In his book Night, Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and the man the Nobel Committee called the “messenger to mankind” when it awarded him the peace prize in 1986, wrote:
For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.
On November 9-10, 1938, the Nazis destroyed thousands of Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses throughout Germany, killing nearly 100 and arresting and deporting some 30,000 to concentration camps. That was Krystallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), the forerunner to the Holocaust. On March 21, 1960, apartheid security forces in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa, fired 705 bullets in two minutes to disperse a crowd of protesting Africans. When the shooting spree stopped, 69 black Africans lay dead, shot in the back; and 186 suffered severe gunshot wounds.
Following the May, 2005 Ethiopian parliamentary elections, paramilitary forces under the direct command and control of regime leader Meles Zenawi massacred 193 innocent men, women and children and wounded 763 persons engaged in ordinary civil protest. Nearly all of the victims shot and killed died from injuries to their heads or upper torso, and there was evidence that sharpshooters were used in the indiscriminate and wanton attack on the protesters. On November 3, 2005, during an alleged disturbance at the infamous Kality prison near Addis Abeba, guards sprayed more than 1500 bullets into inmate cells in 15 minutes killing 17 and severely wounding 53. These facts were meticulously documented by a 10-member Inquiry Commission established by Zenawi himself after examining 16,990 documents, receiving testimony from 1,300 witnesses and undertaking months of investigation in the field.
Under constant threat by the regime and afraid to make these facts public in Ethiopia, the Commission’s chairman Judge Frehiwot Samuel, vice chair Woldemichael Meshesha, and member attorney Teshome Mitiku fled the country with the evidence. They made their findings public on November 16, 2006, before a committee of the U.S. Congress. Their report completely exonerated the protesters and pinned the blame for the massacres entirely on the regime and its security forces. No protesters possessed, used or attempted to use firearms, explosives or any other objects that could be used as a weapon. No protester set or attempted to set fire to public or private property, robbed or attempted to rob a bank.[1]
The victims of the post-election massacres were not faceless and nameless images in the crowd. They were individuals with identities. Among the victims were Tensae Zegeye, age 14; Habtamu Tola, age 16; Binyam Degefa, age 18; Behailu Tesfaye, age 20; Kasim Ali Rashid, age 21. Teodros Giday Hailu, age 23. Adissu Belachew, age 25; Milion Kebede Robi, age 32; Desta Umma Birru, age 37; Tiruwork G. Tsadik, age 41; Elfnesh Tekle, age 45. Abebeth Huletu, age 50; Regassa Feyessa, age 55; Teshome Addis Kidane, age 65; Victim No. 21762, age 75, female, and Victim No. 21760, male, age unknown and many dozens more.[2]
Ethiopians have a special duty to bear witness for these innocent victims who died as eye witnesses to the theft of an election and the mugging of democracy in Ethiopia in 2005. They went into the streets to peacefully defend their right to vote and have their votes count, and defend the first democratic election in Ethiopia’s 3,000-year history. We must force ourselves to testify for them not just as victims of monstrous crimes but also as true patriots. For they acted out of a sense of duty, honor, love of country and deep concern for the future of Ethiopia. They died so that 80 million Ethiopians could live free.
Ethiopia’s dictators would have the world believe that the victims of their carnage were nobodies who did not matter. It is true they were all ordinary people of the humblest origins. But we value them not for their wealth and social status but for their patriotism and sacrifices in the cause of freedom, democracy and human rights.
Elie Weisel is absolutely right. We have a duty to bear witness against those who commit crimes against humanity and for the innocent victims of tyranny and dictatorship. We have to “force” ourselves to testify not only for the dead but also “for the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow.” We do not want the massacres of 2005 to become the future of Ethiopia.
When we bear witness for Ethiopia’s innocent victims, we bear witness for all victims of tyranny and dictatorships. For the cause of the innocent transcends race, ethnicity, religion, language, country or continent. It even transcends time and space because the innocent represent humanity’s infinite capacity for virtue as dictators and tyrants represent humanity’s dregs. When we bear witness for them, we also testify in our own behalf against that evil lurking secretly and deep in our souls and hearts. But by not forcing ourselves to testify against evil, we become an inseparable part of it. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” That is also the essential message of Elie Weisel.
Let us bear witness now for Zenawi’s victims. Let us tell the world that they cry out for justice from the grave. Let us testify that they died on the bloody battlefield of dictatorship with nothing in their hands, but peace and love in their hearts, justice in their minds and passion for the cause of freedom and democracy in their spirits and bodies. Let us remember and honor them, not in sorrow, but in gratitude and eternal indebtedness. Let us make sure that their sacrifices will tell generations of Ethiopians to come stories of personal bravery and courage and an abiding and unflinching faith in democracy and the rule of law. And when we despair over what appears to be the victory of evil over good, let us be inspired by Gandhi’s words: “There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it, ALWAYS.” Let us remind ourselves every day that “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men and women do nothing.”
[1] These victims were documented by the Inquiry Commission in its investigation of shootings of unarmed protesters in Addis Ababa on June 8, and November 1-10 and 14-16, 2005 in Oromia and Amhara “regional states”. See, http://www.ethiomedia.com/addfile/ethiopian_inquiry_commission_briefs_congress.html
(Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on Pambazuka News and New American Media.)
“No alternative in the opposition,” they whispered anonymously. What a disgusting phrase to use in justifying support for a ruthless dictatorship? That is apparently the scuttlebutt on Embassy Row in Addis Abeba. Reuters’ Barry Malone reported last week, “Most Western governments want Meles to continue because there is no alternative in the opposition. As long as the elections are semi-democratic, they’ll probably stay quiet, keep giving aid, hope for liberalisation of the economy and leave full democracy for later.” Is this the ultimate proof of the triumph of Western moral relativism, hypocrisy and skullduggery in Ethiopia and Africa? Is this the new 21st Century Western paradigm of moral capitulation and appeasement of evil? Is the West going to a moral hellhole in a hand basket?
We now have a clear answer to a question that had puzzled us for the past two decades: Why do Western governments and their multilateral lending institutions support Zenawi’s dictatorship with billions of dollars in loans and foreign aid? Answer: Because “there is no alternative in the opposition!” Why do they turn a blind eye to the gross violations of human rights in Ethiopia? Turn a deaf ear to the bootless cries of the thousands of Ethiopian political prisoners rotting in Zenawi’s jail? Pretend to be mute on Birtukan Midekssa’s unjust imprisonment? Prop up a regime that ruthlessly decimates its opposition, crushes the free press, chokes civil society organizations, squanders and defalcates foreign aid and loans and lords imperiously over a famine-ravaged country? Why do “most Western governments want Meles to continue?” Answer: “Because there is no alternative in the opposition!”
It is agonizing to finally come face to face with the banality of depraved Western diplomatic indifference in Addis Abeba. It is heartbreaking to learn that Western governments have earnestly resolved to humanize and normalize a brutal regime while preaching to Africans in forked tongue that their dictators are on the wrong side of morality and history. They shed crocodile tears for the victims of African dictators. They comfort the helpless and frightened African masses with sweet words of hope and grand promises of democratic renaissance. Now we have come to find out that the hypocrites are secretly in bed with the very dictators they condemn in public! It must be true that “politics makes for strange bedfellows.”
The “no alternative in the opposition” Western diplomatic mantra and mindset could have devastating consequences on Ethiopia and other African countries suffering under the stranglehold of dictatorial rule. It means the seeds of the rule of law will die on the barren soil of African dictatorships; that totalitarianism and police states are morally justified and compelled in Africa whenever Western governments conclude there are “no alternatives in the opposition”; that state-sponsored violence and repression are necessary moral imperatives for the nurturance of an “emerging democracy”; and that dictatorship is necessary to save Ethiopians, and Africans in general, from themselves. Simply stated, the triumph of dictatorship in Africa is a necessary precondition for the rapture of democracy in Africa. Such has become the pitiful logic of moral decay and duplicity of Western governments in Africa today!
Of course, the whole notion of “no alternative in the opposition” is absurd and patently false in its premise and conclusion. There is definitely a viable alternative it the opposition in Ethiopia, but Zenawi ruthlessly eliminates and roots out any opposition before it poses a real challenge to him. Birtukan Midekksa and her Unity, Democracy and Justice party represent a viable opposition; but a year ago Zenawi jailed Birtukan for life on the ridiculous charge of denying a pardon. Medrek, an alliance of eight parties, is a viable opposition, but Zenawi refuses to jointly develop a consensus-based election code of conduct with it. He wants to shove down the opposition’s throat his own self-serving election code of conduct while grandstanding for Western governments that he is willing, ready and able to have free and fair elections.
Zenawi has completely paralyzed the real opposition by intimidation and brutal repression. Just last week, “documents were given to Reuters by four opposition parties listing [450] prisoners’ names, the dates on which they were arrested and the jails in which they were being held.” Gizachew Shiferaw, deputy leader of the Unity for Democracy and Justice party told Reuters, “These jailings stop our members running in elections. It has become a strategy for the ruling party. Ethiopia is a one-party state.” The All Ethiopia Unity Organization has recorded seven politically-motivated murders of its members over the last 12 months. Last month, Ethiopia’s former president, Dr. Negasso Gidada, presented a mound of anecdotal evidence documenting the complete absence of a “level playing field” for the 2010 “election”. If there is “no alternative in the opposition,” as the Western governments claim, it is because a real opposition can not survive in a totalitarian police state!
In the Catch-22 diplomatic netherworld of Addis Abeba, the strategy is obvious: “It is better to deal with a devil you know than an angel you do not know.” In Ethiopia’s case, one must grudgingly give the “devil his due.” For the past two decades, Western governments have been confounded, hoodwinked, bambozzled, bluffed, duped, manipulated, seduced, beguiled, flim-flammed and sandbagged by a master of deception into believing that there is “no alternative in the opposition”.
But the canard of “no alternative in the opposition” could mask something more sinisterly selfish. Western governments apparently have their eyes transfixed on getting a lion’s share of the “lucrative telecommunications and banking industries in a nation of more than 80 million people” and “exporting commodities and exploring Ethiopia for probable oil and gas deposits.” They are scared that “if the opposition takes power, the future would be uncertain and investments delayed as foreign governments and lenders jostle for influence.” Hidden under the thick layers of hypocrisy is a deliberate decoupling of dictatorship from democracy and good governance and a coupling of calculated long-term economic interests with the strengthening of a stable dictatorship to advance a scheme of globalized economic exploitation in Ethiopia. In the old days, they called such things neo-colonialism. It is not clear what they call them these days, but there is no doubt that Ethiopian democracy and the Ethiopian people are held hostage in the grand cut-throat global competition for oil, gas and exports.
Western governments and multilateral lending institutions know better. As President Obama said, “Africa needs strong institutions, not strong men.” Or in the common idiom, “It is not about the man. It is about the plan.” They should be engaged in institution-building, not armor-plating the clenched fists of African dictators. They should use their financial leverage to help build strong multiparty institutions, facilitate clean fraud-free elections, establish structures of accountability, institutionalize the rule of law, fortify the protection of human rights and strengthening civil society institutions in Africa. That’s how viable alternatives in the opposition are created, nurtured and sustained in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.
It is a truism to say that full democratization will take time in Africa. There will be many uncertainties and obstacles to Africa’s democratic development. Having an “alternative in the opposition” is not a panacea to Ethiopia’s decades-old problems. Any “alternative” to dictatorship in Ethiopia would have to deal with the legacy of human rights violations, economic mismanagement, corruption and the social chaos spawned by the dictatorship’s catastrophic “ethnic federalism” program. There will be many false starts and trials and errors on the road to democracy under an “alternative opposition.”
Western governments should be careful not to cerate and perpetuate an insidious myth that Africa has no alternative to dictatorship. It is psychologically devastating to tell 80 million Ethiopians that Western governments will support Zenawi’s dictatorship because they believe there are “no alternatives in the opposition.” Such a callous and cold-blooded attitude conveys a defeatist message to Ethiopians. It sends a signal that Ethiopians should abandon all hope of freedom and democracy because they are doomed and destined to eternal dictatorship. This attitude inherently de-legitimizes, disregards and ridicules the efforts of emerging opposition groups, and effectively tranquilizes them into stunned silence, depriving them of the confidence needed to stand up for democracy, freedom and human rights. Ironfisted dictators will no doubt be emboldened by this windfall of appeasement. Ultimately, this attitude of do-nothing-now and turn-a-blind eye to dictatorship will undermine the long-term policy interests of Western governments in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa by incapacitating them from using the vast financial leverage they have to aid Africa transition from dictatorship to democracy and pursue their geopolitical interests.
None of the foregoing is intended to suggest the Ethiopian opposition is blameless. Those genuinely in the opposition must accept responsibility for their inability to come together and articulate a vision for the country. They deserve blame for squandering valuable opportunities to build organizational alliances, develop alternative policies and train young leaders. Of course, there have been Judases in the opposition who have been willing to sacrifice the cause of democracy on the altar of dictatorship and kneel down and kiss the blood-drenched hands of Herod for thirty pieces of silver. But that is no excuse for not closing ranks against dictatorship now, and presenting a united front in support of democracy, freedom and human rights.
The catchphrases bandied around in the Western diplomatic cocktail circuits in Addis Abeba today probably go something like this: “Democracy is a dead end road in Ethiopia. Dictatorship is the beacon of light for Ethiopia’s future. Forget about the famine, human rights violations, corruption and the rest of it. Ethiopia is doomed because she has ‘no alternatives in the opposition!’”
Excellencies, it is said you will support Zenawi’s dictatorship “as long as the [2010] elections are semi-democratic”. To believe a dictatorship can be semi-democratic is to believe a woman can be a little bit pregnant. Do not deceive yourselves, and do not write us off just yet. In the long run, Ethiopians, and Africans in general, will receive the blessings of democracy by evolution or revolution! For now, we want you to know that Ethiopians are double victims of crime. They are victimized by dictators who have perpetrated upon them crimes against humanity with impunity. They are also victims of the crime of depraved indifference to their suffering by those who continue to coddle, aid and abet the criminals who have committed upon them crimes against humanity. Let it be known that we make no distinctions between the two types of criminals. Excellencies, that is why every patriotic and human rights-loving Ethiopian shall face you in righteous indignation, and charge: “J’Accuse!”
(Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on Pambazuka News and New American Media.)
It is hard to talk about Ethiopia these days in non-apocalyptic terms. Millions of Ethiopians are facing their old enemy again for the third time in nearly forty years. The Black Horseman of famine is stalking that ancient land. A year ago, Meles Zenawi’s regime denied there was any famine. Only “minor problems” of spot shortages of food which will “be soon brought under control,” it said dismissively. The regime boldly predicted a 7-10 percent increase in the annual harvest over 2007. Simon Mechale, head of the country’s Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency, proudly declared: “Ethiopia will soon fully ensure its food security.” For several years, the regime has been touting its Productive Safety Net Programme would result in ending the “cycle of dependence on food aid” by bridging production deficits and protecting household and community assets. Famine and chronic food shortages were officially ostracized from Ethiopia.
But the famine juggernaut could not be stopped. Recently, Mitiku Kassa, Ethiopia’s state minister for agriculture and rural development, was panhandling international donors to give $121 million in food aid to feed some 5 million people. The United Nations World Food Programme says a much larger emergency fund of $285 million in international food aid is needed to avert mass starvation just in the next six months.
Zenawi’s regime has been downplaying and double-talking the famine situation. It is too embarrassed to admit the astronomical number of people facing starvation in a country which, by the regime’s own accounts, is bursting at the seams from runaway economic development. USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its September, 2009 Situation Report indicated that there are “an additional 7.5 million” individuals to those reported by the Ethiopian government who are “chronically food insecure.” Regardless of the euphemisms, code words and rhetorical flourish used to describe the situation by politically correct international agencies, between 15-18 per cent of the Ethiopian population is at risk of full blown famine, according to estimates of various international famine relief organizations.
Many Ethiopians view the recurrent famines as an expression of divine wrath. Successive governments have evaded responsibility for their failure to prevent or mitigate famine conditions. In 1973/4, Ethiopia’s “hidden famine,” exposed to the world by the BBC’s Jonathan Dimbleby, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 200,000 Ethiopians. Emperor Haile Selassie said he was unaware of the magnitude of the famine. He lost his throne and life in the ensuing military coup. In 1984/5, the Soviet-supported socialist military junta known as the “Derg” denied the existence of a famine which consumed over 1 million Ethiopians. Today, the regime of Meles Zenawi shamelessly presides over a third apocalyptic famine in 40 years while boasting to the world an “11 per cent economic growth over the past six years.”
Every Ethiopian government over the past four decades has blamed famine on “acts of God.” The current regime, like its predecessors, blames “poor and erratic rains,” “drought conditions,” “deforestation and soil erosion,” “overgrazing,” and other “natural factors” for famine and chronic food shortages in Ethiopia. Zenawi’s regime even has the brazen audacity to blame “Western indifference” and “apathy” in not providing timely food aid for the suffering of starving Ethiopians.
Penny Lawrence, Oxfam’s international director, after her recent visit to Ethiopia observed: “Drought does not need to mean hunger and destitution. If communities have irrigation for crops, grain stores, and wells to harvest rains then they can survive despite what the elements throw at them.” Martin Plaut, BBC World Service News Africa editor explains that the “current [famine] crisis is in part the result of policies designed to keep farmers on the land, which belongs to the state and cannot be sold.” So the obvious questions for Zenawi’s regime are: Why is all land owned by a government that has rejected socialism and is fully committed to a free market economy? Why has the regime not been able to build an adequate system of irrigation for crops, grain storages and wells to harvest rains?
Indian economics Nobel laureate Amartya Sen argued that the best way to avert famines is by institutionalizing democracy and strengthening human rights: “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy” because democratic governments “have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes.” Ethiopia’s famine today is a famine of food scarcity as much as it is a famine of democracy and good governance. Ethiopians are starved for human rights, thirst for the rule of law, ache for accountability of those in power and yearn to breathe free from the chokehold of dictatorship. They are dying at the hands of corrupt, foreign-aid-profiteering and ethnically-polarizing dictators who cling to the Ethiopian body politics like blood-sucking ticks on a milk cow.
Sen’s democratic network of “famine early warning systems” do not exist in Ethiopia. Opposition parties are crushed ruthlessly, and their leaders harassed, persecuted and jailed. Birtukan Midekssa, the first woman political party leader in Ethiopia’s recorded history, today languishes in prison doing a life term on the ridiculous charge that she had denied receiving a government pardon in July 2007 following her kangaroo court conviction and two year incarceration. The free press is silenced and journalists imprisoned for exposing official corruption and offering alternative viewpoints. They do not dare report on the famine. NGOs, including famine relief organizations, are severely hobbled in their work by a law that “criminalises the human rights activities of both foreign and domestic non-governmental organizations,” according to Amnesty International. All along, Zenawi has been hoodwinking international donors and lenders into supporting his “emerging democracy.” After two decades, we do not even see the ghost of democracy on Ethiopia’s parched landscape. All we see is the specter of an entrenched dictatorship that has clung to power like barnacles to a sunken ship, or more appropriately, the sunken Ethiopian ship of state.
Images of the human wreckage of Ethiopia’s rampaging famine will soon begin to make dramatic appearances on television in Western living rooms. The Ethiopian government will be out in full force panhandling the international community for food aid. Compassion-fatigued donors may or may not come to the rescue. Ethiopians, squeezed between the Black Horseman and the Noisome Beast, will once again cry out to the heavens in pain and humiliation as they await for handouts from a charitable world. Isn’t that a low-down dirty shame for a proud people to bear?
Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on Pambazuka News and New American Media.
In the first part of our commentary[1] on the madness of Ethiopia’s 2010 “elections”, we posed the question: “Is it possible to have a fair and free election in a police state?” In light of the persuasive anecdotal evidence presented by former Ethiopian president Dr. Negasso Gidada, which pointed to the complete absence of a level electoral playing field, we concluded it was not possible. We were cautiously optimistic that all stakeholders, acting transparently and in good faith, and with robust accountability mechanisms in place, could take a take a leap of faith into what appears to be a sham election in the offing to vindicate the cause of democracy, rule of law and popular sovereignty. But our optimism and aspirations for a fair and free election in 2010 hinge precariously on whether the following question is answered affirmatively, and without any mental reservations and purpose of evasion: Will the dictatorship agree to and in good faith abide by an election code of conduct that is based on the principle of respect for the rule of law and human rights, and conforms to its own constitution and election laws?
The Pillars of Free and Fair Elections: Co-equality, Equity, Civility, Good Faith, Mutual Respect and Tolerance
Free and fair elections are best guaranteed if certain basic principles are accepted and fully adhered to in the relationship between the political parties, candidates, their supporters and other stakeholders. The first pillar is the principle of co-equality. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All Animals are created equal but some are more equal than others.” Not so if we are to have free and fair elections in Ethiopia. All parties are presumed to be co-equal under the Ethiopian “constitution” because fundamentally elections are about equal access and participation in the democratic governance process based on the principle of one person, one vote. This proposition is consistent with Articles 56, 60 and 72 of the Ethiopian “constitution” which prescribes the rules for the formation of party governance, scope of power during a period when elections are underway and coalition-building to form a government.
In the run-up to the 2010 “election” what we witness is a one-man, one-party dictatorship in which the ruling “EPDRF” party is astronomically “more equal” than all of the other opposition parties combined. The leaders of that party serve as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in all matters relating to elections. If fair and free elections are to take place, the ruling party and its leaders must accept in principle and in practice that the opposition political parties are their equals in the eyes of the law; and that their complete dominance of the society does not entitle them to harass, mistreat, abuse and persecute the opposition in the electoral process.
There is a huge equity gap between the ruling party and its leaders and the opposition. The rulers enjoy extraordinary legal and political privileges, advantages, benefits and entitlements because they literally own the political system. Their party members and leaders dominate the bureaucracies, the courts, the police forces and the local administrative structures. Most importantly, they own the election commission. It is a necessary precondition for a fair and free election that there be mechanisms in place to ensure all parties and stakeholders have equal opportunities to compete fairly for votes. Equitable principles require that the opposition receive and disseminate information freely, have access to state media on the same terms and conditions as the ruling party, be able to educate and canvass voters, hold meetings, conduct campaigns freely and vigorously engage fellow citizens to exercise their right to vote in an informed manner.
Civility is an attribute of civilized people in the way they relate to each other particularly in controversial matters. Civility is one thing that is abundantly available in Ethiopia. As the 2005 election has demonstrated, political campaigns, debates and discussions were conducted largely focused on the issues and less on leadership personalities. Passionate statements and speeches were given and robust exchanges of views took place in the media; and even in heated debates, the rule was reflective reaction than reflexive counteraction. In 2005, the stakeholders “disagreed without being unduly disagreeable.” That is civility!
Good faith and fair dealing are two things missing from the ethical satchel of the ruling party. They have used “bait and switch” tactics as evidenced in their recent attempts to finesse Medrek to sign a prefabricated “code of election conduct”. They have shown little honesty of intention in what they do or promise to do. They have a long history of bad faith dealing with opposition parties. They have relentlessly sought to outsmart, outfox, outwit, hoodwink and bamboozle the opposition through organized trickery, misrepresentation, duplicity, slyness and other underhanded techniques. These things will simply not work in 2010. As the old saying goes, “You can fool some of the people some times, all of the people some of the time; but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” Everyone in the world knows that the ruling party is at the end of its wits desperately trying to fool all of the people all of the time. It is time they tried a little bit of good faith bargaining, negotiations, compromising and fair dealing with their opposition. They must stop their brinksmanship games and their peculiar diplomacy by ultimatum: “Our way or the highway!”
Respect and tolerance in the context of free and fair elections mean, first and foremost, respect for the rule of law; and secondly, respect for each other in the electoral process. The ruling party must respect its own constitution and laws and its international treaty obligations which require compliance with basic standards in the conduct of free and fair elections. They must also respect the electoral process and the participants in it, including the voters. The evidence shows that the ruling party has been consistently paternalistic, disdainful and dismissive of the opposition. They have arbitrarily imprisoned major opposition party leaders and their supporters; and Ethiopia’s preeminent political prisoner, Birtukan Midekssa, remains jailed without legal cause. She must be released along with the thousands of other political prisoners forthwith.
The ruling party’s contempt and disrespect for the opposition has its roots in the party leaders’ views that they came to power through the barrel of the gun, and that no one will take that power away from them through the ballot box. That is their fundamental existential problem. The issue of respect, however, goes deeper to the level of respect for the sovereign verdict of the people in a free and fair election. If the ruling party has no respect for opposition parties and their leaders, and is unwilling to show tolerance for competing views, ipso facto, it does not have respect for the citizens who cast their votes or for the choices made by the people. In the context of free and fair elections, respect means “Respect the Vote!”
Code of Conduct for a Level Electoral Playing Field
As we have argued elsewhere[2], there is really no need for an “election code of conduct” in 2010. In 2005, without such a code, real opposition parties were able to campaign vigorously. There were free and open debates throughout the society. A free private press challenged those in power and scrutinized the opposition. Civil society leaders worked tirelessly to inform and educate the voters and citizenry about democracy and elections. Voters openly and fearlessly showed their dissatisfaction with the regime in public meetings. On May 15, 2005, voters did something unprecedented in Ethiopia’s 3000-year history: They used the ballot box to pass their verdict. That’s is the best way to conduct the 2010 election – by letting the people pass their sovereign verdict in a fair and free election.
But if an “election code of conduct” could help facilitate fair and free elections and enable the people to pass their sovereign verdict, it is worth trying, even against overwhelming odds. But there is no need to reinvent such a code; one is readily available from the largest democracy in the world, India. Since 1947, India has successfully conducted thousands of elections at regular intervals as prescribed by its constitution, elections laws and international obligations. There are 7 national and 39 state registered parties by the India Election Commission, along with 730 unregistered ones competing for office. There is no doubt that the Indians know a thing or two about conducting free and fair elections.
The 2009 Model Code of Election Conduct of India (Model Code) offers arguably the best archetype that could be adopted for elections in Ethiopia [3]. The Model Code is “a unique document that has evolved with the consensus of political parties themselves and the Commission implements and enforces it with the aim of providing a level playing field for all political parties and ensuring free and fair elections.” It is comprehensive and addresses nearly every potentially disruptive and unfair election practice that could undermine confidence in an election outcome. It disapproves of actions and messages by any party that creates ethnic hatred or communal tensions, prohibits the use of inflammatory rhetoric based on personal attacks and false allegations; it strongly discourages demagogic appeals to communal feelings and divisive propaganda for votes; and it prohibits and penalizes corrupt and illegal practices such as bribery, voter intimidation, violation of election laws, improper use of public property and resources for partisan advantages.
To ensure a level playing field, the Model Code prohibits government ministers from combining their official visits with electioneering. They are prohibited from using official equipment, vehicles or government employees in electioneering work; and they may not make payments, financial grants or promises of money or other public works projects to any person or constituency from the time elections are announced by the Commission. There are special rules for election day to “ensure peaceful and orderly polling and complete freedom to the voters to exercise their franchise without being subjected to any annoyance or obstruction.” Criminal penalties in the form of a three-year simple imprisonment or fine are provided “for persons who create enmity between people in the name of religion, caste, community or language during the election campaign.” There are ample mechanisms to challenge the party in power where there is reason to believe officials are exploiting their offices for partisan advantage.
Central to the whole process of free and fair elections in India is the constitutional role played by the independent Election Commission of India, which has broad authority in elections administration. The Commission decides and announces the election schedules for general or bye-elections, registers political parties, settles disputes and conducts periodic consultations with them. It has broad authority to review charges of election fraud and corrupt election practices. It has the power to disqualify candidates who fail to meet basic requirements of the election law. It has advisory jurisdiction in post-election disqualification of sitting members of parliament. The Commission maintains its transparency and reinforces its impartiality by holding regular press briefings during elections. Most importantly, the Commission is insulated from executive, legislative and judicial interference.
To Have or Not To Have Free and Fair Election in 2010
We would like to end on a hopeful note. We believe that an election code of conduct that is forged through a consensus of all the political parties and administered by an independent and impartial electoral commission could go a long way to ensure a peaceful, fair and free election in 2010. We are also realistic. We may try to analyze, theorize, slice and dice the obvious. In the final analysis, it may all end up being the old zero-sum game the regime has played so well for the past two decades, this time dressed up as a new game of “election code of conduct.” We can wax eloquence all day but none of us understand or are able to tell the truth about elections in Ethiopia with greater moral clarity and conviction than Birtukan Midekssa, who, a day before she was manhandled and whisked back to Kality prison on December 27, 2008 by the regime’s security officers said:
The message [of the regime] is clear not just to me but to all others involved in peaceful struggle [in Ethiopia]: Participation in the political process shall be as approved by the regime in power or at the discretion of individuals [wielding state power]. For me, this is extremely difficult to accept.
It may be difficult for many of us to accept this bizarre reality as well. “To have or not to have a free and fair election in 2010,” that is the question facing the people of Ethiopia today. We used the word “madness” in describing the 2010 election advisedly. Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Participating in a bogus election over and over again and expecting a different result could be an alternative definition of insanity.
The writer, Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at CaliforniaStateUniversity, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. For comments, he can be reached at [email protected]
In part I, we explore whether, given the current circumstances in Ethiopia today, a free and fair election is possible in May 2010. In part II, we aim to explore the necessary preconditions for free and fair elections.
Free and Fair Elections in a Police State
“Is it possible to have a fair and free election in a police state?” That is the inescapable question one must answer after reading former Ethiopian President Dr. Negasso Gidada’s recent reportage on his visit to Dembi Dollo in Qelem Wallaga Zone of Oromia Region [1]. In his recent widely read analysis, Dr. Negasso flatly declared that there is “no level playing field” in Dembi Dollo, and by implication anywhere else in Ethiopia, to have a free and fair election in 2010.
Dr. Negasso’s account of his visit to Dembi Dollo evokes the farcical theatricality of a low budget political horror film: The former president shows up for a visit in Dembi Dollo and is promptly shooed away and stonewalled by local functionaries. He is told he can’t hold mass public meetings or engage in other forms of discussion or dialogue with the public. In disbelief, he hastily arranges individual meetings with local businessmen, community elders, teachers, health workers, church leaders, qa’bale officials, private professionals, university students, NGO employees and members and supporters of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM). He is horrified to learn that the individuals who have met or spoken with him could be abused and victimized by local security operatives. He becomes aware of the a ubiquitous and omnipotent local security apparatus with its tentacles planted firmly into individual households.
To describe Dr. Negasso’s account on the “current situation” in Dembi Dollo as “downright chilling” would be a gross understatement. He depicts a local party organization nestled within an oppressive security apparatus consisting of layered and operationally interlocking committees (which could be best described as “commissariats”), mimicking Stalin’s NKVD (Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs) in the 1930s. Households, hamlets, villages, districts, towns and zones are hierarchically integrated into a commissariat for the single purpose of coordinating command and control over perceived “enemies of the people”. There is a network of informants, agents and secret police-type operatives who rely on heavy-handed methods to harass, intimidate, gather intelligence and penetrate opposition elements with the aim of neutralizing them.
The integrated overlay set up of the local security structure with the dominant OPDO/EPDRF party in Dembi Dollo is quite intriguing. According to Dr. Negasso’s reportage, there is no structural or functional separation of political party and public security in Dembi Dollo. The two are morphed into a single political structure which totally controls and dominates the local political and social scene. The special Woreda Town Administration is sub-divided into four large “Ganda” or villages with their own councils, each consisting of 300 members. Each qa’bale has representation in the Woreda Council, which is further sub-divided into zones and even smaller units called “Gare”. There are 30 to 40 households in a “Gare” group, which is overseen by a commissariat consisting of a chairperson, a secretary, a security chief and two other members. There are up to 17 “Gare” in each zone with branches in every village, schools and health institutions. There is also a larger network of 24 qa’bales under a Sayyo Rual Woreda. Public employees, farmers, local youth, women, members of micro-credit associations and others are involuntarily inducted into the security-party structure.
The security network is so sophisticated that it has Stalinesque quasi-directorates consisting of party and security organizations working together to maintain around the clock surveillance and generate and distribute real time intelligence on individual households through an established chain of command. It is clear from Dr. Negasso’s reportage that the local commissariats have expansive powers of investigation, arrest, interrogation and detention. They maintain a network of anonymous informants and agents who provide tips for the identification, investigation and arrest of local individuals suspected of disloyalty to the regime. They control and regulate the flow of information and visitors in and out of the town. Apparently, they have the power to deport anyone considered persona non grata from the town. In general, there is little question that the commissariats and the interlocking quasi-directorates engage in widespread human rights abuses against the local population.
One of the common methods of local control described by Dr. Negasso involves the use of highly intrusive security structures called “shane”, which in Oromo means “the five”. Five households are grouped together under a leader who is responsible for collecting information on the households every day and passing it on to the “Gare” officials. For instance, the “shane leader knows if the members of a household have participated in ‘development work’, if they have contributed to the several fund raising programs, if they have attended Qabale meetings, whether they have registered for election, if they have voted and for whom they have voted.” The “Gare” security chief passes information he has received from the security network to his superiors right up the chain of command.
Here are some excerpts from Dr. Negasso’s reportage:
The OPDO/EPRDF… seems determined not to allow any other political organization which could compete against it in the area. This goes as far as not welcoming individual visitors to the area. Visitors are secretly followed and placed under surveillance to determine where they have been, whom they have visited, and what they have said… Local people who had contact with visitors that are summoned and grilled by security officials. In my case, my brother-in-law, with whom I stayed, … received telephone calls from the Dembi Dollo and Naqamte security offices. He was asked why I came, whether I came for preparation for the coming election or for any other purpose.
[A USAID visiting group received the same treatment.] They were followed from the time it arrived in Naqamte. After the group returned, several security officials interrogated leaders of the Dembi Dollo Bethel-Mekane Yesus Church… One of the church leaders was even summoned to the zonal administrator’s office and asked detailed questions about the visitors from Addis.
[Individuals who came to greet] Dr. Belaynesh (member of the OFDM and an MP) were arrested, interrogated and held in custody for 24 to 48 hours. The houses of some of these individuals were also searched.
OPDO/EPRDF in Dembi Dollo, besides using the police and security offices and personnel, also collects information on each household.
Each household is required to report on guests and visitors, the reasons for their visits, their length of stay, what they said and did and activities they engaged in.
The “Election Code of Conduct” Game
The ruling dictatorship has been peddling the idea of an “election code of conduct” to entice the opposition to field candidates for the 2010 “election”. Foreign embassies have been enlisted to do cheerleading for such a “code”. Medrek, a forum for eight political parties, walked out of “election code” talks sensing a surefire trap down the road as the “election” date nears.
Lately, there has been talk of “boycotting” the “election”. The unjust imprisonment of Birtukan Midekssa and release of all political prisoners has become a central issue. Ato Gizachew Shiferaw, a member of the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party and vice-chairman of Medrek stated unambiguously: “Unless we take some sort of remedy toward these political prisoners, it will be difficult to look at the upcoming elections as free and fair.” Medrek is also demanding the establishment of an independent electoral board, an immediate stop to harassment of opposition candidates and supporters; it has also called for the presence of international election observers. Bereket Simon, the Machiavellian demiurge of the dictatorship, dogmatically pontificated: “We invited them to a dialogue in the presence of the British and German embassies. We invited them to join negotiations. They declined. The party who walks away from the negotiating table doesn’t have a moral right to accuse us of closing political space.”
Free and Fair Election: No Need to Re-Invent the Election Wheel
A free and fair election is possible only where the rule of law prevails and fundamental human rights are respected. There is no mystery to having free and fair elections. To be sure, in theory, there is no logical reason why there could not be free and fair elections in Ethiopia in May 2010 or at any other time. Its “constitution” which describes itself as the “supreme law of the land” guarantees voters and candidates (and citizens in general) full freedom of speech and expression; ensures freedom of press, which guarantees the right to publicly disseminate political messages and information in the run up to elections and post-election period; the right to vote and the secret ballot are secured; guarantees of an electoral level playing field accessible to all voters, parties and candidates with an independent, non-partisan electoral organization to administer the process are belabored in the constitution; freedom of association to form political parties and civic organizations are held inviolable; and freedom of assembly to hold political rallies and to campaign freely are upheld as hallowed rights.
Further, there are purported legislative and regulatory safeguards in place to ensure fair access to the public media by opposition candidates and parties, penalize the improper use of the police, the military, the judiciary and civil servants and elections officials. Use of public funds and equipment for partisan political purposes are strictly prohibited. The electoral process is guaranteed to ensure unencumbered voter registration, accessible polling places, dignified treatment of elections officials, open and transparent ballot counting and verification processes, oversight of elections by trained and politically independent election officials and prevent election fraud. Administrative and judicial challenges of election results are guaranteed by law.
Most importantly, it has been established beyond the shadow of doubt that Ethiopian voters are second to none in their understanding of the democratic electoral process. In 2005, an estimated at 90 percent of the 26 million registered voters in the country voted, according to the Carter Center. Ethiopian voters have gained solid experience in the electoral process. What is needed now is to replicate and improve the 2005 electoral process for 2010. There is no need to re-invent the election wheel.
The Fox Guarding the Hen House: Is an Election Code of Conduct Needed?
When the fox is guarding the election hen house, it is rather meaningless to talk about election housekeeping rules, which is what an “election code of conduct” is. Ultimately, the fox rules the henhouse with an iron fist; and though he may agree to “fair” rules of the electoral game, he knows that in the final analysis he holds all the cards and the opposition none. In other words, in a police state the “chief of police” knows that he is guaranteed victory in all of the zero sum games he plays because he owns the game. He also knows that his opposition is powerless to break his perpetual streak of “victory”. In all of the talk about elections, one question relentlessly gnaws the mind of the dictator: How to buy time and cling to power indefinitely while stringing along the opposition by trickery, false promises, double-dealing, double-crossing, shenanigans, razzle-dazzle using foreign embassies as intermediaries, duplicity and whatever gimmicks remain hidden in the dictatorship’s bottomless repository of political dirty tricks.
Towards an Election Code of Conduct?
The idea of an “election code of conduct”, at first blush, is appealing because it points in the direction of a peaceful and civil electoral process. Such “codes” have been used successfully in different countries. In principle, they are useful and facilitate an electoral process that is clean, and free from violence and vote rigging. But we must remain acutely aware of one fact: Those who clamor for an election code of conduct usually champion it to cloak and shroud the dirty political tricks they have concealed up their sleeves.
If such a code is to be had, it must be devised along the same lines as the criminal code. Just as the criminal code is designed with criminals and the criminal classes in mind, an election code should be designed with vote riggers, ballot stuffers, and election thieves in mind. As Dr. Negasso’s reportage plainly indicates, it is the ruling “EPDRF” party that has misused and abused official public resources, equipment, machinery or personnel for improper electioneering work. They are the ones who have improperly used public places to hold partisan political meetings and election rallies and prevented or made inaccessible such places on the same terms and conditions to opposition parties and candidates. It is the party in power that totally and completely dominates the print and electronic media, and misuses it to advance its partisan political agenda. It is the ruling party and its leaders that make illegal and corrupt offers and promises of financial payoffs, grants, fertilizers, roads, projects etc, in exchange for votes, not the opposition. It is the ruling party members who can travel everywhere, distribute pamphlets and posters, hold rallies and meetings at any location of their choice while opposition parties and candidates are at the mercy of the local police authorities who routinely deny them permission to engage in ordinary political activity. It is the ruling party that uses election propaganda that appeals to ethnic prejudices, inflames historical grievances and passions and heightens tension among different communities and groups, not the opposition.
Seeking to offer an answer to the question of whether a code of conduct can be drafted to bring sanity to elections in a police state — or hold the fox guarding the hen house accountable — may appear to be an exercise in futility given the dictatorship’s history of elaborate machinations and shenanigans, total lack of transparency and zero-sum blame games. So, the question needs to be emphatically re-phrased: Will the dictatorship agree to and in good faith abide by an election code of conduct that is based on the principle of respect for the rule of law and human rights, and conforms to its own constitution and election laws?
It is not only Mother Ethiopia that is in deep trouble today but also the millions of mothers in Ethiopia. Hanna Ingber Win, the World Editor of the Huffington Post, was “invited by the U.N. Population Fund to visit its maternal health programs in Ethiopia, which has one of the world’s worst health care systems.” Her investigative findings are shocking to the conscience; her analysis is compelling and convincing, and her conclusions are profoundly distressing but not lacking in cautious optimism. In a five-part series entitled, “Mothers of Ethiopia”, Ms. Win paints a portrait of a country that is the epicenter — the ground zero– of Africa’s maternal and child health crises . Here are snippets from her report[1]:
Zemzem and her husband, a poor farmer, collected 50 birr (US$4) from their neighbors for the trip to a hospital… and traveled 20 hours, while in labor, from her rural village to get to the hospital in the closest big town. By the time she arrived at the hospital, her uterus had partially ruptured. A resident and health officer were able to save her life and that of her baby… If she [had been delayed] two or three hours more, the baby – and even the mother – would have lost her life… No one else in the ‘Septic Room’ can empathize with Zemzem’s joy. The other three patients all had fully ruptured uteri and lost their babies…. When I enter the maternity ward at Jimma Hospital, the stench practically smacks me in the face. The smell, a combination of urine and feces and other bodily fluids, overpowers all my other senses…
Ethiopia ranks among the top 10 countries for child marriage, according to the International Center for Research on Women’s Analysis… Early marriage can cause higher rates of maternal and infant mortality, vulnerability to HIV/AIDS, abuse, isolation and long-term psychological trauma from forced sex, according to UNFPA… Two centers in Addis serve about 600 girls between the ages of 10 and 19, says Habtamu Demele, the project coordinator of the center. Most of them have escaped early marriage. Even though the legal age to marry in Ethiopia is 18, more than 30 percent of girls living in rural parts of the country are married by age 15, according to the Population Council…
The white tile floors in the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekelle, a large city in northern Ethiopia, look so clean they practically sparkle. Unlike the maternity ward in Jimma that wreaks of human waste and sickness, this hospital smells sterile and clean. Nurses gather at their station writing down their patients’ information in orderly files, and a small handful of visitors wait patiently in the corridors. The multistory hospital with a manicured garden and televisions in the hallways looks so modern and fancy it could easily belong in New York. There’s just one problem: many of its new beds go empty. The hospital, which opened in September 2008, does not have enough doctors or medical equipment for the facility to be fully used. Of the 450 beds in the hospital, only about 65 percent can be filled…
In Ethiopia, the maternal health statistics suggest that the nation’s health care system needs an overhaul. Less than six percent of women have access to a health professional while giving birth, according to Ethiopia’s 2005 Demographic and Health Survey. The maternal mortality rate is one of the worst in the world. For every 100,000 live births, 673 women die giving birth, according to the survey.
In the United States, eight women die during childbirth for every 100,000 live births, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). In Ethiopia, 673 women die, making the maternal mortality rate 84 times higher. UNFPA considers every single maternal death preventable. In the U.S., a woman has a 1 in 4,800 chance of dying from complications due to pregnancy or childbirth in her lifetime.
‘This government has failed at the very important task of training the professionals,’ says Dr. Beyene Petros, chairman of the opposition United Ethiopian Democratic Forces party and a member of the Ethiopian House of People’s Representatives. ‘You can put up huge buildings, but if you don’t have a program to properly train and maintain the manpower, what’s the value?’
Win’s Anecdotal Data is Consistent With the Macro Level Health Data
One may be tempted to critique Ms. Win’s report as anecdotal based on episodic observations of a few isolated cases. That would be erroneous because the general statistics on the country’s health system are more frightening than the reports in individual cases. According to World Health Organization (WHO) (2006) data Ethiopia’s population was estimated to be 77 million. To serve this population, there were 1,936 physicians (1doctor for 39,772 persons); 93 dentists (1: 828,000); 15,544 nurses and midwives (1: 4,985), 1,343 pharmacists (1: 57,334) and 18,652 community health workers (1: 4,128). Total expenditure on health as a percentage of gross domestic product was 5.9 per cent. General government expenditure on health as a percentage of total expenditure on health was 58.4 per cent, and private expenditures covered the balance of 41.6 percent. Hospital beds per 10,000 population was less than 25. Per capita expenditure on health was US$3 at an average exchange rate. WHO’s minimum standard is 20 physicians per 100,000 population, and 100 nurses per 100,000 population. What more can be said? The numbers speak for themselves!
Health and the Empty Rhetoric of Economic Development
If empty political rhetoric and grandiose claims of double digit development were medicine, Ethiopia would have been the healthiest country in the world. Addressing the opening session of Ethiopia’s “parliament” recently, Girma Wolde Giorgis, the putative president, repeated the cockamamie fabrication of runaway economic development over the past half dozen years: “The fact that our economy has been able continuously to register growth rates of more than 10 percent annually for the last six consecutive years in such difficult global and domestic circumstances is an attestation of the success of our policies and strategies designed to speed up our development.” But Girma and his confederates seem to be clueless about the singular importance of heath in economic growth and development. In fact, health is considered so important that five of the eight targets of the Millennium Development Goals (adopted by 189 nations and signed by 147 heads of state in September 2000) to be achieved by 2015 are directly related to improvements in health care services and nutrition: eradication of extreme hunger and poverty, reduction in child mortality, improvements in maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, achievement of universal primary education, promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women and development of global partnership for development.
It is a cruel joke to talk about runaway economic development in “one of the world’s worst health care systems”. There can be no economic development in a society that is ravaged by pandemics, suffers from a high incidence of child and maternal mortality from child birth, devastated by preventable and vector-borne diseases and abysmally lacks basic maternal and prenatal services and rational public health policies. To believe in the fantastic blather about a “10 percent plus annual economic development for the last six consecutive years” is to believe in the purple cow that no one has ever seen and the pink elephant that some see too often in the Land of Living Lies.
The empirical data overwhelmingly shows that heath is a fundamental determinant of economic development and poverty reduction. The health status of a population affects economic growth directly through labor productivity and the negative effects of morbidity (i.e. fewer worker illnesses, lower absenteeism rates, diversion of scarce resources for treatment of ill health from other activities, etc.). There is vast scientific evidence to show that improvements in health care services lead to significant increases in per capita income directly as each individual is able to produce more per unit of labor input. Beyond the immediate effects of poor health care services on productivity, the impact of child malnutrition and poor maternal and children health services as evidenced in Ethiopia has a devastating impact on the country’s future. It is well established that malnutrition-related health problems of children have lifetime functionality effects. Simply stated, sick children perform poorly in school and that poor performance negatively impacts on future individual income and overall labor productivity of citizens in society. Without massive investments in health care services, training of health care providers, improved child nutrition and maternal care and establishment of clinics, health centers, hospitals, dispensaries, etc., Ethiopia’s future economic growth, labor productivity, and most importantly, its precious youth, are doomed.
“What is the Value of…?”
So, we must ask some obvious questions: “Why does Ethiopia have ‘one of the world’s worst health care systems’?” What is the value of “economic development” that completely ignores the heath care needs of the vast majority of its citizens? What is the value of an alleged 10 percent plus economic growth if 85 percent of the population has little or no health care services? What is the value of exporting flowers but not importing basic pharamaceutical drugs and essential medical equipment? What is the value of putting up shiny new buildings that offer little health care services but stand as magnificent political show pieces? Is there anything that has more value than ensuring the good health of a nation’s citizens? Is there even a ghost of a chance that Ethiopia will meet its Millennium Development Goals?
What is Ms. Hanna Ingber Win Really Saying?
Ms. Win’s manifest purpose was to investigate certain projects supported by the U.N. Population Fund and report her findings. Her report sheds considerable light on the fact that the country’s health care system is terminally under-staffed, under-resourced, under-developed, mismanaged, over-bureaucratized and over-politicized, and its few health professionals under-trained. But her findings also focus a laser beam of scrutiny on some stark policy questions: Why are scarce resources being wasted on shiny buildings and not in the recruitment, training and retention of physicians and other health care providers in Ethiopia? Why isn’t there a comprehensive program of retention of Ethiopian doctors and other health professionals fleeing the country? Why is health care dominated and controlled by centralized planning in a country that is allegedly “federalized”? Why isn’t health care planning decentralized to empower local communities? Why is there little investment in health education, prevention and disease control? What happens to all of the aid money given by donor countries earmarked for health?
There are major policy prescriptions that flow Ms. Win’s findings. First, it is clear that something must be done to stave off the exodus of Ethiopian doctors and other health professionals. It is a national tragedy that there should be a pervasive belief among health professionals in Ethiopia that there are “are more Ethiopian doctors practicing medicine in Chicago than in Ethiopia” as Ms. Win reported. But Ethiopian doctors are leaving the country for many compelling reasons: they do not want to practice medicine in unsafe and wretched conditions; they are frustrated by their inability to meet even the most basic needs of their patients; they do not want to work in a health system that lacks basic medical equipment, medications and trained providers; they object to being overworked, underpaid and underappreciated; and they would like to earn fair compensation for their services.
In March 2007, Zenawi, responding to a question on the Ethiopian “doctor drain” shocked health officials and physicians attending a conference by declaring, “We don’t need doctors in Ethiopia… Let the doctors leave for wherever they want. They should get no special treatment.” When the life and well-being of 80 million people hangs in the balance, such callow reaction and arrogant attitude must condemned. No effort must be spared to retain Ethiopian doctors to remain and serve in the country, particularly in the rural areas. It is also an obvious fact that the flight of Ethiopian doctors necessarily means importation of expensive foreign ones; or the vast majority of Ethiopians will continue to die from common preventable diseases and lack of basic health services.
It would be misleading and unfair to leave the impression that Ethiopian doctors who have left the country have been totally disengaged. There are indeed some Ethiopian Diaspora physicians and other health professionals who have done their share to help out. These unsung heroes have organized periodic medical mission trips to Ethiopia with colleagues from other countries. Some have even gone to extraordinary lengths to establish foundations for the principal purpose of acquiring much needed medical equipment and supplies to meet critical medical needs. They are refreshing points of light on the dark sky of “one of the world’s worst health care systems.”
The second area of policy concern underscored in Ms. Win’s report is the need to undertake a broader initiative to establish a more equitable health system between the urban and the vast rural areas where health services are virtually nonexistent. Something has to be done to provide incentives to health care professionals to work in underserved rural areas. Instead wasting scarce resources on state of the art half-empty hospitals that have few doctors and other health professionals, it makes more sense to use those resources to build rural clinics, train health officers and community health workers, attract students from rural areas who are likely to remain in their communities to be engaged in public heath services and supplement the salaries and benefits of other health care providers to go into the rural areas. Donors may be in the best position to help bridge the urban-rural gap and improve the overall quality of rural medicine. What is also implicit in the interview responses of Ethiopian health workers is the need to reassess the roles of nurses, mid-level health workers, and community health workers and explore ways of diversifying their responsibilities through training.
Speaking Truth to Dictatorship
Ms. Win deserves our gratitude and appreciation for calling attention to the massive health care problems plaguing the mothers of Ethiopia. She told her story as she saw it. Her findings may prove embarrassing to the dictatorship which seeks to paint a portrait of a country panting for air from galloping economic development. The fact of the matter is that when the lives of millions of mothers and their children is at risk, there is only one way to tell the story: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That is what Ms. Win has done in her anecdotal report visiting facilities supported by the U.N. Population Fund. Her report will ultimately serve to empower Ethiopian women by forcing the dictatorship to face the fact that it needs to provide resources to protect Ethiopian women’s basic right to maternal and reproductive health — one of the cornerstones of the Millennium Development Goals.
There is another fact that we can not afford to gloss over. Ms. Win’s report showed an apparent gap in the location and sophistication of health infrastructures. For instance, the stark contrast she draws between the state of the art hospital in Mekelle and the deplorable conditions in Jimma could potentially leave a bitter aftertaste in the mouth of a reader who had digested all of the other facts about “one of the world’s worst health care systems.” It would be an egregious mistake to dwell on such distinctions without focusing on the real outcomes of the health system. It is therefore necessary to belabor the obvious: The residents of Jimma and Mekele are in the same boat. Neither one is getting basic medical care. Even with a state of the art modern hospital (with 450 beds, — of which 157 beds could not be used due to staffing shortages — and 14 doctors, (consisting of 1 surgeon, 1 pediatrician, 1 gynecologist, 2 internists and 9 general practitioners), people still do not have access to the most basic clinical procedures!
Save Mother Ethiopia!
It is simply preposterous and irrational to talk about economic growth or development when a country has ‘one of the world’s worst health care systems’. The ultimate question is whether a regime described by the Economist magazine as “one of the most economically illiterate in the modern world” is capable of meeting the dire health challenges facing the Ethiopian people. No need to hold our breaths waiting for an affirmative response to that question. But there is no question on what we need to do: We must work together in unity — with malice towards none and charity for all — to save Mother Ethiopia and the mothers of Ethiopia!
