on the part of state authorities at both the “federal” and “kilil” levels. The joint response of Abiy, the Prime Minister, and Lemma, the Minister of Defense, both nominally government leaders of Ethiopia, was particularly indelible and noteworthy: they chose to speak to their Oromo constituencies, largely made up of supporters of Jawar Mohammed, leader of the Qerro mobs that committed the atrocities, rather than address victims’ families or the Ethiopian people as a whole. That was telling about where the actual “national” concern of the two leading Oromo political figures lies.

More significantly, in their address to an Oromo audience, Abiy and Lemma were incredibly unabashed in defending Jawar Mohammed, the notorious agitator who incited the mass killing of innocent citizens and whose personal “activism” borders on terrorism. In a shocking move, Abiy and Lemma thereby added insult to injury, re-traumatizing the Ethiopian people, already reeling from the pain and suffering inflicted on the nation by marauding, murderous Qerro hordes that are at the beck and call of Jawar.

Displaying a wholly unapologetic attitude, the ethnocentric duo publicly declared its solidarity with and continued support for its notorious ethnonationalist fellow traveler. The genocidal mob violence was repugnant enough, but what was doubly reprehensible was the Abiy regime’s defense of the chief instigator of the violence. Whatever his differences with the Abiy led system of ethnocratic rule, Jawar, along with his Qerro mobs, seems to function as a serviceable adjunct of the system.   

A couple of things have now become clear, if they were not already before the latest outburst of mass killings by a brutal strain of Qerro youth of innocent individuals and families, wrongly characterized by PM Abiy and others as  “clashes” between two  opposing sides. Clear, that is, to all but the least trenchant or most self-deluding Ethiopians.

Namely, first, there is actually no Ethiopian state worthy of the name today, no central government with honest intention and concern to safeguard the security, wellbeing and civil rights of all Ethiopian citizens. Parts of the existing tribal regime have in fact been complicit in the commission of crimes against humanity by Jawar’s marauding Qerro. Second, Abiy Ahmed may profess Itiopiawinnet with rhetorical flourish but his behavior has been patently at odds with his dissembling discourse.

In the troubling personal rule of “Negus” Abiy today, Ethiopia thus operates largely without a reliable or workable rule of law; fair and equal administration of justice is virtually non-existent in the country. This is not just my opinion; rather, sad to say, it is objectively observable fact.

The historic Ethiopian nation itself, and the lives of citizens and communities in it, are in this sorry state in large part because, for the last thirty years or so, trans-ethnic patriotic groups and parties have been woefully incapable of achieving effective national agency or “core actor” status in Ethiopian affairs.

The sources of this puzzling and troubling incapacity, which continues to this day, are varied and complex. But at bottom, they have to do with the inertia or residual effects of the domination of Stalinist ethnocentrism in Ethiopian politics and national affairs in the post-revolutionary era. But a proximate, yet not so obvious, reason for the incapacity is the personal ‘leadership,’ or lack thereof, of PM Abiy Ahmed.

Abiy’s Janus-Faced Personal ‘Rule’

Abiy Ahmed no longer has the outsize personal appeal and popularity he enjoyed during the first several months of his tenure as leader of government in Ethiopia. Today, Ethiopians – citizens, patriots, spiritual leaders, intellectuals, activists, political figures, journalists, and others – have mixed views about the Nobelist Prime Minister.

To some of us, whose number is fast dwindling, Abiy’s now fading charismatic rule, still appears, recurrent crises and all, a welcome release from the perverse, colonial-like, divisive dictatorship of the Woyanes.  In a highly positive vein, the PM has been seen as a Moses-like figure that would save the Ethiopian people from national destruction. Abiy has shown himself as an innovative political thinker, a champion of peace and democracy. His latest act, or apparent act, of carving out in short order the PP out of the EPRDF seemingly attests to this perceived quality of his.

But to many others among the Ethiopian people, PM Abiy’s tenure in office has been nothing but a perilous and frightening breach with law and order, in effect threatening to plunge Ethiopia into disastrous civil war. While some of the nation’s mihuran still regard “negus” Abiy’s reign a fount of “light,” a source of enlightenment, to other Ethiopian intellectuals less enamored of his persona, the PM is a charlatan, a pretender to the throne, a prince of darkness.

Terrified of the possible breakup of the country on his watch and yearning personal and national security, a fast lessening number of Ethiopian citizens and patriots still cling to Abiy, some demonstrating belief in him that is suggestive of incorrigible self-delusion. They hold on even in the face of the PM’s persistent failure or unwillingness to maintain civil peace and to ensure fair and firm administration of justice in Ethiopia. They wouldn’t “let go” even though the PM engages in a pattern of conduct in which what he says is often summarily reversed by what he does and what he fails to do, or is simply untrue.

A particularly repugnant example of such conduct was the PM’s attempt to excuse the most recent atrocities committed by Jawar’s Qerro thugs by claiming that most of the people killed in the mob attacks were Oromos, a claim that is false or at least questionable. Displaying an amoral Machiavellian deftness, the PM played ethnic arithmetic with the deaths of over eighty Ethiopians, turning the victimizers into victims, the wrong doers into the wronged.

In so doing, Abiy also demonstrated the emptiness of the ideal of social and national togetherness (medemer) he preaches, specifically, his rhetoric that ‘we are Ethiopians when we live and when we die.’ His idealizing discourse is in stark contrast to the reduction by the Oromo partisan groups he leads of social relationships to that of “us” vs. “them.” In the hands of these groups, all political purposes and activities are largely divorced from any principle, meaning or concept other than that of assertion of narrow tribal self or nativist identity.

Understandably, many other Ethiopian citizens and patriots have lost faith in Abiy. They are disenchanted by the PM’s vacuous speeches and grossly offensive action or inaction, most recently by his failure to stand with, or show sympathy for, scores of victims and their families in the wake of the latest deadly attacks against innocent citizens in the Oromo region of Ethiopia.

Indeed, the Nobel Peace prize winning PM was conspicuous in his failure to condemn the atrocities and their warring perpetrators. Instead, he chose to do something that, on its face, hardly stands to reason in political, national or moral terms: He openly supported and fraternized with the extremist political boss of the depraved, terroristic, ethnic Oromo mobs, a man who is not even an Ethiopian citizen.

Still, while Abiy’s political stardom may have decidedly dimmed over time, the person of the self-anointed “Negus” still looms large in Ethiopian politics and government, even in the context of the recent purported reshuffling of the EPRDF.  Yet, in acknowledging this fact, we should be careful not to overvalue the role of Abiy, the individual, or to focus exclusively on his “personality.”

More specifically, it would be a mistake to continue to construe his rhetorical gestures towards “Ethiopia” simply and straightaway as a mark of his prioritization of Ethiopian integrity and unity over ethnocentrism. Such construal gets in the way of a good understanding of the essentially political role and function of Abiy’s personal rule. Namely, to maintain the existing ethnocentric system of domination even while attempting to revamp the crisis-ridden EPRDF as a ruling party.

Personal ‘leadership’ and Ethnocentric Domination

It is useful to look at Abiy’s personal reign as PM, contradictions and all, against the background of the (now formally defunct?) EPRDF system of rule, particularly in the context of the political crisis the EPRDF apparatus has been in over the last five years or so. Its founder, the TPLF, which exercised hegemony over it for longer than a quarter century, may have lost its dominant position. But essentially the political order the Woyanes created, with its twin pillars, the “constitution” and “ethnic federalism,” is still very much with us today.

It is to be admitted that the EPRDF underwent a forced loosening of its dictatorial grip soon after the Woyanes captured power with Western help, jettisoning its language of Marxism-Leninism in favor of the doctrine of “revolutionary democracy.” More recently, over the last five years or so, the party was compelled by social protests, particularly among Oromo and Amhara youths, to undertake internal change and reorganization, culminating in Abiy’s ascension to power in April 2018.

Nonetheless, the changes that took place should not be understood as a fundamental realignment of political forces in Ethiopia. They are better grasped as alterations in three basic senses: (1) they opened up space within the existing tribal political system, enabling PM Abiy to exercise power in a relatively freer, less rigidly structured, personal way and to carry out certain limited reforms on the margins of the system, reforms essential to its continuity; (2) the changes facilitated a reshuffling of the ethnic power hierarchy within the EPRDF, allowing the OPDO (ODP/OLF) to begin to take its “turn” at the top and, oddly, letting the TPLF ensconce itself in Tigrai as a petty tribal regime unto itself; and (3) they created conditions for extremist partisans of “Oromiya” to create and deploy at will the Qerro menga as a brutal instrument of intimidation, violence and terror.

It should be noted here that, often connected, populism and personalistic leadership, generally of the authoritarian type, can be used to fabricate undifferentiated “mass support” for a troubled political system seeking to reorient or “rebrand” itself out of crisis. This involved, in the case at hand, the EPRDF as a political party and PM Abiy as its emergent leader engaging in ritualistic “self-criticism,” (gimgema) producing narratives of ruling party problems and failures, in part echoing popular concerns and grievances and demands for change.

The purpose of such gimgema, though, particularly as articulated with apparent candor by PM Abiy, has not been to question the legitimacy of the existing system of ethnocratic domination with an eye toward transforming it. Instead, the goal has been to coopt or instrumentalize public discontent in the interest of shoring up and maintaining the decaying order by undertaking certain necessary reforms and by mollifying social demands for structural transformation.

PM Abiy has been actively involved in giving the EPRDF network of ethnocratic domination a new lease on life, tactically using his personal rule, his charisma, as a political tool of system maintenance rather than of fundamental change. He has been emphatic in his defense of the ‘constitution,’ portraying it as source of civil and political liberties and of the rights of “nations, nationalities and peoples” of Ethiopia. The party of “Oromiya” may have displaced the party of “Greater Tigrai,” but PM Abiy has had no intention of undoing the ethnocentric political structure he now presides over.

While popular protest and resistance against EPRDF domination helped end TPLF domination, it created an opportunity that can be, and was, utilized by the OPDO/ODP, led by Abiy, to assume the top position within the then existing EPRDF ethnic-power hierarchy. Not surprisingly, the PM insists on keeping in place the present political structure, specifically the twin pillars of the structure, the “constitution” and ethnic “federalism,” while conceding reforms on its edges.

In fighting for meaningful structural change against emergent Oromo ethnocracy and toward Ethiopian national renewal, then, it is useful to grasp the status and function of the personal leadership of Abiy Ahmed or that of any Oromo political boss who might succeed him. Such understanding involves looking at the leading figure on two distinct but interrelated levels: the systemic political self or actorness of the leader and his personal agency in the context of the ideology and practice of the ruling party.

The political self in Abiy’s rule is grounded in a definite structure of residual and emergent ideas or mindset of partisan identity politics. The personal in Abiy’s stewardship is the peculiar manner in which he individually exercises power (or fails to do so) while more or less operating within the existing order of ethnocentric  political ideology and practice. It consists of individual characteristics, among which one might mention his (now discounted) charisma, self-assertiveness, know-it-all attitude, shiftiness, and rhetorical ease and lure.

Regarding PM Abiy’s rhetorical facility and enticement in particular, one thing is especially worth mentioning, something that has had significant implications for the continuity of ethnocentric rule in Ethiopia after the apparent end of Woyane hegemony. And that is Abiy’s seductive evocation of “Ethiopia” through a recursive riff on our national story, in effect and perhaps also in intent, defanging historic Ethiopian nationalism. In his telling of agerawi tales actual Ethiopian nationality is reduced to a passive, toothless value consigned to a realm of pure symbolism and simulation. Drained of vitality and vigor, it has become little more than an adjunct of identity politics and state ethnicism, yielding to tribal reengineering without putting up much of a fight.

So Abiy’s relating of agerawi tales amounts to a rhetorical tactic of neutralizing Ethiopian nationalism as a base and force of resistance against tribal tyranny. Such pre-emptive counteraction through narrative overdose or saturation has had, then, its own paralyzing effect on Ethiopian patriotic agency, though the origins of the paralysis can be traced back to TPLF tribal divide-and-rule and beyond.

In this way, Abiy seems to have accomplished personally and openly what Woyane bosses, partisans, and cadres with all their insidious tribal scheming and treachery, could not do: valorizing the Ethiopian nation through rhetoric while in effect degrading it, putting the nation on the verge of disastrous civil war by periodically letting loose provocative, dark tribal forces of death, destruction and social dislocation against it. PM Abiy presides today over an Ethiopia in which long-lived sentiments of national resistance and affirmation have surrendered as pliantly to aggressive Oromo ethnic re-engineering as have the country’s territorial integrity and the autonomous governance of Addis Ababa, its capital city.

With his effusive speechifying on any and all subjects, talking at will about what he thinks he knows, Abiy is able to run political circles around our national values and democratic aspirations, denying us any conceivable means through which ethnocentrism in Ethiopian affairs might be effectively challenged in contemporary patriotic and progressive thought. Expressly following his own maxim set out in his writing, Irkab inna Menber, he “tells us what we want to hear,” and many of us still seem inclined to believe that the truth of Abiy’s personal rule is what we wish or imagine it to be.

The historic and contemporary national reality to which Abiy’s Ethiopianist rhetoric refers is plain and evident for all to see. But it should be clear by now that the rhetorical reference has a sub-text, a message hidden in plain sight, which requires a deciphering. Under present conditions of ethnocentric politics and misgovernment in the country, “Ethiopia” is coded in Abiy’s talk of unity and stability as an entity whose meaning, values, and cultural and institutional resources can be drawn off and placed in the service of the sketchy hegemonic political project that is “Oromiya.”

So we as a nation now find ourselves in suspended animation, as it were, barely alive and putting up only laid back, haphazard, often coopted “opposition,” while our very national being is under ongoing concerted assault from within. In effect, if not all by design, PM Abiy has lulled Ethiopian nationality into passivity by seductive, paralyzing rhetoric while Jawar’s Qerro mobs kill and maim with impunity Ethiopian nationals by sticks and stones.

In confronting demons, we should, as it is said, be careful not to demonize ourselves. However, we should also realize that a national tradition which has lost the will and courage to rise up and defend itself by all means necessary in the face of clear and present existential danger has neither the power nor the agency to save itself from destruction.

“What is the ‘Solution’”?

This question is routinely offered for consideration toward the end of nearly every episode of media chatter at home and in the diaspora concerning current, deeply troubled, Ethiopian affairs. It is often posed in interviews and discussions of varying quality involving the nation’s journalists, intellectuals, activists, political figures and other commentators.

And the answers are given often revolve around regime change, specifically on establishing some kind of “transition government” that would presumably pave the way for sorely needed structural shift. That is, a shift away from the present crisis-ridden, dysfunctional and predatory tribal state and toward a more orderly, stable, citizen-based, democratic political system.

Setting up a transitional government may be an essential short- or medium-term answer to Ethiopia’s current political crisis, a crucial intermediary step toward systemic/democratic change. But it is not a simple and ready cure for our national ills. It is itself a challenge for us to think up and enact effectively, given our decades-old habits of polarized, overly partisan, and formulaic political ‘thought’ and action. The abstract possibility of “transitional government” does not spontaneously translate into operative ideas and principles in the post-revolutionary Ethiopian context. We cannot assume that the notion has clear, readily understandable meaning or function.

The idea of “transition” also faces immediate, practical obstacles. The party of “Oromiya,” particularly the Abiy regime within and beyond that sprawling party, has shown disdain for it as has the party of Tigrai, which has become an isolated petty tribal fiefdom, a hermetic, garrison regime. On the other hand, the party of Ethiopia, consisting of trans-ethnic patriotic and pro-democracy citizens, activists, social movements, intellectuals and political groups, is sadly too disorganized and enfeebled to have significant say in the matter.

Fractionated, hollowed out from within, and coopted by the tribal powers that be, the party of Ethiopia lacks sustainable political agency and strategic nucleus. It is too weak to work effectively toward passage to a new, freer and more democratic political system in Ethiopia, too powerless to apply pressure on the Abiy regime or to enter into meaningful negotiation with it. This remains the case although better days may be in the offing with the impending transformation of the much harassed Balderas Council into a political party.

The entry of the Balderas movement into the political field in response to popular demand promises to be an opportune moment of change. For, after nearly three decades of crisis-ridden sectarian tyranny, uneven and corrupt development, and massive internal displacement of citizens, families and communities, Ethiopia today is ripe for passage from the politics of the ethnos to the politics of the demos. It is ready to transition from tribal dictatorship and personal rule to citizen-based representative democracy and to the rule of law.

The hearts and minds of the Ethiopian people have been prepared for transition to a new order by the moral, intellectual and political bankruptcy of territorially aggressive and expansionist tribalism, that of the TPLF variety and the iteration of the ODP/OLF/Jawar-Qerro network. The Ethiopian people expect and deserve a new form of politics that ends the present state of sectarian chaos and does away with impotent ‘opposition’ parties, meaningless ‘elections,’ feckless ‘parliaments,’ and perverse ‘law enforcement’ organs.

From a longer term vantage point, a major part of the answer to the query posed in the sub-title above lies in the response we give to a couple of more focused questions. Namely, first, how is Ethiopian nationality defined or what is the Ethiopian national self? And, second and relatedly, how should trans-ethnic patriotic and democratic movements in Ethiopia achieve effective national agency or reach the position of primary actor and doer in Ethiopian affairs?

These questions are predicated on the assumption that the ultimate “solution” to predatory tribal domination in Ethiopia is the rebuilding and reaffirmation of the Ethiopian nation. History has shown that Ethiopian nationalism can be a mighty force against external and internal enemies. Today, it can be a powerful current of resistance against divisive and destructive political ethnicism and a vital affirmation of the values and experience of national solidarity. In short, historical depth, cultural diversity, and patriotic resilience constitute the truth of Itiopiawinnet and this truth should inform the strategy which would resolve the existential crisis we are in today.

National Self and Political Agency

To Ethiopian patriotic and pro-democracy citizens, political parties, intellectuals and activists, it is unsurprising that selfhood may be attributed to the nation, that Ethiopia has “identity” or unique wholeness that is different from and greater than the mere sum of its ethnic or regional parts.

Historic and contemporary Ethiopia imparts a larger, shared national value to its diverse ethnic and cultural communities while in turn enriching its nationhood through their diversity. It is as such that the Ethiopian nation must be addressed by political parties and leaders seeking solve its problems.

So it is important to consider what constitutes the Ethiopian national “self.” It is important because evaluations of the political agency of patriotic and pro-democracy parties and groups are artless if they are unable to account for the contributions of Ethiopia’s nationhood, its animate national landscape, to the agentic vitality, capability and movement of the parties.

The Ethiopian national landscape is variegated and complex. It covers a wide range of forms and contents: the historical, the contemporary, the spiritual, the secular, the traditional, and the modern along with the revolutionary. It constitutes a fusion of multiple, interactive, dimensions that operates integrally without reducing itself to a simple unitary entity. This is the mystery of Ethiopia’s staying power, withstanding decades of “radical” assault, tribal predation, and particularly dark times as these.

For example, history prefigures deeply in Ethiopian nationality not merely as a record of past events but in the continuity of the past in the present, vitally informing, shaping and conditioning our national life here and now. The Ethiopian national terrain is also more than passive geography or territory; it is active in that it makes up a dynamic field of social forces and cultural powers, flows of historical and contemporary energy that could be tapped by patriotic forces today.

Modern, ideas-based politics has also figured, albeit with mixed results, in Ethiopian national identity, particularly since the revolutionary era. But it is worth stressing that Itiopiawinnet cannot be embraced or approached through political ideas, beliefs and aspirations alone. It does not make itself felt merely in articulations, or attempted articulations, of universal concepts (like “democracy”). It also makes itself felt in sense-forming lived experience and culture, in the immediacy and clarity of sentiments, images and symbols, in transgenerational collective memory. Instead of excluding or negating soundly formulated progressive thought Itiopiawinnet can, and should, incorporate it as its constitutive moment.

More immediately, addressing the Ethiopian nation integrally means listening well to its people as one national community, not a collection of disparate “peoples” and “nations.” It necessitates being actually attentive to their common as well as distinctive needs and concerns to the highest degree possible, allowing the people to express their felt interests and desires in a way and to an extent they have never been allowed before.

This means letting Ethiopia “speak,” revealing in her own voice the degradation of her national culture and spiritual and intellectual life, the unmet basic needs and recurrent social dislocation and misery of her people. This cannot be done through partisan-tribal politics as usual, in the language of the old and tired Stalinist dogma of ethnonationalism or in its residual terms and categories.

Matters of human and individual rights, social autonomy, and constitutional and federal government which hitherto have been handled in conceptually vacuous simulations, rhetorical gestures, and ritual practices must now be attended to in more thoughtful, principled and substantive manner. The Ethiopian people deserve nothing less than this from the nation’s intelligentsia. This means those of us who traffic in ideas must actually engage in ideation rather than limiting ourselves to employing universal concepts as platitudes, merely as tokens of rhetoric or habit of polemic. Instead of rushing to be enablers and apologists of the tyranny of the day, we would do better to make a good faith effort to exercise critical reason and live the life of the mind in a way attuned to the Ethiopian national condition.

With respect to political agency, what do patriotic forces and groups which make up the party of Ethiopia do? They work with the actual and potential powers of Ethiopian agerawi consciousness and culture, drawing out strategic and tactical possibilities of our national experience for movement and struggle under present conditions. In the interest of descriptive economy, the question may be better addressed here in terms of the following precis or summary notes:

1. Effective, and possibly hegemonic, agerawi political actorness does not take shape “outside” the Ethiopian national-social space; not wholly pre-given, it is an inherently interactive, relational performance and achievement. Core actorness is formed by participation in, and management of, diverse Ethiopian national contexts and networks and through various means of collective action and interaction. It takes shape and develops as an outcome of exchanges of ideas, resources and support, as an effect of negotiations, alliances, and forms of collaborative organization and leadership.

The contexts of action and interaction include localities, communities, institutions, flows of goods and services, economic relations, and cultural practices – fields or media of engagement that afford patriotic forces a range of actual and possible choices – within which they build autonomous actional capacity, strategic agency and networked national power. So it is only from its own unique base and point of departure in the Ethiopian national experience that the party of Ethiopia can develop and effectively exercise its role and function as core or leading political-national actor.

2. A “dialectic” obtains between Ethiopian national self, the historically real Ethiopia, on the one hand, and Ethiopia as felt, experienced, and consciously thought through political agency, on the other. The latter includes the experiences of citizens and distinct cultural communities of the country. But the former and the latter are better understood as having dynamic, mutually constitutive relations instead of being seen as forming a duality.

Our experience of Itiopiawinnet through (and outside or beyond) political agency is predicated on, and contains as its essential substantive moment, the actual, objective Ethiopian nation in its historic unity and integrity. So the experience is not merely subjective. But political activity and movement cannot simply be attached to an entirely pre-given Ethiopia whose national being is totally at hand, something formed once and for all. This is particularly the case in dark times like these when the “givenness” of the nation is in doubt, when the nation is facing existential crisis.

But, crisis or not, Ethiopia is historically given not only in actuality but also in potentia, as a nation which is yet to be developed and perfected, as an ongoing performance as well as an achievement. The country contains within itself the possibility of a broader and deeper realization of national self and value. But, even as actually existent nation, Ethiopia gains life and spirit within the active participation of its citizens and cultural communities in its affairs.

So patriotic and democratic forces in the country should take a correspondingly dynamic form of political agency that would allow them relative openness to the vitality and diversity of the Ethiopian national terrain. They need to develop a broader and deeper collective self that creates national and structural order beyond embodying partisan or tribal interests and projects. They should assume the form of an integral power that is capable of integrating others even as it opens itself up to them. And this means approaching the Ethiopian national landscape not as a passive social space devoid of self-organized activity and agency, but a vital terrain of movement and struggle marked by the intersection or contention of various socio-economic, cultural, institutional and political forces.

3. There is, however, tension between spirited, substantive Ethiopian nationhood – our common, sensuous national culture and lived experience – on the one hand, and the grudging, rhetorically simulated, merely tactical and instrumental embrace of “Ethiopia” characteristic of avatars of ethnonationalism, particularly leaders of the ODP/OLF led by the likes of Lemma Megersa, Abiy Ahmed and Jawar Mohammed and, of course, Woyane bosses, partisans and ideologues.

In so instrumentalizing “Ethiopia” to the ends of identity politics, Oromo ethnocentric ‘elites’ led by PM Abiy have been exercising state power using overly calculated Ethiopian narratives whose influence stems more from the surface of rhetorical enticement – with which they initially seduced citizens – than from a deeply felt telling of the veritable story of our tans-ethnic national life.

Little surprise, then, that communicative emphasis on hypnotic verbal surface resulted in in a torrent of speeches that initially captured Ethiopian public imagination but failed to keep the Ethiopian people politically intrigued and supportive. Itiopiawinnet has been given pride of place in high minded discourse yet, paradoxically, Ethiopian national experience has remained, on Abiy’s watch, actually marginalized, degraded, and impoverished in the context of “federal” state ethnicism and alongside insular “kilil” regimes, complete with their own tribal territories, militias, captive constituencies, working languages, flags, and so on.

4. Over the last nearly thirty years, an exceptionally perverse “progressivist” trend in Ethiopian politics and government promoted the conceit of “self-determining” ethnonationality, elevating first the TPLF and now the ODP/OLF to a position of predatory tribal state power essentially disconnected from, and hostile to, the historic Ethiopian national experience. Whatever its differences in political style or substance with TPLF tyranny, the sketchy Abiy regime is basically an emanation of that trend.

The initial step contemporary patriotic forces and groups need to take in undoing this condition and in rehabilitating Itiopiawinnet is somehow to let the nation itself define its problems and possibilities,  express anew its interests and concerns, its hopes and fears. This means empowering the Ethiopian people to speak in their own shared as well as diverse voices, not in residual Stalinist partisan language and reason, the terms, categories and arguments of ethnonationalism on Ethiopia. It means allowing or enabling the nation to regain its life and experience after being entangled and stunned in the web of TPLF “revolutionary democracy” and after undergoing a state of suspended animation through Abiy’s tactical appropriation of Ethiopian national storytelling and propagation of the indistinct yet alluring notion of “medemer.”

5. Finally, in developing itself, patriotic political agency should maintain firm commitment and ties to Ethiopian national unity and integrity not only as a matter of principle or intrinsic value but also as a strategic imperative. Why? For at least two related reasons.

First, because Ethiopian solidarity is necessary in order to carry out peaceful systemic transition in uncertain times of political change, turbulence and crisis such as these. The times require robust stabilization by shared national interests, goals and commitments.

Put differently, there can be no stable and lasting passage to a new, more democratic political system in Ethiopia unless there is a vital national whole that is preserved and secured as a source of stability even as change of political order takes place. National unity is essential as a counterpoint to the uncertainties of transition and change and as a way to mitigate the risks of civil strife in the country.

Second, maintaining Ethiopian national integrity and solidarity is also necessary as a condition of addressing broader structural issues and problems of development and underdevelopment the Ethiopian people commonly face regardless of their ethnic, cultural or regional differences.

Given underlying challenges of Ethiopian socio-economic underdevelopment, what matters fundamentally is not so much the actorness or “self-determination” of this or that ethnic community in the country as the creation of structural conditions of broader, more powerful social action across narrow tribal identities and limited reginal boundaries. What is developmentally of greater significance is transforming the economic, technological, institutional, cultural and political contexts of individual and social agency in Ethiopia. And Ethiopia’s integral continuity and development in the interest of all its citizens is both a basis and an effect of such transformation.

tesfayedemmellash@gmail.com

In an opinion piece published on December 6, 2019, on Aljazeera titled ‘Why Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party could be bad news for Ethiopia’ Awol Allo seems to fear the formation of the new party will bring the country ‘to the edge of an abyss’.

Going through the article, one hardly finds substantive reasoning for making such an alarming prediction solely based on the formation of a new political party,( curious why Awol labels it as Abiy’s party) by the ruling EPRDF party in Ethiopia.

By Awol’s own account the party being replaced i.e. the EPRDF ‘has always been a hodgepodge of ethnic groups that served the interests of its most dominant member, the TPLF, and ruled Ethiopia with an iron fist for nearly three decades’.

If indeed this was the case, Awol should be congratulating the new party, for breaking out of the shackle, bringing along marginalized ‘partner parties’ as full-fledged members and forming an inclusive party on the ashes of EPRDF, rather than making the dark prediction because of its formation.

Again, if in Awol’s view the new party is being mainly supported by a ‘diminishing block’ of Ethiopian nationalists with a very slim likelihood of winning a free and democratic election, why worry so much?

But as it becomes clear in the article, Awol’s fear lays somewhere else. Awol seems to believe that the only viable form of political mobilization and or organization ought to be based on ethnic identity, and is a bit upset because the new party is being supported by Ethiopian nationalists. Despite his claim that Ethiopian nationalists are a ‘diminishing block’, Awol fully knows that is not the case, and therein lies his fear.

I must acknowledge that there are some fringe elements with no serious political standing on the ground that might harbor, what Awol calls ‘fixation on a homogenizing conception of unity’, but to attempt to conflate these elements with Ethiopian nationalists is being dishonest. Political calculus can not be based by using fringe elements as core variables, but by considering all and especially main prevailing currents.

Awol might be too young to remember, but the prevailing form of political mobilization and organization in Ethiopia prior to, during and after the 1974 revolution was on a multinational basis until these forces were decimated by mistakes made, and but also, mainly by the diabolical actions taken by the Derg regime against them.

Granted, the atrocities of the Derg coupled with TPLF’s relentless campaign of destroying multinational organizations in the past 27 years ( as the late Meles used to say, ‘we will wait until they sprout and get on their feet and then cut them down!) make it seems, for uncritical observers, that the Ethiopian political field is only the playground of ethno nationalists. That I had not expected from a seasoned observer as Awol.

Ethiopian nationalism is a nationalism forged by millions who sacrificed for the preservation of the nation in the fight against foreign invaders, but also by hundreds of thousands who sacrificed their lives in the fight for equality, justice and the rule of law and it will prevail.

Abegaz Wondimu

By Ermias Hailu/December 6, 2019

After Egypt’s failure to integrate Eritrea to its territories by the end of the second world war, due to Emperor Haile Selassie’s superior diplomatic skills, the then Egyptian Pan- Arab nationalistic President Nasser’s government turned to ethnic and religious subversion against Ethiopia. In 1955 Egypt began working for the instigation of an “Arab” revolution in the then autonomous Ethiopian province Eritrea, to that effect, hundreds of young Muslims from Eritrea were invited to Cairo to study and enjoy special benefits. Though, the Muslims from Eritrea were not native Arabic speakers they absorbed the spirit of Arab revolution and adopted a modern Arab identity. Furthermore, these Eritreans Muslims were trained how to set up a modern guerrilla ‘liberation front’ and established the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in 1959 with the support of Egypt and an Algerian Islamic movement. Thereafter, the ELF launched an open anti-Ethiopian revolt in Eritrea in 1961, claiming and propagating a fake Arab Eritrean identity “The Arabism of the Eritrean People”.

To promote Eritrea’s liberation from Ethiopia, Nasser also helped local Eritrean Christian Tigrayans who resisted reunification with Ethiopia. In 1955, the prominent leader of Christian Tigrayans in Eritrea, WaldeAb WeldeMariam, was invited to broadcast daily anti-Ethiopian propaganda on Radio Cairo and the Nasserist regime and subsequent Egyptian governments remained the main pillar of support for the Eritrean separatist movement.

The myth of Eritrea’s Arabism, adopted and advanced by Eritrean Muslims, was to survive until 1980’s and the war in Eritrea that was instigated by Egypt lasted 30 years and caused untold human and financial losses both to Ethiopia and Eritrea. As of today, Eritrea has been a de facto colony of Egypt and has been used as a proxy war front against Ethiopia and it has been also the command post of those Egypt funded Ethiopian political groups who opted to ally with Egypt or Eritrea to destabilize Ethiopia. In a new development both the Eritrean government and the Ethiopian political groups who resided in Eritrea have been making peace with Ethiopia but how they will free themselves from Egypt’s standing agenda of “destabilizing Ethiopia” is yet to be seen. I doubt if this new development was possible without the blessing of Egypt and it could be an indication of a new covert intrusive strategy of Egypt to control Ethiopia.

No less significant was the Nasserist influence on the Somali nationalists and starting in the mid-1950s Nasserist agents worked to enhance the anti-Ethiopian dimension of Somali nationalism branded it as “Greater Somalia”. The Somalis encouraged by the potential Egypt backing claimed about one-third of Ethiopia’s territory and fought two unsuccessful wars that subsequently resulted in the disintegration of Somalia. The disintegration of Somalia and the subsequent civil war which has caused the scatter of Somalis throughout the world and death of millions of Somalis by war and famine and wastage of decades of nation building opportunity was a by-product of the failed Egypt destabilization strategy of Ethiopia using Somalia as its proxy.

Similarly, after Egypt failed to stop the British from allowing Sudan to declare its independence from Egypt in 1956, it has been constantly interfering into the internal affairs of Sudan including the Sudanese army staged coup d’état in November 1958, overthrowing the civilian government of Abdullah Khalil which had uncompromised and hard negotiation position on the interest of Sudan on the Nile river, in which Egypt friendly Gen. Ibrahim Abboud led the new military Sudan government.

The 1959 Nile water share agreement signed between Egypt and Sudan which gave the lion share to Egypt (78% to Egypt and 22% to Sudan on the net annual flow after deducting 10 billion cubic meters for evaporation loss) was signed with the Egypt friendly Sudan President Gen.  Ibrahim Abboud. Considering, the flow measuring point is deep in Egypt at the Aswan High dam and the annual hypothetical evaporation loss of 10 billion cubic meters, the share for Sudan is substantially lower than 22%. However, If the water share allocation was done considering “population size and arable land area” as factors, Sudan’s share should have been not less than 40%.

It is my expectation and I am confident that the new PM of Ethiopia will not make same mistake as Gen. Ibrahim Abboud of Sudan!!!

Though Egypt opposed the split of South Sudan from Sudan during the pre-independence war period, currently it is the main sponsor of the undemocratic and corrupt  President Kiir government and is prolonging the suffering of the South Sudan people with the objective of getting a foothold near to Ethiopian border to sabotage Ethiopia and possibly to resurrect its aborted project of digging the Jonglei Canal in South Sudan.

Therefore, due to Egypt’s standing strategy of securing the lion share of the water from the Nile river( under the pretext of ensuring water security) at the expense of more than 300 million people around the Horn of Africa, it has been obsessed in sabotaging the peace and stability of Ethiopia and  Sudan for more than 50 years and as the result the whole of Horn/East of Africa has been unstable and remained as one of the poorest regions in the world and major source of migrants to Europe , USA and elsewhere. Since the mid of 20th century, the Horn Africa has witnessed the death of millions of people, aggravation of poverty and wastage of scarce billions of dollars for a war that could have been used for development due to the behind the curtain destabilizing activities of Egypt

However, the Zero-Sum game that has been played by Egypt to ensure its water security has become unsustainable, out of dated and irrelevant for the following reasons:

Creating jobs and feeding the rapidly growing population in the Horn of Africa and in the countries of the Nile Basin demands governments to generate power for industrialization and to transform traditional farming to mechanized irrigated farming to produce sufficient food to ensure food security which requires more consumption of water. The domestic consumption of water also increases in proportion to the population growth.

The Aswan High dam only stores one-year flow of the Nile water, whereas, global warming and other unpredictable climate changes could result in a drought that lasts to the biblical-proportion of up to seven years. In that case, the Aswan dam could dry with unimaginable consequences on Egypt’s 100 million & growing population and makes Egypt’s current water security strategy null and void.

The growing population of Egypt also requires more water than the storage capacity of the High Aswan dam. That necessitates the construction of additional reservoir dams either in Ethiopia and/or Sudan (building additional dam in Egypt looks not practical).

• The Aswan high dam may be filled by silt within the next 300 to 500 years. How will Egypt manage such unavoidable fact with a huge population that is 95% dependent on the Nile water??? It is important to note that, dams built in Ethiopia prolong the service life of the Aswan dam by reducing the silt that goes from Ethiopia.

Considering the above points, it is obvious that Egyptian water security strategists, hydrology experts and the Egyptians government covertly want the construction of more dams (reservoirs) in Sudan and Ethiopia as far as their so-called historical share is not significantly affected. They also know that dams built in Ethiopia along the deep Abay River gorge could only be mainly used for hydroelectric power generation with lower evaporation loss and lower construction cost per volume.

Egyptians are also considering other sources of water such us linking the Congo River with the White Nile and digging the Jonglei Canal in South Sudan which are good ideas but difficult to implement. However, If Egypt succeeds to dig the Jonglei Canal or /and connect the White Nile with the Congo river, the construction of cascade of dams on the Abay river is mandatory to regulate its flow and avoid flooding of Khartoum, other Sudan territories and Egypt.

Therefore, Egypt’s strategy of sustaining its water security through sabotaging and destabilizing Ethiopia and Sudan is no more a relevant strategy as Egypt needs more water reservoirs to be built both in Sudan and Ethiopia for sustaining its water security and cater for its growing population. Hence, to sustain Egypt’s water security, storing water in the deep Abay gorge is the most attractive option as it could store more water at lower cost and less evaporation loss. However, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt should negotiate and agree on a win-win water share tripartite and bilateral agreements on how to equitably benefit from the Abay river.

Whatever plot that Egypt may try to sabotage and destabilize the main water supplier to the Nile “Ethiopia “and the main potential Nile water Consumer” Sudan” may not be effective now and in the future as Egypt is  economically weak and facing serious external and internal geopolitical  threats and the international community is also expected to put pressure on Egypt to abandon its bad habits of destabilizing the Horn of Africa and seek for a negotiated solution. In addition, the main neighbors of Ethiopia, including Eritrea and Somalia, that Egypt had been historically using as a proxy to destabilize Ethiopia are currently making peace with Ethiopia, most likely as they are fully aware of the consequences of being manipulated and used by Egypt to conspire against their strategic neighbor.

However, as a negotiating tactic, Egypt has been blackmailing the GERD and is launching a fierce diplomatic offensive to directly or indirectly pressurize Ethiopia, through the Middle East countries, USA, UN, The Arab League etc., with the objective of signing a water sharing agreement with Ethiopia that legitimizes Egypt’s claim of so-called historic rights.

The objective of this article is to forward some ideas for the Ethiopian government that could be used for the negotiation with Egypt as illustrated below:

The Negotiation with Egypt must consider the following points:

• As discussed above, the Egyptians badly need the construction of dams in Ethiopia as far as there is an agreement that protects their interest (this is a driver for win-win negotiation).

• Population growth
  • By the year 2050 and 2100 the population of Ethiopia will reach 190m and 240m respectively. Hence, any water share agreement should consider such future population growth

• The economic value of the water flowing to Sudan and Egypt:

• As of today, the annual flow of water from Ethiopia’s all rivers to South Sudan and to Sudan is estimated to be 73 billion Cubic meters. Assuming ocean water salination cost is USD 0.40 per Cubic meter (this is the current lowest cost according to new salination plants build by Israel) and assuming 25% of salination cost to be the price of each cubic meter of water flowing out of Ethiopia, the annual price of the total water out of Ethiopia is: USD 0.40/ cubic meters X 25% X 73 billion cubic meter = USD 7.3 billion per year

• Similarly, the annual flow of the Abay (Blue Nile) river to Sudan is about 53 billion cubic meters. Based on the above assumptions the economic value of the Abay river to both Sudan and Egypt is: USD 0.40/ cubic meter X 25% X 53 billion cubic meter = USD 5.3 billion per year

• Assuming Ethiopia is willing to share 50% of the annual flow free of charge to both Sudan and Egypt (based on the principles of equitable usage of water), Ethiopia could charge both Sudan and Egypt USD3.65 billion per year for all the water flows to the Nile. Considering Egypt share is 78%( as per Egypt and Sudan agreement), Ethiopia could demand Egypt to pay Ethiopia about USD 3 billion per year.

• Egypt that generates annually about USD 6 billion from Suez Canal, USD 13 billion from tourism and USD 30 billion from its agricultural sector is capable and should be willing to compenetrate Ethiopia in order to sustain its water security in a win-win manner.

• Egypt wants Ethiopia to curtail its population growth and continue with the existing unsustainable rain fed agriculture instead of irrigated agriculture (these conditions should not be accepted by Ethiopia). Considering the erratic nature of rainfall, mechanized irrigated agriculture is the only viable option for Ethiopia’s future food security. Hence, Ethiopia must secure its right to use the water from Abay river not only for Electric generation but for agricultural production.

• Egypt is also trying to unreasonably prolong the filling of GERD so that Ethiopia could not timely benefit from the dam and that must be resisted by Ethiopia. Filling of the dam is purely technical and three measurable scenarios could be agreed based on the forecasted rain in the Ethiopian high lands.

• Egypt is trying to hide the water share agreement in the “dam operation agreement”. It has been reported in the media that Egypt is proposing to Ethiopia to guarantee the GERD to release minimum 40 billion Cubic meter volume of water per year (volume to be measured at the Aswan dam in Egypt). This proposal is impractical, and Egypt is trying to deny the today and future Ethiopia’s generation their right to use the Abay river for agricultural production, which should not be accepted considering the future population growth of Ethiopia and as it contradicts water sharing international principles. I would like to emphasize this issue to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia so that he will not make any compromise on this issue and avoid the enslavement of Ethiopia’s future generation by Egypt.

• It is recommended to benchmark Turkey water share agreements and experience with its neighbors on Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.

• Any agreement with Sudan and Egypt:

• Should have political, economic, social, technical and environmental dimensions and must be comprehensive enough to cover all aspects.

• Should be conditional to both countries committing that they will not be directly or indirectly involved on any activity that destabilizes or harms the interests of Ethiopia such as security, economy and political interests.

• Ethiopia should be economically compensated for the water flowing to both Egypt and Sudan.

• Any agreed volume to be shared to Sudan and Egypt should be measured within the territory of Ethiopia.

• Should have exit provisions that enables agreed parties to revoke the agreement at any time based on defined evets of defaults.

• Should have specified time span and expiry date (it should not be more than 25 years). This allows all parties to renegotiate new agreement (from zero draft) every 25 years.

• Egypt must abandon its claim of zero-sum historic rights

• Ethiopia’s sovereignty over its rivers in its territory and its right to build cascade of dams over its rivers and to use the water for irrigated farming, without significant harm to Sudan and Egypt, should not be compromised.

• Egypt and Sudan must enter to a binding agreement to buy electric power from Ethiopia at international market rates with forecasted escalation rates.

• As beneficiaries from the water from the Ethiopian dams(reservoirs) both Sudan and Egypt must contribute up to 50% of the dam construction cost (assuming Ethiopia will give them 50% the water flows to Sudan free of charge).

• Must be openly communicated to the people of Ethiopia and ratified by the parliament. The fact that the agreements/understandings signed between the Ethiopian and Eritrean government were not discussed and ratified by the parliament of Ethiopia gives me a concern on how the Ethiopian government is handling and is going to handle the agreement with Egypt and Sudan.

• The Ethiopian government should resist any attempt by Egypt, USA or any party to pressurize Ethiopia to agree on one-sided water share agreement in a rushed manner sweetened with a one-time monetary incentive from World Bank and the USA treasury.

• If Egypt is requesting for prolonged filling of the dam and one-sided water share agreement without exit clause and termination period, there is no any incentive for Ethiopia to rush for an agreement while it is facing Egypt induced internal instabilities and with weak negotiation position. Ultimately, Ethiopia may consider or will be forced to delay the negotiation process.

• It is recommended to include the European Union, China and Russia to observe the negotiation process to avoid one sided pressure from USA which is the main strategic partner of Egypt in the Middle East. The World Bank has been also historically the supporter of Egypt and has denied Ethiopia any financing for all the dams Ethiopia built or building. There is a risk that Ethiopia could be sandwiched between the rock and the hard place and pressurized to give-in for Egypt for a couple of billion dollars grant from USA and World Bank.

• Ethiopia must resist to reach an agreement on piece by piece basis. Any agreed issues must be conditional to reaching comprehensive final agreement as outlined above.

• It is recommended that PM Abiy Ahmed meets President Trump and UN officials as soon possible to present Ethiopian case for win-win solutions. It looks Egypt is leading in its diplomatic offence and Ethiopia is critically lagging.

God Bless the People of Horn Africa and Egypt!

“Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war; That this foul deed shall smell above the earth.”

H.E. Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed is scheduled to formally accept his Nobvel Peace Prize and deliver his Nobel lecture at Oslo City Hall on December 10.

The media hounds are carping over the fact that PM Abiy has respectfully declined to do interviews, news conferences and others related activities in the ceremonial events.

Because he has declined to give interview, the grandstanders and showboaters are coming out of the woodwork threatening to “let slip the dogs of protest” into the streets of Oslo during PM Abiy’s visit.

A Norwegian anthropologist and director of Oslo Analytica, and self-proclaimed Ethiopia expert, by the name of Kjetil Tronvoll, has declared a personal war of words on PM Abiy Ahmed.

Tronvoll alleges PM Abiy Ahmed has refused to give press interviews because

he doesn’t have much to brag about after his first six months. There are great tensions in Ethiopia, as great as it has hardly ever been. By not meeting the press, Ahmed avoids having to answer difficult questions about the peace process, about the unrest in Ethiopia and what the growing fragmentation in Ahmed’s own party could entail.

Professor Doom & Gloom Tronvoll prognosticates:

Ethiopia is deeply divided between those who want unity and those who want ethnic autonomy. Many believe that Abiy now cuts off the branch he is sitting on. His power base is weathering with every passing day. If the election is carried out and there is a big if, and if it becomes a fair election, an even bigger if, then Abiy will lose.

According to one report, Tronvoll has threatened to lead a demonstration against PM Abiy during the Oslo ceremonies.

The gall, the audacity of a mercenary intellectual leading a street demonstration against PM Abiy and proclaiming Apocalypse in Ethiopia!

Tronvoll, who is today threatening to unleash hordes of protesters on the streets of Oslo during PM Abiy’s visit, was nowhere to be seen when the mass murderer Meles Zenawi visited Oslo in October 2011 and Ethiopian refugees in Norway went out in the streets to protest his visit.

Tronvoll, who is today threatening to unleash hordes of protesters on the streets of Oslo during PM Abiy’s visit was stone cold silent when the Norwegian government undertook a mass deportation program of Ethiopians  into the hands of the murderous Tigrean People’s Liberation Front in 2012.

Those Ethiopian refugees in Norway needed to be defended. They needed a voice, a champion for their just cause.

Many of them had lived and worked in Norway for over two decades.

Most of them were given work permits and allowed to live freely and work in Norway when they first entered.

Most had learned the language and adopted Norwegian culture. Among the refugees include some 450 children born in Norway and living in “asylum seeker reception centers” for several years.

These children attended school and many of them spoke only Norwegian.

I vigorously defended the Ethiopian refugees in my March 2012 commentary, “No Way for Ethiopian Refugees in Norway” from 5,400 miles away.

Tronvoll sat on his duff in the Oslo lording over “Oslo Analytica, a research and consultancy company, organized as a subsidiary of Bjørknes University College.”

Tronvoll did not organize street protests when the Norwegian Government subjected Ethiopian refugees refoulement (involuntary return) prohibited under international law.

Tronvoll did not pen an op-ed piece to plead their cause in Norwegian society.

Tronvoll did not lobby the Norwegian Government to cancel the deportation program.

Tronvoll was silent as the grave when the murderous regime of Meles Zenawi signed a MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING with the Norwegian Government, which provided, among other things, for the identification and return of individuals who opposed the Zenawi regime.

Today, Tronvoll wants to become the drum major of protesters in Oslo against PM Abiy.

Today, Tronvoll wants to mobilize protesters against PM Abiy who released all political prisoners and invited with open arms any and all Ethiopians who had left their country to avoid political persecution under the TPLF regime.

Today, Tronvoll wants to become the White Knight saving the Ethiopian damsel in distress.

What a two-faced, shameless hypocrite!

With all due disrespect, I am sick and tired of self-styled mercenary intellectual poverty pimps who try to steal the limelight and make names for themselves by tearing down progressive African leaders and proclaiming they are de facto leaders of the Ethiopian diaspora opposition.

Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass about intellectual snake oil salesmen-cum-consultants like Tronvoll, Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stigliz,  Alex deWaala and Herman Cohen.

I have nothing but absolute contempt for vampiric foreign intellectuals who live off of trafficking in African misery and merchandizing  themselves as “international consultants”.

Let there be no mistake: I will continue to expose these intellectual neocolonialists wherever I find them.

Media interview, weapon of mass media distraction or media ambush in Oslo?

A member of the Nobel Committee commenting on PM Abiy’s declination for “media interviews” said, “We strongly believe that freedom of expression and a free and independent press are vital components of peace.”

I agree with that statement.

The question for me is what to do when the independent press is more interested in infotainment than the advancement of peace.

It is said that there are traditional ceremonial press events associated with the Nobel Peace Prize including a news conference with PM of Norway, interview with members of the “international media” and a meeting with a children’s group.

The main event is the Nobel Lecture where the recipient shares his/her views and hopes for a better and peaceful world.

The reasons given by PM Abiy’s office in declining interviews are straightforward:

The Prime Minister will be attending essential and prioritized programs, agreed upon in consultation with the Nobel Institute, to honor and respect the Nobel tradition. It is quite challenging for a sitting Head of State to dedicate that many days, particularly where domestic issues are pressing and warrant attention.

I understand that to mean the PM is honored to be in Oslo to receive the honor. He will deliver the obligatory lecture and promptly return home because he has pressing business waiting for his attention.

Indeed, PM Abiy’s decision to decline press statements and interviews is consistent with the language and spirit of the Prize he received and especially Alfred Nobel’s intentions in his last will and testament.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee in award citation stated the Committee

hopes that the Nobel Peace Prize will strengthen Prime Minister Abiy in his important work for peace and reconciliation. Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country and has East Africa’s largest economy. A peaceful, stable and successful Ethiopia will have many positive side-effects, and will help to strengthen fraternity among nations and peoples in the region.

The Committee listed PM Abiy’s cumulative accomplishments in the cause of peace including his:

decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.

initiation of important reforms that give many citizens hope for a better life and a brighter future.

lifting of the country’s state of emergency.

granting amnesty to thousands of political prisoners.

discontinuing media censorship.

legalization of outlawed opposition groups.

dismissal of military and civilian leaders who were suspected of corruption.

increase of the influence of women in Ethiopian political and community life.

pledge to strengthen democracy by holding free and fair elections.

active contribution to the normalization of diplomatic relations between Eritrea.

efforts to mediate between Kenya and Somalia in their protracted conflict over rights to a disputed marine area; and

key role in the Sudan conflict by bringing to the negotiating table the military regime and the opposition.

The question is simply this: Is the “media interview” actually intended to amplify the accomplishments recited in the Nobel citation?

I shall argue the central aim is not to use the “media interview” to talk about peace but to use the “interview” as a weapon of mass media distraction about issues and problems challenging Ethiopia in its transition to democracy.

To put it bluntly, the media wants to use the opportunity to embarrass, smear, humiliate and dishonor PM Abiy Ahmed.

The schadenfreude media wants to rain of PM Abiy’s parade as he celebrates the great honor bestowed upon him.

To be perfectly and unabashedly honest, those who insist on “media interviews” in Oslo have ONE and only ONE purpose: Pour gasoline and stoke up the fires of controversy on the Ethiopian political landscape.

It is all so transparent.

Doomsayer Tronvoll has articulated the purpose of the media interview with crystal clarity.

The “media interview” will be about all of the things PM Abiy “doesn’t have much to brag about after his first six months.”

The “media interview” will be about “the great tensions in Ethiopia”.

The “media interview” will be about “the unrest in Ethiopia”.

The “media interview” will be about the “growing fragmentation in Ahmed’s own party”.

The “media interview” will be about “if the election is carried out and there is a big if, and if it becomes a fair election, an even bigger if, then Abiy will lose.

The whole “media interview” will be about Ethiopia going to hell in a hand basket.

It will be about keeping Ethiopians wallowing in fear and anxiety about their future.

It will not be about a peaceful Ethiopia rising from the ashes of a 27 year-long dictatorship.

It will not be about the hopes and dreams of the Ethiopian people.

The nattering media nabobs of negativism do not want to talk about peace in Ethiopia or in the Horn region.

They want to talk about war, an Armageddon in the Horn and imminent civil war in Ethiopia.

Whatever responses PM Abiy gives in an interview will be distorted into half-truths and spun to  generate even more controversy.

But “Hope Springs Eternal in Africa With Leaders Like Abiy Ahmed!”

I understand why the media is not genuinely interested in peace.

Good news does not sell advertising.

News about peace, forgiveness, reconciliation and love does not sell advertising.

Scholars and commentators have asked, “Why does the media concentrate on the bad things in life, rather than the good?”

Stories about war, hate, conflict, strife sell newspaper and TV ads.

“If it bleeds, it leads” the news.

Cynicism, pessimism and relentless negativism sell.

That is why the newsprint and airwaves are filled with stories about terrorism, crime , plagues, epidemics and disasters.

The media monetizes bad news and constantly pumps out information the world is getting worse  by the day.

That is the real story behind the campaign of the howling hounds to “let slip the dogs of street protest” against PM Abiy in Oslo.”

Embarrassing, humiliating, villifying and disparaging an African

Leading the march against PM Abiy, Tronvoll believes, will make him a hero to the Ethiopian people.

I have defended many hustlers in my legal career.

I know a hustle and a hustler when I see one.

It reminds me of the book, “House of Lies” and how management consultants steal your watch and then tell you the time.

I see no point in PM Abiy participating in media three-ring circus whose sole purpose is to trash his epochal accomplishments and churn out junk news, fake news and fabricated news about Ethiopia going to hell in a hand basket.  

I say, “Let the nattering nabobs of negativism, the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history” go to hell!

The Nobel Peace Prize ceremony should be conducted in the spirit of Alfred Nobel’s last will and testament

In his last will and testament, Alfred Nobel provided for an award to be given to “champions of peace to be selected by a committee of five persons tin the Norwegian Storting”.

He declared, “It is my express wish that when awarding the prizes, no consideration be given to nationality, but that the prize be awarded to the worthiest person, whether or not they are Scandinavian.”

Alfred Nobel did not state in his will that the “champion of peace” give media interviews or press conferences.

Nothing in Nobel’s will suggests he intended a three-ring media circus to be part of the celebration of the champion of peace.

Neither the Nobel Committee nor the “media” should be disappointed.

In interpreting a will, it is a rule followed, arguably universally, to give effect to the testator’s (will maker) intentions by reviewing the will as a whole and interpreting it based on the plain meaning of the words used.

There is no language in Nobel’s will that demands or even suggest the “champion of peace” to conduct a three-ring media circus.

Gratitude is the natural response to any gift and the Nobel Lecture is a natural expression of gratitude for the honor.

Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Champion of Peace will say his peace when he formally accepts his award.

I am not concerned about the cackling and braying media.

History remembers the Nobel Peace Prize for the worthy deeds of the champion of peace, not for the recipient’s performance before the ringmasters of the a three-ring media circus!

Five reasons why I agree with PM Abiy’s decision to decline press events in Oslo

A media circus inside a Trojan Horse

I see no purpose in being part of a three-ring media circus stage-managed by those who have a personal axe to grind with PM Abiy. Those who wanted to ambush PM Abiy in the “media interviews” are manifestly frustrated. They will not get a chance to embarrass him in public. PM Abiy has stated in good faith and in good will what he will do.

I say to the nattering nabobs of negativism, “Deal with it! Get over it! Keep moving!”

Shame on them for politicizing the Nobel Peace Prize

Alfred Nobel in his will wanted his peace prize to be as non-political as possible.

In his last will and testament, he wrote, “It is my express wish that when awarding the prizes, no consideration be given to nationality, but that the prize be awarded to the worthiest person, whether or not they are Scandinavian.”

It is manifest from the plain language of Nobel’s will he did not intend his prize to be politicized and trivialized. He wanted it to focus on peace and peace alone.

I commend PM Abiy for insisting on living out the manifest intentions of Alfred Nobel and not politicize the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony is the Oscars or Emmys

The way PM Abiy’s critics are talking, one would likely think that the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is the Oscars or Emmy’s. It is not.

I believe it takes away from the solemn purpose established by Nobel for his peace prize by making the award ceremony a media entertainment event.

Nobel’s will and last testament is stunning for its clarity and lack of sentimentality.

Nobel exactly knew the purpose of his bequest. His intentions were of the greatest solemnity and purposefulness. He wanted to leave his money for the betterment of mankind and the advancement of peace throughout the world.

Nobel did not intend his legacy to be global infotainment in his name.

Why not respect the wishes of the champion of peace

Those barking and howling at PM Abiy for not giving a media interview assert they have some kind of legal or moral right to compel him to do so.

They can criticize him all they want but they must recognize that as a champion of peace PM Abiy can decide whether or not to talk to them.

Alfred Nobel did not put a quid pro quo clause in his last will and testament requiring participation in a three-ring media circus in exchange for the peace prize.

PM Abiy could extend the media in Oslo the privilege of interviewing him. But he has the absolute right to say, “No!”

The Nobel Peace Prize is not a rite of passage

There are those who argue PM Abiy is breaking with Nobel Peace Prize tradition by not giving media interviews.

I think these people confuse tradition with rites of passage.

I am sure the “tradition of media interviews” in Nobel ceremonies is a cherished one.

But the howling hounds of “media interviews” seem to confuse with rite of passage.

Any self-respecting anthropologist knows rites of passage are rituals which mark the passing of one stage of life and entry of another.

PM Abiy is in Oslo not to go through the rites of passage and affirm before the court of public opinion that he is a peacemaker.

He is in Oslo to accept an award bestowed upon him for his extraordinary achievements and become what Alfred Nobel described as a “champion of peace.”

I say, “Hail the Champion!”

“Champions train, losers complain.”.

It is what it is!

PM Abiy has made his intentions clear. He is acting in good faith and in good will in his appearance in Oslo to receive his award.

I support his decision to abide by the language and spirit of Alfred Nobel’s last will and testament.

Those who do not like his decision can moan and groan about it until the cows come home.

Or they can take his decision for what it is and deal with it.

Get over it!

Afterthought

Let’s face it and be honest.

The green-eyed monster is eating the guts out of the domestic and foreign opponents and detractors of PM Abiy.

They just cannot believe how Abiy Ahmed came out of nowhere and did miraculous things in Ethiopia and in the Horn of Africa.

The windbag do-nothing, good-for-nothing pseudo-intellectuals keep jabbering.

The social media tsetse flies spread lies, disinformation and fake news to undermine his leadership.

His fair-weather friends talk behind his back.

There are so many people jealous of Abiy Ahmed.

What I have determined anecdotally is that those who are jealous of Abiy Ahmed are generally lazy, lack self-confidence and are losers in life.

That is why jealous people are a matter of mind over matter to me. I don’t mind, and they don’t matter.

Suffice it to say, jealousy is the cancer of the soul.

Those who are jealous of Abiy Ahmed better get soul healing.

I wish them, “Get well soon!”

Press Conference: 
“It is Time to Hear from the Ethiopian Minorities on the Current Crisis We Face!”
Do Not Forget:

They Too Have a Stake in the Shared Future of Ethiopia!
Eliana Hotel
Churchill Avenue, Piazza, Arada, 1000
Addis Ababa
Saturday, December 7, 2019
9:00 AM- 12:00 PM

The Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) will hold a press conference so as to give opportunity to hear from a panel of Ethiopian stakeholders from minority regions and/or groups. These regions/groups are commonly known to be “the others,” or under-represented in the public square or within the formalized structure of our government or its institutions.

For the last thirty years, the ruling party has included four regions: Tigray, Oromia, Amhara and Southern Nations.  The first three ethnic-based regions have mainly represented three of our eighty-six ethnic groups within Ethiopia, each of the three having a political party in the coalition based on the predominant ethnicity of their regions. Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ is the exception in that it is geographic in nature and home to some fifty-six different ethnic groups.

On the other hand; five regions: Somali, Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella and Harai, and two chartered cities, Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, have been mainly excluded from representation. Participants on the panel will come from these regions/cities and will share their thoughts on the present crisis we face as Ethiopians.

We may wonder what they might have to say about our current highly intense political situation that has given rise to ethnic-based and religious-based violence, killings, destruction and conflict? This is an opportunity to hear from them. As part of the body of Ethiopians, they have been highly impacted by conflicts among major players, as well as among others; but yet, their voices have been missing in the overall dialogue both now and in the past. What wisdom, insights and perspectives might they be able to share that could be critically important to avoiding a greater crisis in our country? What ideas and solutions might they contribute to improve the prospects for our shared future? What’s right?  What’s missing? What can we do about it? When the larger, more powerful members of ethnic groups are in conflict, those on the sidelines, “the others,” must step up to help. For whatever reason, they have been marginalized in the past; however, this is not what matters now. What matters currently is for all of us to find a way to live peacefully among each other.

In the last eighteen months since the seeds of change came with the emergence of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his administration, the minorities within Ethiopia have largely supported the new administration and the inclusive vision he cast for all Ethiopians. Since then, like everyone else, they have been hoping and dreaming for the constitutional and institutional reforms and meaningful reforms that would improve their lives on the ground. They are like the rest of the people. Unfortunately, under the ethnic federalism government, the widespread ethnic violence has led to the displacement of two to three million Ethiopians throughout the country, to a major slowdown on reforms and to the recent ethnic-based and religious-based targeted killing of 86 people, the burning down of churches and mosques, the destruction of property, including businesses and homes, and to the overall breakdown of the rule of law.

For example, instead of enforcing the law and protecting victims of crimes; some of the police have sided with the perpetrators based on shared ethnicity. In doing so, those responsible for upholding the law have instead become complicit, giving impunity to the offenders and becoming tools of injustice—or even a death sentence— to the innocent. Concrete action in response is still missing, causing volatile conditions on the ground that could easily boil over. In addition, both unemployment and inflation have drastically risen, leaving desperate conditions for millions of people. Food shortages are predicted as well.

This is a wake up call, warning us as Ethiopians that the country could go the way of Rwanda. With the rising ethnic extremism, what steps must be taken to protect Ethiopia from becoming the next failed state?

With all of this in mind, these minority groups and regions will not remain silent. We will have six speakers at the Press Conference on Saturday from Somali, Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, Harai and Dire Dawa. It is time to listen to what they have to say; not only as they express their concerns, but also as they contribute to the discussion as to how we might work together to address these challenges in a peace-building and civil way.

Currently, they have been encouraged by the proposed amendments to the previous ethnic-federalist framework which would be far more inclusive by including all regions within that party; however, that is not good enough. First of all, there is already unresolved resistance coming from within the party and we do not know the outcome. Secondly, we need to be thoughtfully examine what governmental structures will lead to the best outcomes for our country. This will require listening to different perspectives, open dialogue and careful examination to decide on the best way forward.

It is time for these minority groups to speak out and work for the betterment of all, believing they share in the ownership of the country. The basic premise for peace requires every citizen and every group to seek for others what they want for themselves. What is good for me is also good for you. 

We all have a stake in this. Truth is essential. The failures of our past should not be denied; yet, they should not be allowed to destroy our future.  How can we unify our country by what we have in common as human beings, rather than by what divides us unnecessarily, like ethnicity? We are more than this. 

We are human first, created equal by God, and by being human, we have a responsibility to care not only for oneself or for one’s own group; but, we are to care for others as well.

As humans, we are endowed by God with value, worth and purpose. God has also given us a conscience so we know the difference between good and evil, which should direct us not to kill, rob, destroy or commit crimes against others.

By being human is to be given a choice; hopefully, to choose to follow the moral, righteous way and to care for others. Why? It works for the good of the individual, community, society and nation. It creates the environment for human flourishing. Laws and enforcement are hardly necessary when it is carried in the heart of a human being. When we fail, we should attempt to correct ourselves and learn from our mistakes or wrongful acts or attitudes. Seeking forgiveness and giving forgiveness are a shared part of the human journey. These are God-given these responsibilities for which we will be held accountable in this life or the next. 

These minorities are now calling us to join the “I’m Human Movement” and to help prepare the ground for a harvest of freedom, justice, peace, stability, and human flourishing. Become the blessing you seek. Contribute to peace in our nation as we treat the person we meet as we would like to be treated.

These minorities will be sharing their ideas and thoughts at this press conference coming up this Saturday.  Following this press conference, they will call a National Stakeholders’ Conference for all stakeholders.  More will be shared about this.

May God help us at such a time as this to put humanity before ethnicity or any other differences; and, to care about others, not only because it is right, but also because no one is sustainably free until all are free!  Let’s start talking to each other, not about each other.

Please join us for a stimulating discussion!

For Information Contact:
Mr. Obang Metho,
Executive Director of SMNE
Email; obang@solidaritymovement.org
Website; www.solidaritymovement.org

Ephrem Madebo (emadebo@gmail.com)

On November 30, 2019, Awol Allo tweeted the following: “Lemma is not alone. In fact, there are very few Oromos beneath the ornament of the sky who do not see that the Prosperity Party is a highly problematic, unnecessarily risky, and untimely initiative” The following day, I responded to his tweet challenging him to substantiate his claim. Here is my reply to his tweet: “Risky and Problematic? You’ve said this so many times. Anyone can say the PP is risky, I don’t except this from you. I want you to spell out what the problems are, and especially what the risks of the new party to the Ethiopian people are. May be this can convince many of us” Awol stood up to the challenge and wrote an article on the Al Jazeera website. But, instead of substantiating his claims with facts and evidences, he came with more hearsays and stereotypical stories that the ethnic lords have been telling us for the past 40 years.

In his article to Al Jazeera, for some odd reason Awol argues that ethnic interests are represented only by ethnic parties, and according to him, multiethnic national parties cannot directly represent ethnic interest. To me, this is one of the weakest argument of Awol that vividly displays his intellectual blatancy of mixing facts with conformist beliefs and of course his hasty generalization. What is ethnic interest and what do ethnic groups want? Is there ethnic interest that doesn’t include economic and social interest, or put in another way, is there a group that enjoys economic and social freedom in the framework of self-administration and yet suffers from other types of oppression? These are questions that Awol should have asked himself before uttering his unsubstantiated assumptions as facts.

I do understand that some group rights need special protection, and there are group rights which are held by the group as a group rather than by its individual members severally (aka Group- differentiated rights). One of the most compelling example of group-differentiated right is the right to self-determination without which other group rights such as the right to speak one’s mother tongue and the right to free cultural exercise and preservation become meaningless. The Ethiopian constitution has already granted nations and nationalities the right to self-determination, and there are nine regional governments in Ethiopia with Sidama joining the federation as the 10^th region and some more regions in the pipeline. I think it’s up to these self-administering units to take care of their cultural, religious and language rights.  So even if Awol is right, what is the ethnic interest that only ethnic parties can represent that national parties don’t or can’t? What does the history of other countries tell us?

India and Nigeria have 2000 and 250 ethnic groups respectively. There are 36 parties in the current Indian parliament, but only three parties assumed power in India since independence representing the interest of over two thousand ethnic groups and numerous religious and cultural ensembles. The Nigerian experience is not that different. There are 10 parties in the current Nigerian House of Representatives. Since 1999, the 4^th Republic, Nigerian politics is dominated by People’s Democratic Party (PDP) though currently All Progressives Congress (APC) is in power. Both PDP and APC are multiethnic national parties that represent the interest of Nigeria’s Muslims, Protestants, Catholics and 250 ethnic groups. Dear Awol, why can’t multiethnic national parties represent the economic and social interests of Ethiopia’s 80 ethnic groups once the most important aspect of group rights (Self-determination) is taken care of, which it is? What is it that India and Nigeria with far more population and extremely larger number of ethnic groups are capable of doing that we Ethiopians can’t?

There is another speculative and fictitious statement of Awol where he makes three outrageously wrong claims in a paragraph of just 90 words: 1-The “Ethiopian nationalists” block is a fast diminishing political bloc.  2- The “Ethiopian nationalists” block sees self-governance as the source of Ethiopia’s troubles. 3- The “Ethiopian nationalists” support for the PP is driven less by a careful assessment of Ethiopia’s social cleavages and political fault lines and more by their fixation on a homogenizing conception of “unity”.

I’m not sure if this is a researched fact or his own statement of wish, but Awol says that the Ethiopian nationalist political block is a fast diminishing block. Awol believes that there are many Ethiopians to whom their ethnic identity is primary. Just like he does, I also believe that there are a good number of Ethiopians, including myself, to whom ethnicity is important, but not primary. I think both of us are correct in our own way, but I don’t know why Awol thinks my block, the Ethiopian Nationalist block is fast diminishing while his is flourishing. In fact, the Ethiopian Nationalist block is a group the ethnic lords led by the late Meles Zenawi wanted to burry alive, but it’s a block flourishing and shining after 27 years of forced hibernation.

Awol seems to be on a mission to denigrate the Ethio-nationalist block. He harshly accuses this block and presents it as a threat to self-governance in Ethiopia. This is an out-and-out flagrant accusation because this group knows more than anyone that the real danger to Ethiopia is denying people their God given right of administering themselves. In fact, it is the only group that currently is advocating slef-adminstration at zone, city and district level. I don’t think there is a political party or politician that would on purpose or without dares to take the self- administration right of people in Ethiopia. Why would Ethio-nationalists see the right to self-determination of nations and nationalities as the source of Ethiopia’s troubles, the very right that they’ve been fighting for since the heydays of Wallegn Mekonnen? I consider myself as Ethio-nationalist, and of course I have a serious issue the way federalism is structured in Ethiopia, but not with federalism itself and the right to self-determination of nations and nationalities. To be honest, I wouldn’t have been working with a group I worked for 11 years had we had even a remote disagreement on self-rule and shared-rule. I’ve no doubt that Awol understands very well the difference between questioning the structuring of federalism in Ethiopia and disrespecting peoples’ right to self-determination. I expect such unjustifiable accusations from the loud-mouthed Mekele outlaws, not from a respected college law professor.

There is nothing repugnant and dishonesty like when the very person that blames others for “poor assessment” turns around and writes an article full of mythical stories. Does Awol know who is responsible for bringing down Emperor Haile Selassie’s homogenizing regime? Does he know who brought the question of nations and nationalities to light in Ethiopia for the first time and paid his life for it? Who were in the forefront of the famous slogan “Land to the Tiller”? At the center of each of the above questions are many names from the very class of people whom Awol Allo unashamedly framed as mere elements of “homogenizing unity”. There is no reason that a person of Awol’s caliber fails to understand that reasonable people don’t fight to bring a homogenizing system that they fought hard and died for its disappearance.

Awol is very clear that he doesn’t like the whole idea of the birth of PP as a political party because PP doesn’t represent ethnic interest, and it is a threat to the multinational federation. But, he still doesn’t want it to lose the election to the opposition because to him PP losing the election and handing power to the opposition is tantamount to throwing the country to uncharted territories because there is no capable political party that can take the responsibility of leadership. Imagine this is the same guy who didn’t utter a word when Obo Dawud Ibsa, a vocal advocate of ethnic interest, proudly said policy is not important to the Oromo people, but still his party OLF is ready for the upcoming election (though I really don’t know the actual things the OLF is getting ready for). Awol also has a warning for us that the government will signal the end of democracy in Ethiopia if it decides to stay in power after losing the election.

This is really fun and here is the fun part. Awol starts his article by telling us that the whole idea of the EPRDF merging into a national party platform is wrong. Then he comes up with two premises. According to his first premise, Ethiopia will be thrown into uncharted territories if Prosperity Party loses and hands power to the opposition; and according to his second premise, if a losing PP doesn’t hand power to the opposition that will be the end of democracy in Ethiopia. Awol doesn’t like the existence of PP, but he also doesn’t want it to lose the election and hand power to the opposition. Awol doesn’t also want PP to stay in power after losing the election. The conclusion of the two premises of Awol is that, the very opposition that may take Ethiopia to uncharted territory if PP loses the election, will also enhance the prospects of a democratic transition and mark the beginning of a new era in Ethiopia if it wins the election. The game of words or the riddle here is PP losing or opposition wining the election. This is where Awol loses coherence and gets lost in the emotional world of ethnic politics, and this is precisely the very spot where ethnic politicians throw reason out of the room and start galloping their emotional horse.

With the merging of the EPRDF into a new national party, Awol somehow sees a risk to the multinational federation. I’m not quite sure if this is analysis or paralysis; but to me, it’s not even something worth commenting for it’s absolutely nothing more than the usual boogeyman game the TPLF has been playing ever since it bought a one way ticket to its final dugout in Mekele. Talking about a unitary state in the current political environment of Ethiopia is a grave sin that throws you directly to hell, let alone undoing the multinational federation. Besides, the federal form of government seems to be a unanimous agreement among all political stakeholders of Ethiopia. So how and where is the risk to the multinational federation coming from? My other issue here is that the so called “Federalist” forces call Ethiopia’s federal system “Multinational Federation”. Is Ethiopia a multinational federation? The answer is a big no! Ethiopia is a class room example of Ethnic Federalism. If there is anything that resembles multinational federation in Ethiopia, it is only the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region, and with the Sidamas already out and many more following route, even the SNNPR is crumbling making Ethiopia a perfectly ethnic federal state.

According to Awol, the most immediate challenges to PP is to win a competitive election as a pan-Ethiopian party where ethnicity remains the predominant political cleavage. So what? Winning election and forming a government is a challenge to every political party including to parties in your own backyard such as the Tories, Labor and the Liberal Party who have been in politics for over a century. Not winning the election may be a problem to PP, but does this say anything that PP itself is a problem? How many parties are in UK and how many of them won election and assumed power in the last 75 years? I leave the answer to you, but I want to let you know that political parties are unavoidable propellants of democracy whose existence is crucial whether they win elections or not.

Sometimes Awol’s argument is not just shallow, it is self-defeating. He sincerely tells us that the EPRDF is dysfunctional, it has a crisis of legitimacy, has a fractured image, tarnished reputation and many more.  But, he still wants the EPRDF back to power as-is than in the current form of Prosperity Party. To him, the political, social and economic vision of eight ethnic organizations that formed the PP and all other stakeholders who have no taste for ethnic politics are nothing more than enemies of federalism because he sees Ethiopia only in the framework of ethnic politics. In fact, to Awol and to all advocates of ethnic politics, those of us who do everything to free Ethiopia from ethnic politics are enemies of ethnicity and federalism. This is a fundamentally wrong assumption used by all kinds of ethnic politicians to emotionally mobilize their gullible base.

According to Awol, once the current EPRDF structure is dismantled and ethnic groups lose direct representation within the PP, their ability to advocate for their specific groups will be diminished, and they could lack influence over policy decisions. Well, whether it is good or bad is subject to public debate, but the only two parties that have publicly come with a wide range of policy options are Prosperity and Ezema. Surprisingly, the party that publicly questioned the purpose of policy and claimed to have no policy is one of the oldest ethnic organization in Ethiopia that claims to represent the largest ethnic group in our nation. So what policy is Awol talking about that ethnic parties themselves don’t know about? In fact, Awol should have been thankful for PP, a party that assembled eight ethnic organizations and drafted political, economic and social policies that the public can look at and have its say.

I’ve followed Awol Allo on tweeter and heard him on Aljazeera for a long time. To me, he is the voice of reason and one of the moderate voices that Ethiopia badly needs.  But, he loses all these good virtues and moves from the center to far right on the issue of Prosperity Party. Here is one of the most thoughtless and unscholarly statement I’ve never heard from him: “The structural vulnerability of the PP means that the risks of anti-federalist forces taking over the party and dismantling the federal structure cannot be ruled out”. Who are these anti-federalist forces and where are they? ODP has already made it public that it would never negotiate on federalism, let alone dismantling it.The regional representatives of Somali, Gambella, Benishangul-Gumuz, Harari and Afar have also made it very clear in their respective general assemblies that, the federal structure that gave them sovereignty over their region is non-negotiable and it is here to stay. So who is this ghost like invisible enemy of the federal structure? Is it PM Abiy, or his deputy Demeke Mekonnen? Whether it’s at the federal level or regional, among opposition parties or activists, no one whatsoever is a risk to the federal system in Ethiopia. This scare tactic used by Awol and many in the ethnic camp is nothing more than trying to control people by making them feel afraid.

I have a message to Awol and ethnic politicians of all sorts. Ethiopia is a country of different ethnic groups, religious communities, cultural ensembles and of course a fast growing population of over 100 million, all with different political, social and economic interest. There is no “One fits all” model of Ormo, Amhara, Somali, etc; economic and social interest. Social and economic interests vary within and between communities and these interests are usually manifested at the individual level. This is why Ethiopia needs large national parties, and this is precisely why EPRDF grew into a national party to represent these diverse interests. Dear fellow country man Awol, if you think there are special ethnic interests that cannot be represented by multiethnic national parties like PP and Ezema, please go ahead and mobilize all those who recently announced their candidacy, forge your own ethnic party and let’s meet in the upcoming election and leave the rest to the Ethiopian electorate. Other than this, please stop playing the boogeyman game that scares people. The federal structure of government, self-rule and shared-rule, the right to speak one’s language, the right to exercise and preserve one’s culture, and the right to worship one’s religion are here to stay regardless of who is at the helm of political power in Ethiopia.

Let me conclude by repeating the infamous quote of Duad Ibsa, the quintessential symbol of ethnic politics in Ethiopia: “The policy issue is very secondary for the Oromo people to our knowledge” Look Awol, this is the most important problem of ethnic politicians. They speak on the behalf of people that they don’t know and never lived with, they promise the impossible, and they make a totally unfounded false and idiosyncratic claims. Tell me how in the hell did Dawud Ibsa know that about 35% of the Ethiopian people (The Oromos) don’t care much for policy?  If the Oromo people don’t care for education, healthcare, agriculture, food security, roads, bridges and transportation, then what else do they care for?  If all these basic life necessities are secondary to them, then what is primary to them?  Why would an ethnic voter or any voter for that matter vote for a candidate that has no policy of any kind? To be honest, the names of political parties or independent candidates that have no economic and social policies should not even be allowed to be on the ballot paper let alone get elected and lead a nation. If all that matters to people is ethnic interest like Awol Allo said, and if policy issues are not important as Dawd Ibsa said, then Ethiopia badly needs national parties that offer a variety of policy options to the electorate. I strongly believe that we have to pull the current toxic ethnic politics to the center where it belongs because ethnic parties are what they say they are. To them, policy issues are very secondary. This scares me to death because I don’t know what is primary to them. Dear reader do you?

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

In his last will and testament, Alfred Nobel provided for an award to be given to “champions of peace to be selected by a committee of five persons in the Norwegian Storting”.

I wish to congratulate the “2019 Nobel Champion of Peace”, H.E. Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia. He will be accepting his prize on December 10, 2019 in Oslo, Norway.

Nobel declared in his will, “It is my express wish that when awarding the prizes, no consideration be given to nationality, but that the prize be awarded to the worthiest person, whether or not they are Scandinavian.”

PM Abiy Ahmed is the “worthiest person” (in my book, the hardest working man in peace business) working in the cause of peace to be awarded the 2019 prize.

I am so proud of PM Abiy that “my cup runneth over”.

It is written, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, [and] see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”

The Scriptural prophesy has come to pass.

Our son, our brother Abiy Ahmed has seen visions of an Ethiopia at peace, a Horn of Africa at peace and an Africa at peace.

And we, the old men, are blessed to see our dreams come true.

Ethiopia’s Cheetah Generation (young people) will raise Ethiopia from the pit of despair to the heights of hope; from a bottomless poverty to boundless prosperity.

“Weeping may endure for a 27 year-long night but joy cometh in the morning.”

Ethiopia’s best days are yet to come and its dark days are over.

So, I congratulate all Ethiopians for producing a world class leader that will lead them into a new era, indeed a new age, of prosperity, progress, productivity and probity.

In its  award citation, the Nobel Committee listed PM Abiy’s cumulative accomplishments that earned him the position of “Champion of Peace” including his:

decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.

initiation of important reforms that give many citizens hope for a better life and a brighter future.

lifting of the country’s state of emergency.

granting amnesty to thousands of political prisoners.

discontinuing media censorship.

legalization of outlawed opposition groups.

dismissal of military and civilian leaders who were suspected of corruption.

increase of the influence of women in Ethiopian political and community life.

pledge to strengthen democracy by holding free and fair elections.

active contribution to the normalization of diplomatic relations between Eritrea.

efforts to mediate between Kenya and Somalia in their protracted conflict over rights to a disputed marine area; and

key role in the Sudan conflict by bringing to the negotiating table the military regime and the opposition.

The Committee expressed its

hopes that the Nobel Peace Prize will strengthen Prime Minister Abiy in his important work for peace and reconciliation. Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country and has East Africa’s largest economy. A peaceful, stable and successful Ethiopia will have many positive side-effects, and will help to strengthen fraternity among nations and peoples in the region.

But I would like to add to the list Abiy Ahmed’s other monumental contributions to the cause of peace, understanding and reconciliation in Ethiopia.

I commend Abiy Ahmed for

Liberating our minds from the mental slavery of ethnic politics (though there are many of us who are perfectly comfortable living in that mental slavery).

Teaching us there is no Oromo Ethiopia, Amhara Ethiopia, Tigray Ethiopia… There is Ethiopiawinet. There is Medemer, or all Ethiopians working together to make Ethiopia a shining city upon a hill.

Reminding us the eternal truth, “When we are alive, we are Ethiopians. When we die (and turn to dust) we become the land that is Ethiopia.”

Not only talking peace, he also walking the talk of peace.

Proving to us power does NOT come out of the barrel of the gun but from good ideas formed in intelligent and reasonable minds.

Instructing us that killing to remain in or to grab power is the politics of losers. Real winners do not kill, they heal.

Proving to us we have only one country and the only way we can solve our problems is through dialogue without mouths, not through the barrel of an AK-47.

Making us feel proud to be Ethiopians after 27 years of carrying Ethiopiawinet as a criminal conviction and a badge of blame and shame. Today, we wear our Ethiopiawinet as a badge of fame, as a medallion of our pride in a country that had preserved its independence for over three thousand years.

Ending a 27 year-long nightmare of fear, terror, loathing and sleeplessness.

Opening up the political space so we could realize our dream of a free democratic society under the rule of law.

Teaching us to love because it is the only way to live. Dying and hating isn’t much of a living.

Preaching love is not something we learn. It is in our DNA. It is the essence of being human and the ultimate proof of being alive.

Preaching Ethiopia will rise up as a nation only when the power of love overcomes the love of power of those in power and those hungry and thirsty for power.

Teaching us we cannot make progress unless we learn and practice to forgive and reconcile.

Showing us there is a better way than hate and conflict.

Reaching out and touching everyone with a message of forgiveness, reconciliation and love.

Proving to us he is man of the people. He went into the countryside, the hamlets and towns to talk to the people. He listened to them and answered their questions truthfully.

Scouring the Horn of Africa and the Middle East looking for our exiled brothers and sisters forgotten in the jails and prisons, finding them and bringing them home.

Travelling ten thousand miles to America to bring home the banished, the exiled, the defiant, the indefatigable and unconquerable. He even managed to bring home one native son who was presumed lost for 48 years.

Lifting every voice in our nation as our choirmaster and leading us in harmony.

Showing us a new way to do our politics. Medemer.

Showing us how to win hearts and minds. With ideas, love and understanding.

Showed us the right way to deal with women. With equality. He appointed women to half of the country’s ministerial positions.

Showed us the power of telling the truth when it is more convenient to lie. Abiy Ahmed tells it like it is. He says what he means and means what he says.

Professionalizing the military, police and security forces.

Upholding the rule of law and due process when they urged him to act on impulse and violate the law.

Banning extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions.

Stabilizing the economy after it had been looted and ransacked by crooks and swindlers.

His extraordinary efforts to establish an open, accountable and transparent government.

His extraordinary efforts to bring harmony and understanding among factions of the two great religions in Ethiopia.

There are still threats to peace

PM Abiy has a long road ahead of him. The Peace Road never ends. There are many forks in the road.

As the African saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

We can go fast and far if we walk on Peace Avenue with Abiy Ahmed.

Do we really deserve Abiy Ahmed?

I have often found myself asking this question: Do we really deserve Abiy Ahmed?

It has been said, “Every nation gets the government it deserves.”

That is to say, the people must defend and promote their government or they will end up where they do not want to be.

So few people in Ethiopia today remember how miserable their lives were only 20 months ago.

Today, they complain about too much freedom that has led to lawlessness and instability.

If Ethiopians do not count their blessings in the leadership of Abiy Ahmed, they may get their wish.

They will have “stability” and “security” in a police state, just like they did over the past 5 decades.

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

On December 10, 2019, let all Ethiopians set aside their differences for one day, lift our voices and rejoice in the fact that our son, our brother Abiy Ahmed  is being honored by the world as a peacemaker.

Let us cast asunder the poverty of spirit that afflicts so many of us because of jealousy and our own inadequacies.

Let us not be like those who suffer from the bankruptcy of soul because they have lost the capacity to experience joy.

Let us be mindful that it is unlikely there will be another Ethiopian who will win a Nobel Peace Prize in the next 50 years. Since 1901, only 100 awards have been made.

Abiy Ahmed is the 100^th recipient!

This is Ethiopia’s moment in the sun. Let us bask in it!

On December 10, 2019, I ask all Ethiopians to come together, or if they are alone to take a moment of silence, to lift our voices and salute our son, our brother Abiy Ahmed:

“Hail to the 2019 Champion of Peace!”

Nobel Lecture given by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2019 Abiy Ahmed Ali, Oslo, 10 December 2019.

“Forging A Durable Peace in the Horn of Africa”

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses,
Distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee,
Fellow Ethiopians, Fellow Africans, Citizens of the World
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am honored to be here with you, and deeply grateful to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for recognizing and encouraging my contribution to a peaceful resolution of the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

I accept this award on behalf of Ethiopians and Eritreans, especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of peace.

Likewise, I accept this award on behalf of my partner, and comrade-in-peace, President Isaias Afeworki, whose goodwill, trust, and commitment were vital in ending the two-decade deadlock between our countries.

I also accept this award on behalf of Africans and citizens of the world for whom the dream of peace has often turned into a nightmare of war.

Today, I stand here in front of you talking about peace because of fate.

I crawled my way to peace through the dusty trenches of war years ago.

I was a young soldier when war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

I witnessed firsthand the ugliness of war in frontline battles.

There are those who have never seen war but glorify and romanticize it.

They have not seen the fear,
They have not seen the fatigue,
They have not seen the destruction or heartbreak,
Nor have they felt the mournful emptiness of war after the carnage.

War is the epitome of hell for all involved. I know because I have been there and back.

I have seen brothers slaughtering brothers on the battlefield.

I have seen older men, women, and children trembling in terror under the deadly shower of bullets and artillery shells.

You see, I was not only a combatant in war.

I was also a witness to its cruelty and what it can do to people.

War makes for bitter men. Heartless and savage men.

Twenty years ago, I was a radio operator attached to an Ethiopian army unit in the border town of Badme.

The town was the flashpoint of the war between the two countries.

I briefly left the foxhole in the hopes of getting a good antenna reception.

It took only but a few minutes. Yet, upon my return, I was horrified to discover that my entire unit had been wiped out in an artillery attack.

I still remember my young comrades-in-arms who died on that ill-fated day.

I think of their families too.

During the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, an estimated one hundred thousand soldiers and civilians lost their lives.

The aftermath of the war also left untold numbers of families broken. It also permanently shattered communities on both sides.

Massive destruction of infrastructure further amplified the post-war economic burden.

Socially, the war resulted in mass displacements, loss of livelihoods, deportation and denationalization of citizens.

Following the end of active armed conflict in June 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea remained deadlocked in a stalemate of no-war, no-peace for two decades.

During this period, family units were split over borders, unable to see or talk to each other for years to come.

Tens of thousands of troops remained stationed along both sides of the border. They remained on edge, as did the rest of the country and region.

All were worried that any small border clash would flare into a full-blown war once again.

As it was, the war and the stalemate that followed were a threat for regional peace, with fears that a resumption of active combat between Ethiopia and Eritrea would destabilize the entire Horn region.

And so, when I became Prime Minister about 18 months ago, I felt in my heart that ending the uncertainty was necessary.

I believed peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea was within reach.

I was convinced that the imaginary wall separating our two countries for much too long needed to be torn down.

And in its place, a bridge of friendship, collaboration and goodwill has to be built to last for ages.

That is how I approached the task of building a peace bridge with my partner President Isaias Afeworki.

We were both ready to allow peace to flourish and shine through.

We resolved to turn our “swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks” for the progress and prosperity of our people.

We understood our nations are not the enemies. Instead, we were victims of the common enemy called poverty.

We recognized that while our two nations were stuck on old grievances, the world was shifting rapidly and leaving us behind.

We agreed we must work cooperatively for the prosperity of our people and our region.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, we are reaping our peace dividends.

Families separated for over two decades are now united.

Diplomatic relations are fully restored.

Air and telecommunication services have been reestablished.

And our focus has now shifted to developing joint infrastructure projects that will be a critical lever in our economic ambitions.

Our commitment to peace between our two countries is iron-clad.

One may wonder, how it is that a conflict extending over twenty years, can come to an amicable resolution.

Allow me to share with you a little about the beliefs that guide my actions for peace.

I believe that peace is an affair of the heart. Peace is a labor of love.
Sustaining peace is hard work.

Yet, we must cherish and nurture it.

It takes a few to make war, but it takes a village and a nation to build peace.

For me, nurturing peace is like planting and growing trees.

Just like trees need water and good soil to grow, peace requires unwavering commitment, infinite patience, and goodwill to cultivate and harvest its dividends.

Peace requires good faith to blossom into prosperity, security, and opportunity.

In the same manner that trees absorb carbon dioxide to give us life and oxygen, peace has the capacity to absorb the suspicion and doubt that may cloud our relationships.
In return, it gives back hope for the future, confidence in ourselves, and faith in humanity.

This humanity I speak of, is within all of us.

We can cultivate and share it with others if we choose to remove our masks of pride and arrogance.

When our love for humanity outgrows our appreciation of human vanity then the world will know peace.

Ultimately, peace requires an enduring vision. And my vision of peace is rooted in the philosophy of Medemer.

Medemer, an Amharic word, signifies synergy, convergence, and teamwork for a common destiny.

Medemer is a homegrown idea that is reflected in our political, social, and economic life.

I like to think of “Medemer” as a social compact for Ethiopians to build a just, egalitarian, democratic, and humane society by pulling together our resources for our collective survival and prosperity.

In practice, Medemer is about using the best of our past to build a new society and a new civic culture that thrives on tolerance, understanding, and civility.

At its core, Medemer is a covenant of peace that seeks unity in our common humanity.

It pursues peace by practicing the values of love, forgiveness, reconciliation, and inclusion.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I come from a small town called Beshasha, located in the Oromia region of Western Ethiopia.

It is in Beshasha that the seeds of Medemer began to sprout.

Growing up, my parents instilled in me and my siblings, an abiding faith in humanity.

Medemer resonates with the proverb, “I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper.”

In my little town, we had no running water, electricity, or paved roads. But we had a lot of love to light up our lives.

We were each other’s keepers.

Faith, humility, integrity, patience, gratitude, tenacity, and cooperation coursed like a mighty stream.

And we traveled together on three country roads called love, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

In the Medemer idea, there is no “Us and Them.”

There is only “US” for “We” are all bound by a shared destiny of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

For the people in the “Land of Origins” and “The 13 Months of Sunshine,” Medemer has always been second nature.

Ethiopians maintained peaceful coexistence between the followers of the two great religions because we always came together in faith and worship.

We, Ethiopians, remained independent for thousands of years because we came together to defend our homeland.

The beauty of our Ethiopia is its extraordinary diversity.

The inclusiveness of Medemer ensures no one is left behind in our big extended family.

It has also been said, “No man is an island.”

Just the same, no nation is an island. Ethiopia’s Medemer-inspired foreign policy pursues peace through multilateral cooperation and good neighborliness.

We have an old saying:
“በሰላም እንድታድር ጎረቤትህ ሰላም ይደር”
“yoo ollaan nagayaan bule, nagaan bulanni.”

It is a saying shared in many African languages, which means, “For you to have a peaceful night, your neighbor shall have a peaceful night as well.”

The essence of this proverb guides the strengthening of relations in the region. We now strive to live with our neighbors in peace and harmony.

The Horn of Africa today is a region of strategic significance.

The global military superpowers are expanding their military presence in the area. Terrorist and extremist groups also seek to establish a foothold.

We do not want the Horn to be a battleground for superpowers nor a hideout for the merchants of terror and brokers of despair and misery.

We want the Horn of Africa to become a treasury of peace and progress.

Indeed, we want the Horn of Africa to become the Horn of Plenty for the rest of the continent.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

As a global community, we must invest in peace.

Over the past few months, Ethiopia has made historic investments in peace, the returns of which we will see in years to come.

We have released all political prisoners. We have shut down detention facilities where torture and vile human rights abuses took place.

Today, Ethiopia is highly regarded for press freedom. It is no more a “jailor of journalists”.

Opposition leaders of all political stripes are free to engage in peaceful political activity.

We are creating an Ethiopia that is second to none in its guarantee of freedoms of expression.

We have laid the groundwork for genuine multiparty democracy, and we will soon hold a free and fair election.

I truly believe peace is a way of life. War, a form of death and destruction.

Peacemakers must teach peace breakers to choose the way of life.
To that end, we must help build a world culture of peace.

But before there is peace in the world, there must be peace in the heart and mind.

There must be peace in the family, in the neighborhood, in the village, and the towns and cities. There must be peace in and among nations.

Excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen:
There is a big price for enduring peace.

A famous protest slogan that proclaims, “No justice, no peace,” calls to mind that peace thrives and bears fruit when planted in the soil of justice.

The disregard for human rights has been the source of much strife and conflict in the world. The same holds in our continent, Africa.

It is estimated that some 70 percent of Africa’s population is under the age of 30.

Our young men and women are crying out for social and economic justice. They demand equality of opportunity and an end to organized corruption.

The youth insist on good governance based on accountability and transparency. If we deny our youth justice, they will reject peace.

Standing on this world stage today, I would like to call upon all my fellow Ethiopians to join hands and help build a country that offers equal justice, equal rights, and equal opportunities for all its citizens.

I would like to especially express that we should avoid the path of extremism and division, powered by politics of exclusion.

Our accord hangs in the balance of inclusive politics.

The evangelists of hate and division are wreaking havoc in our society using social media.

They are preaching the gospel of revenge and retribution on the airwaves.

Together, we must neutralize the toxin of hatred by creating a civic culture of consensus-based democracy, inclusivity, civility, and tolerance based on Medemer principles.

The art of building peace is a synergistic process to change hearts, minds, beliefs and attitudes, that never ceases.

It is like the work of struggling farmers in my beloved Ethiopia. Each season they prepare the soil, sow seeds, pull weeds, and control pests.

They work the fields from dawn to dusk in good and bad weather.

The seasons change, but their work never ends. In the end, they harvest the abundance of their fields.

Before we can harvest peace dividends, we must plant seeds of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation in the hearts and minds of our citizens.

We must pull out the weeds of discord, hate, and misunderstanding and toil every day during good and bad days too.

I am inspired by a Biblical Scripture which reads:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

Equally I am also inspired by a Holy Quran verse which reads:
“Humanity is but a single Brotherhood. So, make peace with your Brethren.”

I am committed to toil for peace every single day and in all seasons.

I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper too.

I have promises to keep before I sleep. I have miles to go on the road of peace.

As I conclude, I call upon the international community to join me and my fellow Ethiopians in our Medemer inspired efforts of building enduring peace and prosperity in the Horn of Africa.

ሰላም ለሁላችንም፤ ለሰላም አርበኞች እንዲሁም ለሰላም ወዳጆች።

I thank you!