My Turn on the Ethiopian Election Debate in the Diaspora

Getachew Mequanent

The May 2005 election in Ethiopia has generated a heated debate in the Diaspora. This

debate has been dominated by two political camps (the opposition and EPRDF) that spend more time attacking each other, instead of promoting their policies and programs. Opposition supporters, in particular, have made effective use of the Internet to attack and discredit anything that does not favour their side.  I am going to share my views on some of the political issues and I will try to be fair to everyone.

To begin with, the debate in the Ethiopian Diaspora is about political power, and so I am not surprised that opposition supporters are still calling donor countries to cut aid to Ethiopia. In the past, whenever there was a famine in Ethiopia, they got together and organized meetings to �discuss the current situation� (read = politics). People who are genuinely concerned about the plight of the Ethiopian people would mobilize relief efforts in times of famine or lobby and advocate for increased aid to Ethiopia.

I once read an article in the online edition of the Addis Tribune which argued that Ethiopians should look to the east (Asia). India and Pakistan are practical examples. In the 1960s, these two countries were faced with deep political and economic crises, but the efforts of their successive governments transformed them into superpower nations. Ethiopia�s economy in the 1960s was much stronger than the economies of India and Pakistan. Today the country is one of the three poorest countries in the world. And EPRDF is blamed for it! The truth is that the Ethiopian economy had suffered from decades of government neglect. Emperor Haile Sellassie had an ambition to be one of the richest men in the World and so he was busy appropriating the country�s wealth, while the ruling class and state bureaucrats divided what was left among them. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam created a brutal and corrupt regime which destroyed the social and economic infrastructure of the Ethiopian society. It is too bad that all the debate is focused on EPRDF vs. the opposition and we are not considering we can learn from Ethiopia�s past. 

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the EPRDF leadership deserve our praise for staging a fair and open electoral process unseen in Ethiopia�s history.  The EPRDF government should also take full credit for repairing and upgrading roads, building dams, promoting agricultural extension and irrigation technologies, expanding schools and health facilities to rural areas, improving urban water and sanitation management, and delivering electricity.  I venture to say that this is the first time that an Ethiopian government has made a significant investment in the economic infrastructures of the country since the Italian departure in 1941. Bahir Dar,  once a neglected regional town, is now a model global city (two years ago, the city along with other three cities in Tunisia, Spain and Switzerland got a United Nations award for best urban planning practice). A few months ago, Walta Information Centre reported that the Ethiopian government had signed a contract with an Indian company to implement a rural electrification program. EPRDF�s successful military campaign to expel the Eritrean Army from Badme and other areas have restored the military pride of the Ethiopian people.  In short, EPRDF (the party of �bandits� and  �illiterate and dirty peasants�) has brought about significant changes that positively impact on  Ethiopian society.

We should also praise Beyene Petros for his continued struggle to promote political pluralism in Ethiopia. Since entering politics, Dr. Beyene has become a symbol of resistance to the political domination of EPRDF. During the recent election stalemate, he remained calm, dignified and consistent in his public statements. My only criticism is that his party has still remained a regional party. There were (and are) opportunities to go beyond seeking strategic allies to expand the party�s sphere of influence by doing grassroots work across Ethiopia.

The performance of CUD in the election has exceeded our expectation and I congratulate Hailu Shawel and the CUD leadership for this success. However, I remain concerned with CUD�s confrontational approach to solving election issues and the active involvement of former members of the Derge in the party. Having read CUD�s public statements and Engineer Hailu�s interview with BBC, I think the party also needs a good communication strategy that conveys a clear message on its positions. For instance, shortly after the polls closed on May 15, 2005, CUD officials speculated that they might not accept the election results. After learning that CUD had won all of the seats in Addis Ababa, they changed their story to claim that they had won all over the country. As one writer put it, CUD�s claim was based on the analogy that if it could win in Addis Ababa, it should win all over Ethiopia. Having an urban root and a leadership dominated by Addis Ababa elites, I am not also sure how much CUD is committed to addressing rural development issues. Excuse me!  We are talking about real politics here. The issue of �unity� or urban-based industrialization has little relevance for the needs of Ethiopia�s rural population. During an interview BBC, Engineer Hailu said little about rural development, except privatizing land and giving land use management responsibility to village elders (unproductive practice abandoned decades ago).

Let me also give a bit of advice for CUD leaders: control your cadres in the Diaspora. The sudden surge and decline in the popularity of the Coalition of Ethiopian Democratic Forces (COEDF) in the 1990s was in part attributed to the behaviour of its socially and politically immature cadres who harassed and intimidated anyone who opposes them.

The killing by government security forces of 36 people in Addis Ababa has made us all very angry. I have no doubt that, having observed all the political rhetoric during the election and post-election periods, members of CUD might have encouraged the demonstrations. The question is why Meles Zenawi sent armed troops to confront unarmed civilians? Yet, sadly, lemote yeblagn (sorry for the dead). They will be forgotten soon. Indeed, during an interview with BBC, CUD�s leader said that the Addis Ababa protests were not linked to his party�s political activities. I think the protesters should have let the National Election Board or politicians deal with post-election issues. Even CUD�s leaders did not know where and how ballot fraud took place.  The action of protesters was very premature. 

I agree with international organizations that EPRDF has not done enough to promote human rights. In 1996-97, I spent one year in Gondar doing dissertation research. I heard a rumor that local EPRDF officials had caught and executed shiftas (bandits) who were robbing bus passengers in Tsegede and Wolkait area and that the Prime Minister even knew about it because his wife (who is from Wolkait) told him. During the 1997 land redistribution process, a senior EPRDF Woreda official was shot dead in his sleep and people believed that the farmer who was suspected of killing this official was executed �red terror� style. An old man was bitten by police for failing to report his possession of an automatic hand gun. When I asked Woreda officials whether this violated human rights, they downplayed the incident by saying that a �discipline committee� would be set up to examine the issue. Mind you, admitting (by government officials) that the �incident� took place was a positive step toward the protection of human rights in a country where people still had fresh memories of the �red terror� of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

In one of the series of online editions dealing with election issues, The Reporter tried to remind us that defeating  EPRDF through an electoral process is one thing, but achieving a peaceful transfer of power to the opposition is quite another. During my stay in Gondar,  I had the opportunity to observe the attitude of EPRDF officials. Many of them had no intention of leaving public office. My own theory is that EPRDF bureaucrats frankly believe that they fought a guerilla war for 15 years to overthrow one of the most brutal and corrupt regimes in the world, and therefore, they are entitled to the benefit of the Ethiopian state (employment). More important, if they leave public office, they know that they will end up joining the unemployed workforce.  I strongly feel that these concerns are legitimate. When we were going to school, the young men and women of TPLF/EPRDF were fighting dictatorship - many died in battlefields. The confrontational approach adapted by CUD leaders creates fear and uncertainty among EPRDF officials and this will have implications for political stability in the post-election period. 

In Gondar, I discussed important issues with ordinary people, former bureaucrats of previous governments, and former soldiers, such as the politics of EPRDF, the Eritrean question, democracy, human rights, and rural development. At a personal level, I came away from these discussions with many important lessons. For example, I realized that we in the Diaspora were not getting accurate information. I also realized that the Ethiopian people were much advanced in their political outlook than the people of the Diaspora.  Let me give you examples: 1) people thought that Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam was a hard-working man and he could have ruled better if he had been able to appoint competent cadres and party officials; 2) retired bureaucrats felt that making planning and budgeting decisions in Gondar was a positive development (EPRDF�s decentralization policy was working); 3) former soldiers who were stationed in Asmara did not believe that EPLF won the battle (or EPRDF �sold� Eritrea); they gave up fighting because they did not know what they were fighting for (the military leadership had abandoned them); and 4) in the early 1990s, a group of Gondaries wanted to set up an organization to support local initiatives in Gondar. I and two others were leading the meeting when COEDF cadres entered the room and denounce the whole idea as divisive and a reflection of EPRDF�s ethnic policy. The Amhara Development Organization (ADO) (created by EPRDF) was cited as an example. So, the process was aborted.  In Gondar, I found out that ADO was levying civil servants in the Ahmara Region to raise funds. The civil servants were happy with it. The money was being used to open projects in remote areas of Gondar, Gojam and Wello. My point here is that the Ethiopian people are politically mature and I wish political parties could consult them before defining their political agenda. The pre-election public opinion survey conducted by the Initiative Africa would have marked the beginning of broader public participation in the political process, but some people deliberately attempted to discredit the results by portraying the whole process as EPRDF orchestrated initiative.

The political debate in the Diaspora is focused not on real politics or what people in the West call the bread- and- butter issue. It is about removing EPRDF from power. The argument is that EPRDF�s policies are a threat to national unity and that this ruling party has done little to promote economic development. We are also told that  EPRDF is responsible for facilitating Eritrea�s separation and especially for giving up the port of Assab. The truth is that today  regions and nationalities are participating in the political process (a precondition for national unity). Tecola Hagos also argues that Ethiopia�s loss of access to the Red Sea could be attributed to the policies of Emperor Menilik (he gave Djibouti to the French and allowed Italians to stay in Eritrea). Emperor Haile Sellassie alienated the Eritrean elite by dissolving the �loose� federation, while Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam opted for military solution before giving up the province for EPLF along with two-hundred thousand soldiers and military hardware valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. Isayas Afewerki hurried to organize a referendum for Eritrea�s independence, at the time when Meles Zenawi and the EPRDF leadership were struggling to assert control of hostile state bureaucracy in Addis Ababa and else where. In all frankness, EPRDF could not have stopped Isayas Afewerki from declaring Eritrea�s independence.

The current federal system recognizes the rights of historically excluded ethnic and linguistic groups in the country. The federation has so far worked well, with the  exception of ethnic conflict in Gambella and disputes over Kebele boundaries in other pockets of the country. It has potential to provide a long-term political solution to Ethiopia�s ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity provided that there is a democratic dialogue to make amendments or revisions as required. I remember reading an article which mentioned that the Swiss federal system (an ethnic-based federation) has been amended over one-hundred times since its creation in the mid-18th century. Other successful democracies like India, Canada and Belgium have accommodated  ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity. I am pleased to see a growing number of Ethiopian writers are suggesting that the question of �Ethiopian unity� should be debated in this context. I call on Professor Tecola and others who have expertise in this area to initiate and lead the debate.

Let me conclude by commenting on Getachew Haile recent political rhetoric. Professor Getachew wrote that Meles Zenawi and other EPRDF leaders were �colonists� and they should be forced out of power.  I do not want to call this statement political extremism, but I am  disappointed that this is coming from a renowned scholar. It also does not help to reduce the current political tension in Ethiopia. Perhaps it is time that Professor Getachew and other like him consider retiring from Ethiopian politics. We will thank them for their contributions. Leaving politics peacefully and with dignity can be their only legacy. 

This is what I have to say.  Let me know what you think.

Getachew Mequanent

Ottawa, Canada

July 10, 2005