By Paulos Milkias

The EPRDF party is driven by power as an end in itself. The lure of the current Ethiopian government’s authority has in fact transformed the political party into a power-machine that crushes everything on its way, including all major opposing parties and civil-society organizations.

Among civil society organizations, NGO’s are of paramount importance because they are known for reaching the most disadvantaged peasants in the remotest parts of the country.1 However, very few of them have so far involved themselves in policy advocacy for fear that it might get them into trouble with apprehensive government officials that constantly keep them under guard.[2]

Of the few local advocacy groups in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) is the most significant. But because it has become a nuisance by reporting the regime’s human rights transgressions, in 1998, the state controlled Commercial Bank of Ethiopia refused to release its assets thus forcing it to survive on donations from the public.[3] Its founding director, prof. Mesfin Wolde Mariam who is an excellent candidate for the Nobel Prize for Peace has also been accused and jailed on dubious charges of “crimes against humanity” and “attempted genocide” both of which carry the death penalty; and ironically, both of which he tried to stamp out through his organization.

Another major advocacy organization in Ethiopia is the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) which was established in 1995. ELWA has the stated objectives, of sensitizing the general public to the plights of Ethiopian women who have been constantly subjected to blatant organized and unorganized abuse. It had done a great deal to protect them not only against administrative, legal and social intolerance and discriminatory laws but also against bigotry, domestic violence, abduction, rape, assault, battery and female genital mutilation. So far, it has given free legal aid to 30,000 women, through it’s national office in Addis Ababa and a dozen branch offices located in remote parts of the country. Most, who have benefited from this generous service are poor and downtrodden urban as well as peasant women folk.[4] The organization has also made unremitting struggle to oblige the government to create a human rights tribunal and the office of an ombudsman. ELWA has kept itself out of trouble with the government by steering away from sensitive human rights issues. But that did not stop it from agitating to have an increase in the political participation of women as voters as well as elected officials. The members are currently putting pressure on the government to follow the example of South Africa, Uganda and Mozambique to set quotas for women candidates who are interested in running for elections.

Trade Unions are the oldest NGO’s to emerge during the feudal period. But the EPRDF regime has not been any less hostile to it than it has been to other independent civil society organizations. Its known tactic is to plant undercover agents in the organization with the purpose of creating splinter groups in the ranks and then supporting factions favourable to its policies and cracking down on groups opposed to it. Many labour leaders have thus been thrown out of their jobs, jailed, or exiled. For example, quite recently, the chair of the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions, Dawi Ibrahim, had been forced to flee to the Netherlands where he has asked for a political asylum to escape unremitting government surveillance on his private life and open ended persecution and hostile measures directed against him by the state security police.

The Ethiopian Teachers’ Association is the oldest and most powerful professional association in Ethiopia. As soon as it came to power, the Meles regime targeted it for fear that it might incite teachers and students against it and lead to its overthrow as it did to the feudal regime of Haile Selassie in 1974. On May 29 1996, as part of its intimidation mechanism, the EPRDF government arrested Dr Taye Woldesemayat, President of the Ethiopian Teachers’ Association, at Addis Ababa international airport upon his return from a general meeting in Europe. He was accused of armed conspiracy so that if convicted, he would face the death penalty. But Taye, well-known internationally to have opposed violence, has eschewed even political party affiliation. He was released following intense international pressure. To destroy the ETA as an organization, the government of Mr. Meles Zenawi has resorted to the freezing of ETA bank account as well as its pension funds. It has also closed down its regional offices, conducted several illegal searches, fired ETA members from their professional jobs and jailed many peaceful activists. As if that is not enough, the EPRDF government has disfranchised the original ETA and has established in its place, a rival pro-government organisation that carries the same name. The General Secretary of the ETA, Gemoraw Kassa, fearing for his life, has recently taken asylum in the UK. In May 1997, ETA executive committee officer Assefa Maru, who was also a member of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council executive committee, was shot and killed in broad daylight .

The plight of Ethiopian journalists is not any better. In 1991, the government of Mr. Meles adopted a so called national charter and informed the journalist that except in matters concerning state security, they were free to enjoy full rights to disseminate information without state interference. But it did not take long for it to renege. [5] The Ministry of Information started canceling licensces of publications that it deemed “have not been able to respect their journalistic code of ethics as well as failing to discharge their responsibilities.” As a result, many have lost their businesses. The well-known international human rights organization, the Committee to Protect Journalists [CPJ], has recently reported that no less than 300 reporters have been jailed in Ethiopia since 1992. Between 1992 and the end of year 2005, at least 16 Ethiopian journalists lost their lives in the hands of armed death squads. The chairperson of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association, Mr. Kifle Mulat, announced in 2000, that many of theseof these journalists lost their lives under dubious circumstances, including suicides.

During the disputed election of May, 2005, editors and reporters of independent and privately-owned newspapers were detained and charged with “treason,” “outrages against the Constitution” and “incitement to armed conspiracy”.[6] The accusations are reportedly based on published articles. They are also related to the charges against the KINIJIT leaders who were accused of trying to overthrow a legitimate government by inciting a revolution. None of the journalists were however members of that political party, though they had conducted interviews with its leaders and had made critical remarks about the EPRDF government regarding the conduct of the election. Six publishing companies owned by some of the accused journalists were charged with offences as corporate entities. Five Amharic language Voice of America reporters in Washington D.C. and two US-based Ethiopian website editors (Elias Kifle of Ethiopian Review and Abraha Belai of Ethiomedia) were arraigned in absentia for “attempted genocide” and “crimes against humanity.” Whereas the indictments against the VOA personnel was “temporarily” dropped following intense U.S. government pressure, the latter still face these ominous capital punishment charges.

In the wake of this crackdown, meaningful consultation with major opposition parties was virtually banished and the government cadres, intimidated, jailed and shot all those who failed to fall in line, manipulated elections in the rural areas and made an announcement that Mr. Meles party had won 2/3 of the seats. Public demonstrations were legally banned for a period of one month after the election day. A vicious media campaign was run accusing the opposition of disloyalty. Defeated government officials who were members of the EPRDF central committee were miraculously reinstated into their parliamentary seats after the so-called recounting of votes were conducted under the watchful eyes of a partisan national election board. Tensions run high and there were public protests against the abuse which the European observer group had witnessed and reported. Subsequently the government’s security squad massacred at least 193 unarmed peaceful demonstrators, arrested about 40,000 supporters of the opposition and herded them into jail. Amharic speaking Ethiopians living in non-Amhara Kilils [zones] were expelled by local EPRDF cadres on charges of supporting the opposition which is wrongly equated with an Amhara movement though it is clearly pan-Ethiopian. On the orders of the Prime Minister, the leaders of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy [Kinijit] party who refused to sit in what they considered a rigged parliament, were arrested and charged with “crimes against humanity” and “attempted genocide” – charges that carry the death penalty. When some parties such as the Oromo National Congress took their seats, the government planted agent provocateurs in their ranks, splintered the party, and gave recognition to factions “in good behaviour” with the EPRDF.

That brings us again to civil society organizations. What did they do when all this was expiring? Nothing? One cannot deny that NGO’s that came to Ethiopia in the name of emergency relief aid have contributed to the rural masses of Ethiopia by donating emergency food aid, by providing sanitary services, water and health care systems. In general, they have increased the chances for food security through their “Food for Work” programmes and through their commendable work of rehabilitation and long range development schemes.[7] When it comes to enhancing democracy however, these foreign NGO’s have contributed little. Democracy in this sense means the advancement of social well-being through the enjoyment of political freedoms and civil liberties; it means being governed by the rule of law, being able to engage in open discussion regarding issues that affect one’s life; it means choosing policies and priorities through the active participation either directly or indirectly in decision making process and resolving matters through pragmatic consent and open discussion; and last but not least, it means empowering and raising the lot of vulnerable citizens in one’s area of competency.[8]

Repeated studies have shown that the activities of most NGO’s in Ethiopia are supply driven. They aim to satisfy the source of their funding to carry out their prescribed projects. The funding almost entirely comes either from donor countries abroad or from the government of Ethiopia itself which supplies basic infrastructure and tax relief for goods imported in connection with relief programmes. Civil society organizations also need to renew their registration permits annually, so, they are totally at the mercy of the EPRDF.9 Due to this dual dependence, the NGO’s go out of their way to please foreign donors as well as the government of Ethiopia.[10] One thing that they would never do in order to keep this delicate balance is therefore not to advocate anything that may displease the government.[11] Hence their total silence on the advocacy of democratic empowerment and the protection of human rights. That the state through its party machine creates and runs parallel organizations to stifle the function of genuine civil society organizations has now made the whole exercise almost a farce.

Civil society is clearly a necessary condition for sustainable development both economically and socially. It is a sign of liberty, democracy and an exercise of free will. But one needs to create a set of practices and institutional frameworks that link the voluntary associations in Ethiopia to human rights activities that each and every one of us can help with. We should bear in mind that the NGO’s in the country are exceedingly fearful of the Meles regime and lack confidence in their role as public advocacy groups. They are unsure of their mission outside providing relief and development aid. Hence, there is a need to steer them towards peaceful activism where they can employ their enormous monetary power to bear upon the regime to respond to the people of Ethiopia’s yearning for democracy and good governance. We have to goad the NGO’s whether international or local, to shift their focus. We have to see to it that they develop approaches and strategies that facilitate conditions for democratic transformation.

Indeed, without the active engagement of educated Ethiopians in the Diaspora or at home, it is difficult to expect the Civil Societies in the country to desist from their present practice of avoiding issues that deal with democratic governance and human rights violations. We have to demand from all of them that relief aid is not enough, that they ought to do everything in their power to educate the Ethiopian people to practice democracy and to steer away from the autocratic and divisive venue the Meles regime has chosen. Only if we do that can we reasonably handle the enormous problems our people are facing and fulfil their needs with decency and civility. We have to create more forums to discuss issues related to human rights and democratization. We need a civil discourse. We should also realize that a civil discourse is more than a plea to seek a just and rational outcome by replicable, traceable formal instrumental procedures adopted by civil societies. Rather it is to undertake and participate in an active covenant that as Ethiopians, we cannot avoid our civic duties. We have to incite debate on civil society and human rights, for to avoid doing so is to ignore some of the fundamental elements of democracy that we wish our country should have, a democracy which is a bedrock of freedom and human dignity.
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Dr. Paulos Milkias teaches Humanities and Political Science at Marianopolis College/Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. These are excerpts from a larger paper dealing with Democratization and Political Culture in Ethiopia. The excerpts were presented as introductory remarks at a panel discussion of Canadian government and non-government officials regarding Political Rights in Ethiopia, held in Ottawa on May 4, 2007 under the auspices of the Canadian Peace-building Coordinating Committee.

NOTES
1 Tegegne Teka, 2000: International Non-Governmental Organisations in Rural Development in Ethiopia. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

2 Hollands, G. and G. Ansell (1998). Winds of small change : civil society interaction with the African state : proceedings of multilateral workshops on good governance, sustainable development, and democracy, Graz, Austria 1995–Kampala, Uganda 1998, Published by Afesis-Corplan on behalf of the Austrian North-South Institute and Austrian Development Co-operation.

3 EHRCO, 1998-1999. Special Report Nos. 12-26 (Amharic). Addis Ababa.

4 Original Wolde Giorgis, “Democratization and Gender” in Bahru Zewde and Siegried Pausewang, [eds.] Ethiopia: The Challenge of Democracy from Below, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet and Forum for Social Studies, Addis Ababa, 2002, PP. 120-129 Hillina Taddesse, 1997: The Rights of Women under Ethiopian Penal Law. EWLA sponsored Research Report, Feb. 1997.

5 See “The State of the Press in Ethiopia” in Bahru Zewde and Siegried Pausewang, [eds.] Ethiopia: The Challenge of Democracy from Below, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet and Forum for Social Studies, Addis Ababa, 2002, PP. 120-129

6 The journalist under this list are : Andualem Ayele, Etiop editor, Dawit Fasil Satenaw deputy editor, Dawit Kebede, Hadar editor, Dereje Hailewold, Menilik and Netsanet deputy editor, Eskinder Negga:12; :Satenaw editor;, Fasil Yenealem :Addis Zena publisher;, Feleke Tibebu :Hadar deputy editor;, Mesfin Tesfaye :Abay editor;, Nardos Meaza :Satenaw editor;, Serkalem Fasil :f; :co-publisher of Asqual, Menilik and Satenaw;, Sisay Agena :Etiop publisher and editor;, Wonakseged Zeleke :Asqual editor;,Wossenseged Gebrekidan :Addis Zena editor;, and Zekarias Tesfaye :Netsanet publisher;.:13; Amnesty International Report, 2006

7 Lancaster, C., National Policy Association (U.S.), et al. (2003). Equity and growth : the role of civil society in sustainable development. Washington, D.C., National Policy Association

8 See a very informative survey of the problem by Kassahun Berhanu, “The Role of NGO’s in Protecting Democratic Values”, in Bahru Zewde and Siegried Pausewang, [eds.] Ethiopia: The Challenge of Democracy from Below, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet and Forum for Social Studies, Addis Ababa, 2002, PP. 120-129

9 Desalegn Rahmato “Civil Society Organizations in Ethiopia”, in Bahru Zewde and Siegried Pausewang, [eds.] Ethiopia: The Challenge of Democracy from Below, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet and Forum for Social Studies, Addis Ababa, 2002, P. 107: Kassahun Berhanu, “The Role of NGO’s in Protecting Democratic Values”, in Bahru Zewde and Siegried Pausewang, [eds.] Ethiopia: The Challenge of Democracy from Below, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet and Forum for Social Studies, Addis Ababa, 2002, PP. 120-129

10 Kajese, K. T., 1990: “African NGO Decolonization: A Critical Choice for the 1990s”,in Critical Choices for the NGO Community: African Development in the 1990s, Seminar Proceedings, 30, Proceedings of A Conference held at the African Studies Centre, University of Edinburgh, 24-25 May.

11 Chan, S. (2002). Composing Africa : civil society and its discontents. Tampere, Tampere Peace Research Institute.