Unheeding the Lessons of History
Ethnocracy and Human Rights Violations in Ethiopia
Makau wa Mutua
December 1994
Ethiopia occupies a special place in the hearts of many Africans because of its valiant resistance to European colonialism and its seating of the Organization of African Unity, the continental body whose potential has never been realized. Yet, in spite of these noble commitments, Ethiopia sadly remains one of the most economically underdeveloped and politically repressive countries in the world. While other African political elites point to the ravages of slavery and colonialism in efforts to excuse their woeful performance, Ethiopians remain mystified by the failure of their political classes to fashion a tolerant and prosperous society. Regrettably, what seemed as deliverance from chronic despotism in 1991 has turned out be a continuum in the long night of tyranny.
The current crisis in Ethiopia, which threatens the territorial integrity of the country, results primarily from the failure of the leadership of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to learn the lessons of history. Although it would have stretched credulity to expect the TPLF together with the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), the two armed forces mainly responsible for the overthrow of Mengistu Haile Mariam’s brutal dictatorship, to completely transfer power to other groups, it is equally incredible that Meles Zenawi and his confidants in the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) have instead decided to rule alone with satellite groups that they have orchestrated. The contempt and intolerance that the TPLF has shown towards its critics and opponents is a mirror image of the treatment meted out by the Derg to the “enemies of the revolution.”
In reality, the policies and goals of the TPLF government do not in substance differ from those of its predecessors. Vindictive and small-minded, the TPLF leadership believes—like those who came before it—that political power in Ethiopia must not only be rooted in ethnicity but that it must be held exclusively. But unlike Haile Selassie and Mengistu Haile Mariam, who practiced the outright coercion and forcible acculturation of non-Amhara groups, Meles Zenawi has sought the perfection of the British colonial policy of “indirect rule”—articulated by Lord Lugard in colonial Nigeria and other British possessions—through which imperial control over the “natives” would be exercised by their “kith and kin.” Under this policy, which turned brother against sister and father against son, carefully vetted Africans served His Majesty by enforcing the harsh measures required by colonial domination. By “localizing” oppression and exploitation—and concealing the naked fist of the British—indirect rule “legitimized” colonialism but only managed to postpone its eventual defeat by nationalist forces.
The TPLF’s policy of regionalization—an attempt to create ethnically pure regions—seeks above all to officially coalesce ethnic identities by heightening the narrow and chauvinistic group consciousness already prevalent in the country while at the same time pitting the Oromo against the Amhara, the Tigrayan against the Somali, each group against every other group, and further polarizing political factions within each group on the basis of their collaboration with or rejection of TPLF’s domination. What Meles has presented as the devolution of “real power” to previously oppressed groups is in fact little more than the substitution of Tigrayan dictatorship for Amhara hegemony. In a state where each ethnic group views “the other” as the enemy and where each group is torn internally, the prospects for the creation of a national, broad-based, and effective opposition are virtually non-existent. While the central government in Addis Ababa maintains an edge over all other groups, it is unable to contain or control the chaotic political situation or put out relatively ineffective armed insurrections across the land. The result is an illegitimate state that slowly bleeds the nation to death.
Looking back over the transitional period since 1991, it is difficult not to believe that the TPLF intended to set up an illegitimate state from the very beginning. The character and structure of the TGE seemed to settle this question although in the euphoria of the moment many in Ethiopia and abroad did not fully grasp the intentions of the TPLF leadership. A few points underline these assertions. The TPLF, together with its puppets in the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)—most notably the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), a collection of ex-Mengistu soldiers and thugs orchestrated by the TPLF to counter the then popular Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Movement (EPDM), prime minister Tamrat Layne’s Amhara satellite of the TPLF-dictated proceedings at the National Conference.
The Council of Representatives (COR), for example, which was vested with supreme executive and legislative power under Meles, was dominated by the EPRDF and organizations or individuals who accepted the Transitional Charter and the central role of the EPRDF in running the state during the transition. An astounding 67 of the COR’s 87 seats went to the EPRDF and its supporters. Of the remaining 20 seats, 12 went to the OLF and the rest to the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia (IFLO), the Afar Liberation Front (ALF), and the Workers Representatives. The Charter did not envision an independent judiciary, the essential third arm of the government in any transition to a democratic order. Instead, it provided for a dual court system—at the center and the regions—appointed and controlled by the TGE and its sanctioned regional authorities.
The political transition envisioned by the Charter was also crafted to guarantee TPLF’s control of the process. The COR itself constituted the Constitutional Commission (CC) whose mandate it was to draw up a draft constitution. The CC would then submit the draft constitution to the COR for adoption after which it would be “presented to the people for discussion.” The final draft would be adopted by the Constituent Assembly elected pursuant to that final draft. More than anything else, it was this process which unmasked TPLF’s insincerity. Kifle Wodajo, the one-time Mengistu confidant hand-picked by TPLF to the chair of the CC, made no real efforts to establish a participatory constitution-making exercise. No public campaigns or systematic formulae were adopted by the CC to involve the people in the process. The legal deadline for the TGE came and went without a draft constitution; in effect, Meles and the TGE were in power unconstitutionally. But they held the monopoly on violence.
When it appeared that the CC was not genuinely interested in an inclusive process, some of its members, including the respected lawyer Teshome Gebre-Mariam, resigned from it. Only in March 1994 did the CC circulate a concept document—not a draft constitution—for discussion by regional councils. No such drafts—of either the concept paper or draft constitution—were made available to the public until the publication of the Amharic version of the Ethiopian Constitution was issued in June. Sometime thereafter, the remaining skeleton of the COR—almost all non-EPRDF have either resigned or been dismissed—adopted the draft constitution.
It is ironic, though in keeping with TPLF’s intentions, that the Constituent Assembly elections were held on June 5 without the required public discussion and adoption of the draft constitution. Those elections—like the regional poll stolen by the EPRDF in 1992—were only nominally contested. Although the TGE boasted that thirty-nine political organizations took part, in actual fact most of them were either insignificant or fronts for the EPRDF. All the major opposition groups stayed out: the OLF, the All Amhara Peoples Organization (AAPO), the Ethiopian Democratic Union Party (EDUP), Meison, Medhin, EPRP, and the Council of Alternative Forces for Peace and Democracy in Ethiopia (CAFPDE), led by Beyene Petros and Teshome Gebre-Mariam and regarded today as the strongest opposition group inside Ethiopia.
Left alone in the electoral contest, the EPRDF and its allies captured at least 484 of the 547 available seats, an overwhelming success rate of more than 90%. EPRDF’s total control of political space was evident in the provinces where non-EPRDF individuals and organizations were not allowed to operate. In Oromia, the region primarily inhabited by Oromos, the country’s largest group, the OPDO won 173 of 178 seats. Only in Addis Ababa, where the government has failed to completely squelch the opposition, did non-EPRDF candidates garner 10 of 22 seats. In the Somalia region, where the Ogadeni National Liberation Front (ONLF) is waging a war of secession, the elections were not held.
If the results were reminiscent of the Mengistu era, it is because Ethiopia has become, for all practical purposes, a one-party state. Since the June 1992 elections, the EPRDF has increasingly ruled exclusively: the COR is an EPRDF haven, all independent groups having resigned or forced out; the constitution-making process has been secretly carried out under instructions from the TPLF; none of the opposition papers have been allowed outside Addis Ababa; and the government has cracked down hard on the independent press. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch/Africa now estimate that over 60 journalists have either been imprisoned, detained, or are awaiting trial on politically-motivated charges.
Many editors of leading publications have been detained. Mesfin Shiferaw, editor of Twaf, has been missing since February 1994. Keleme Bogale and Tewedros Kebede, writers at Zog, the Amharic weekly, were picked up in Addis Ababa on October 10 and detained at the Central Investigation Center. Burayu and Tessema, the editor and deputy editor, respectively, of Madda Walaabu an Oromigna magazine, have also been held at the Center since October 4 allegedly for carrying an OLF military communique. Others from Muday and Lubar magazines have either been imprisoned or fined for various political offenses.
In virtually all parts of Ethiopia, there is open hostility between the EPRDF army and bureaucracy and local residents. In Somalia region, where the EPRDF army is considered an occupation force, clashes between it and the ONLF have left hundreds dead. Human rights groups have documented dozens of disappearances of ONLF cadres or supporters in military custody. Many are feared executed. Elsewhere in the country, in the Oromia and Amhara regions, clashes between EPRDF forces and local groups are increasing.
Recently, the government has stepped up attacks on its opponents as it has become increasingly clear that an overwhelming number of Ethiopians reject it. In an attempt to silence one of its bitterest critics, the TGE recently convicted Asrat Woldeyes, and several other officials of the AAPO, of political offenses and sentenced them to prison terms of up to two years. In September, hundreds of AAPO supporters, including the elderly and the infirm, were severely beaten and illegally arrested by EPRDF security forces for peacefully demonstrating support for Asrat.
Meanwhile, the government has started mass arrests of members of other opposition groups. The latest to fall are members and officials of the Omo Peoples’ Democratic Union (OPDU). OPDU chair, Merid Abebe, was arrested at his office in Addis Ababa on October 18 and transported for detention at Jinka, the Omo capital located more than 400 miles from Addis Ababa. The reason for his arrest, reminiscent of the stalinist era, was given as “activities against the Transitional Charter.” At least a dozen other OPDU officials have been arrested in Jinka where they have been detained without charge. Officials of the Sidama Liberation Movement (SLM), a registered political party, have also come under sharp attack. On September 22, acting SLM vicechair, Lemma Sidamo, was arrested by EPRDF security officers at his home in Addis Ababa. No reasons were given for his arrest. Since 1993 when the SLM was expelled from the COR for attending an opposition conference in Paris, the TGE has engaged in a campaign of harassment of its leaders, staff, and supporters.
In spite of an obviously worsening human rights record, the Meles government continues to receive considerable support from Washington. While some State Department officials privately concede that the TGE is among the worst violators of human rights in Africa today, Washington appears to have resigned itself to working with Meles for several reasons, including his de facto military control of the country and the continued viability of Eritrea and its peaceful co-existence with Ethiopia. It is no secret that the collapse of the TPLF government would re-open the Eritrean question. American officials—who blessed the takeover of Addis Ababa in 1991 and the secession of Eritrea—fear that the overthrow of Meles would lead to a Rwanda-like catastrophe in this nation of 60 million, a disaster that could cost billions of dollars in American assistance.
There are others in the State Department who see a stable, albeit undemocratic, Ethiopia as a potential regional leader. And of course many officials remain skeptical about the ability of Ethiopians, both government and opposition, to create a democratic society. It is for these reasons that in August Meles became the first Ethiopian leader in over two decades to cross the threshold of the White House. The meeting with Bill Clinton in all probability solidified the intransigence of the TGE: the administration anointed him and put its seal of approval on his ethnically exclusive transitional process. In many respects, the administration’s endorsement of the TGE’s despotic rule comes as no surprise: the United States has always supported dictatorial regimes in the Horn.
The transitional process will officially come to a close next year once general elections are held. It seems unlikely at this point that the opposition will participate unless the government agrees—another virtual impossibility—to end the harassment of opposition groups and shares political power with them. In effect, the Tigrayans, one of the smaller ethnic groups, appear set to “legitimize” their hegemony over Ethiopia upon the completion of the transition period. An ethnocratic state—a political society driven officially and primarily by ethnicity such as apartheid—and dominated by the Tigrayan elite appears to be the goal of the TGE’s transitional process. But because that process has been exclusive, it will not be too long before the guns begin blazing again in earnest in the biblical land. The TPLF, like the proverbial fool, seems doomed to repeat history because it has stubbornly refused to learn from it.
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Dr. Makau wa Mutua, a lawyer, is the projects director at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program. He writes frequently on Ethiopia and was in Addis Ababa in September 1994 to address an OAU/UNCHR symposium on human rights and refugees.
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