The Toxic Ecology of African Dictatorships

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

The inconvenient truth about Africa today is that dictatorship presents a far more perilous threat to the survival of Africans than climate change. The devastation African dictators have wreaked upon the social fabric and ecosystem of African societies is incalculable. Over the past several decades, bloodthirsty dictators like Uganda's Idi Amin, Zaire's (The Congo) Mobutu Sese Seko, Central African Republic's Jean Bedel Bokassa, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, Chad's Hissiene Habre, and the political fraternal twins Mengistu Haile Mariam and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia have been responsible for untold deaths on the continent. Millions of Africans have starved to death because of the criminal negligence, depraved indifference and gross incompetence of African dictators, not climate change. Millions more suffer today in abject poverty because corrupt African dictators have systematically siphoned off international aid, pilfered loans provided by the international banks and plundered the tax coffers. Africans face extreme privation and mass starvation not because of climate change but because of the rapacity of power-hungry dictators. The continent today suffers from a terminal case of metastasized cancer of dictatorships, not the blight of global warming.

The fact that greenhouse gas emissions (global warming) from human activities are responsible for a dangerous elevation of the global temperature is accepted by most climatologists in the world. Only clueless flat-earther troglodytes like U.S. Senator James Inhofe believe that climate change is a conspiracy hatched by "the media, Hollywood and our pop culture." The general scientific understanding is that the planet is facing ruin from an unprecedented combination of extreme weather patterns, floods, droughts, heat waves and epidemics. The developed countries are primarily blamed for the rise in temperatures caused by excess industrial carbon emissions. This is evident in the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans. Africa has contributed virtually nothing to global warming. For instance, Africa produces an average of 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide per person per year compared to 16 metric tons for every American.

For Africa, climate change paints a doomsday scenario: Global warming will severely aggravate the atmospheric circulation and precipitation in the African monsoonal system resulting in severe shortages in agricultural output. Millions of Africans will die from famine, and the continent's agriculture will be crippled. Deforestation and overgrazing will cause further increases in global temperatures through emission of greenhouse gases. Africa's subsistence farmers who already operate in marginal environments will face catastrophic consequences in terms of decreased tillable and pastoral lands. Competition for water, agricultural and grazing land and other resources will inevitably result in conflicts and wars. Vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, trypanosomiasis and others will spread rapidly causing large scale deaths in Africa.

The climate change debate has been honey in the mouths of forked tongue African dictators. It has provided them the perfect foil to avoid detection and accountability for their corruption and mismanagement of their societies, and a convenient opportunity to divert attention from their criminal state enterprises. Global warming has proven to be the perfect substitute for the old Bogeymen of Africa-- colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism and poverty. Why is Africa reduced to becoming the "beggar continent of the planet"? Global warming! Why are millions starving (euphemistically referred to as "severe food shortages" by officials) to death in Ethiopia? Climate change. African dictators are using global warming as their new preferred ideology behind which they can hide and ply their trade of corruption while expanding their thriving kleptocracies.

The global warming debate has also offered African dictators a historic opportunity to guilt-trip the industrialized countries and rob them blind. Beginning on December 7, a phalanx of African climate change negotiators will swarm Copenhagen to attend the U.N. Conference on Climate Change. For Africa, the outcome of the negations is foreshadowed by pronouncements of comic bravado. On September 3, 2009, the Patriarch of African Dictators and head of the "single African negotiating team" on climate change, Meles Zenawi, huffed and puffed about what he and his sidekicks will do if the industrialized countries refuse to comply with his imperial ultimatum. Zenawi roared, "We will use our numbers to deligitimize any agreement that is not consistent with our minimal position... We are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threatens to be another rape of our continent." (Whether African dictators or the industrialized countries are raping the continent is an open question. Witnesses say it is a gang rape situation.)

It was vintage Zenawi with his trademark zero-sum game strategy writ large to the world: "My way or the highway!" It does appear rather preposterous and irrational for the master of the zero-sum game to open negotiations with his longtime benefactors by sticking an ultimatum in their faces. Obviously, the strategic negotiating bottom line is to shakedown the industrialized countries and strong-arm them into forking over billions in carbon blood money; and Zenawi did not mince words: "The key thing for me is that Africa be compensated for the damage caused by global warming. Many institutions have tried to quantify that and they have come up with different figures. The sort of median figure would be in the range of 40 billion USD a year."

Curiously, we could ask what Zenawi and his brotherhood of dictators would do with the windfall of billions, if they could get it? It is reasonable to assume that they will use it to expand their kleptocracies and cling to power like ticks on a milk cow. They will certainly not use to meet the needs of their people. What they have done with the international aid money and loans they have received over the decades provides compelling extrapolative evidence of what they will do with any windfall of carbon blood money.

As Dambissa Moyo and others have shown, in the last fifty years the West has poured more than a trillion dollars of aid into Africa. Today, over 350 million Africans live on less than USD$1. Real per-capita income in Africa is lower today than it was four decades ago. Aid money and international bank loans have been stolen by African dictators and their henchmen to line their pockets and maintain their huge kleptocracies. In 2002, an African Union study estimated the loss of USD $150bn a year to corruption in Africa, and not without the complicity of the donor countries. Compare this to the USD$22bn the developed countries gave to all of sub-Saharan Africa in 2008. In 2006, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who faced impeachment for corruption and ineptitude, declared at an African civic groups meeting in Addis Ababa that African leaders "have stolen at least $140 billion from their people in the decades since independence." Ghanaian economist George Ayittey citing U.N. data argues, "These are gross underestimates... $200 billion or 90 percent of the sub-Saharan part of the continent's gross domestic product was shipped to foreign banks in 1991 alone. Civil wars in Africa cost at least $15 billion annually in lost output, wreckage of infrastructure, and refugee crises... In Zimbabwe, foreign investors have fled the region and more than 4 million Zimbabweans have left the country along with 60,000 physicians and other professionals...." Is it any wonder that Africa today is worse off than it was 50 years ago?

The question is not whether global warming could impact Africa disproportionately, or Africa is entitled to assistance to overcome the effects of greenhouse emissions caused by the industrialized countries. The question is whether African dictators have the moral credibility and standing to make a demand for compensation and what they will do with such compensation if they were to get it. Certainly, the capo African negotiator has as much credibility to demand compensation in Copenhagen as a bank robber has from the bank owners. It has been a notorious fact for at least two decades that Ethiopia is facing environmental disaster. Ethiopia's forest coverage by the turn of the last century was 40%. By 1987, under the military government, it went down to 5.5%. In 2003, it dropped down to 0.2%. The Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute says Ethiopia loses up to 200,000 hectares of forest every year. Between 1990 and 2005, Ethiopia lost 14.0% of its forest cover (2,114,000 hectares) and 3.6% of its forest and woodland habitat. If the trend continues, it is expected that Ethiopia could lose all of its forest resources in 11 years, by the year 2020. What has Zenawi's regime done to reverse the problem of deforestation in Ethiopia? They have sold what little arable land is left to the Saudis, the Shiekdoms, the Indians, the South Korea and others with crisp dollar bills looking for fire sales on African lands.

There has been a lot of environmental window dressing and grandstanding in various parts of Africa. In Ethiopia, lofty proclamations have been issued to "improve and enhance the health and quality of life of all Ethiopians", "control pollution" and facilitate "environmental impact" studies. The "nations, nationalities and peoples" are granted environmental self-determination. There is an Environmental Protection Council which "oversees activities of sectoral agencies and environmental units with respect to environmental all regional states." The Environmental Protection Agency is "accountable to the Prime Minister." What have these make-believe bureaucracies done to save Lake Koka, just outside the capital, and the 17,000 people who drink its toxic water daily?

Zenawi and his minions will show up looking for a pot of gold at the end of the Copenhagen rainbow. It does not appear that a bonanza of riches will be awaiting them. If the advance Barcelona negotiations held last month are any indication, a deal does not appear possible in Copenhagen. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Barcelona summit that "global climate negotiations would inevitably drag out after the meeting in Copenhagen ends on Dec. 19." African dictators deserve our grudging admiration for their sheer tenacity and brazen audacity. After sucking their people dry, they are now moving camp to the greener pastures of climate change to continue their vampiric trade.

The fact of the matter is that while the rest of the world toasts from global warming, Africa is burning down in the fires of dictatorship. While Europeans are fretting about their carbon footprint, Africans are gasping to breathe free under the bootprints of dictators. While Americans are worried about carbon emission trapped in the atmosphere, Africans find themselves trapped in minefields of dictatorship. Handing over carbon blood money to African dictators is like increasing industrial emissions to cut back on global warming. It is the wrong thing to do.

Africa faces an ecological collapse not because of climate change but because of lack of regime change. It is humorously ironic that African dictators who panhandle the industrialized countries for over two-thirds of their budgets should threaten to walk out on them. We know the bravado is nothing more than the "chatter of a beggar's teeth". As the bank robber will not walk out of the bank empty handed because of moral outrage over the small amount of money sitting in the vault, we do not expect the band of African negotiators to walk out Copenhagen because they are offered less than what they are asking. We expect to see them making a beeline to the conference door for handouts for there is no such thing as a choosy beggar. We wish them well. Go on, take the money and run....

Regime Change Before Action on Climate Change in Africa!

The Great Ethiopian Run to Freedom

Alemayehu G. Mariam
professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino

In his epic autobiography, the great Nelson Mandela used the metaphor of the "long walk" to describe his decades-old struggle against apartheid and minority rule in South Africa. In Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela described, among other things, his labor of love trying to steer his nation away from racial and fratricidal war by using dialogue and negotiation to achieve national reconciliation and build a multiracial, multiparty system. His long, hard walk to freedom across the veldt, the cities and townships eventually led South Africans to trade in their fears and tears for hope and faith in a free South Africa. In the process, Mandela became a formidable moral force and an exemplary teacher in the fight for human rights and racial equality throughout the world.

In the annual "Great Ethiopian Run" that was held last week in Addis Abeba, one can see a fitting metaphor for a long and hard run for freedom in Ethiopia. The organizers and sponsors may have seen a clever money making gimmick in the event, but for the Ethiopian runners it was their one and only chance a year to collectively breathe the fresh air of freedom. It was their annual festival and gathering of peaceful mass protest for freedom and justice, and against tyranny and dictatorship in Ethiopia. On the day of the Great Run, Ethiopians who could afford to pay at least 50 birr got to say out loud what has been burdening their hearts, distressing their minds, agonizing their souls and searing every fiber in their bodies for the past year. The assembled crowd of 35,000 runners did not mind paying. Each one of them knew the fresh air of freedom, however fleeting and momentary, is priceless.

In the "Great Ethiopian Run", Ethiopians kept on running down the streets and up the boulevards of the capital. They ran for their own freedom, and the freedom of their countrymen and women. They ran for the true champion of Ethiopian freedom, Birtukan Midekssa. In a deafening crescendo of defiance and daring, they cried out: "Free Birtukan! Birtukan Mandela! Birtukan, the heroine!" Birtukan probably heard them chained in the bowels of Kality prison just on the outskirts of town. They called for the release of all political prisoners. The river of humanity that flash-flooded the city streets on the 10-kilometer stretch denounced the perpetrators of injustice. Thumping their way past the "Federal High Court", they proclaimed, "In this temple of justice, there is no justice." Rolling past the "Ministry of Justice", they charged, "There is no justice in the ministry of justice." Rumbling past the "Ministry of Defense", they scoffed: "There are no men of courage in this building to defend the people." The Great Ethiopian Run proved to be fundamentally an act of mass civil disobedience thinly disguised as a running event; and to the great credit and dignity of the runners, there was not a single incident of violence or breach of the peace.

The multitudes were not just running for freedom, they were also running away from tyranny and dictatorship, despair and hopelessness, and from their daily life of indignity and humiliation under a ruthless dictatorship. Sadly, they were all running in circles in the prison nation Ethiopia has become. But as we have learned from President Mandela, to achieve freedom one must take a long hard walk. For Ethiopians, it will require much more-- a long hard run; and there is much Ethiopians runners can learn from one South African walker. Mandela said, "You may succeed in delaying, but never in preventing the transition of South Africa to a democracy." The dictators in Ethiopia may temporarily thwart genuine multiparty democracy, but they can never, never prevent its ultimate triumph. Mandela defiantly told the masters of Apartheid: "Any man that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose." The dictators in Ethiopia may temporarily succeed in robbing us of our dignity and human rights, but as long as we remain truthful, principled, fair and irrevocably committed to the cause of freedom and democracy, we shall prevail; and they shall find their rightful place in the dustbin of history.

On his long walk to freedom, Mandela discovered the defining truth about tyrants and dictators: "A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred." The wardens of Prison Nation Ethiopia are prisoners of hatred that has churned and boiled in their hearts, minds and souls for their entire lives. They are consumed by it and driven to genocidal brutality. They deserve our pity for they can not help themselves. But we can help them, by showing them the truth about their evil ways and the path out of the misery of hatred to the ecstasy of brotherly and sisterly love. Mandela taught us that "The victory of democracy in South Africa is the common achievement of all humanity." If we keep on running for freedom, we can make the triumph of democracy in Ethiopia the common achievement of all of Africa. As Ghana has transitioned from a military dictatorship to a genuine multiparty democracy and South Africa succeeded in establishing a tolerant multiracial society, so can Ethiopia forge a real multiparty system, free of the poison of ethnic politics, and one day to become the envy of Africa.

The 10-kilometer run is just a down payment for a long and difficult Marathon for Freedom. That is why each one of us must develop the defining quality of the marathon runner: Endurance. As she pounds the pavement for miles, the distance runner knows the route to the finish line is long, grueling and hard. But she is prepared to give it her best and endure for the long haul. The marathon runner does not say, "It is too long, too difficult... I could never do it." He maintains a winner's state of mind and never gives into self-pity and defeatism. He does not use his energy in bursts of speed, but in sustained steps and calculated spurts. The marathon runner has a plan to win and paces his every step along the way to achieve his goal. The distance runner does not allow herself to be overwhelmed by the miles she has yet to cover. She is committed and focused on the next milestone, the next hill and the next bend in the road until she reaches the finish line. Some of us would much prefer the race to be a quick sprint to the 10-kilometer finish line. We are discouraged and dispirited by the very thought of a long distance run. We are tired and ready to give up before taking the first step. But the Marathon to Freedom does not have a finish line. As Mandela said, "After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb."

We can't sit idly by and expect freedom to run to us. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, "Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent." It could also be said that a man can't ride your back if you keep on running and chase after your freedom.

Ethiopia's great distance runners -- Abebe Bikila, Mamo Wolde, Mirus Yifter, Haile Gebreselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Elfnesh Alemu, Fatuma Roba, Derartu Tulu and Koreni Jelila and Tilahun Regassa and many others -- gave their very best for the glory of Ethiopia. We are so proud of them! It is now our turn to run and win the Great Ethiopian Run for Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights. Let us not be fooled by their 10-kilometer run. Our course will be much more challenging; we will have to climb the great hills and descend the treacherous canyons and gorges and crisscross the low deserts and the highlands. And those who can't or choose not to run with us should ready themselves to take a long walk...

The dominant Executive in Ethiopia

Wednesday 25 November 2009 03:16.


By Magn Nyang

November 24, 2009 — In the Western democracies, such as in the United States separation of powers involves the division of the legislative, executive, and judicial functions of the policy-making process among separate institutions. These three functions are assigned to the Congress, the president, and the Supreme Court. The Congress makes policy, the president implements policy, and the Court judges the fairness of the application of the general policy. The assumption is that governance functions better if individuals who administer or implement policy are separated from those who make policy.

In Ethiopia, the three functions are performed by one institution, the Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front (EPRDF) with Meles Zenawi as its executive. This phenomenon constitutes to what is called executive dominance.

Let me consider some concrete manifestations of the executive-dominant system in Ethiopia. I regard an independent legislature or parliament as the surest check on the power of the executive. In Ethiopia, the legislature provides virtually no real check on the executive (Meles Zenawi) since the members of the assembly do not represent any independent base of power. The Ethiopian less freely elected legislature is so dominated by a powerful EPRDF (Meles Zenawi) that it has few real powers and is reduced to ratifying decisions made by the executive (Meles Zenawi). The prime minister enjoys such power because his party, the EPRDF, hold 430 of the parliament’s 547 seats. From my latest finding, the combine opposition parties hold only 117 seats. Thus, in no instance can I say that Ethiopia’s legislative assembly is an effective counterweight to the executive branch.

Another indicator of executive dominance in Ethiopia is the degree to which Meles Zenawi manipulates constitution by engaging in electoral irregularities to remain in power beyond the end of his legally prescribed term of office. After first telling the whole country that he is stepping aside for the upcoming 2010 election, he pushed through constitutional amendments to only come back and announce that his party had nominated him again to stay in power until 2014. In Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi jails political opponents and holds them for years without trial, closes down newspapers, and suppresses public dissent. He censors the press and jails his opponents for simple acts of dissidence. In all, at least 100,000 dissidents are now sitting in jails and in prisons across Ethiopia.

Executive dominance is also reflected in the relatively high degree of administrative centralization that exists in Ethiopia. Even though, Ethiopia has adopted the federal form of government, which supposes certain political autonomy for provincial or state-level administrative units, in most instances, the autonomy of the lower administrative units is more apparent than real. Meles Zenawi dominates the legislative and judicial branches at the national level, and because of that domination he also dominates local, provincial, and municipal governments. For example, in the last three elections in my own state of Gambella, Meles Zenawi acted forcefully to curtail state power and to remove from office state officials who opposed his policies.

In Ethiopia, provincial administration receives their power and resources from the central government in Addis Ababa. The minister of interior in Addis Ababa, with blessing from Meles Zenawi, appoints, removes, transfers, or even jails the provincial governors (in the case of Okello Nygello of Gambella). These subordinate officials are, consequently, responsible to the interior minister in all they do. All major decisions are referred to the minister. The provincial governors are powerful only in a derivative sense; that is, they have no resources themselves but derive power from carrying out central government decrees.

Under the pretext of federalism, the constitution gives provincial governments authority; however, serious lacks of resources prevent them from taking advantage of this constitutional delegation of power. Intentionally, to keep the central government powerful, all the needed resources are made to reside solidly in Addis Ababa, the home-base of the central government. There is no real provincial self- governance in Ethiopia because it is hampered by a lack of locally obtained and locally expended founds. Therefore, the states in Ethiopia live and breathe at the mercy of the central government in Addis Ababa.

By the virtue of his party’s number of seats in Ethiopian’s parliament, Meles Zenawi became the absolute decider of policies. With 430 parliament’s seats in his disposal, he can push through any policy he sees fit for his party and his stooges without worrying about any challenge from the opposition. As it is, he dominates the three branches of Ethiopian’s government: the executive, legislative, and judicial. He is more than a dictator. He is an absolute monarch.

In a closed meeting which I was part of, I posed a question to Dr. Merera Gudina to tell me how many seats his Oromo National Congress (ONC) got in Ethiopian’s parliament. His answer was “44 seats.” Imagine 44 seats challenging 430 seats! Also, as it stands, Medrek, the combination of opposition parties led by the same Dr. above, have “96 seats.” Can anyone in his/her right mind imagines what kind of challenge Medrek will pose to Meles’ 430 seats no matter how many more seats it gains in May 2010 election? Unless, of course, it gains 300 seats. That way, it will have 396 seats to allow it to formidably challenge Meles Zenawi’s absolute power. If Medrek is not going to gain 300 seats in upcoming election, I suggest that they stay away from the election. Participating in upcoming election will not only be a waste of time and resources, it will also give legitimacy to so called democracy in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is a one party country. Let the world and the donors know that by staying away from the upcoming 2010 election. We do not need to give Meles Zenawi one more reason to keep deceiving the donors by using his so called democratic election in Ethiopia. We all know that there will not be free election or democracy in Ethiopia as long as there is an Executive Dominance in Ethiopia; that is as long as the same institution (EPRDF) and its chairperson (Meles Zenawi) control the three branches of Ethiopian’s government.

Magn Nyang is a son of Gambella and can be reached at magnnyang@yahoo.com

Source

Ethiopia -Witness for the future

By Alemayehu G. Mariam | November 16, 2009

In his book Night, Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and the man the Nobel Committee called the “messenger to mankind” when it awarded him the peace prize in 1986, wrote:

For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.”

On November 9-10, 1938, the Nazis destroyed thousands of Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses throughout Germany, killing nearly 100 and arresting and deporting some 30,000 to concentration camps. That was Krystallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), the forerunner to the Holocaust. On March 21, 1960, apartheid security forces in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa, fired 705 bullets in two minutes to disperse a crowd of protesting Africans. When the shooting spree stopped, 69 black Africans lay dead, shot in the back; and 186 suffered severe gunshot wounds.

Following the May, 2005 Ethiopian parliamentary elections, paramilitary forces under the direct command and control of regime leader Meles Zenawi massacred 193 innocent men, women and children and wounded 763 persons engaged in ordinary civil protest. Nearly all of the victims shot and killed died from injuries to their heads or upper torso, and there was evidence that sharpshooters were used in the indiscriminate and wanton attack on the protesters. On November 3, 2005, during an alleged disturbance at the infamous Kality prison near Addis Abeba, guards sprayed more than 1500 bullets into inmate cells in 15 minutes killing 17 and severely wounding 53. These facts were meticulously documented by a 10-member Inquiry Commission established by Zenawi himself after examining 16,990 documents, receiving testimony from 1,300 witnesses and undertaking months of investigation in the field.

Under constant threat by the regime and afraid to make these facts public in Ethiopia, the Commission’s chairman Judge Frehiwot Samuel, vice chair Woldemichael Meshesha, and member attorney Teshome Mitiku fled the country with the evidence. They made their findings public on November 16, 2006, before a committee of the U.S. Congress. Their report completely exonerated the protesters and pinned the blame for the massacres entirely on the regime and its security forces. No protesters possessed, used or attempted to use firearms, explosives or any other objects that could be used as a weapon. No protester set or attempted to set fire to public or private property, robbed or attempted to rob a bank.1

The victims of the post-election massacres were not faceless and nameless images in the crowd. They were individuals with identities. Among the victims were Tensae Zegeye, age 14; Habtamu Tola, age 16; Binyam Degefa, age 18; Behailu Tesfaye, age 20; Kasim Ali Rashid, age 21. Teodros Giday Hailu, age 23. Adissu Belachew, age 25; Milion Kebede Robi, age 32; Desta Umma Birru, age 37; Tiruwork G. Tsadik, age 41; Elfnesh Tekle, age 45. Abebeth Huletu, age 50; Regassa Feyessa, age 55; Teshome Addis Kidane, age 65; Victim No. 21762, age 75, female, and Victim No. 21760, male, age unknown and many dozens more.2

Ethiopians have a special duty to bear witness for these innocent victims who died as eye witnesses to the theft of an election and the mugging of democracy in Ethiopia in 2005. They went into the streets to peacefully defend their right to vote and have their votes count, and defend the first democratic election in Ethiopia’s 3,000-year history. We must force ourselves to testify for them not just as victims of monstrous crimes but also as true patriots. For they acted out of a sense of duty, honor, love of country and deep concern for the future of Ethiopia. They died so that 80 million Ethiopians could live free.

Ethiopia’s dictators would have the world believe that the victims of their carnage were nobodies who did not matter. It is true they were all ordinary people of the humblest origins. But we value them not for their wealth and social status but for their patriotism and sacrifices in the cause of freedom, democracy and human rights.

Elie Weisel is absolutely right. We have a duty to bear witness against those who commit crimes against humanity and for the innocent victims of tyranny and dictatorship. We have to “force” ourselves to testify not only for the dead but also “for the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow.” We do not want the massacres of 2005 to become the future of Ethiopia.

When we bear witness for Ethiopia’s innocent victims, we bear witness for all victims of tyranny and dictatorships. For the cause of the innocent transcends race, ethnicity, religion, language, country or continent. It even transcends time and space because the innocent represent humanity’s infinite capacity for virtue as dictators and tyrants represent humanity’s dregs. When we bear witness for them, we also testify in our own behalf against that evil lurking secretly and deep in our souls and hearts. But by not forcing ourselves to testify against evil, we become an inseparable part of it. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” That is also the essential message of Elie Weisel.

Let us bear witness now for Zenawi’s victims. Let us tell the world that they cry out for justice from the grave. Let us testify that they died on the bloody battlefield of dictatorship with nothing in their hands, but peace and love in their hearts, justice in their minds and passion for the cause of freedom and democracy in their spirits and bodies. Let us remember and honor them, not in sorrow, but in gratitude and eternal indebtedness. Let us make sure that their sacrifices will tell generations of Ethiopians to come stories of personal bravery and courage and an abiding and unflinching faith in democracy and the rule of law. And when we despair over what appears to be the victory of evil over good, let us be inspired by Gandhi’s words: “There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS.” Let us remind ourselves every day that “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men and women do nothing.”

Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on Pambazuka News and New American Media.

J'Accuse

By Alemayehu G. Mariam
November 9, 2009

“No alternative in the opposition,” they whispered anonymously. What a disgusting phrase to use in justifying support for a ruthless dictatorship? That is apparently the scuttlebutt on Embassy Row in Addis Abeba. Reuters’ Barry Malone reported last week, “Most Western governments want Meles to continue because there is no alternative in the opposition. As long as the elections are semi-democratic, they'll probably stay quiet, keep giving aid, hope for liberalisation of the economy and leave full democracy for later.” Is this the ultimate proof of the triumph of Western moral relativism, hypocrisy and skullduggery in Ethiopia and Africa? Is this the new 21st Century Western paradigm of moral capitulation and appeasement of evil? Is the West going to a moral hellhole in a hand basket?

We now have a clear answer to a question that had puzzled us for the past two decades: Why do Western governments and their multilateral lending institutions support Zenawi’s dictatorship with billions of dollars in loans and foreign aid? Answer: Because “there is no alternative in the opposition!” Why do they turn a blind eye to the gross violations of human rights in Ethiopia? Turn a deaf ear to the bootless cries of the thousands of Ethiopian political prisoners rotting in Zenawi’s jail? Pretend to be mute on Birtukan Midekssa’s unjust imprisonment? Prop up a regime that ruthlessly decimates its opposition, crushes the free press, chokes civil society organizations, squanders and defalcates foreign aid and loans and lords imperiously over a famine-ravaged country? Why do “most Western governments want Meles to continue?” Answer: “Because there is no alternative in the opposition!”

It is agonizing to finally come face to face with the banality of depraved Western diplomatic indifference in Addis Abeba. It is heartbreaking to learn that Western governments have earnestly resolved to humanize and normalize a brutal regime while preaching to Africans in forked tongue that their dictators are on the wrong side of morality and history. They shed crocodile tears for the victims of African dictators. They comfort the helpless and frightened African masses with sweet words of hope and grand promises of democratic renaissance. Now we have come to find out that the hypocrites are secretly in bed with the very dictators they condemn in public! It must be true that “politics makes for strange bedfellows.”

The “no alternative in the opposition” Western diplomatic mantra and mindset could have devastating consequences on Ethiopia and other African countries suffering under the stranglehold of dictatorial rule. It means the seeds of the rule of law will die on the barren soil of African dictatorships; that totalitarianism and police states are morally justified and compelled in Africa whenever Western governments conclude there are “no alternatives in the opposition”; that state-sponsored violence and repression are necessary moral imperatives for the nurturance of an “emerging democracy”; and that dictatorship is necessary to save Ethiopians, and Africans in general, from themselves. Simply stated, the triumph of dictatorship in Africa is a necessary precondition for the rapture of democracy in Africa. Such has become the pitiful logic of moral decay and duplicity of Western governments in Africa today!

Of course, the whole notion of “no alternative in the opposition” is absurd and patently false in its premise and conclusion. There is definitely a viable alternative it the opposition in Ethiopia, but Zenawi ruthlessly eliminates and roots out any opposition before it poses a real challenge to him. Birtukan Midekksa and her Unity, Democracy and Justice party represent a viable opposition; but a year ago Zenawi jailed Birtukan for life on the ridiculous charge of denying a pardon. Medrek, an alliance of eight parties, is a viable opposition, but Zenawi refuses to jointly develop a consensus-based election code of conduct with it. He wants to shove down the opposition’s throat his own self-serving election code of conduct while grandstanding for Western governments that he is willing, ready and able to have free and fair elections.

Zenawi has completely paralyzed the real opposition by intimidation and brutal repression. Just last week, “documents were given to Reuters by four opposition parties listing [450] prisoners’ names, the dates on which they were arrested and the jails in which they were being held.” Gizachew Shiferaw, deputy leader of the Unity for Democracy and Justice party told Reuters, “These jailings stop our members running in elections. It has become a strategy for the ruling party. Ethiopia is a one-party state.” The All Ethiopia Unity Organization has recorded seven politically-motivated murders of its members over the last 12 months. Last month, Ethiopia’s former president, Dr. Negasso Gidada, presented a mound of anecdotal evidence documenting the complete absence of a “level playing field” for the 2010 “election”. If there is “no alternative in the opposition,” as the Western governments claim, it is because a real opposition can not survive in a totalitarian police state! In the Catch-22 diplomatic netherworld of Addis Abeba, the strategy is obvious: “It is better to deal with a devil you know than an angel you do not know.” In Ethiopia’s case, one must grudgingly give the “devil his due.” For the past two decades, Western governments have been confounded, hoodwinked, bambozzled, bluffed, duped, manipulated, seduced, beguiled, flim-flammed and sandbagged by a master of deception into believing that there is “no alternative in the opposition”.

But the canard of “no alternative in the opposition” could mask something more sinisterly selfish. Western governments apparently have their eyes transfixed on getting a lion’s share of the “lucrative telecommunications and banking industries in a nation of more than 80 million people” and “exporting commodities and exploring Ethiopia for probable oil and gas deposits.” They are scared that “if the opposition takes power, the future would be uncertain and investments delayed as foreign governments and lenders jostle for influence.” Hidden under the thick layers of hypocrisy is a deliberate decoupling of dictatorship from democracy and good governance and a coupling of calculated long-term economic interests with the strengthening of a stable dictatorship to advance a scheme of globalized economic exploitation in Ethiopia. In the old days, they called such things neo-colonialism. It is not clear what they call them these days, but there is no doubt that Ethiopian democracy and the Ethiopian people are held hostage in the grand cut-throat global competition for oil, gas and exports.

Western governments and multilateral lending institutions know better. As President Obama said, “Africa needs strong institutions, not strong men.” Or in the common idiom, “It is not about the man. It is about the plan.” They should be engaged in institution-building, not armor-plating the clenched fists of African dictators. They should use their financial leverage to help build strong multiparty institutions, facilitate clean fraud-free elections, establish structures of accountability, institutionalize the rule of law, fortify the protection of human rights and strengthening civil society institutions in Africa. That’s how viable alternatives in the opposition are created, nurtured and sustained in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.

It is a truism to say that full democratization will take time in Africa. There will be many uncertainties and obstacles to Africa’s democratic development. Having an “alternative in the opposition” is not a panacea to Ethiopia’s decades-old problems. Any “alternative” to dictatorship in Ethiopia would have to deal with the legacy of human rights violations, economic mismanagement, corruption and the social chaos spawned by the dictatorship’s catastrophic “ethnic federalism” program. There will be many false starts and trials and errors on the road to democracy under an “alternative opposition.”

Western governments should be careful not to cerate and perpetuate an insidious myth that Africa has no alternative to dictatorship. It is psychologically devastating to tell 80 million Ethiopians that Western governments will support Zenawi’s dictatorship because they believe there are “no alternatives in the opposition.” Such a callous and cold-blooded attitude conveys a defeatist message to Ethiopians. It sends a signal that Ethiopians should abandon all hope of freedom and democracy because they are doomed and destined to eternal dictatorship. This attitude inherently de-legitimizes, disregards and ridicules the efforts of emerging opposition groups, and effectively tranquilizes them into stunned silence, depriving them of the confidence needed to stand up for democracy, freedom and human rights. Ironfisted dictators will no doubt be emboldened by this windfall of appeasement. Ultimately, this attitude of do-nothing-now and turn-a-blind eye to dictatorship will undermine the long-term policy interests of Western governments in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa by incapacitating them from using the vast financial leverage they have to aid Africa transition from dictatorship to democracy and pursue their geopolitical interests.

None of the foregoing is intended to suggest the Ethiopian opposition is blameless. Those genuinely in the opposition must accept responsibility for their inability to come together and articulate a vision for the country. They deserve blame for squandering valuable opportunities to build organizational alliances, develop alternative policies and train young leaders. Of course, there have been Judases in the opposition who have been willing to sacrifice the cause of democracy on the altar of dictatorship and kneel down and kiss the blood-drenched hands of Herod for thirty pieces of silver. But that is no excuse for not closing ranks against dictatorship now, and presenting a united front in support of democracy, freedom and human rights.

The catchphrases bandied around in the Western diplomatic cocktail circuits in Addis Abeba today probably go something like this: “Democracy is a dead end road in Ethiopia. Dictatorship is the beacon of light for Ethiopia’s future. Forget about the famine, human rights violations, corruption and the rest of it. Ethiopia is doomed because she has ‘no alternatives in the opposition!’”

Excellencies, it is said you will support Zenawi’s dictatorship “as long as the [2010] elections are semi-democratic”. To believe a dictatorship can be semi-democratic is to believe a woman can be a little bit pregnant. Do not deceive yourselves, and do not write us off just yet. In the long run, Ethiopians, and Africans in general, will receive the blessings of democracy by evolution or revolution! For now, we want you to know that Ethiopians are double victims of crime. They are victimized by dictators who have perpetrated upon them crimes against humanity with impunity. They are also victims of the crime of depraved indifference to their suffering by those who continue to coddle, aid and abet the criminals who have committed upon them crimes against humanity. Let it be known that we make no distinctions between the two types of criminals. Excellencies, that is why every patriotic and human rights-loving Ethiopian shall face you in righteous indignation, and charge: “J’Accuse!”

Famine and the Noisome Beast in Ethiopia

By Alemayehu G. Mariam
Huffigton Post
It is hard to talk about Ethiopia these days in non-apocalyptic terms. Millions of Ethiopians are facing their old enemy again for the third time in nearly forty years. The Black Horseman of famine is stalking that ancient land. A year ago, Meles Zenawi's regime denied there was any famine. Only "minor problems" of spot shortages of food which will "be soon brought under control," it said dismissively. The regime boldly predicted a 7-10 percent increase in the annual harvest over 2007. Simon Mechale, head of the country's Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency, proudly declared: "Ethiopia will soon fully ensure its food security." For several years, the regime has been touting its Productive Safety Net Programme would result in ending the "cycle of dependence on food aid" by bridging production deficits and protecting household and community assets. Famine and chronic food shortages were officially ostracized from Ethiopia.

But the famine juggernaut could not be stopped. Recently, Mitiku Kassa, Ethiopia's state minister for agriculture and rural development, was panhandling international donors to give $121 million in food aid to feed some 5 million people. The United Nations World Food Programme says a much larger emergency fund of $285 million in international food aid is needed to avert mass starvation just in the next six months.

Zenawi's regime has been downplaying and double-talking the famine situation. It is too embarrassed to admit the astronomical number of people facing starvation in a country which, by the regime's own accounts, is bursting at the seams from runaway economic development. USAID's Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its September, 2009 Situation Report indicated that there are "an additional 7.5 million" individuals to those reported by the Ethiopian government who are "chronically food insecure." Regardless of the euphemisms, code words and rhetorical flourish used to describe the situation by politically correct international agencies, between 15-18 per cent of the Ethiopian population is at risk of full blown famine, according to estimates of various international famine relief organizations.

Many Ethiopians view the recurrent famines as an expression of divine wrath. Successive governments have evaded responsibility for their failure to prevent or mitigate famine conditions. In 1973/4, Ethiopia's "hidden famine," exposed to the world by the BBC's Jonathan Dimbleby, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 200,000 Ethiopians. Emperor Haile Selassie said he was unaware of the magnitude of the famine. He lost his throne and life in the ensuing military coup. In 1984/5, the Soviet-supported socialist military junta known as the "Derg" denied the existence of a famine which consumed over 1 million Ethiopians. Today, the regime of Meles Zenawi shamelessly presides over a third apocalyptic famine in 40 years while boasting to the world an "11 per cent economic growth over the past six years."

Every Ethiopian government over the past four decades has blamed famine on "acts of God." The current regime, like its predecessors, blames "poor and erratic rains," "drought conditions," "deforestation and soil erosion," "overgrazing," and other "natural factors" for famine and chronic food shortages in Ethiopia. Zenawi's regime even has the brazen audacity to blame "Western indifference" and "apathy" in not providing timely food aid for the suffering of starving Ethiopians.

Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's international director, after her recent visit to Ethiopia observed: "Drought does not need to mean hunger and destitution. If communities have irrigation for crops, grain stores, and wells to harvest rains then they can survive despite what the elements throw at them." Martin Plaut, BBC World Service News Africa editor explains that the "current [famine] crisis is in part the result of policies designed to keep farmers on the land, which belongs to the state and cannot be sold." So the obvious questions for Zenawi's regime are: Why is all land owned by a government that has rejected socialism and is fully committed to a free market economy? Why has the regime not been able to build an adequate system of irrigation for crops, grain storages and wells to harvest rains?

Indian economics Nobel laureate Amartya Sen argued that the best way to avert famines is by institutionalizing democracy and strengthening human rights: "No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy" because democratic governments "have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes." Ethiopia's famine today is a famine of food scarcity as much as it is a famine of democracy and good governance. Ethiopians are starved for human rights, thirst for the rule of law, ache for accountability of those in power and yearn to breathe free from the chokehold of dictatorship. They are dying at the hands of corrupt, foreign-aid-profiteering and ethnically-polarizing dictators who cling to the Ethiopian body politics like blood-sucking ticks on a milk cow.

Sen's democratic network of "famine early warning systems" do not exist in Ethiopia. Opposition parties are crushed ruthlessly, and their leaders harassed, persecuted and jailed. Birtukan Midekssa, the first woman political party leader in Ethiopia's recorded history, today languishes in prison doing a life term on the ridiculous charge that she had denied receiving a government pardon in July 2007 following her kangaroo court conviction and two year incarceration. The free press is silenced and journalists imprisoned for exposing official corruption and offering alternative viewpoints. They do not dare report on the famine. NGOs, including famine relief organizations, are severely hobbled in their work by a law that "criminalises the human rights activities of both foreign and domestic non-governmental organizations," according to Amnesty International. All along, Zenawi has been hoodwinking international donors and lenders into supporting his "emerging democracy." After two decades, we do not even see the ghost of democracy on Ethiopia's parched landscape. All we see is the specter of an entrenched dictatorship that has clung to power like barnacles to a sunken ship, or more appropriately, the sunken Ethiopia ship of state.

Images of the human wreckage of Ethiopia's rampaging famine will soon begin to make dramatic appearances on television in Western living rooms. The Ethiopian government will be out in full force panhandling the international community for food aid. Compassion fatigued donors may or may not come to the rescue. Ethiopians, squeezed between the Black Horseman and the Noisome Beast, will once again cry out to the heavens in pain and humiliation as they await for handouts from a charitable world. Isn't that a low, down-dirty shame for a proud people to bear?

The Madness of Ethiopia’s 2010 “Elections”, Part I - Alemayehu G. Mariam

In part II, we aim to explore the necessary preconditions for free and fair elections.

Free and Fair Elections in a Police State

“Is it possible to have a fair and free election in a police state?” That is the inescapable question one must answer after reading former Ethiopian President Dr. Negasso Gidada’s recent reportage on his visit to Dembi Dollo in Qelem Wallaga Zone of Oromia Region. In his recent widely read analysis, Dr. Negasso flatly declared that there is “no level playing field” in Dembi Dollo, and by implication anywhere else in Ethiopia, to have a free and fair election in 2010.

Dr. Negasso’s account of his visit to Dembi Dollo evokes the farcical theatricality of a low budget political horror film: The former president shows up for a visit in Dembi Dollo and is promptly shooed away and stonewalled by local functionaries. He is told he can’t hold mass public meetings or engage in other forms of discussion or dialogue with the public. In disbelief, he hastily arranges individual meetings with local businessmen, community elders, teachers, health workers, church leaders, qa’bale officials, private professionals, university students, NGO employees and members and supporters of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM). He is horrified to learn that the individuals who have met or spoken with him could be abused and victimized by local security operatives. He becomes aware of the a ubiquitous and omnipotent local security apparatus with its tentacles planted firmly into individual households.

To describe Dr. Negasso’s account on the “current situation” in Dembi Dollo as “downright chilling” would be a gross understatement. He depicts a local party organization nestled within an oppressive security apparatus consisting of layered and operationally interlocking committees (which could be best described as “commissariats”), mimicking Stalin’s NKVD (Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs) in the 1930s. Households, hamlets, villages, districts, towns and zones are hierarchically integrated into a commissariat for the single purpose of coordinating command and control over perceived “enemies of the people”. There is a network of informants, agents and secret police-type operatives who rely on heavy-handed methods to harass, intimidate, gather intelligence and penetrate opposition elements with the aim of neutralizing them.

The integrated overlay set up of the local security structure with the dominant OPDO/EPDRF party in Dembi Dollo is quite intriguing. According to Dr. Negasso’s reportage, there is no structural or functional separation of political party and public security in Dembi Dollo. The two are morphed into a single political structure which totally controls and dominates the local political and social scene. The special Woreda Town Administration is sub-divided into four large “Ganda” or villages with their own councils, each consisting of 300 members. Each qa’bale has representation in the Woreda Council, which is further sub-divided into zones and even smaller units called “Gare”. There are 30 to 40 households in a “Gare” group, which is overseen by a commissariat consisting of a chairperson, a secretary, a security chief and two other members. There are up to 17 “Gare” in each zone with branches in every village, schools and health institutions. There is also a larger network of 24 qa’bales under a Sayyo Rual Woreda. Public employees, farmers, local youth, women, members of micro-credit associations and others are involuntarily inducted into the security-party structure.

The security network is so sophisticated that it has Stalinesque quasi-directorates consisting of party and security organizations working together to maintain around the clock surveillance and generate and distribute real time intelligence on individual households through an established chain of command. It is clear from Dr. Negasso’s reportage that the local commissariats have expansive powers of investigation, arrest, interrogation and detention. They maintain a network of anonymous informants and agents who provide tips for the identification, investigation and arrest of local individuals suspected of disloyalty to the regime. They control and regulate the flow of information and visitors in and out of the town. Apparently, they have the power to deport anyone considered persona non grata from the town. In general, there is little question that the commissariats and the interlocking quasi-directorates engage in widespread human rights abuses against the local population.

One of the common methods of local control described by Dr. Negasso involves the use of highly intrusive security structures called “shane”, which in Oromo means “the five”. Five households are grouped together under a leader who is responsible for collecting information on the households every day and passing it on to the “Gare” officials. For instance, the “shane leader knows if the members of a household have participated in ‘development work’, if they have contributed to the several fund raising programs, if they have attended Qabale meetings, whether they have registered for election, if they have voted and for whom they have voted.” The “Gare” security chief passes information he has received from the security network to his superiors right up the chain of command.

Here are some excerpts from Dr. Negasso’s reportage:

The OPDO/EPRDF… seems determined not to allow any other political organization which could compete against it in the area. This goes as far as not welcoming individual visitors to the area. Visitors are secretly followed and placed under surveillance to determine where they have been, whom they have visited, and what they have said… Local people who had contact with visitors that are summoned and grilled by security officials. In my case, my brother-in-law, with whom I stayed, … received telephone calls from the Dembi Dollo and Naqamte security offices. He was asked why I came, whether I came for preparation for the coming election or for any other purpose.

[A USAID visiting group received the same treatment.] They were followed from the time it arrived in Naqamte. After the group returned, several security officials interrogated leaders of the Dembi Dollo Bethel-Mekane Yesus Church… One of the church leaders was even summoned to the zonal administrator’s office and asked detailed questions about the visitors from Addis.

[Individuals who came to greet] Dr. Belaynesh (member of the OFDM and an MP) were arrested, interrogated and held in custody for 24 to 48 hours. The houses of some of these individuals were also searched.

OPDO/EPRDF in Dembi Dollo, besides using the police and security offices and personnel, also collects information on each household.

Each household is required to report on guests and visitors, the reasons for their visits, their length of stay, what they said and did and activities they engaged in.

The “Election Code of Conduct” Game

The ruling dictatorship has been peddling the idea of an “election code of conduct” to entice the opposition to field candidates for the 2010 “election”. Foreign embassies have been enlisted to do cheerleading for such a “code”. Medrek, a forum for eight political parties, walked out of “election code” talks sensing a surefire trap down the road as the “election” date nears.

Lately, there has been talk of “boycotting” the “election”. The unjust imprisonment of Birtukan Midekssa and release of all political prisoners has become a central issue. Ato Gizachew Shiferaw, a member of the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party and vice-chairman of Medrek stated unambiguously: “Unless we take some sort of remedy toward these political prisoners, it will be difficult to look at the upcoming elections as free and fair.” Medrek is also demanding the establishment of an independent electoral board, an immediate stop to harassment of opposition candidates and supporters; it has also called for the presence of international election observers. Bereket Simon, the Machiavellian demiurge of the dictatorship, dogmatically pontificated: “We invited them to a dialogue in the presence of the British and German embassies. We invited them to join negotiations. They declined. The party who walks away from the negotiating table doesn’t have a moral right to accuse us of closing political space.”

Free and Fair Election: No Need to Re-Invent the Election Wheel

A free and fair election is possible only where the rule of law prevails and fundamental human rights are respected. There is no mystery to having free and fair elections. To be sure, in theory, there is no logical reason why there could not be free and fair elections in Ethiopia in May 2010 or at any other time. Its “constitution” which describes itself as the “supreme law of the land” guarantees voters and candidates (and citizens in general) full freedom of speech and expression; ensures freedom of press, which guarantees the right to publicly disseminate political messages and information in the run up to elections and post-election period; the right to vote and the secret ballot are secured; guarantees of an electoral level playing field accessible to all voters, parties and candidates with an independent, non-partisan electoral organization to administer the process are belabored in the constitution; freedom of association to form political parties and civic organizations are held inviolable; and freedom of assembly to hold political rallies and to campaign freely are upheld as hallowed rights.

Further, there are purported legislative and regulatory safeguards in place to ensure fair access to the public media by opposition candidates and parties, penalize the improper use of the police, the military, the judiciary and civil servants and elections officials. Use of public funds and equipment for partisan political purposes are strictly prohibited. The electoral process is guaranteed to ensure unencumbered voter registration, accessible polling places, dignified treatment of elections officials, open and transparent ballot counting and verification processes, oversight of elections by trained and politically independent election officials and prevent election fraud. Administrative and judicial challenges of election results are guaranteed by law.

Most importantly, it has been established beyond the shadow of doubt that Ethiopian voters are second to none in their understanding of the democratic electoral process. In 2005, an estimated at 90 percent of the 26 million registered voters in the country voted, according to the Carter Center. Ethiopian voters have gained solid experience in the electoral process. What is needed now is to replicate and improve the 2005 electoral process for 2010. There is no need to re-invent the election wheel.

The Fox Guarding the Hen House: Is an Election Code of Conduct Needed?

When the fox is guarding the election hen house, it is rather meaningless to talk about election housekeeping rules, which is what an “election code of conduct” is. Ultimately, the fox rules the henhouse with an iron fist; and though he may agree to “fair” rules of the electoral game, he knows that in the final analysis he holds all the cards and the opposition none. In other words, in a police state the “chief of police” knows that he is guaranteed victory in all of the zero sum games he plays because he owns the game. He also knows that his opposition is powerless to break his perpetual streak of “victory”. In all of the talk about elections, one question relentlessly gnaws the mind of the dictator: How to buy time and cling to power indefinitely while stringing along the opposition by trickery, false promises, double-dealing, double-crossing, shenanigans, razzle-dazzle using foreign embassies as intermediaries, duplicity and whatever gimmicks remain hidden in the dictatorship’s bottomless repository of political dirty tricks.

Towards an Election Code of Conduct?

The idea of an “election code of conduct”, at first blush, is appealing because it points in the direction of a peaceful and civil electoral process. Such “codes” have been used successfully in different countries. In principle, they are useful and facilitate an electoral process that is clean, and free from violence and vote rigging. But we must remain acutely aware of one fact: Those who clamor for an election code of conduct usually champion it to cloak and shroud the dirty political tricks they have concealed up their sleeves.

If such a code is to be had, it must be devised along the same lines as the criminal code. Just as the criminal code is designed with criminals and the criminal classes in mind, an election code should be designed with vote riggers, ballot stuffers, and election thieves in mind. As Dr. Negasso’s reportage plainly indicates, it is the ruling “EPDRF” party that has misused and abused official public resources, equipment, machinery or personnel for improper electioneering work. They are the ones who have improperly used public places to hold partisan political meetings and election rallies and prevented or made inaccessible such places on the same terms and conditions to opposition parties and candidates. It is the party in power that totally and completely dominates the print and electronic media, and misuses it to advance its partisan political agenda. It is the ruling party and its leaders that make illegal and corrupt offers and promises of financial payoffs, grants, fertilizers, roads, projects etc, in exchange for votes, not the opposition. It is the ruling party members who can travel everywhere, distribute pamphlets and posters, hold rallies and meetings at any location of their choice while opposition parties and candidates are at the mercy of the local police authorities who routinely deny them permission to engage in ordinary political activity. It is the ruling party that uses election propaganda that appeals to ethnic prejudices, inflames historical grievances and passions and heightens tension among different communities and groups, not the opposition.

Seeking to offer an answer to the question of whether a code of conduct can be drafted to bring sanity to elections in a police state — or hold the fox guarding the hen house accountable — may appear to be an exercise in futility given the dictatorship’s history of elaborate machinations and shenanigans, total lack of transparency and zero-sum blame games. So, the question needs to be emphatically re-phrased: Will the dictatorship agree to and in good faith abide by an election code of conduct that is based on the principle of respect for the rule of law and human rights, and conforms to its own constitution and election laws?

According to the former Ex-President...the Situation is Getting Worse?

By Dr. Negaso Gidada

The Current Political Situation in Dembi Dollo

I visited Dembi Dollo, in Qelem Wallaga Zone of Oromia Region from September 18-28, 2009. During my visit, I tried to gather as much information as possible on the current political situation. I was unable to hold public meetings because the local administration was unwilling to cooperate. I therefore tried to meet as many individuals as I could. During the 10 days I talked to over two dozen individuals including cadres of the OPDO/EPRDF, business leaders, community elders, government workers (teachers and health workers), local qabale officials, vacationing university students, church leaders, private professionals, NGO employees and members and supporters of the OFDM.

This descriptive analysis summarizes and focuses on a few major issues. My general conclusion is that the OPDO/EPRDF totally controls and dominates the local political arena, and therefore, there could no level playing field for the opposition in the Dembi Dollo area. Unless the situation changes dramatically in the next few months, I do not expect the 2010 election will be fair, free or democratic. The first step in correcting the current situation is by appointing well trained election officers to different levels of the election administration.

I. Strict Security Control and Surveillance

The OPDO/EPRDF which claims to have won the 2005 and 2008 elections seems determined not to allow any other political organization which could compete against it in the area. This goes as far as not welcoming individual visitors to the area. Visitors are secretly followed and placed under surveillance to determined where they go, whom they visited, and what they said. The visitors will rarely be called for interrogation or approached by the security people. It is the local people who had contact with visitors that are summoned and grilled by security officials. In my case, my brother-in-law with whom I stayed made a copy of the letter I brought with me from the parliamen to the security office. He also received telephone calls from the Dembi Dollo and Naqamte security offices. He was asked why I came, whether I came for preparation for the coming election or for any other purpose.

About two months ago Professor Haweitu Simeso of the USAID visited Dembi Dollo with colleagues from the Irish and Canadian embassies. The visiting group was followed from the time it arrived in Naqamte. After the group returned, several security officials interrogated leaders of the Dembi Dollo Bethel-Mekane Yesus Church who had spoken to Haweitu and his colleagues. One of the church leaders was even summoned to the zonal administrator’s office and asked detailed questions about the visitors from Addis. Three weeks before I went to Dembi Dollo, Dr. Belaynesh (member of the OFDM and an MP) was in Dembi Dollo. After she returned to Addis, all the people who went to her father’s house to greet her and others she greeted on the streets in the town were arrested, interrogated and held in custody for a period of 24 to 48 hours. The houses of some of these individuals were also searched. A building contractor who arrived in Dembi Dollo on September 28 to inspect the construction of the new Bethel Church was also followed. He left the next day fearing that he will be summoned to the security office.

OPDO/EPRDF in Dembi Dollo, besides using the police and security offices and personnel, also collects information on each household through other means. One of these methods involves the use of organizations or structures called “shane”, which in Oromo means “the five”. Five households are grouped together under a leader who has the job of collecting information on the five households every day and pass it on to a higher administrative organ called “Gare”. There are 30 to 40 households in a “Gare” group which has a chairperson, a secretary, a security chief and two other members. The security chief passes the information he collected to his chief in the higher administrative organs in the Qabale, who in turn informs the Woreda police and security office.

Each household is required to report on guests and visitors, the reasons for their visits, their length of stay, what they said and did and activities they engaged in. The “shane” leader knows if the members of the households have participated in “development work”, if they have contributed to the several fund raising programs, if they have attended Qabale meetings, whether they have registered for election, if they have voted and for whom they have voted. The OPDO/EPRDF mass associations (women, youth and micro-credit groups) and party cells (“fathers”, “mothers” and “youth”). The party cells in the schools, health institutions and religious institutions also serve the same purpose.

II. Organizational Structures

Understanding how the OPDO/EPRDF itself and its Woreda administration are organized is very important. There is the OPDO/EPRDF Qellem Wallagga Zonal office in Dembi Dollo. This office receives information and instruction from the regional office in Addis Ababa. It passes messages to the lower structures and oversees the propaganda and organizational activities of the party. This office has branches in every village, schools and health institutions. These branches are subdivided into basic cells. The branches of these cells are organized into supporter groups, candidate groups and full members groups.

Additionally, the party has organized the people into youth, women and micro-credit associations for tighter control and easy dissemination of its propaganda and to do party activities. Dembi Dollo town is a special Woreda Town Administration. The Administration is sub-divided into four large “Ganda” (Villages). The town used to have seven Qabales but was restructured just before the Qabale election in 2008. Each Qabale has 15 in the Woreda Council. It is said that the OPDO/EPRDF presented the names of pre-selected council members to the Qabale Council and had them endorsed. There is also the Sayyo Rual Woreda (24 Qabales). The administration of Sayyo Woreda also has its seat in Dembi Dollo town. These are all appointees of the party and are believed to be “strongly committed” to it. The four “Ganda” (villages or some times called Kifle Ketema) have each their own councils. A council has 300 members. The members were “elected” in 2008. All the people I talked to confirmed to me that the party pre-selected the candidates. The Qabale has its own cabinet and these are also party members. A Qabale is further sub-divided into different zones. The zones are sub-divided into “Gare”. There are up to 17 “Gare” in a zone.

III. Misuse of Public Property, Finance and Civil Servants

The party’s propaganda and organization committees are located in the Zonal, Woreda and Qabale Administration building. The party does not pay rent for the rooms it uses. The committee members are party cadres but their monthly salary and per dimes are paid by the administration from public treasury. Their secretaries, cleaners and messengers also get their salary from public treasury. All civil servants are also members of the party. Monthly contribution of the members to the party are collected by the Woreda finance office at the time they pay the workers their monthly salaries. The party officials use government office materials, supplies and equipment, including official transport vehicles. The party uses town and qabale halls with out paying rent. Meeting halls in health and educational institutions are also used with out any payment and at will. This system is practiced from Zonal to “Gare” levels. But opposition to the OPDO/EPRDF are not allowed to rent rooms for offices from private owners or rent public halls in the town for meetings. Plasma televisions supposed to be used for school-net and Woreda-net are used for dissemination of party propaganda.

IV. Dissemination of OPDO/EPRDF Political Programs

All adults in the qabales and government employees are forced to participate in different seminars and workshops. The same is true of all school children who are in high schools and vocational training institutions. University students on vacation are also required to participate in such programs. Lessons in “Tarsimo” (Strategy) and “Bulchiinsa Gaarii” (Good Governance) are given to all residents (school children, collage and university students, and private and government employees). Workshops on BPR have been held and each government employee given Birr 25 for participation. The seminar for university students lasted five days. The per diem for this seminar was supposed to be Birr 35 per day for each participant for nine days. Every two weeks on Friday afternoon, all government employees participate in study circles of the party and cell meetings during work hours and in the public meeting rooms. No rent is paid for the use of the rooms. Fund raising programs are organized once in a while for support of the party. It is the administration’s finance officers who deduct the pledged amount from employees and transfer the money to the party.

V. Elections

During the 2005 election, I have witnessed that civil servants were deployed for two weeks for election campaign for the OPDO/EPRDF and that government vehicles (cars and motor cycles) were used for this purpose. OPDO/EPRDF members and cadres were busy disrupting public meetings I called in the field. One of my observers was bribed with Birr 200 and agreed to give the votes I received to my opponent (OPDO/EPRDF). In one qabale, I was forbidden not to hold election campaign meeting 500 meters away from a market place. The qabale officials told me that my meeting will disturb “their market”. My posters were removed from several places and leaflets I distributed were collected and destroyed. I persistently appealed to the election officials to correct the OPDO/EPRDF illegal activities or cancel it from the election in accordance with the election law but no body heeded to my appeals.

According to the people I talked to, the election office chief during the 2008 election is a member of the OPDO/EPRDF. There is a rumor that the same person is being appointed to the office by the OPDO/EPRDF for the 2010 election. The OPDO/EPRDF appointed a supporter or a member to each polling station to stand by the voters and tell the voters in which box they should put voting signs or signatures.

VI. Situation of the Opposition

The office of the OFDM has remained closed since 2005. Members and supporters were beaten up and imprisoned several times. They were intimidated or bribed. During the three weeks before my visit to Dembi Dollo, 60 people in Sayyo and 15 people in Dembi Dollo were arrested and kept in police custody for up to 48 hours. They had to pay one hundred Birr as bail before being released. They were reprimanded and warned for the 2010 election. They were told, “Be careful, do not support, be member of or vote for the opposition as you did in 2005. We shall not give in like then. We defend ourselves even with guns.” OFDM is equated to the OLF while the CUD or the “Qindomina” as it is called in Oromia is equated with the “Nafxagna”. The campaign against the UDJ as a “Nafxagna” organization has already begun.

VII. Media

No private or independent news papers are to be found in Dembi Dollo. Alternative news sources to the Federal and Oromia public media are only VOA and Deutche Welle. The Oromia information office and the OPDO send their press media to the area by bus. These are picked by a government employee and distributed to different institutions and offices. All workers are forced to buy these news papers.

VIII. Conclusion

It is plain to anyone who has been to Dembi Dollo and surrounding areas that there is no political level playing field. I can not imagine how the opposition can enter into an election process under such conditions. If the ruling party is serious about having a peaceful, fair and democratic election in 2010 it has much to do including the release of all political prisoners and putting a stop to new illegal arrests, intimidations, detentions and bribery of members of the opposition, immediate reopening of offices of the opposition, providing immediate equal access to the public media, allow public meetings organized by the opposition to take place freely, amend the Election Law so that neutral election officials can be appointed and make it possible for international election observers free access to ensure fair elections and put into place control mechanisms so that its supporters and members respect the constitution and the election laws. It must also start repaying rent for offices and halls it has used for its party activities over the past several years as well as for use of government office materials and equipments, fuel, telephone and electricity. Salaries paid to government employees from the public treasury must also be repaid.

Ethiopia - In contempt of ... the truth

By Alemayehu G. Mariam | September 28, 2009

In contempt ...

Commenting recently on an International Crisis Group (ICG) study dealing with rising ethnic tensions and dissent in advance of the “May 2010” elections, Ethiopia’s arch dictator wisecracked, “This happens as some people have too many billions of dollars to spend and they feel that dictating how, particularly, the developing countries manage their affairs is their God given right and to use their God given money to that purpose. They are entitled to their opinion as we are entitled to ours.”

The dictator’s opinion of the ICG and its findings was predictably boorish: “The analysis (ICG report) is not worth the price of or the cost of writing it up,” he harangued. “We have only contempt for the ICG. You do not respond to something you only have contempt for.” The dictator boasted that his “ethnic federalism” policy had saved the “country [which] was on the brink of total disintegration.” He marshaled anonymous authorities to support his fabricated claim that he is the redeemer of the nation: “Every analyst worth his salt was suggesting that Ethiopia will go the way of Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. What we have now is a going-concern."

Daniela Kroslak, ICG’s Deputy Director of the Africa Program, denied the dictator’s wild and bizarre denunciations. At any rate, the dictator’s criticism was a “tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing,” as Shakespeare might have said. He had not read the report! Why? Because it “was not worthy of [his] time.” The dictator unabashedly criticizes a report he had not even read -- a textbook case ofargumentum ad ignorantiam (argument to ignorance). In other words, because the report is “not worth the cost of the paper it is written on”, it is not “worthy” of being read; therefore, it is false and contemptible.) Trashing a report completed by a respected international think-tank (ICG provides regular advice to governments, and intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations, the European Union and the World Bank) and heaping contempt on its authors is a poor substitute for a rigorous, reasoned and factually-supported refutation of the report’s findings, analysis and arguments.

Truth be told, contempt is the emotional currency of the dictator. ICG just happens to be the latest object of the dictator’s wrathful contempt. The dictator’s record over the past two decades shows that he has total contempt for truth, the Ethiopian people, the rule of law, human rights, the free press, an independent judiciary, dissenters, opposition leaders and parties, popular sovereignty, the ballot box, clean elections, international human rights organizations, international law, international public opinion, Western donors who demand accountability, and even his own supporters who disagree with him and his flunkeys…

The Evidence: Does the ICG and Its Report Deserve Contempt or Credit?
The ICG report is balanced, judicious, honest and meticulously documented. Entitled, “Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and Its Discontents” (29 pages without appendix, and an astonishing 315 scholarly and other original source references for such a short report), the report “applauds” the dictator’s constitution for its “commitment to liberal democracy and respect for political freedoms and human rights.” It credits the dictatorship for “stimulating economic growth and expanding public services”. The study even approvingly notes the “proliferation of political parties” under the dictatorship’s watch.

The report is not a whitewash. It also points out failures. The most glaring failure is the radical political “restructuring” engendered by “ethnic federalism” to “redefine citizenship, politics and identity on ethnic grounds.” The study suggests that the “intent [of “ethnic federalism”] was to create a more prosperous, just and representative state for all its people.” However, the result has been the development of “an asymmetrical federation that combines populous regional states like Oromiya and Amhara in the central highlands with sparsely populated and underdeveloped ones like Gambella and Somali.” Moreover, “ethnic federalism” has created “weak regional states”, “empowered some groups” and failed to resolve the “national question”. Aggravating the underlying situation has been the dictatorship’s failure to promote “dialogue and reconciliation” among groups in Ethiopian society, further fueling “growing discontent with the EPRDF’s ethnically defined state and rigid grip on power and fears of continued inter-ethnic conflict.”

The ICG report implicitly criticizes the opposition as well. It notes that they are “divided and disorganized” and unable to publicly show that they could overcome “EPDRF’s” claim that they are not “qualified to take power via the ballot box.” As a result, the 2010 elections “most probably will be much more contentious, as numerous opposition parties are preparing to challenge the EPRDF, which is likely to continue to use its political machine to retain its position.” The study also addresses the role of the international community, which it claims “has ignored or downplayed all these problems.” The donor community is specifically criticized for lacking objective and balanced perspective as they “appear to consider food security more important than democracy in Ethiopia, but they neglect the increased ethnic awareness and tensions created by the regionalisation policy and their potentially explosive consequences.” The report does not even spare the defunct Derg regime, which historically was responsible for “repression, failed economic policy and forced resettlement and ‘villagisation’.”

Of course, none of the foregoing is known to those who are willfully ignorant of the report, but have chosen to preoccupy their minds with hubris, hypocrisy, arrogance and contempt for the truth.

Opinion versus Facts

The dictator said, “They (ICG) are entitled to their opinion as we are entitled to ours.” That is true. But as the common saying goes, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.” The facts on the dictatorship and “ethnic federalism” are infamous and incontrovertible. It is not a matter of opinion, but hard fact, that after the 2005 elections the dictator unleashed security forces under his personal control to undertake a massive “crackdown on the opposition [that] demonstrated the extent to which the regime is willing to ignore popular protest and foreign criticism to hold on to power.” It is a proven fact by the dictator’s own Inquiry Commission, not opinion, that his “security forces killed almost 200 civilians (the real number is many times that) and arrested an estimated 30,000 opposition supporters”. It is a plain fact that “there is growing discontent with the EPRDF’s ethnically defined state and rigid grip on power and fears of continued inter-ethnic conflict.” It is an undeniable fact that the dictatorship has caused “continuous polarisation of national politics that has sharpened tensions between and within parties and ethnic groups since the mid-1990s. The EPRDF’s ethnic federalism has not dampened conflict, but rather increased competition among groups that vie over land and natural resources, as well as administrative boundaries and government budgets.” It is a fact just as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow that “Without genuine multi-party democracy, the tensions and pressures in Ethiopia’s polities will only grow, greatly increasing the possibility of a violent eruption that would destabilise the country and region.”

It is true the dictator is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts!

The Art of Distraction
What could possibly be “contemptible” about the ICG report? The obvious way to counter a report by a respected international think-tank is by presenting countervailing evidence that undermines confidence in the report’s findings and conclusions. But the dictator opts for something proverbially attributed to the legal profession: “When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When both are against you, pound the table and attack and abuse the plaintiff.” In this case, when you can’t handle the facts and the truth, throw a fit, make a scene, vilify the ICG, demonize the individual authors, demean the report with cheap shots and declare moral victory with irrational outbursts.

But why throw a temper tantrum?

The fact of the matter is that “ethnic federalism” is indefensible in theory or practice. The ICG report hit a raw nerve by exposing the fundamental flaws in the dictatorship’s phony “ethnic federalism” ideology. The report makes it crystal clear that the scheme of “ethnic federalism” is unlikely to keep the nine ethnic-based states in orbit around the dictatorship much longer. The ICG’s reasonable fear is that over time irrepressible centripetal political contradictions deep within Ethiopian society could potentially trigger an implosion of the Ethiopian nation. This argument is logical, factually-supported and convincing. As we have previously suggested, “ethnic federalism” is a glorified nomenclature for apartheid-style Bantustans1. By unloading verbal abuse and sarcasm on the ICG, the dictator is trying to divert attention from the central finding of the report: Ethnic federalism is highly likely to lead to the disintegration of the Ethiopian nation. That is what the dictator’s sound and fury is all about!

What Makes for a Strong Federalism?
We believe the ICG report does not go far enough in explicitly suggesting a way out of the “ethnic federalism” morass. It seems implicit in the report that if “ethnic federalism” is dissolved as a result of forceful action by the “states”, the country’s national disintegration could be accelerated. If the dictatorship fails to reform or modify it significantly, ethnic tensions will continue to escalate resulting in an inevitable upheaval. If the dictatorship escalates its use of force to keep itself in power, it could pave the way for the ultimate and inevitable collapse of the country into civil strife. All of these scenarios place the Ethiopian people on the horns of a dilemma.

We believe there are important elements from the Ghanaian Constitution that could be incorporated to produce a strong and functioning federal system in Ethiopia. As we have argued before2 , Ghana’s 1992 Constitution provides a powerful antidote to the poison of ethnic and tribal politics: “Every political party shall have a national character, and membership shall not be based on ethnic, religious, regional or other sectional divisions.” Membership in a political party is open to “every citizen of Ghana of voting age” and every citizen has the right to “disseminate information on political ideas, social and economic programmes of a national character.” Ghanaian citizens’ political and civic life is protected by the rule of law and an independent judiciary. Citizens freely express their opinions without fear of government retaliation; and the media vociferously criticizes government policies and officials without censorship. Ghana has a strong judiciary with extraordinary constitutional powers to the point of making the failure to obey or carry out the terms of a Supreme Court order a “high crime”. Ghana’s independent electoral commission is responsible for voter registration, demarcation of electoral boundaries, conduct and oversight of all public elections and referenda and electoral education. The Commission’s decisions are respected by all political parties. These are the essential elements missing from the bogus theory of “ethnic federalism” foisted upon the people of Ethiopia.

Ob la di, Ob la da…
It is truly pathetic that after nearly twenty years in power the best the dictators can offer the suffering Ethiopian people is an empty plate and a bellyful of contempt, acrimony and anger. Well, ob la di, ob la da, life goes on forever! So will the Ethiopian Nation, united and strong under the rule of law and the Grace of the Almighty. If South Africa can be delivered from the plague of the Bantustans, have no doubts whatsoever that Ethiopia will also be delivered from the plague of the Kililistans!

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The writer, Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. For comments, he can be reached at almariam@gmail.com

Déjà Vu: Here We Go Again With the Charade

By Alemayehu G. Mariam | September 21, 2009

Last April, we commented that the whole business of elections in Ethiopia is “much ado about nothing”. We offered a catalogue of reasons why the whole election rigmarole and ritual under the current dictatorship was an exercise in futility and absurdity1

The insufferably meaningless [2008] election ritual is now almost over. But for a few more days, we’ll have to put up with the regime’s self-congratulatory blabber and vacuous sloganeering about Ethiopia’s unstoppable march on the road to democracy. Mercifully, in another week or so, no one will even remember there was an ‘election’ in Ethiopia in 2008.

Perhaps we spoke too soon. Here we go again with another election charade!
We are once again being finessed into talking about “the 2010 election” as though it is a real election. It is as real as Mickey Mouse, Pinocchio, Bugs Bunny and Mr. Magoo. It is just crazy: How is it possible that we fall for the same old trick over and over and over…? How can one conceive of contesting an “election” in 2010 that has already been won in 2009? How does any reasonable person believe that the same crooks that rigged the 2005 election will sit in their rocking chairs on the front porch watching a real election being held? Didn’t the same gang of election thieves tell us last April that opposition party members won ONLY 3 seats out of 3.5 million elected seats won by their party? What they call an “election” is the three ring circus where they will be formally announcing their landslide victory in May 2010.
But the charade goes on. It was reported that Ethiopia’s arch dictator “has set up talks with the opposition about drawing up a code of conduct for [elections] next year.” As usual, he tried to pull a fast one by trying to get opposition party leaders to sign it. Ato Seeye Abraha, a former defense minister who is now in the Forum for Democratic Dialogue in Ethiopia [FDDE] (a coalition of eight opposition parties) said, “The code of conduct assumes a context where there will be independent administration of elections, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, no intervention by security forces.” FDDE members pulled out of the talks. It was a simple case of “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Jamais Vu: What in the World is Going on in Ethiopia?
When the familiar seems new or bizarre, psychologists call it “jamais vu”. Something strange is going on in the relationship between the pro-democracy opposition parties and the one-man, one-party dictatorship in Ethiopia. They seem to have finally come to a complete agreement on political strategy. They have all become Ghandians. Ethiopia’s arch dictator has threatened to use the collective numerical power of African countries and walk out of the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December if the “rapists” of Africa do not pay up $67 billion a year as “blood money” for their centuries-long abuse of the continent:
If need be we are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threatens to be another rape of the continent… While we reason with everyone to achieve our objective we are not prepared to rubber stamp any agreement by the powers… We will use our numbers to delegitimise any agreement that is not consistent with our minimal position… Africa will field a single negotiating team empowered to negotiate on behalf of all member states of the African Union…

The FDDE “using its numbers” wants to negotiate with the ruling “Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front” to contest the “2010 elections”. But they walked out of the negotiations when the dictatorship began a campaign of arrest and intimidation against their members. Ato Bulcha Demeksa, leader of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement bitterly complained, “The ruling party cadres throughout the country are jailing our potential candidates on false charges… We want to negotiate with the government and ask them to stop arresting and jailing our potential candidates.” The capo dictator in his polished Orwellian gobbledygook was sarcastically dismissive: “Those parties that apparently are concerned about harassment are not concerned enough to participate in the devising of a code of conduct that is designed to put an end to it, if it exists, or to prevent it if it doesn’t… The intent of these individuals is to discredit the election process from day one, not to participate in it.” The dictator’s reptilian consigliere, Bereket Simon, with his signature condescension, contempt and mockery of the opposition quipped, “Nobody is being jailed for being a politician… To walk away from [the talks] is disastrous and is to walk away from democracy.”
Ghandi Rules!

We are now witnessing an epic Ghandian confrontation over how to use “numbers”. To use or not to use one’s numbers, that is question in Ethiopia and Africa today: Whether African countries or opposition political parties in Ethiopia should “use their numbers” in negotiations for a fair outcome in climate change or election negotiations? Whether a group of countries or political parties should “use” their “numbers” to delegitimize a concocted climate change deal agreement or a bogus code of conduct to facilitate rigged elections? Whether “numbers” should be used to resist and fend off Africa’s and Ethiopia’s “rapists”? Whether African countries should rubberstamp a lopsided climate deal agreement with the West or opposition political parties a one-sided code of conduct with a dictatorship?
In a Ghandian confrontation, there are no losers, only winners. Africans will certainly win if they use their “numbers” in the climate change negotiations. So will Ethiopian opposition political parties if they use their “numbers” to insist on holding an open and free election.


Climate Change and Regime Change
Climate change and regime change are actually two faces of the same coin. Think about it. Climate change affects the ecological well-being and survival of the entire planet; regime change is about the political ecology and welfare of human beings in a small corner of the planet. The mechanism for positively transforming both is the same: Attain moral clarity and act decisively and courageously on sound and unassailable moral grounds. If walking out of negotiations is a good and prudent moral act to save Africa from the “Western rapists”, it is also good and prudent enough to rescue Ethiopia from her rapists. If it is moral and prudent for “Africa to field a single negotiating team empowered to negotiate on behalf of all member states of the African Union,” it is moral and prudent for the FDDE to do the same in Ethiopia. If it is a moral act to “delegitimise any agreement that is not consistent with minimal positions on climate change” using one’s “numbers”, why would it not be an equally compelling moral act to delegitimize any “code of conduct,” “election” or “regime” that does not meet “minimal positions” of universally accepted standards of human rights and democratic practices? Those who point an index finger at the Western predators and “rapists” of Africa for hypocrisy, chicanery and underhandedness should look at their own clenched fists and see that three fingers are pointing directly at them. Regime change before action on climate change!
Just in passing…

What is the “2010 election” about anyway?
Is it about famine that is now voraciously consuming one-fifth of the Ethiopian population? The confinement of hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in prisons and secret detention facilities without trial? Prosecution of torturers, murderers and other human rights abusers? The ecological catastrophes facing Ethiopia? The galloping inflation? The rampant corruption and plunder of the public treasury? The complete lack of legal accountability of Ethiopia’s dictators? The millions of dollars worth of gold bars that walked straight out of the bank in 2007? The lack of access to clean safe water (only 24% of the total Ethiopian population has access to “clean and safe water”)? The reckless intervention in the Somali civil war, the squandered resources and wasted young lives? The massive human rights violations and absence of the rule of law? The establishment of an independent judiciary, freely functioning of civil society organizations and press? Improving one of the worst educational systems in the world (only 33% of boys and less then 20% girls are enrolled in school in Ethiopia)? Improving one of the worst health care systems in the world (only about 20% of Ethiopians have any access to some form of primary care, one physician for every 40,000 people, one nurse for every 14, 000 people)?

Or is it about “None of the Above”?
Remember 2005?
Real elections took place in 2005. Back then there were real opposition parties who campaigned vigorously. There were free and open debates. The private free press challenged the dictators and scrutinized the opposition. Civil society leaders worked tirelessly to inform and educate the voters and citizenry about democracy and elections. Voters openly and fearlessly showed their dissatisfaction with the regime in public meetings. On May 15, 2005, the voters did something that had never been done in recorded Ethiopian history. They used the ballot box to clean house. That was a lesson in real elections!
It is time for all Ethiopian pro-democracy forces to wake up and refuse to be pawns in the dictatorship’s silly little game of “elections”. The dictators want the opposition to participate in their “election” so that they could use the “participation” as a stage prop when they go panhandling Western donors for aid. The key to Ethiopia’s future is based on building coalitions and organizations that strive to create strong bonds and linkages across ethnic, linguistic, political, regional and ideological lines. FDDE holds great promise in this regard. Until pro-democracy forces inside and outside Ethiopia develop a consensus and a plan of action for democratic change, the dictatorship will continue to put up election circuses and make puppets of us all in its freak show.

It is foolish to believe the “2010 election” will make any difference in the lives of Ethiopians. It is an election about NOTHING; and we should condemn it as a travesty and caricature of democracy and a shameless mockery of popular sovereignty. We are entertained by Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Pinocchio and Mr. Magoo, but we do not believe any one of them is real. And so it is with the “2010 elections” circus in Ethiopia….