I. General - Freedom of the Press and
Problems of Interpretation
A
free press is the corner stone of a democratic society. This is like
saying a human being has two arms�tautological and obvious
statement of fact. For the purpose of my discussion of the right of
a free press, its scope, and function in the Ethiopian community, I
will consider first the current Constitution of Ethiopia of 1994
(hereafter, �the Constitution�).
The Constitution has attempted to make a distinction between
�Human Rights� in Part One, and �Democratic Rights� in Part
Two, in Chapter Three. I suppose Part One is the section dealing
with �fundamental rights� referred to as the designation of the
total Chapter Three, and �freedom of the press� is dealt with in
Part Two, Article 29, as one of the democratic rights. We
must start with the acknowledgement that no one person has a
monopoly on the truth, knowledge, patriotism, concern for the good
of society et cetera. Society is structured and maintained through
the contributions of very many individuals. The diversity of
opinions, ideas et cetera enriches and develops society materially
and spiritually. Thus, we all benefit from �the marketplace of
ideas� where all kinds of ideas are offered and discussed as
opposed to having a closed system where neither ideas nor facts are
examined. The "marketplace of ideas" is a metaphor used by Justice
Holmes in Abrams v. United
States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919).
One
may assert that there is no hierarchical difference between freedom
of speech and �free press� even though the scope of such rights
may differ. One may safely assume that both are aspects of
�freedom of expression.� For example, the United States Supreme
Court in Houchins
v. KQED,
438 U.S. 1, 17 (1978) (concurring opinion, Justice Stewart)
seems to suggest that there may indeed be some distinction in terms
of scope. �That the First Amendment speaks
separately of freedom of speech and freedom of the press is no
constitutional accident, but an acknowledgment of the critical role
played by the press in American society. The Constitution requires
sensitivity to that role, and to the special needs of the press in
performing it effectively."
The
events of the last six months have brought the many irresolvable
issues and problems in the implementation or interpretation of the
1994 Constitution of Ethiopia dealing with elections, the political
structure, the role of courts, the power of the executive et cetera
in sharper focus than previously pointed out in articles and books
by several lawyers, scholars, and political scientists. The most
important question to all of us citizens, legal scholars, political
scientists et cetera is the question of who interprets the
constitution and gives us guidance or resolution in case of
controversy dealing with constitutional rights, fundamental or
otherwise.
The
first problem the young Ethiopian free press was faced with were
questions of censorship and criminal prosecutions and punishments of
prison sentences and steep fines. The new constitution did change
the practice of prior censorship of printed material to that of no
prior censorship by Article 29 (3). This was applauded as an
improvement at the time, but that was a short-lived euphoria. Soon
after, it became very clear that the Ethiopian government could deem
anything that is even remotely critical of its activities as a
violation of the press laws and regulations it has promulgated and
the criminal articles under the Penal Code of Ethiopia of 1957, and
could close newspapers and imprison editors, owners, reporters et
cetera at a whim. The situation was far worse than having the
previous system of prior censorship because now there is no defense
of �government approved material in print� leaving the free
press in shambles. It is only proper to put in mind in our
discussion that the setup fully structured by the current Ethiopian
Government, and its political maneuvers and use of the courts in
order to undermine and oppress the aspirations of the people of
Ethiopia for democracy and civil society is a major problem. The activities of the Ethiopian Government since 1995 has been
completely contrary to the purpose of the very Constitution that was
billed as innovative and capable to limit the power of the executive
branch of government vis-�-vis the fundamental and democratic
rights of the people.
Now,
if we just take up the problem of interpretation in such a
patched-up and very unworkable Constitution, it is becoming more and
more obvious that short of scrapping the whole misadventure and
starting all over again nothing else would work. The recent major
breakdown of the Constitutional process is clearly manifested in the
May 15, 2005 election and the debacle and frustration that followed.
Who is in charge to interpret the Constitution and make sense of its
very many anachronism and contradictions? When we read the brief
commentary of Professor Fasil Nahum, who was involved in the
drafting of the Constitution in 1993, we realize the enormity of the
problem of interpretation of the Constitution. He wrote in his book Constitution
for a Nation of Nations (1997) the following: �The
Ethiopian Constitution, on the other hand, in a creative stroke
provides for something quite different, emanating from and
consistent with the overriding supremacy of the nations,
nationalities, and peoples whose sovereignty the constitution
expresses� Thus the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution is
made, not the highest court of law, but the House of Federation.�
(Emphasis mine, 59)
How
creative can it be to assign the interpretation of constitutional
issues to a house full of people whose experience in law or
political science, history, et cetera is very limited? What is the
effect on the democratic principle of �check and balance�
between the three branches of government if the legislator is the
ultimate interpreter of the Constitution? How are the members of the
House of Federation going to tackle emergency provisional decisions
that affect constitutional rights? How are we going to deal with the
interface between constitutional issues and the Ethiopian Penal Code
provisions that depend on the interpretation of the underlying
rights as stated in the Constitution in their applications? It does
not help the situation even if the House of Federation Members have
experts constituted to help them with their decisions, which
arrangement simply extends the confusion and the agony of the people
of Ethiopia. There are numerous questions that can be raised,
wherein it is clear that the �creative stroke� Fasil Nahum is so
proud of is in fact a nightmare for Ethiopians as manifested in the
ineffectiveness to give clear direction or resolution to our recent
crises of May 15, 2005 election and the issuing violence and
detentions of political leaders, media owners and reporters, and
ordinary citizens.
Moreover,
since the House of Federation has the power to interpret the
Constitution in situations where there is no �case in
controversy� such process could be used as a short cut for the
amendment of the Constitution that would have required far more
stringent procedure than the interpretation process in the House of
Federation. Giving such power of interpretation to the House of
Federation, in effect nullifies the constitutional requirements in
case of an amendment of the Constitution.
The
mechanism of the structure of the House of Federation is as clumsy
as the function accorded to it to interpret a constitution, a
constitution that is daunting even to legal experts and
professionals, with all kinds of contradictory principles,
primordial concepts of nationality, nations, federation, independent
governments et cetera interwoven with modernist theories. Even
professionals trained in the law, history, political science, et
cetera, with rich experience in the administration and workings of
the law, courts, government agencies, administrative power et cetera
would have quite a task to make such sense of a Constitution full of
monumental problems, let alone a motley of individuals with no
apparent expertise or training of sort.
I
urge my readers to revisit the masterful comment by Professor
Minasse Haile, �The New Ethiopian Constitution: Its Impact Upon Unity, Human Rights and
Development,� Suffolk Transnational Law Review, Vol. 20, No. 1
(1996), 1-84; and my own comment in my book Democratization?
Ethiopia (1991-1994): A Personal View, (Khepera, 1995),
33-62. It is impossible to proceed in any meaningful manner with the
current constitution of Ethiopia to promote democratic process of
government or safeguard fundamental and democratic rights of
Ethiopians. There is no democratic framework in the constitution
that will provide for the effective transfer of power, to protect
fundamental rights and/or democratic and political rights, since
there is no independent judiciary. The only way to show the
importance of the freedom of the press is for me to draw your
attention how other democratic societies have dealt with similar
issues and concepts of constitutional law.
Literacy
and a free press are linked in a way that the suppression of either
significantly affects the other. In a nation where the literacy rate
is less than fifty percent [46% male, 25% female (World Bank Sector
Study, 2003)], any degree of tampering that diminishes the amount of
written material available to the public/individuals is certainly
wearisome. What I am stating is a general observation on linkage
between the amount of material in print and the literacy of a
community, which is an indicator in turn of the development or
prospect of development of that society.
The
danger of looking at the constitutionally acknowledged rights, which
includes freedom of the press, as a complete issue of political
contention between the government and the opposition, thereby
undermining the �human rights� underpinnings of all democratic
rights, is very real at the moment in Ethiopia. The Government of
Meles Zenawi has detained several reporters and owners of newspapers
and has charged them with �treason,� �conspiracy,�
�economic sabotage� et cetera in connection with a series of
violence and incidents following the May 15, 2005 election. Such
charges carry with them punishments ranging from simple imprisonment
to death sentences. It is most unfortunate and very wrong for the
Ethiopian people once again to be immersed in this form of political
oppression by a Government that has become one of the most despised
governments in Ethiopian history.
The 2005 Press Freedom Index shows that the
freedom of the press in Ethiopia has been curtailed even further
from the situation in 2004. �North Korea once again comes bottom
of the Reporters Without Borders fourth annual World Press Freedom
Index, released today. It is closely followed in the 167-country
list by Eritrea (166th) and Turkmenistan (165th), which are other
�black holes� for news where the privately-owned media is not
allowed and freedom of expression does not exist�.Unjust laws and
repressive governments held back some countries where there is
genuine news diversity, such as Madagascar (97th), Guinea (102nd),
Kenya (109th), Chad (109th), Mauritania (127th) and Ethiopia
(131st).� This finding of the Press Freedom Index is not an
encouraging development. We
must understand the necessity of free press for the development
effort claimed by the Ethiopian Government as its primary goal. The
Foreign Minister, Seyoum Mesfin, in a recent interview by Ande
Ethiopia Radio Station (January 1 and 8, 2006), repeatedly pointed
out that Ethiopia�s economic development to be the focus of the
current Ethiopian Government, and that all political change must
follow the procedures as prescribed in the Ethiopian Constitution of
1994. Despite the obvious eloquence of the Foreign Minister, we know
better that nothing that was stated by the Foreign Minister was new,
but a statement from the cat that had already eaten the canary and
trying to be pious about it. Because it is a well-publicized fact,
there is no need here to go over the types of violations of the
election process by the current government of Ethiopia.
II.
Freedom of the Press and Responsibility
It is not abnormal to expect of individuals
to use their fundamental and democratic rights responsibly. However,
whether individuals in fact do exercise their rights responsibly is
another matter, often they do not. This approach to the principle of
free press incorporates both normative and legal dimensions. There
is no such thing like an absolute right as long as there is a social
context within which the individual functions. If an individual has
no connection with society, we may perceive of absolute rights as a
possibility, but then it would be meaningless to define rights where
there are no human interactions. As
long as we are in a social and political structure, our individual
or collective actions need be deliberative, considerate of the
rights of others et cetera. It is not something unique that we find
individuals or groups expressing views in print or in speech being
disagreeable to many others. Here is where the government appears to
keep the peace and to protect the rights of individuals from being
trashed by the collective.
The government as represented or
personified by its officials is a legal entity. It has a corporate
life and as such can be challenged, criticized, investigated,
written about et cetera by individuals or groups. The government
would try to control such challenges, criticisms, instigations,
investigations et cetera against its functions, the performance or
non-performance, corruption, et cetera of its officials. The
government may also want to hide some of its activities from
scrutiny by anybody (from the outside) of its structure,
organization, and activities. Citizens need be skeptical and
suspicious of the activities of their government if their only
source about the activities of their government is the report(s)
prepared by the government on its own activities. History and human
nature tells us that human beings, whether they are dressed as
officials of a government or as private citizens, do have vested
interests, and are susceptible to corruption, nepotism, abuse of
power, et cetera. The first line of defense against such
eventualities is often the report of the free press. This is where
the duty and responsibility on those who exercise democratic and
fundamental rights of speech and free press ought to be perceived as
very serious. As a result, it is incumbent upon such individuals and
groups to have great discipline and scruple to seek truth with
objectivity, especially it is a burden on those who are challenging
a government whose legitimacy is questionable or whose activities
are decidedly dictatorial.
Every government, to a varying degree, would try to discourage
outsiders, such as the press, from looking and investigating or
reporting some of its activities. Some governments have total
black-out on their activities, and some drastically restrict
information about their activities. Even democratic nations with
relatively benign governments, such as the Government of the United
States, to this day are struggling to maintain the right balance and
relationship between the rights of the individual and the duty of
the Government entrusted to maintain law and order and the security
of the nation. The United States, for example, in cases of the First
Amendment Rights, had issued laws in the past and in our own time
that violated aspects of that corner stone of the Bill of Rights (US Sedition
Act of 1918, US PATRIOT ACT of 2001).
The United States courts too had rendered equally obnoxious
judgments that had violated individual rights in the past. There are
a number of principles that we can learn about from the many Court
decisions involving First Amendment Rights, which we can use to
enrich our understanding of what is at stake in our pursuit of the
freedom of the press.
I
suggest that the Ethiopian free press movement ought to concentrate
on important long-term results dealing with individual rights and
democratic practices rather than sensationalist and episodic
comments and reports. This does not mean that the free press
overlook what is happening in Ethiopia at this moment. I have herein
pointed out some salient features of a responsible free press
activities.
1. A responsible press will investigate and
counter check matters being reported thoroughly before making
allegations and categorical statements.
2. Blackmailing
or threat ever ought to be used by a responsible press. If there is
a report to be made, it is to be made for the purpose of ensuring
the public good and for no other purpose.
3. No inflammatory ethnic or religious
based editorial by the press.
4. No defamatory uncorroborated articles on
individuals who have no public positions or impact on the public�s
welfare.
5. Use of clear and proper language.
The many cases decided by Ethiopian courts
since 1995 involving Ethiopian media owners, reporters, journalists
et cetera would have been an excellent source for my analysis in
this article. However, the problem of access and the unavailability
of case reports has rendered my writing extremely difficult. I
absolutely hate writing on anything where I am unable to check for
myself primary material. I would have loved to read the Ethiopian
courts decisions in toto
on �freedom of the press� cases. From secondary sources and the
few case decisions reported that I was able to read, it seems that
the Ethiopian courts are more inclined to suppress and limit the
rights of free press guaranteed by the Constitution. For example,
the courts� demand for disclosure of sources, the expansive
interpretation of endangerment of national security, accusations of
instigation of civil unrest and conspiracy to undermine the
functions of governmental agencies et cetera are demands with
dubious legal validity.
And now, Meles Zenawi�s government has
added �treason� as a crime associated with the freedom of free
press. It is conceivable for anyone to be accused by a sycophantic
prosecutor and be convicted by a court that has no independence for
standing quietly at a street corner or for staying at his own home
both harmless activities being labeled as treasonous conduct against
the economic interest of the nation. Thus, the current situation in
Ethiopia of charging political Opposition leaders and Newspaper
owners and reporters for treason ought to remind us how Joseph
Stalin wiped out all of his political rivals in thousands by using
such expansive use of treason and espionage charges.
The exercise of First Amendment Rights, of
freedom of expression, by Ethiopians living in the United States in
the Diaspora, through Websites, Radio Stations, Newspapers,
Magazines et cetera is wonderful. However, arranging programs
(Sunday, January 15, 2006) to interview known Red Terror
participants like Negede Gobeze by Nessanet le Ethiopia Radio
Station is an irresponsible act that will continue polarizing the
struggle of the Ethiopian people for democratic governance and
cohesive society. One must recognize the fact that when an
individual or an organization uses the public waves,
the individual or the organization is not in a state of
nature, but within the confines of society where people have
expectations and needs that must be taken into account.
III. The Crime of Treason
Treason
is a type of crime that is too dangerous to introduce as a solution
for political dissention or opposition. Traditionally, the crime of
treason is a crime against the person of the king/emperor or the
immediate family thereof. Even the mere utterance of words of
disparagement or ill will against the king/emperor could have been
constructed as acts of treason. The expansive use of the crime of
treason was used in England to include several other crimes under
the additional �petit treason� designation, crimes involving
counterfeiting, servant killing his master, wife killing her husband
et cetera. In my view, the crime of treason is the most perverse
form of abuse of power used by the executive body for purely
political purpose to gain new territories, eliminate challengers,
and insure future dynastic rules. This is true especially as it was
practiced in medieval England from the time of Edward I (Longshanks)
whose first victim was the rebellious king of an independent Wales
in AD 1283. Queen Elizabeth I used it effectively to eliminate
political rivals and the religious dissention the new Church of
England was faced with from the Catholic clergy. French kings did
the same as well.
In
the past, the punishment for the crime of treason in England was the
most gruesome the world ever witnessed. It involved the �drawing,
hanging, and quartering� of the criminal so convicted. The
punishment involves the stretching of the victim until all his
joints are all dislocated, and the disemboweling and removing of the
innards and the cutting off the genitals of the victim while keeping
him alive and then burning the removed organs as the victim is
forced to watch. Finally, the victim�s head is cut off and his body divided
in four parts, and later stuck on display where the king or queen
orders�so much for civilized behavior of Europeans. The punishment
was still on the books until the Nineteenth Century. In the
Continental Europe around the same period, the crime of treason was
dealt with similar brutality as in England, but four horses pulling
apart the limbs of the victim carried out the quartering. In the
Nineteenth Century, during the French revolution many of the
aristocrats and those suspects of supporting them lost their heads
to the Guillotine mostly on treason charges. There is no comparable
gruesome punishment used by Ethiopia�s Emperors and leaders in the
long history of the country that could be compared to the brutality
of English and European kings, emperors and leaders.
The
inhumanity of leaders or followers toward helpless victims, who are
branded as criminals through unjust process of law or custom, is
beyond comprehension to me. I do not understand how personal
ambitions to remain in power could fuel such disregard and
callousness in individuals that they would murder, torture,
imprison, and destroy the lives of so many. The treason and other
serious charges filed by the Government of Meles Zenawi against
Opposition leaders and the members of the �free press� such as
owners of newspapers, editors and reporters is a clear manifestation
of such inhuman pursuit of power at the cost of the lives of so many
and the destruction of a whole nation. The whole situation of
charging members of the �free press� would have been comical if
it were not jeopardizing the lives of so many.
The
greatest treason that has ever been committed against Ethiopia and
its people was committed by Meles Zenawi himself by compromising the
interest of Ethiopia and entering into agreements to cede Ethiopian
territory and sovereignty of Ethiopia�s Afar coastal territories,
territorial waters on the Red Sea, not to mention his readily given
consent and willingness to the secession of Eritrea. Furthermore, he
had implemented a form of territorial division within Ethiopia on
the basis of ethnicity thereby totally destroying the fabric of
Ethiopian unity of thousands of years. In short, he has no standing
whatsoever to accuse anyone of treason specially at a time while he
is negotiating with the Eritrean government and the government of
the United States how to hand over Ethiopia�s historic territories
pursuant to a decision of a corrupt Border Commission that has no
legitimacy or ethical command on the conflict. [See my recent
Article on the decision of the Border Commission posted in this
Website.]
The
crime of treason in the Penal Code of Ethiopia (1957) (Part II, Book
III, Title I � Offense Against the State) seem to have been
modeled after European criminal codes, especially that of the 1937
Swiss Penal Code (Articles 265-278). In 1959, the drafter of the
Ethiopian Penal Code, Jean Graven, stated as much in his commentary
on the drafting of the Ethiopian Penal Code. In the Code, treason is
treated as a forked crime against the person of the Emperor/Dynasty
on one strand and a crime against the State in the other (Articles
248-272), which has thereby incorporated the Ethiopian States as a
legal entity protected by such articles dealing with treason and
espionage. It is illuminating to consider the European experience on
treason since the legal provisions in the Ethiopian Penal Code seem
to have been designed or modeled after European practices. The
provisions dealing with treason focus on the effect of the
treasonable act rather than the specific intent of the criminal.
This distinction is crucial in considering the charges brought
against the Opposition leaders and the reporters, editors, and
owners of newspapers recently by the Government of Meles Zenawi.
The
Code articles dealing with treason should not be used recklessly to
thwart, restrain, or destroy political opposition leaders or a
hostile media to the current Ethiopian Government and the leaders or
any other government or its leaders. Legal provisions dealing with
treason have specific structure that all must acknowledge. One must
understand that a threat to the State of Ethiopia is not the same as
a challenge to the Ethiopian government and its leaders on political
ground to replace or drive them out from office. Such political
action and effort to replace a government or any of its leaders or
all of its leaders is legitimate as long as it is peaceful and
follows the constitutional procedure of election and administrative
laws of the nation. Even where there is a violation of the election
laws by the challengers of current government leaders, it does not
mean that treasonable act had occurred. In fact, it is wise to
consider first other criminal provisions under the Ethiopian Penal
Code and other election legislations before jumping onto accusations
of treason.
In
a number of African States, government leaders who have been faced
with serious challenges have resorted to illegal methods of
physically eliminating their opposition, or have resorted to
detaining such opposition leaders by charging them with treason. For
example, the recent detention (November, 2005) of Ugandan opposition
leader Kizza Besigye in Uganda by Yoweri Musevini is a clear example
of the type of abuse I am stressing here in this article. The
charges that were leveled against Besigye were treason, terrorism,
unlawful possession of firearms et cetera in both the civilian and
military courts, which charges are similar to the charges brought by
the Ethiopian government against the detained leaders of the
Opposition and the detained members of the free press. This is
shamefully not unique to African nations, but has been used in
nations in Latin America and Asia. In this decade of
democratization, such oppressive practice of using penal code
provisions dealing with treason to detain and convict political
opponents is unacceptable in Ethiopia or elsewhere.
When
we examine the reason why treason charges were lodged against the
detained Opposition leaders and members of the free press, it is
clear that the Ethiopian government was seeking to implicate others
for its overreaction on November 1 and 2, 2005 where the government
security forces killed over forty people and detained thousands of
Ethiopians. By any standard of measurement, the action of the
Ethiopian government, irrespective of the alleged violence of the
demonstrators, was beyond the pale�reckless and brutal. Meles
Zenawi who has been a poster child for some time for Western
governments suddenly is reveled as a violent brutal leader, and his
fig leaf was pulled aside and he stood naked in front of the world
with his bloody hands. Thus, the treason charges seem to be some
form of strategy in order to minimizing the possible fallout from
such reckless government violence against a civilian population. The
West was divided into two faction with supporters on one side and
vocally active European condemning Meles Zenawi and his government
on the other. The continued detention and pending charges of treason
against the detained Opposition leaders and members of the free
press would simply continue to polarize and increase the divisive
conflict between ethnic groups to much higher level. It has already
transformed the detained Opposition leaders and members of the free
press into national heroes and martyrs.
Conclusion
In
view of the acerbic political situation in Ethiopia now, I believe
that the first thing the government of Meles Zenawi must do is to
drop all charges dealing with treason against both the detained
leaders of the Opposition and members of the free press. There is
more here at stake than the survival of Meles Zenawi or any
political organization. We are faced with injustice, oppression,
threat of national disintegration due to the activities of the
leadership of Meles Zenawi for sometime now. The last fourteen years
should have been used to improve our social, economic, and political
condition. Instead, we have been forced illegally into losing our
Afar coastal and other territories, diminished our sovereignty,
allowed divisive wedges between hither to unified ethnic groups, and
raised the level of antagonism, conflict, and general discontent in
Ethiopia. The use of treason charges is the last straw in the series
of harms to our people and our nation by Meles Zenawi.
The
one important aspect of a civil society is to be able to entertain
diverse views. If we allow this form of political manipulation
attempted by the current Ethiopian government by using the courts to
discredit and convict political opponents on charges of treason, we
are only seeing the tip of the monstrous problem that is outside of
our sight. Treason charges are the easiest charges to prove in
courts that are controlled by the political leaders (executive) as
is the case in Ethiopia. Once an individual is convicted of such
crime, his or her political future is completely destroyed because
the election laws will not permit convicts of treason ever to hold
neither elected offices or appointed ones.
For
some of my readers my constant mention of Meles Zenawi may be a
source of irritation. The activities of Meles Zenawi in the lives of
Ethiopians and his divisive leadership of the Ethiopian government
is the reason for my standing criticism and not my personal
preferences. I have restated for the benefit of all the statement of
purpose of this Website to remind all why I have been writing what I
have been writing.
Moreover,
people should take notice of the fact that the Website is
goal-oriented and partisan, thus the editorial focus is on the
following two important objectives:1) To strengthen Ethiopian
nationalism through humanism, and 2) To foster, promote, and defend
the Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity of Ethiopia.
Ethiopians
have withstood tremendous social and political upheavals in the last
fifty years. Any other people in the world without our type of long
history and strong faith would have collapsed and their institutions
would have disintegrated had they been faced with a fraction of what
we Ethiopians have to endure. Ethiopians survived numerous
devastating famines, rabid military regimes, and the camouflaged
onslaught of the Governments of Arab Countries (Egypt, Iraq, Saudi
Arabia, Sudan, Syria et cetera). The Arab governments� subversive
financing, military training, and sanctuary giving to treasonous
individuals finally fractured the country with one administrative
part ceding illegally with the help of the leaders of the present
Ethiopian Government by force of arms calling itself an independent
nation.
In
the aftermath of such complex process involving armed
�liberation� movements, and in the guise of liberating the
nation from the vice like clutches of a tyrannical and brutal
military regime, in 1991 mistakes were made in allowing a subversive
group lead by a treasonous leader and made up of nihilistic
individuals, who harbored the unjustified hate of their own mother
country, to lead the country into the ground. Among other several
Ethiopians, I have tried in the last ten years to inform, explain,
teach and encourage Ethiopians from all walks of life to get rid of
Meles Zenawi�s government because it is the main source of our
difficulties. The current border demarcation that is threatening
Ethiopia with alienation of its historic coastal territories of the
Afar region and the Red Sea territorial waters with all the islands
is one of the greatest and most difficult challenges to all
Ethiopians. The task of defending Ethiopia and Ethiopian territorial
integrity has become extremely difficult because of the policy of
the current Ethiopian government and its leader Meles Zenawi who is
bent on destroying Ethiopia and on surrendering away Ethiopian
territories to neighboring Countries.
In
the pursuit of that effort, I have written numerous articles and
essays posted in some of Ethiopian owned websites. I am an ardent
believer and practitioner of human rights, especially I believe in
the rights of the individual to formulate freely his/her ideas, to
express freely his/her opinion on any subject, and to seek truth
freely without fear of persecution or prosecution. Ethiopian
nationalism and Ethiopianness can only be reinforced and enriched
through the free exchange of ideas. This Website is dedicated to
that end. Even though the Website has a distinct editorial voice, it
is also a vehicle for a higher calling in preserving and
safeguarding the right of any Ethiopian to express his/her views
without fear of any form of censorship. No nation can be built on
falsehood and propaganda. If it is thus structured, beware! We seek
�the truth,� and �the truth� is our strength.
It
is important to point here that our effort to get some guidance
sympathy from Western governments is based on misconception of
Western governments. I have stretched my reasoning to cover some of
the punishments for treason practiced by governments of earlier
periods in Europe. I have done that with the idea to discourage my
fellow Ethiopians from seeking ethical standards in the practices of
Western governments, but to seek it within our own social ethical
norms that is far more advanced and far more humane than that we can
find elsewhere in the world. Even the cases I cited in discussing
the concept of freedom of the press are cited for the purpose of
articulating questions rather than rendering primary principles on
human rights.
Tecola
W. Hagos
January
12, 2006
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