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CURRENT
EFFORTS AT CHANGING EPRDF �S
IMAGE----
THE
CART IS FOUND BEFORE THE HORS
By
Genet Mersha, April 29, 2009
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi �s
government has been working for some time now with a London-based firm to
strengthen its information management and dissemination techniques. Its
objective is to improve its image and the regime�s
acceptability both at home and abroad. Ato Bereket Simon has been
following this with singular focus and regular benchmarking of progress
with well-sequenced markers. Hence, that has been the main reason for his
frequent visits to London for a while now.
One of the outcomes of this
project to date is to minimize the haphazard ways of appearing on the
media for habitual denials of anything the regime is being accused of
rather than engaging in sober efforts to explain, disseminate information
and to be introspective about its own actions. Therefore, in the new
style, Ato Bereket plans to sit for a regular �town
hall� encounter of
sorts to briefing the local media and the international press, the first
of which took place some ten days ago. The promise is that this would
continue regularly, that ample time would be given to questions and
answers. We had seen that this is followed by another question and answer
session with the prime minister, the first of which we saw about a week
ago. Ato Bereket has promised that this would also be regularized.
DRIFTING
INTO CONSPIRACY & CONTROVERSY
In early March, Ato Meles
Zenawi and Ato Bereket Simon decided to kill two birds with one stone.
They wanted to use one of Ato Bereket�s
mid-March London visits to prepare a counterforce of �a select group of
Ethiopians� to minimize the anticipated negative impact of the planned
demonstration for April 2nd by Ethiopians residing in Europe.
It would be recalled that Ethiopians were organized to protest Ato Meles
Zenawi�s presence in
London on the margins of the G-20 meeting. To give effect to that idea,
the embassy in London selected and invited about 200 Ethiopians allegedly
for briefing session by Ato Bereket on the �current
situation in Ethiopia.�
Those who heard that there
was such a briefing came without invitation, assuming that they would be
allowed in, and exercise their right to listen and ask questions of
interest to them on matters concerning their country. The fact of the
matter is that the EPRDF officials wanted to limit the number of invitees
in the first place to avoid unnecessary grilling with embarrassing and
difficult questions. Therefore, they gave instruction that those without
invitation should be denied entry to the embassy. They did not anticipate
or did not care that such a discriminatory action would infuriate members
of the diaspora. The unwanted happened. Scuffles occurred that eventually
necessitated intervention by the Metropolitan Police.
On face value, there is no
doubt that selection of one individual over the other for briefing, as if
it were privileged information, was way over the line, at its worst,
discriminatory. What was understandably disturbing for many was the
underlying message. It meant that, although they carried Ethiopian
passport and are bona fide Ethiopians, there exists a shadowy class of
privileged Ethiopians with full rights and others whom Ethiopian embassies
could refuse service at will.
In the eyes of those
individuals, this amounted to questioning their identity and loyalty to
their country. It touched raw nerve in many citizens. Some gave it ethnic
overtone. The protestors took pictures and circulated it on the internet;
they identified some individuals who were pushing them away from the
embassy as �woyanes.�
Several readers found the embassy�s
action revolting, as could be gleaned from the huge volume of comments on
the webpages on the matter. Many took it as a re-affirmation of the divide
and rule politics the regime has been exercising all along.
REFLECTING ON THE INCIDENT
One may argue that the
embassy has the right to invite anyone it likes, and exclude anyone it
does not. However, such an argument misses the point that the occasion
that evening was not a diplomatic function or a reception for foreign
dignitaries to introduce Ethiopia and to facilitate the embassy�s
work, which involves not only protocol but also costs. For that matter, in
the extreme even the supremacist Ku Klux Klan or the Augusta Golf National
Club in Augusta, Georgia, has an exclusive club and events, etc. By law,
they cannot be compelled to open the door of their societies to
non-members. Nevertheless, the difference between an embassy and a golfers�
club is that the embassy is a point of non-negotiable and uninterrupted
contact with their country for all Ethiopian citizens abroad.
Otherwise, what could the utility of an embassy be when it could offer to
citizens abroad selectively?
Mature reflection tells me
that that incident should not have been allowed to happen in the first
place. It has insinuated that the embassy was in the business of
organizing a coterie of citizens who have their eyes on pieces of real
state (the offer of free land they are/were promised) or facilitation of
business interests, and thus are prepared to become tools of the regime
within Ethiopian communities abroad. Indeed, some claim that this is the
usual approach by the Ethiopian government. Allegedly, it is adopted as a
systematic approach to overcome its isolation and disapproval by co-opting
selected members of he diaspora.
The question arises,
however, how the embassy knew who would ask the embarrassing questions.
The answer lies in the 52-page confidential manual sent to embassies in
2006, which entrusted them to file information regularly with the foreign
ministry on the activities of Ethiopians abroad. Therefore, they are
required to collect information on every Ethiopian, irrespective of
whether the individual has taken foreign citizenship.
In a separate transmittal
note, Ambassador Wubshet Demissie, Director-General at the Diaspora
Directorate in the Ethiopian foreign ministry, the person who signed off
that manual, encourages embassy staff to establish close relations with
the community within a given timeline and identify who is who and gauge
attitudes towards the regime. The purpose of the manual is to
create/collect incriminating information from Ethiopia to discredit the
individuals responsible for anti-EPRDF behaviour.
THE REGIME�S
BEHAVIOUR
Let us look back and
evaluate that incident that March evening in London. The regime earned
adverse publicity, a situation it could have avoided by being transparent
and by according equal treatment to all Ethiopians. Instead, it chose to
resort to conspiratorial behaviour. Many citizens sadly note that Ato
Bereket �s
training and forays into London, for which the country is paying with tax
payers monies, is designed to collect and organize a band of citizens to
help the regime pretend it has supporters abroad, while in realty it is
continuing to drown in its overwhelming unpopularity. Recall �EPRDF
SUPPORTERS� window on Aiga Forum. Aiga�s
extremism and the futility of Ato Bereket�s
training are considered by the regime a way to improve its image, though
without removing, the causes for its rejection by substantial number of
citizens the first place!
Without changing the
behaviour of the regime, propaganda alone cannot deliver anything. For
instance, not many were the individuals that were turned away from the
embassy. However, those few that gathered there got their interpretation
of events, supported by pictures, and circulated them on the webpages.
This rejection of those that were considered likely to ask the tough
questions aroused anger amongst large number of citizens against the
regime �s
discriminatory behaviour. Consequently, it encouraged more Ethiopians than
anticipated to gather from different parts of Europe to the London
demonstration of April 2nd.
The demonstration received
coverage around the world in the international press and TV networks. It
became a huge propaganda coup for those striving to expose the government �s
bad record on human rights and the reach of corruption in its higher
echelons. No doubt, adorned with Ethiopian flags and carrying telling
messages on boards, the demonstrators made sure on one hand their message
got across, and on the other, they proved that Ato Bereket�s
training was ill-equipped to counter their disapproval.
Not a singe person who
could be characterized as remotely maverick from amongst �EPRDF
SUPPORTERS�
was in the vicinity of the April 2 demonstration, at least, to wink and
smile to Ato Meles, let alone stand with a placard and the national colour
to express support for his regime. On his way to the G-20 meeting hall at
ExCel building in east London, at Ato Meles saw the fury of those citizens
when he drove by the demonstrators. His composure and his face even inside
the car were unable to disguise the depth of his rage at the protestors.
There is a claim that he cancelled a scheduled press conference because of
that.
This brings me back to the
subject of the new information management and dissemination technique,
about which the government has been consulting media specialists in
London. Theoretically, it is aimed at focusing government efforts at
improving the regime �s
acceptability both at home and abroad. In reality, however, it represents
a change of format, but not of content. The regime is under bizarre
illusion that its rejection especially by urban dwellers and the educated
citizenry mostly is the outcome of its failure to communicate effectively
and appropriately its vision and its achievements. It appears that they
have not realized the fact there is a difference between propaganda and
information.
THE TINY MINORITY IS
CREATING TROUBLE
For instance, on his return
home, Ato Bereket dismissed the April 2nd London demonstration
as a band of fifteen or twenty-five troublemakers. In truth, their number
was perhaps about thirty to fifty times higher than that, as can be seen
on videos and pictures of the event! Moreover, what makes them
troublemaker if their protest was about exposing the regime �s
flagrant violations of the fundamental human rights of the Ethiopian
people? Is Ato Bereket ever aware that those who came to protest his boss�s
presence at the G-20 summit were larger in number than the 200 he had
summoned to the embassy for briefing? Above all, should a government under
attack by its own citizens contend with the size of the crowd, or the
quality of their ideas and the issues they are protesting about?
Two days after the London
embassy incident, the respected author and journalist Walter Bagehot
devoted his column on the 21st March issue of The Economist to
the subject of �THE
TINY MINORITY� that often gets rapping
when governments find their backs against the wall. It is regrettable that
when he was in London, Ato Bereket did not have the time to read that most
edifying comment, although Bagehot was dissecting the actions of the
British government on a separate matter. Regardless of whom it was talking
about, in what sounds a chastisement to all the Berekets of this world, he
wrote, �Insisting that worrisome minorities are �tiny�
is in part a form of wishful thinking, as if saying something often enough
could make it true, and rhetorical tininess could shrink reality. This
sort of euphemism is sometimes a kind of self-delusion as well as a
deception. But it is perilous all the same. All those minorities add up to
a society in denial.�
Since the 2005 election,
all evidences have been pointing to the fact that the regime has become
the author of its troubles and hence of its own battered image. Its
information system is only devoted to doing propaganda �to
exaggerate its achievements, bedevil its opponents, undermine opposition
parties and mischaracterize the diaspora as if they were not Ethiopians.
There is no doubt that Ato
Bereket �s
London training could have been put to good use, if only the regime
attaches importance to honesty. One starting point along that direction is
it should stop forcing upon citizens the sombre shadows of the bloody 2005
election, thirteen months before May 2010. The latest science and
technology Ato Meles and Ato Bereket have been shopping around to change
hearts and minds, cannot be substitutes for what is terribly lacking in
principles in government and the time-honoured values in governance of
honesty and transparency.
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