By Alemayehu G. Mariam

Groundhog Year in Prison Nation

2008 in Ethiopia was Groundhog Year! It was a repetition of 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004… Everyday millions of Ethiopians woke up only to find themselves trapped in a time loop where their lives replayed like a broken record. Each “new” day is the same as the one before it: Repression, intimidation, corruption, incarceration, deception, brutalization and human rights violation. Everything that happened to them the previous day, the previous week, the previous month, the previous 18 years happens to them today. They are resigned to the fact that they are doomed to spend the rest of their lives asphyxiated in a Prison Nation. They have no idea how to get out of this awful cycle of misery, agony, despair and tribulation. So, they pray and pray and pray and pray… for deliverance from Evil!

Montage of Scenes From a Time Loop

The Business of Corruption (Zenawi, Inc.): In 2008, corruption in Ethiopia was more rampant than ever. Theft and embezzlement of public funds, misuse and misappropriation of state property, nepotism, bribery, official favors to friends and acquaintances and other forms of abuse of public authority continued in much the same way as they did in previous years. Millions of dollars worth of gold literally walked out of the bank. Banks loaned millions of dollars to front and bogus ethnic enterprises owned by regime officials or their lackeys and supporters without sufficient collateral or accountability. We heard the tape recording of a high level official of the Zenawi regime shaking down a Chinese official for kickbacks. In short, the so-called leaders of Ethiopia were not unlike those described by Stokley Carmichael (a/k/a Kwame Ture), “honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party”: “Leaders in Africa are so corrupt that we are certain if we put dogs in uniforms and put guns on their shoulders, we’d be hard put to distinguish them.”

Somalia War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity: Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Zenawi’s and his military of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Somalia and the Ogaden Region in Ethiopia. Zenawi said no civilians were killed in Somalia; “many of the claimed casualties have in fact been of fighters not civilians.” He said HRW is lying because his forces would never commit atrocities as the “the Ethiopian military would not deploy under-trained troops in a combat zone like Mogadishu and… training in human rights and humanitarian law is part of the core curricula of all the country’s military training institutions at all levels…” Such brazen deception was vintage Nazi Joe Gobbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

America is Back, on Track, with Barack: Ethiopian Americans participated in the historic election of Barack Obama. We joined Team Obama by the thousands, and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaign. Barack promised to repair the damage done by Bush’s unrestrained unilateralism and militarism. He promised to heal the racial, ethnic and class divisions and bring Americans of all backgrounds together in the spirit of E Pluribus Unum (out of many one) to deal with the enormous challenges. We believe as does Barack, “There’s not a liberal America, a conservative America, a White, Black, Brown,… America. There is the United States of America.” Likewise, we do not believe there is an Oromo, Amhara, Tigray, Gurage, Anuak… Ethiopia. There is one Ethiopian nation that belongs equally to all its people.

Remembered the Angels in November: We remembered the martyrs massacred by Zenawi’s goons in 2005. They were young and old; men and women, Christian and Muslim. They represented all ethnic and linguistic groups. Among the hundreds of victims are: ShiBire Desalegn, 20, Tensae Zegeye, 14; Debela Guta, 15; Habtamu Tola, 16; Binyam Degefa, 18; Behailu Tesfaye, 20; Kasim Ali Rashid, 21; Teodros Giday Hailu, 23; Adissu Belachew, 25; Milion Kebede Robi, 32; Desta Umma Birru, 37; Tiruwork G. Tsadik, age 41. Admasu Abebe, age 45. Elfnesh Tekle, age 45. Abebeth Huletu, 50; Etenesh Yimam, 50; Regassa Feyessa, 55; Teshome Addis Kidane, 65; Victim No. 21762, 75, female; Victim No.21760, male, age unknown. May God bless your souls and visit his wrath upon your evildoers!

Biting the Hand That Feeds Millions: The hands that fed millions were smashed by a hammer called the “charities law.” It was a “law” intended to intimidate and silence international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). They have become the new enemies of the state after opposition political parties and local civil society organizations were decimated by the regime. Amnesty International concluded: “Ethiopia’s draft [charities] law cannot be edited or further amended to make it acceptable; it is inherently abusive of basic human rights in that it seeks primarily to intimidate and dismantle the country’s already-beleaguered civil society actors and criminalize human rights-related work carried out by international organizations. The draft should be scrapped and either replaced with a bill that does not have the infringement of basic human rights as its primary aim, or else the idea of an Ethiopian NGO law should be abandoned altogether.” We said, “NGO’s of the World, Unite! Fight Back!”

The Quiet Riots in Ethiopia: Zenawi commissioned an internationally renowned British military expert to give him recommendations on modernizing his “internal security” forces (riot police). It seems British officers don’t like to mince words; they tell it like it is. Col. Michael Dewars told Zenawi his riot police have “perfectly acceptable set of personal equipment.” But they need something to do: “Riot Police appeared to be trained as riot police only so that most of their time is spent waiting for riots to happen.” He recommended “elements of Riot Control Divisions/ Battalions be ‘double-hatted’ by giving them other additional responsibilities.” Col. Dewars said the Director General of the Ethiopian Federal Police told him “As a direct result of the 2005 riots, he sacked 237 policemen.” Col. Dewars was appalled by what he saw: “Detention conditions of prisoners are a disgrace and make the Federal Police vulnerable to the Human Rights lobby.” He “recommended that the Government should investigate this situation with the intention of improving the current appalling conditions inside Ethiopian prisons, which must brutalise prisoners and their goalers equally. It is recommended that senior Ethiopian Ministers and Police Officers visit the prison that I visited.” We said give us the list of names of the 275 police thugs so that they can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Don’t forget to visit the stinking prisons!

Tyranny in Academy: Zenawi was bent out of shape when Abigail Salisbury, a law professor at Mekelle University, spilled the beans on the state of higher education at Mekele University Law School. Prof. Salisbury gave a vividly surreal account of fear and loathing in the classroom and on campus: Students plead with their professors not to snitch on them to the authorities on their studies and class work. Students solicit their professors to distribute their academic papers abroad because they are scared they will be punished or persecuted if they were to do so locally. We learned that students starving for knowledge are literally deprived of their daily bread if they dared to voice a complaint. Students scramble to learn in an arid intellectual wasteland where the walls have ears and the light fixtures can talk. And professors are afraid to teach because they have signed loyalty oaths disguised as contractual terms of employment, which prohibits them from ever saying a single word of criticism against the regime. They unleashed a vicious personal attack on Prof. Salisbury, but we all knew she was telling the truth. We thank Prof. Salisbury for telling the truth.

To be, or not to be prime minister in 2010?: Not everything was serious in 2008. There were some hilarious moments. Zenawi told Newsweek: “This is likely to be my last term.” We rolled over. We heard him say: “Yeah, sure! Keep on day dreaming — keep hope alive — this will be my last term! Right, this is likely to be my last term as prime minister before I retake office as president.” Zenawi and his crew have been running Ethiopia as their private estate since 1991. They replaced a military junta which had murdered, tortured and imprisoned tens of thousands during its brutal 17 years in power. They continued that bloody tradition, deceptively waiving the holy flag of DEMOCRACY, for another 18 years until the present day. We asked: Why would Zenawi even consider the probability or possibility of leaving office?

The Enemy: There was interesting discussion about “THE ENEMY” among pro-democracy Diaspora elements. Some said Zenawi’s regime is “The Enemy.” Others said it is not. We consulted Pogo, the cartoon character, and learned much to our surprise we had known the enemy all along: It is us. Zenawi did not stop us from uniting and organizing as a global force for justice and human rights advocacy in Ethiopia. He did not stop us from building strong bridges across ethnic lines and use the language of human rights to communicate with each other. He did not stop us from protesting when the human rights of our Oromo brothers and sisters are trampled; or defend the Amharas when they are maligned as the persecutors of “Tigreans, minority groups and Muslims”; or speak unreservedly against those who seek to paint all Tigreans with a broad brush of ethnic hatred; or force us to pretend to be deaf-mute when the people of the Ogaden were being massacred. There is no enemy out there, we said. Look in the mirror!

Ethiopian Territory for Sale?: We were outraged when we learned that Zenawi had auctioned off parts of Ethiopia to the Sudan. The terms of the secret “agreement” with Al Bashir were never made public. We reminded him of his phony and sanctimonious defense of Ethiopian sovereignty when he berated the U.S. House of Representatives for passing a bill to improve the human rights situation in Ethiopia. Pawning off Ethiopian territory does not offend Ethiopian sovereignty? We said we will take back in the open courtroom what was given secretly in the backroom.

Sending Cash Home: In 2008, we were gratified to learn that Ethiopian Americans contributed $1.2 to the Ethiopian economy. The Reserve Management and Foreign Exchange Market of Ethiopian National Bank fretted over “a cut in vital remittances from Ethiopians in the United States.” Apparently, Ethiopian Americans were almost singularly responsible for the “10 percent a year economic growth” for which Zenawi was taking credit. There seemed to be real alarm in Zenawi’s officialdom that the Ethiopian-American goose may not be laying as many golden eggs as it has been previously because of the sub-prime mortgage debacle and the creeping recession in America. The preliminary evidence suggests that Ethiopian Americans with houses and other investments in Ethiopia are putting on fire sales in record numbers today to obtain liquidity for their operations in America. The usual vultures are said to be picking them clean.

The Feingold-Leahy Ethiopia Human Rights Bill (HR 3457): Senators Russ Feingold and Pat Leahy sponsored Senate Bill 3457 (“Support for Democracy and Human Rights in Ethiopia Act of 2008’’). The bill shares the same legislative intent and objectives as Congressman Don Payne’s H.R. 2003. H.R. 3457 condemns “violations of human rights and international law by the Ethiopian military in Mogadishu and other areas of Somalia, as well as in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia.” The bill disapproves the use of “unjustifiably brutal tactics [by the ‘government’ of Ethiopia] against its own citizens in Oromiya, Amhara and Gambella regions.” The bill calls on the ruling regime to take “additional steps to support the implementation of democracy and governance institutions and organizations in Ethiopia,” including support for civil society organizations, fundamental freedoms, bolstering the independence of the judiciary and full international access to the Ogaden, among other things. We are lucky to have the Feingold-Leahy team on our side.

Hand That Rocks the Cradle: We were horrified to learn the story about two toddlers adopted by a couple in a small south central French town of Yssingeaux in the Haute-Loire region. Medical evidence showed the children had been sexually abused. The reaction of the adoption bureaucrats in Addis Ababa to the tragedy was cold and emotionless. Their attitude was “S_ _ _ happens! Deal with it!” But as we investigated further we got a glimpse of other related issues: child trafficking and women trafficking. Both are very profitable businesses. As much as $800 USD could be had for a child, and much more for the thousands of girls and women trafficked into various Middle Eastern countries. We learned that many underage girls end up in prostitution despite promises of work as maids; and quite a few of those employed as maids are subjected to sexual and physical abuse by their employers. A number of them have committed suicide, according to recent reports. Such trafficking is said to be facilitated by a cottage industry of document fabrication which cranks out false birth certificates, identity cards, and other bogus official documents. None of it fazed the regime.

Time to Fold ‘em for Musharaaf and Mbeki: Parviz Musharaaf and Thabo Mbeki left office. We thought their departure would provide an object lesson to the dictators in Ethiopia. Musharaaf was incredibly patriotic in his farewell speech: “This is not the time for individual bravado, but for serious thinking,” he reflected. He said he had done no wrong to be impeached; “Whatever I did was in [putting] Pakistan first.” In his parting words, Musharraf showed the qualities of a statesman: “I am sad that Pakistan is going down fast, poor people are being pressed by price hikes. For the people my heart is weeping.” Thabo was “recalled” from the South African presidency by the ANC six months before his term was to expire. It must have been an agonizing decision for the man who came to office trying to fill Mandela’s gigantic shoes. Thabo made some significant strides in domestic economic policy and regional politics. But his policy orientation on HIV/AIDS was bizarre and indefensible: “A virus cannot cause a syndrome. A virus can cause a disease, and Aids is not a disease, it is a syndrome,” he said. While African dictators clung to power like barnacles on a wrecked ship, Thabo simply accepted the judgment of his party, bowed to the will of the people and left office.

The Gold That Walked Out of the Bank in Broad Daylight: In 2008, the crackerjack “bankers” in Ethiopia finally disproved good ole William Shakespeare: “All that glitters IS gold.” They said they bought millions of dollars worth of “gold” that proved to be iron bars painted gold! They said they were conned by scam artists. We wondered: How likely is it for the biggest con men on the African continent to be conned by other small time con men? In any case, we would like to sell these angelic “pretend-to-be-bankers” the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco for $12 million, the price they reportedly paid for the painted gold bars. (Sorry, the Brooklyn Bridge is already sold.) Obviously, it is called the Golden Gate Bridge because it is made of 24 carat gold. (P.S. The fake gold crooks were reportedly arrested but none were prosecuted. We knew all along it was an inside job!)

Teddy Afro in Zenawi’s Kangaroo Court: We learned in 2008 that bank robbers, fraudsters, extortionists, thieves, commercial burglars and con artists never get prosecuted. But the greatest musical artist of his generation, Tewodros Kassahun (Teddy Afro) was jailed for six years on bogus charges of vehicular manslaughter and failure to assist the injured and driving without a license. Teddy told the truth: “I did not kill anyone! God is my witness. I did not kill anyone! God’s powers are above all powers. I appeal to the sense of justice of all those who are sworn to serve this country. Without just cause, I have been caged in a lice-infested jail.” Teddy is a genuine Ethiopian patriot. His music is about compassion and reconciliation and love and helping each other. He would NEVER, NEVER, NEVER leave a human being he had accidentally struck with a car on the street as road kill. That is the kind of thing thugs would do. There is not a thuggish cell in Teddy’s body. We honor Teddy everyday for his undying love for the lady in his life, Ethiopia. We thank him for his songs and lyrics that glorify the Ethiopian people; for his principled stand against mercenaries and thugs; for speaking truth to power; for refusing to sell out or be corrupted; and for being a symbol of defiance against ruthless dictators. Teddy: Your voice, your lyrics, your melodies make millions of us happy everyday! You may not hear us sitting in the dungeon, but we hear you loud and clear! “Yastesereyal!”

Judicial Independence or Decadence?: The National Judicial Institute (NJI) of Canada in collusion with the Zenawi regime issued a 209-page report on the “Independence, Transparency and Accountability in the Judiciary of Ethiopia”. That report was intended to humanize Zenawi’s justice system with a façade of academic and scholarly respectability. But we reminded the Canadians that the police and the court system in a dictatorship are merely tools of repression and control, not mechanisms for the administration of justice. They needed to be honest with themselves: There can be no independent judiciary in a land where the “The King can do no wrong.” When the King is the law, there is no need for the rule of law. No need for a constitution. No need for courts and judges and lawyers. We reminded the Canadians of the words of the eminent Paksitani jurist Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim: “If the constitution is the soul of a nation, then the judiciary is its heart. Our nation is without a heart and a soul just now.” Before the Canadians enlighten us on the virtues of an independent judiciary, they should take note that our Ethiopia is without a heart and soul.

Millennium on Ice: The first year of the Ethiopian Millennium was inauspicious. The weeds of cynicism and disillusionment strangled the seedlings of hope and optimism planted that glorious September day in 2007 when the Kinijit leaders began their North American tour. We managed to “rain on our own parade”. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. We blinded ourselves and lost sight of the Grand Prize. In the end, we found ourselves trapped in the Tower of Babel — unable to speak the same language of democracy, freedom and human rights, unable to engage in constructive political dialogue, unable to set aside differences for the greater cause and for ultimate victory over the demonic forces of dictatorship. We insisted on playing a zero-sum game where only one side can win and the other must necessarily lose. None of us won. Only Zenawi Inc. won, and mightily. They walked away with their greatest trophies: a fragmented, weak and incapacitated democratic opposition, and the equivalent of a long-term employment guarantee to continue to do business as usual. Now they just stir the opposition pot from time to time while feasting at the lavish table of dictatorship.

From Famine to Prosperity?: In 2008, we were deafened by claims of economic growth and deluged by platitudes about economic prosperity in Ethiopia. We were invited to join in euphoric celebrations of Ethiopia’s magnificent economic strides and achievements. We were told the economy has been growing by 10 per cent, that “agriculture has been growing at double-digit rates for five years now.” We were told there is no famine in Ethiopia, only “severe malnutrition.” The truth lay elsewhere. In its 2007-08 report, the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index (which quantifies not just the “rise and fall of national incomes” but assesses “the environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive lives”) ranked Ethiopia 169th out of 177 countries. The majority of Ethiopians live under $1 USD a day. How is that possible if the “the economy has been growing by 10 per cent and agriculture by double-digit rates for five years now.” Voodoo economics?

The Free Press Squeezed Hard by Zenawi: A press “law” billed by Zenawi as being “on par with the best in the world” was enacted. Bulcha Demeksa, leader of the opposition Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement described its passage as “a dark day in the annals of Ethiopian history.” Intimidation and persecution of journalists is a daily event. A few weeks ago, Eskinder Nega, a victim of Zenawi’s crackdown on the free press in Ethiopia, wrote:

“In October 2005 the Ethiopian government closed down all independent publications in the country, following two days of low level street protests against election results (which was also disputed by credible international observers), to which the authorities deliberately and wantonly reacted with deadly vengeance. To date, three years later, none of those publications have yet been allowed to resume work. And almost all the journalists that worked for them are either in exile or remain unemployed. In fact, this year marked the illegal denial of new press licenses, in contravention of both the constitution and press law, to owners of the two largest publishers of private newspapers in the country before the crackdown in 2005. After fifteen years of unrestricted press licensing, PM Meles Zenawi’s government, true its standing as Africa’s star backslider, has this year restricted press licensing for the first time. A press license, the only means to independent media the country has ever known, is no more a right exercised by all citizens but a privilege accorded to few. But what bad news I have relayed to you cannot raze the good news from our continent. We have ample reason to be optimistic, to look forward to the future we only need to look at the hope embodied in Africa’s 23 democracies, no doubt prelude to a new epoch in the history of Africans, when we will at long last be full-fledged partakers.”

Eskinder, Serkalem and all of the other free press defenders, we salute you! “Never have so many of us owed so much to so few of you!”

Groundhog Year 2009!

Will 2009 be a repeat of 2008, 2007…. Very likely, it will be. But that is no reason to despair if we understand some irrefutable facts: The history of dictatorships shows that dictators are very good at building castles in the sand. One need only look at the “castles” built by the most notorious dictators of the last century. Hitler built his “1000 Year Reich”, but it lasted barely 12 years. Pol Pot terrorized Cambodia for 4 years before he was driven out. Saddam Hussien ruled Iraq with an iron fist for over three decades, and died, after being dragged out of a spider hole, a broken, deeply humiliated and defeated man. Mullah Omar’s Taliban ruled Afghanistan for 5 years before they were routed into the caves. Robert Mugabe, once a liberation hero today clings to power by electoral fraud and brute force. Mengistu Haile Mariam and the Derg are gone leaving behind only a legacy that made it possible for the current occupants of power to continue in their footsteps. Even the “dictatorship of the proletariat” in the Soviet Union and elsewhere has vanished from the face of the earth after 70 years.

It is easy to fall prey to despair and hopelessness. It is easy to believe that one is condemned by destiny to live in fear and oppression. But there is an eternal truth about all dictatorships. As Gandhi said, “There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fail — Think of it always.” One need not doubt that the current dictatorship in Ethiopia is rushing blindly to its impending doom. It may pretend not to hear the distant thunder of the approaching storm. But all the signs that portend of its inevitable end are evident. Deep-seated and prolonged discontent have seized upon the people. Grinding poverty, inflation, high prices, unemployment, pent-up resentments, frustrations and rising anger, widespread misery and famine tell the tragic story of suffering of a people as the dictatorship’s end draws near. There is grumbling among the king’s men. The truth is that regime is out of solutions. They know they do not have the support of the Ethiopian people. A Gallup poll conducted in July 2007 “reveals that relatively few Ethiopians express confidence in their country’s social and political institutions. Religious organizations are the only national entities to garner trust from a majority of respondents (68%). The national government garners trust from just 28% of Ethiopians… But participatory politics prompt the lowest levels of trust, as only 13% of Ethiopians have confidence in the honesty of elections.” Imagine a “democratic government” based only on the consent of 13 percent of the people!

The current dictatorship will try to remain in power through brutality and intimidation. But they will eventually go the way of all other dictatorships. The real question is: “What do we do the morning after the dictators are gone?” We can appreciate the enormity of this question only if we clearly understand the pernicious ideology of the regime and our own inability to unite and organize as a democratic force. The foundation of politics in Ethiopia today is ethnicity and the elimination of unity of the people in all forms by accentuating historical, social, political, economic, regional, etc., differences. Ethnic identity and loyalties are glorified, and identity in a common nationality mocked, scorned and ridiculed. The governing principle is, “Ethnicity before one’s humanity, and definitely before one’s nationality.” The evidence on the current dictatorship for the last 18 years unambiguously shows that they have succeeded to some extent in “atomizing” Ethiopia into ethnic enclaves. As a result, the country has outwardly become an archipelago of ethnic and linguistic “homelands” or bantustans. People are forced to relate to each other on the basis of ethnic affiliation; and with those who are not part of the same ethnic group, to relate on the basis of past of historical grievances, suspicion of their present intentions and fear and loathing of a shared national identity. This policy and practice has spawned a culture of distrust, and forced people to develop deeply embedded habits of fear, loathing, doubt and suspicion that will have serious consequences in a post-dictatorship democratic society.

On the other hand, we have shown time and again that we lack unity of purpose and a commitment to work together for the cause of democracy and human rights in Ethiopia. The regime will do everything in its power to make sure we remain divided, disunited and disorganized. But the key is in our hands, not theirs. When we unite and organize, then we will be able to find effective means to neutralize and purge the poison of ethnic politics from the Ethiopian body politics and overcome the atomizing effects of ethnicity. Anyone who doubts the truth of this proposition should study Kinijit’s history. Kinijit came together as fingers on a clenched fist. In May 2005, Kinijit delivered a blow for democracy in Ethiopia. We must recapture once again the spirit that led to the formation of Kinijt. That spirit will help us rebuild trust and democracy in Ethiopia. The alternative is Groundhog Year, every year.

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

The Audacity of Corruption: Illinois Style

Corruption here, corruption there, corruption everywhere! It seems the worldwide business of corruption is recession-proof. Last week, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested on charges that he peddled the Senate seat held by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder. The foul-mouthed and self-indulgent governor was unrestrained in his sales pitch. Quoting wiretaps, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald recounted key portions of Blagojevich’s conversations with others concerning the Senate seat: “We were approached pay to play, that you know, he raised me 500 grand, then the other guy would raise a million if I made him senator… It’s a f_ _ _ _ _ _ valuable thing. You just don’t give it away for nothing. I’ve got this thing, and it’s f_ _ _ _ _ _ golden.” [1] Fitzgerald had to bleep out Blagojevich’s numerous profanities at his press conference. President-elect Barack Obama was swift in condemning Blagojevich’s conduct, and in calling for his resignation. In separating himself from the culture of corruption in Illinois politics, the President-elect gave an insightful lesson on the meaning of public service: “Here in Illinois — as is true, I think, across the country—there is a tradition of public service, where people are getting in it for the right reasons and to serve. But there’s also a tradition where people view politics as a business. We have to reclaim a tradition of public service that is about people and their lives, and their hopes, and their dreams.”

The Business and Culture of Corruption: Ethiopian Style

A few days ago, the “former prime minister” Tamerat Layne was given early release after serving 12 years on an 18 year sentence for alleged corruption and abuse of power. Tamrat was released because he “showed good behaviour while imprisoned.” It can hardly be said that corruption in Ethiopia is limited to a few rogue officials at the top. To be sure, corruption prosecutions of top officials seem to be motivated not so much by a desire for clean government, but rather by calculations aimed at purging and incapacitating former political and business allies who are perceived to pose a challenge or threat to Zenawi. Seye Abraha was another victim of dubious corruption charges who served 6 years in prison. Just a few days ago, it was announced that Mekdes Aklilu, Board chairman of Nile Insurance and Abebaw Desta, a major shareholder of the Star Business Group, were being held on suspicion of corruption. Apparently, these two individuals were previously acquitted of corruption charges after serving five years in jail. There is that overpowering stench of political prosecution when it comes to former Zenawi allies-allegedly-turned-crooks.

The fact of the matter is that the culture of corruption is the modus operandi in the Ethiopian body politics. Former president Dr. Negasso Gidada clearly understood that when he declared in 2001 that “corruption has riddled state enterprises to the core,” adding that the government would show “an iron fist against corruption and graft as the illicit practices had now become endemic”. In 2007 when Ethiopia’s auditor general, Lema Aregaw, reported that Birr 600 million of state funds were missing from the regional coffers, Zenawi fired Lema and publicly defended the regional administrations’ “right to burn money.” That same year, Ethiopia was ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world (Ethiopia CPI rank 138/179; Eritrea, 111/179) by Transparency International (the Corruption Perception Index measures perceptions of the degree of corruption in a country as seen by business people, country analysts and experts who are locals in the countries evaluated and ranges between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt)). Ironically, in 2003, Ethiopia signed the U.N. Convention Against Corruption; and a couple of months ago, a conference on institutions, culture, and corruption was hosted jointly in Addis Ababa by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa.

“The Hubris Syndrome”: The Power of Corruption

The British historian Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In other words, a person’s moral compass goes bonkers when his/her power increases. More recently, Lord Owen, a former British Foreign Secretary and a physician and neuroscientist by training, argued that power does not just corrupt politicians, it can actually drive some of them nuts. In his 2007 book, The Hubris Syndrome: Bush, Blair and the Intoxication of Power, Owen argued that for many politicians at the top, power has an intoxicating effect much the same as a mind-altering drug. They become hubristic (possessed of arrogance, pompous, overbearing, supercilious, and overconfident) and isolated and live in their own make-believe reality. Focusing on Bush and Blair, Owen argues that the dynamic duo in their hubristic incompetence manipulated intelligence and sought to find non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, while completely oblivious of the need for an exit strategy or a post-Saddam Iraqi reconstruction. The “hubris syndrome” is evident in Blagojevich’s wiretap transcript as he brazenly solicited prospective candidates to buy the Senate seat for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Zenawi bragged that he will crush the “jihadist threat” and exit “out of Somalia in a few weeks.” He called those who opposed his invasion “donkeys.” Two years later, thousands of Somalis have died and hundreds of thousands displaced. Zenawi now says he is leaving Somalia. The common denominator among these politicians is that they are intoxicated with power. They are disdainful of those who disagree with them believing that they are unaccountable to the law or the democratic process. Blair was mistaken in his belief. He was held accountable. Bush will soon leave office with the dubious honor of the most incompetent and dimwitted president in American history. Blagojevich will soon face accountability before a jury of 12.

The Corruption Fighters

There is nominally a Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (FEAC) in Ethiopia. Established in 2001, FEAC’s mission is to sensitize society that “corruption will not be tolerated by promoting ethics and anti-corruption education.” In 2005, FEAC established a website “so that the public would get access to it and obtain information on the Commission’s activities, performance, plans and programmes.”[2] The most current annual report posted by FEAC on its website is for EC 1998 [2005]. Accordingly, FEAC provides anti-corruption educational and training programs and performs corruption investigations. It has a public relations and ethics education division with 33 employees holding diplomas in “languages and literature, education, political science and international relations, theatrical arts, curriculum, and communication psychology.” A Corruption Investigation Department with 38 employees is “authorized to investigate suspected corruption offences where they are committed in public offices or public enterprises or in the regional offices relating to subsidies granted by the Federal Government to the regions.” Whistle blowers provide tips for corruption investigations. The Prosecution Department with 24 employees has the responsibility of prosecuting corruption cases and has pre-trial asset seizure powers. The Administration and Finance Department has 70 employees. The Corruption Prevention and Research Department has 28 employees. According to the website, “in full capacity, the FEACC is supposed to have a staff of 293 people… At the end of November 2006, it had 200 staffers, 93 professionals short of the required total.”

As the old saying goes, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” According to the website, as of EC 1998 (2005), FEAC has “offered ethics and anti-corruption education to more than 15,000 people drawn from different cross-sections of the society, raising public awareness on the consequences, causes and manifestations of corruption.” Among the recipients of the ethics and anti-corruption education were 8,339 employees of 74 public enterprises and offices; 836 members of the Dire Dawa and Addis Ababa City Administrations Police Departments and 412 graduate students from the Arbaminch, Bahir Dar, Gondar, Adama and Haromaya Universities. FEAC has also conducted opinion surveys in “Oromia; Amhara; Tigray and South Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional States and the Addis Ababa City Administration.” It has “delivered advisory service for 267 ethics officers on how they should fight corruption,” and “developed five modular text materials, which are to be used as teaching materials in expanding ethics and anti-corruption education in the years to come.” FEAC gave over 52 press briefings and responded to information requests from some 866 organizations and individuals. Its staff “wrote some 35 articles (all of which were published in government papers) on corruption and mechanisms of fighting it. Tens of thousands of brochures, magazines, fliers and posters [have been distributed].”

According to information on the website, whistleblowers have triggered corruption investigations in the Office of the Ethiopian Olympic Committee, Wonji Showa Sugar Factory, Akaki Metal Works and Steel Factory, Guenet Hotel, Ethiopian Agricultural Research Organization, Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency and Muger Cement Factory. “On aggregate, the FEACC received 945 tips-off from whistleblowers and complainants on alleged corruption offences, infringement of rights and reprisals.” The Prosecution Department “filed charges against 79 alleged corruption offences… and obtained convictions in 28 cases. In total, 45 corruptors received from 3-13 years of imprisonment. The corruptors were found to be involved in the acts of forgery, extortion, bribery and nepotism.” (Italics added.) In 2005, FEAC’s budget was Birr 10,322,386.46.

Corruption Mitigation in Ethiopia

Corruption persists in Ethiopia because there are people in power who benefit from it. Having the beneficiaries of corruption to oversee corruption control is like having the fox guard the henhouse. An anti-corruption commission has been at work in Ethiopia since 2001, but by 2007 Ethiopia is still classified as one of the most corrupt states in the world. The fact of the matter is that significant inroads against corruption in Ethiopia are currently impossible for many reasons. As Peter Eigen, chairman of Transparency International has observed, “in many parts of the world, the local people are resigned to the fact that there is corruption. They think there is nothing they can do about it. Therefore they more or less try to accommodate themselves, pay bribes themselves.” Most Ethiopians aware of the anti-corruption effort are likely to view the whole effort with a jaded eye. At best, corruption control in Ethiopia today is a matter of triage. Does one start tinkering with corruption at the very top, the bureaucratic middle or the street level traffic cop? In a recent analysis, Professor Seyd Hassan has demonstrated the systemic and structural nature of corruption in Ethiopia in his analysis of the “link between ethno-centric minority rule and the culture of corruption in the ruling regime.”[3] Prof. Hassan’s analysis shows the problems of anti-corruption campaigns in a one-party, one-man dictatorship. One can not reasonably expect to root out corruption by setting up a toothless anti-corruption commission or by paying lip-service to the cause of good governance to impress international donors. Effective anti-corruption efforts require an active democratic culture and a vigilant citizenry empowered to confront and fight corruption in daily life.

Genuine anti-corruption efforts must necessarily begin by empowering ordinary people to fight back against corruption. There are some successful experiments in grassroots anti-corruption efforts where ordinary people have been given the tools to fight back. In India, for instance, they have successfully organized local “vigilance commissions” in many towns and brought together the vulnerable and interested groups to probe into corruption. These commissions have put a dent in local corruption. In Bangalore, city residents have been involved in rating the quality of all major service providers in the city. The results were used to put pressure on government officials and service providers to ensure that service providers were accountable to citizens. In parts of Brazil they counter corruption by engaging citizens in “participatory budgeting.” By including citizens from various backgrounds in the process of budget allocation, they have been able to decrease levels of corruption and clientelism. In the U.S. many states and local governments use their grand jury system to investigate and prosecute corruption. Last month, for instance, a grand jury in South Texas indicted U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and former attorney General Alberto Gonzales for “organized criminal activity” related to alleged abuse of inmates in private prisons.

There is also much to learn about corruption control from Botswana, regarded to be the least corrupt country in Africa according to Transparency International. It is said that a big welcoming poster adorns the Gaborone Airport in Botswana with an unusual message to incoming travelers: “Botswana has ZERO tolerance for corruption. It is illegal to offer or ask for a bribe.” In Botswana, they use the strategy of “name and shame” to educate and accentuate public awareness of corruption. Using the free press as a tool, for instance, Botswanans name and shame corrupt officials by publishing their photographs on the front pages with the headline: “Is this man corrupt?” Botswana’s top political leaders are said to maintain high levels of public integrity and teach by example. There does not appear to be a case of corruption prosecution of a government minister or top official in Botswana in recent memory. Peter Eigen credits Botswana’s success to the “Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime in Botswana [which] has processed thousands of [corruption] cases since 1994 and has made great strides against corruption.” In 2007, Botswana had a CPI score of 5.4 [38/179]. All of these examples point to the fact that citizen involvement and monitoring are very effective in reducing corruption and increasing public integrity. Creating a bloated self-perpetuating anti-corruption bureaucracy is mere window dressing. The real answer to corruption lies in the empowerment of ordinary people to defend themselves against their corrupt predators.

Prosecutions: Where the Rubber Meets the Road!

FEAC’s own data shows that bona fide corruption prosecutions and convictions are negligible. No doubt, education is a necessary component of an effective anti-corruption campaign. Education and training programs sensitize both the corrupt officials and their victims to the corrosive effects of corruption and the devastating impact it has on the poor and the general social welfare as resources are siphoned off from schools, hospitals, roads and other critical projects to line the pockets of those who are members of the offcialdom. But there are few deterrents to corruption that are as effective as vigorous prosecutions and asset forfeitures of corrupt officials. Bona fide criminal prosecutions with well-publicized trials of corrupt officials and tough prison sentences will go a long way in controlling corruption. Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney who filed the complaint against Blagojevich, had previously prosecuted and convicted Republican Illinois Governor George Ryan and 60 other officials and businessmen for racketeering, fraud and other crimes corruption. He also successfully prosecuted top aides to Chicago’s mayor, Richard Daily, and the Chicago City Clerk. Despite Fitzgerald’s unblemished prosecutorial record, Governor Blagojevich dared to run against his buzzsaw. (Nobody said corrupt criminals are necessarily smart.) Tough and relentless prosecutions will certainly put a dent in corruption in any country. There is no reason to believe that aggressive, uncompromising and relentless corruption investigations and prosecutions will not dampen the alacrity of predatory officials who make it their bleeping business to victimize and rip-off the poor and vulnerable in Ethiopia.

Corruption as a Human Rights Issue

There is a growing movement to make corruption a legitimate human rights issue. The movement draws its inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which under Article 28 prescribes that all people are “entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realised.” Peter Eigen, Chairman, Transparency International [Corruption Index] suggests, “[C]orruption leads to a violation of human rights in at least three respects: corruption perpetuates discrimination, corruption prevents the full realisation of economic, social, and cultural rights, and corruption leads to the infringement of numerous civil and political rights.” The poor and powerless bear the brunt of corruption throughout the world, which is in violation of the non-discrimination principles of the UDHR. More people are beginning to appreciate the fight against corruption is a human rights imperative.

Is it Futile to Fight the Bleeping Business of Corruption in Ethiopia?

Corruption in Ethiopia is an evil with a thousand faces. It is woven into the fabric of the political culture. The anecdotal evidence shared with us by so many Ethiopians is somewhat discouraging and dispiriting. It seems there are few things that are not tainted or stained by corruption. We are told of outright theft and embezzlement of public funds, misuse and misappropriation of state property, nepotism, bribery, official favors to friends and acquaintances and other forms of abuse of public authority and position to exact corrupt payments and privileges. Several months ago we learned that millions of dollars worth of gold simply walked out of the bank. Banks loan millions of dollars to front enterprises owned by regime officials or their supporters without sufficient or proper collateral. A high level official was secretly tape recorded trying to extort kickbacks from a Chinese official. The individual stories of corruption are shocking. Doctors can not treat their patients because medicines are diverted for private gain. Others are asked to pay tax on medicine and medical supplies brought in for public charity. Businessmen complain that they can not get permits and licenses without paying huge bribes or taking officials as silent partners. They complain that publicly owned assets are acquired by regime-supporters or officials through illegal transactions and fraud. Others complain they are unable to participate in public contracting without paying hefty bribes. Businessmen in the import/export business complain of corrupt customs practices. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political interference. Ethiopians on holiday visits driving about town complain of shakedowns by police thugs on the streets. The anecdotal evidence of systemic corruption is just overwhelming.

We are cautioned not to get our hopes high. As one victim reminded us, “The thugs who are in power are bleeding the country dry to line their own pockets. They rule by the power of fear and greed. As long as they remain in power, corruption will remain rampant.” We would like to believe, as does President-elect Obama, that a tradition of public service and a culture of public integrity is the ultimate antidote to corruption. We also believe public service is “about people and their lives, and their hopes, and their dreams.” Those who are engaged in the business of corruption should heed Karl Kraus message: “Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.”

[1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/acrobat/2008-12/43789434.pdf
[2] http://www.feac.gov.et/
[2] http://www.ethiomedia.com/aurora/9120.html

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

Donkeys, Liars and War Criminals

What a difference two years make! In December 2006, Zenawi invaded Somalia to save it from the “terrorist axis of evil” — Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab and the Islamic Courts Union. In January 2007, he reassured the world, “We will be out of Somalia in a few weeks.” A year ago he likened opposition members of his Parliament who opposed his Somali invasion to that faithful beast of burden, the donkey. He said “both have big eyes, but suffer from myopia; and have big ears, but don’t hear.” This past September, he declared triumphantly that he had fully achieved his primary objective of destroying and neutralizing the Somali “jihadist” threat to Ethiopia. A few days ago he told his parliament African Union troops have asked for help as they prepare to cut and run out of Somalia: “The African Union, Uganda and Burundi have all asked us to stay behind and provide protection for the safe passage of their troops.” Uganda’s deputy foreign minister, Okello Oryem, said that is a complete fabrication: “This is absolutely not true and this is contrary to everything we have said. Our position has always been that if Ethiopia pulls out of Somalia, we will increase our presence there. Uganda is prepared to increase its battalion if there is a need.” In the 104-page report, So Much to Fear: War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia, Human Rights Watch indicted the Zenawi regime and its military forces in Somalia, the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), and Somali insurgent forces for war crimes involving “widespread and serious violations of the laws of war. Frequent violations include indiscriminate attacks, killings, rape, use of civilians as human shields, and looting.”

The Evidence of War Crimes

HRW’s cumulative evidence on war crimes in Somalia is staggering:

Since January 2007 (the onset of Zenawi’s invasion) at least 870,000 civilians have fled the chaos in Mogadishu alone — two-thirds of the city’s population. Across south-central Somalia, 1.1 million Somalis are displaced from their homes.
[Following the invasion] Insurgent fighters quickly adopted hit-and-run tactics…Ethiopian and TFG forces developed patterns of responding to those attacks that have since become part of the day-to-day reality of life in Mogadishu — reacting to indiscriminate mortar attacks in kind, with devastating barrages of rocket, mortar, and artillery fire across populated neighborhoods.

ENDF [Ethiopian National Defense Forces] forces in Mogadishu have routinely and indiscriminately bombarded populated residential areas of Mogadishu since March 2007. They have made regular use of “Katyusha” rockets in Mogadishu, often fired from BM-21 “Grad” multiple-rocket launchers.

Ethiopian forces carried out similar indiscriminate bombardments in fighting in the strategically important town of Beletweyne. ENDF forces responded by indiscriminately bombarding large swathes of the western districts of the town for three days beginning in July 2008. Humanitarian organizations estimated that at the end of July, 74,000 people—more than 75 percent of the town’s population—had been displaced as a direct result of the bombardment and related fighting.

There have been increased reports in 2008 of Ethiopian forces responding to insurgent ambushes and other attacks by firing indiscriminately into populated areas… particularly in Mogadishu, Baidoa, and along the Mogadishu-Afgooye road.

In 2008 the human rights and humanitarian situation in Somalia deteriorated into unmitigated catastrophe… Two long years of escalating bloodshed and destruction have devastated the country’s people and laid waste to its capital Mogadishu.

During the past two years life in Mogadishu has settled into a horrifying daily rhythm with Ethiopian, TFG, and insurgent forces conducting urban firefights and pounding one another with artillery fire with no regard for the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in the city. The bombardments are largely indiscriminate… Insurgents lob mortar shells from populated neighborhoods… and Ethiopian and TFG forces respond with sustained salvos of mortar, artillery, and rocket fire that destroy homes and their inhabitants… TFG forces, often commanded or accompanied by Ethiopian troops, commit assaults, rapes, killings, and pillage of civilians during house-to-house search operations…. The discipline of Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia has broken down to the point where they increasingly are responsible for violent criminality.

TFG and ENDF forces frequently respond to insurgent attacks by firing mortar shells, artillery, and “Katyusha” rockets—the last being weapons that are inherently indiscriminate when used in populated areas—towards the neighborhoods from which they took fire.

ENDF soldiers have been implicated in serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law against Somali civilians with increasing frequency since the end of 2007.

The Art of Hocus Pocus

On the same day the HRW report was released, the regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs swiftly responded with a befuddled and incoherent critique of the report’s “methodology” and “specific findings”.[1] The official statement, in the usual categorically dismissive manner, rejected the HRW report because it was based on “flawed methodology, unsubstantiated allegations, hearsay and second-hand information conversations with anonymous informants.” In typical self-serving and sanctimonious hand-wringing style, the statement also declared that it was Ethiopia’s manifest destiny to bring peace to the warring factions in Somalia, and is now leaving because peace had become elusive there: “Ethiopia has persistently tried to facilitate peaceful resolution of the problems among the people of Somalia, not least by sponsoring a whole series of peace conferences since 1992… It was natural for Ethiopia to lend whatever assistance it could when called upon by the Government of Somalia… [Unable] to create a credible ongoing peace process… Ethiopia felt it appropriate to withdraw its forces by the end of the year.”

Remarkably, the official statement glosses over the serious accusations of war crimes and denies responsibility for any unlawful killing of Somali civilians. It even makes the comical argument that most of the Somali casualties since 2006 were not real “civilians”. Rather, “many of the claimed casualties have in fact been of fighters not civilians.” The statement denies the occurrence of any specific collateral damage (unintended civilian casualties) from combat operations by “Ethiopian” forces. It categorically and emphatically rejects the occurrence of any barbaric practices of war such as throat-slitting and body mutilation, and attributes such monstrous practices exclusively to Al Shabaab fighters. “Ethiopian” forces would never commit such atrocities because the “the Ethiopian military would not deploy under-trained troops in a combat zone like Mogadishu and… training in human rights and humanitarian law is part of the core curricula of all the country’s military training institutions at all levels…”

The regime’s criticism of HRW’s methodology — that is the claim that the HRW report consist of “unsubstantiated allegations, hearsay and second-hand information conversations with anonymous informants” — shows willful ignorance of facts and constitutes a feeble attempt at diversion from the serious war crimes allegations. The fact of the matter is that by any objective measure, there is nothing unusual or improper about HRW’s “methodology”. In “So Much to Fear,” HRW employed the same standard investigative techniques and methods it has used in all other cases of suspected war crimes/crimes against humanity. It has not used any questionable techniques in its Somalia investigation. As a matter of fact, HRW’s basic investigative techniques are not much different than those used in ordinary criminal investigations which involve gathering evidence from victims, eyewitnesses, confidential informants, officials, experts and any others sources that are capable of producing material and relevant evidence. In its Somalia report, HRW “interviewed more than 80 victims and eyewitnesses to the patterns of abuse documented in this report.” They interviewed “dozens of analysts, Somali civil society activists, humanitarian workers, diplomats, medical staff, and journalists, some of whom were also eyewitnesses to the events described in this report.” HRW also “met with TFG officials including Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, with ARS officials, including Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, and with UN officials, including UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah… European Commission officials in Nairobi.” Beyond these evidence gathering techniques, HRW is also experienced in the acquisition of aerial and ground imagery, and analysis of combat operations information regarding collateral damage, cluster munitions and time sensitive targeting as evidenced in another recent report, Collective Punishment War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Ogaden Area of Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State (June, 2008).[2]

The fact of the matter is that HRW used well-established criminal investigative techniques and procedures. But implicit in the “methodological” criticism is the subtle attempt to cast aspersions on the credibility of HRW as an impartial international human rights organization and create doubt on its investigative methods. The self-serving criticism must be challenged with facts. First, it is an irrefutable fact that there are few organization in the world that have the breadth and depth of war crimes/crimes against humanity investigative experience than Human Rights Watch (and Amnesty International). In the past decade alone, HRW has extensively and repeatedly documented war crimes and gross human rights violations in every corner of the world including Rwanda, Liberia, Uganda, the Sudan, Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, East Timor, Zimbabwe, Chechnya, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sri Lanka and many other countries. Second, HRW has a stellar reputation for impartiality, neutrality, and integrity. Its reports are used in policy making by the highest legislative, executive and judicial bodies in most democratic countries in the world. Third, the countries that lash out against HRW most vociferously are countries with significant and lengthy records of human rights abuses. For instance, China has criticized HRW for preparing its country report “out of thin” air. Sudan savagely criticized HRW after it called for punitive sanctions against the top leaders in the Sudan who supervised the killing fields in Darfur. Last March Robert Mugabe dismissed a report by HRW on Zimbabwe as “rubbish”. A few months ago, Hugo Chavez threw out HRW from Venezuela, claiming that “[HRW] dressed up as human rights defenders, are financed by the United States. They are aligned with a policy of attacking countries that are building new economic models.”

Despite these transparent investigative procedures, one of the central criticisms of HRW by the Zenawi regime revolves around HRW’s unwillingness to turn over the names and addresses of the victims who gave evidence: “HRW gives no names of its informants and no addresses, though it does claim to have interviewed some people over the telephone in Mogadishu.” One can only shudder thinking about what they could do with the names and addresses of victims and informants!

What is also equally puzzling in the official statement is the regime’s emphatic assertion that, “It should be made clear that Human Rights Watch’s first time effort to expose abuses committed by Al-Shabab and other extremist forces in Mogadishu does not make its unsubstantiated allegations against Ethiopia any more credible.” Simply stated, the fact that HRW is telling the truth about Al Shabaab and the other insurgents for the first time does not mean it is telling the truth about “Ethiopian forces” this time around. Curiously, the regime’s logic compels a much different conclusion: If HRW’s evidence and allegations concerning war crimes/crimes against humanity against “Ethiopian” forces are untrue, mutatis mutandis (allowing other things to change accordingly), HRW’s evidence and allegations on Al-Shabaab and the other insurgent groups must be equally untrue. In other words, HRW’s allegations that Al Shabaab used civilians as “human shields”, it indiscriminately used mortars and remote-detonated explosive devices in populated areas, engaged in targeted killings, coerced recruitment and engaged in the use of child soldiers, etc., must also be untrue. It does not make logical sense for HRW to tell the unvarnished truth about Al Shabaab atrocities and fabricate unmitigated lies about atrocities committed by “Ethiopian” forces. As the old saying goes, what is good for the goose is good for the gander!

War Crimes

“War crimes” include a broad class of crimes under international law. There are at least four distinct categories of such crimes: 1) grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, 2) violations of the “Laws and Customs of War”, 3) genocide and 4) crimes against humanity (large-scale atrocity directed at civilian population including murder, torture, rape, etc.) Prosecution of war crimes raise many technical, legal and procedural issues as evidenced in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Some of these issues are jurisdictional, e.g. where to bring the legal action, whether to use an ad hoc tribunal or the International Criminal court. Others are logistical, e.g. how to identify, capture, arrest and transport suspects to the venue of the tribunal. Still other issues involve prosecutorial strategy, e.g. how widely to cast the prosecutorial dragnet, whether to prosecute anyone implicated in atrocities or only those most culpable and responsible, how to distinguish between leaders who gave the orders to commit war crimes from those who actually carried out the worst offenses and those whose offenses were minimal. For instance, many of these issues arose in the Rwandan case. Prosecution of more than 100,000 Rwandan war crimes suspects proved to be an impossibility. For that reason, the Rwandan prosecution focused on the planners and leaders of the genocide, those in positions of authority who authorized, aided and abetted the commission of the genocidal crimes, notorious killers and torturers and others.

The Prima Facie Case for War Crimes: Collateral Damage and Concealment Warfare

At the core of the prima facie (on its first appearance) case in the HRW allegations are two central issues: 1) criminal liability for collateral damage, and 2) lawful responses to “concealment warfare”. Collateral damage generally involves excessive injury or damage to civilians from unintentional or incidental military actions. Intentional targeting of civilians as a military objective is a war crime. Protocols I and II of the 1949 Geneva Conventions codify the principles of distinction, proportionality, necessity and humanity in assessing collateral damage for war crimes purposes. These Protocols require that military objects be distinguished from civilian ones prior to attack in a combat theater. For instance, the principle of proportionality requires that attacks on a specific military objective are impermissible if they “may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life or injury that would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” A responsible military commander is expected to first determine if the target is a military objective, and then decide whether the collateral damage from destruction of the target is proportionate to the military advantage of destroying it. Combat planners are required to “take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life…” Similarly, the doctrine of military necessity under the Protocols requires that there be some military advantage gained from the destruction of a target. “Concealment warfare” is often used by insurgents who commingle among the civilian population and launch attacks. For instance, some insurgent groups operating in urban combat environments employ the tactic of placing the civilian population at the center of conflict in an effort to create a more favorable battle space, and maximize their survivability against forces they are unable to engage under conventional terms. Concealment warfare poses special problems for conventional forces by combining military and civilian targets in the combat theatre increasing substantially the likelihood of significant civilian casualties.

One of the key legal issues in a future Somalia war crimes prosecution is likely to be whether the commanders of the “Ethiopian” forces in launching an attack or counterattack on insurgents concealed in civilian areas knew or should have known their actions would cause excessive incidental death or injury to civilians in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated, but failed to take appropriate mitigating actions. Another issue of criminal liability is likely to involve command responsibility under the Additional Protocol I of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 which provides: “The fact that a breach of the Conventions or of this Protocol was committed by a subordinate does not absolve his superiors from …responsibility … if they knew, or had information which should have enabled them to conclude in the circumstances at the time, that he was committing or about to commit such a breach and if they did not take all feasible measures within their power to prevent or repress the breach.” Under this provision, command responsibility liability may go well beyond the actions or omissions of “Ethiopian” military commanders on the battlefields. Indeed there are many other legal issues that could be raised in a future war crimes prosecution.

HRW’s Big Message: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Will Be Punished

Over the past two decades, war crimes have been committed on a mind-boggling scale throughout the world. Most of them have gone unpunished. A year before the Rwandan genocide, the New York Times put out an editorial that began: “Commit atrocities on a large enough scale and you can get away with it.” That prophetic statement proved to be true in Rwanda in 1994 and later in other African countries. The message in the HRW report is not that the Somali war crimes suspects will be identified and prosecuted anytime soon, but rather those criminals should be on notice that the evidence is piling up against them for that day when justice will catch up with them. War criminals generally do not believe they will ever be caught by the long arm of the law. Radovan Karadzic believed as much. He became a mythical figure among some Serbs for evading arrest for war crimes for so many years. In the end, he was caught and is now facing justice in The Hague. No doubt, those who committed war crimes in Somalia will also be caught and brought to justice. But HRW’s report is important both for calling international attention to the “daily horrors of life in Somalia” and for resetting a universal tone of moral outrage so eloquently expressed over one-half century ago by Robert H. Jackson, United States Supreme Court Associate Justice and Chief Prosecutor Nuremberg Tribunals: “The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated.” War crimes must never be tolerated!

1 http://www.ena.gov.et/EnglishNews/2008/Dec/08Dec08/75097.htm
2 http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ethiopia0608_1.pdf

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

Thief! Thief! Catch the election thief! The Constitutional Court of Thailand caught a boatload of election thieves last week. Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat and his six-party governing coalition were convicted of theft of the December 2007 elections. They were found guilty of vote buying, vote rigging, conspiracies to defraud voters and other fraudulent electoral practices. Chat Chonlaworn, President of the Thai Constitutional Court, explained: “As the court decided to dissolve the People Power Party, therefore the leader of the party and party executives must be banned from politics for five years. The court had no other option.” That is indeed the mandate of the Thai Constitution. Chat said dissolving Somchai’s coalition government was necessary “to set a political standard and an example. Dishonest political parties undermine Thailand’s democratic system.” A total of 60 party leaders, including Somchai, and various members of parliament were sent packing by the Constitutional Court to political purgatory for 5 years.

Honor Among Thieves: “We Will Abide By the Law”

Somchai took it all in stride: “It is not a problem. My duty is over. I was not working for myself. Now I will be a full-time citizen.” Somchai had been clinging to power for months until the Constitutional Court gave him the boot. Protesters had occupied Thailand’s Government House for months forcing lawmakers to meet elsewhere; and more recently, they had shut down Bangkok’s airports to pressure Somchai’s government to resign. In the end, there was honor among Thai’s election thieves. Official spokesman Nattawut Sai-kau said the prime minister and the six-party coalition will accept the judgment of the Court: “We will abide by the law. The coalition parties will meet together to plan for its next move soon.”

Hooray for Thailand’s Independent Judiciary and Independent Election and Counter Corruption Commissions!

The supremacy of the rule of law in Thailand was not accident or a fluke. Robust enforcement of the Thai Constitution is an integral part of the architecture and design of Thailand’s democracy. Electoral integrity, constitutional mechanisms to fight official corruption and enforcement of high ethical standards for public officials represent a substantial part of the Thai Constitution. There is an entire section of the Constitution dealing with the powers and functions of an independent election commission. That commission, for instance, has the power to disqualify a candidate and call a re-vote in the constituency if it finds convincing evidence that the election or voting did not proceed in an honest and fair manner.

There are strict constitutional ethics rules for all Thai executive, legislative and judicial officers. For instance, the prime minister, his cabinet, lawmakers and judges are prohibited from holding any financial interest in an ongoing business. They must create a blind trust. They are also prohibited from intervening in matters which create a conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety in the recruitment, appointment, transfer, promotion or removal of executive or other officials. Many ethics prohibitions cover not only the officials but also their spouses and children.

The anti-corruption provisions of the Thai Constitution are downright awesome. For instance, “A person holding a position of Prime Minister, Minister, member of the House of Representatives, senator,… who is under the circumstance of unusual wealthiness indicative of the commission of corruption, malfeasance in office, malfeasance in judicial office… [and] fails to comply with ethical standard, may be removed from office by the Senate.” (Italics added.) Public corruption is vigorously pursued by the independent National Counter Corruption Commission which investigates and assembles evidence for Senate deliberation and removal action. If the Counter Corruption Commission votes by a majority vote that there is a prima facie case (sufficient probable cause) of corruption, the corruption suspect will be suspended from his position pending Senate action. The Commission is also required to refer corruption prosecutions to the office of the Prosecutor General for criminal action. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra became a fugitive from justice after he left Thailand and sought political asylum in Britain while his corruption trial was pending. An official removed from office for corruption is barred from holding elected office or entering government service for 5 years.

Fault Not in the Stars

Shakespeare penned in Julius Ceasar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” The destiny of nations and their citizens is not engraved by fate or determined by the wheels of fortune. Nations are made or broken by the actions and omissions of their citizens. The fate of Thailand and Ethiopia is not to be found in the location of their stars in the galaxy of nations that live in democracies and others that swelter under dictatorships, but rather in the hands of their respective peoples who are no longer content to be “underlings”. Thailand was not destined or pre-destined to be a functioning democracy, nor is Ethiopia doomed to perpetually suffer the slings and arrows of a vicious dictatorship. Indeed, Thailand has its own history of successive military dictatorships and coups dating back to the 1930s. But few of these military dictatorships survived for any length of time, including the last one that overthrew Thaskin just over a year ago. The reason simply is that the common people of Thailand, backed by a vigorous, independent and uncompromising judiciary, and independent election and counter corruption commissions, stood up to the military dictators, and demanded restoration of democratic government. Time and again, the villainous military dictators obliged and bowed before the people of Thailand. That explains why Tonkla Maksuk, a volunteer nurse at the airport protest, was moved to declare her joy upon hearing the Constitutional Court’s decision to ban Somchai and his gang of election thieves from politics: “I feel that this is still a country of laws.”

One can not help thinking about the 2005 Ethiopian elections in the context of the Thai Constitutional Court’s verdict against Somchai’s government and the vigilant investigative roles played by the Election and National Counter Corruption Commissions. Thailand, a country of 67 million people, offers a live example of a developing and evolving democracy. We can be sure from the Thai experience that democracy is not some kind of twisted intellectual game of intrigue and Machiavellian machinations, or a mind game of political tricks and illusions. Democracy is quintessentially about popular sovereignty (the people are the ultimate bosses). As Thomas Jefferson aptly put it, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” We can humbly add, “Where there is the rule of law and an independent judiciary (with independent election and national counter corruption commissions thrown in for good measure), the people’s liberty is secure; and their government should justly feel insecure in its fear of the people.”

Viva Thailand!

Alemayehu G. Mariam

Lipstick and Fingernail Polish

In July, 2008, the Zenawi regime commissioned an official report on riot control entitled “Modernizing Internal Security in Ethiopia”[1]. That report, prepared by retired British Colonel Michael Dewars, made “recommendations designed to create a modern security force that will function effectively by using strategies designed to pre-empt civil unrest which threatens the security of the State of Ethiopia and its People.” Col. Dewars, arguably one of the foremost experts in the world on riot control, was supposed to paint a kinder and gentler face for the Zenawi regime, and artfully excuse its manifest failure to prosecute the police thugs who murdered and wounded thousands of innocent Ethiopians after the 2005 elections.

Last month, the National Judicial Institute (NJI) of Canada issued a 209-page report on the “Independence, Transparency and Accountability in the Judiciary of Ethiopia” under the auspices of the Canadian International Development Agency.[2] This report, like Dewar’s, is intended to humanize Zenawi’s justice system with a façade of academic respectability. Dewars sought to provide the riot police lipstick; now NJI aims to provide fingernail polish to the judicial system. But the police and the court system in a dictatorship are merely tools of repression and control, and the means for legitimizing political power. A dictatorship with a police force and a court system is still a dictatorship just as a pig with lipstick and fingernail polish is still a pig.

Window Dressing the Star Chamber

The first sentence of the introduction to NJI report states, “The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (Ethiopia) has been engaged in court reform activities for more than a decade, designed to make Ethiopian courts more independent, accessible, effective, efficient, transparent, and accountable.” The decade-long reforms have been impressive, according to NJI: “Most of the people we met pointed out that the judiciary is now considerably more independent, more transparent and more accountable than it was prior to 1991 under either the monarchy or the Military Regime. There is no question that this is so.” (Italics added.) The “people” NJI talked to include “5 federal and state government officials, 2 members of the legislature sitting on Judicial Administrative Councils, 50 Court Presidents and judges in federal and regional Supreme Courts, eight judicial trainees, six court staff, three prosecutors, 8 lawyers, legal consultants and law teachers and 5 non-governmental organization and 14 judges of the Harari region.” NJI made no effort to assess “public perceptions and attitudes toward the judiciary.”

The NJI report effusively heaps praise on the Zenawi regime for its monumental achievements in all aspects of Ethiopian society: “The economy has been enjoying a buoyant expansion in the last five years, with an average gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of more than 10 per cent… The Ethiopian government has embarked on an ambitious program of reforms to encourage economic and social development and poverty reduction… 1991 marked a profound change in the country’s judicial structure brought about by the federalization of the state structure. A sharp increase in the number of courts, especially at the lower levels of administration (where they were not previously available), brought the courts closer to the people, both physically and in allowing the use of local language in courts. According to published national statistics there were 2,729 judges in Ethiopia’s federal and regional courts in 2007, excluding the sharia courts and the social courts.” And so on….

According to NJI, there was virtually no judicial system worthy of the name prior to Zenawi’s take-over of power in 1991: “The period up to the 1931 Constitution was a history of absolute monarchy where justice was administered at the whim and desire of the monarch without there being any uniform law on which to base the administration of justice. Even after it was formally established in the 1931 Constitution, the Ethiopian judiciary functioned under authoritarian regimes, the worst being the reign of terror of the Derg (1974 to 1991). The massive extra-judicial summary executions, disappearances and abuses under that regime destroyed hope for the rule of law and an independent judiciary. In 1974, the military government (Derg) took power and suspended the operation of the 1955 Constitution and key civil institutions. Countless special tribunals or courts were set up, usurping the powers of the judiciary. Judges were literally reduced to insignificance, dealing with petty and mundane matters of no interest to the junta… It has thus been impossible to have the culture of judicial independence develop until quite recently in Ethiopia.” (Italics added.)

Hogwash or Whitewash?

It is difficult to characterize the NJI report as hogwash or whitewash. More likely, it is both. Anyone who has taken (wasted) the time to read this piece of intellectual apologia and chicanery in defense of a dictatorship will conclude that it is nothing more than an elaborate crock prepared to window dress Zenawi’s “Courts of Star Chamber” (a court system that was used by the Tudor and Stuart monarchs in England to suppress political opposition, dissenters, and “freethinkers” and punish “all offences [as] may be here examined and punished if the King will.”) The co-authors of the report, a Canadian judge, a lawyer and other researchers, seem to be totally oblivious of a very simple truth: THE ESSENCE OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE IS THE RULE OF LAW. This simply means the supremacy of law over the arbitrary rule of men. In England, the rule of law is guaranteed in the Magna Carta. In 1215, King John was forced to be “bound by the law”, and his subjects secured the right to challenge arbitrary limitations on their liberties by the King and his men in a writ of habeas corpus (a legal process by which a person can challenge the circumstances of his imprisonment). In the United States, the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; and anyone may challenge violations of his due process rights using a writ of habeas corpus in court.

In Canada, the rule of law means neither the prime minister, the Queen, the Governor General, Parliament or any other body can act in violation of the Constitution Act of 1867, the laws of Parliament, a provincial legislature or the common law of England as adapted. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees due process of law: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice… Any person charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.” (Italics added.) In the seminal case of Beauregard v. Canada (1986), Chief Justice Brian Dickson of the Supreme Court of Canada provided one of the clearest elaborations on judicial independence: “The role of the courts as resolver of disputes, interpreter of the law and defender of the Constitution requires that they be completely separate in authority and function from all other participants in the justice system… the principle of judicial independence has been the complete liberty of individual judges to hear and decide the cases that come before them; no outsider – be it government, pressure group, individual or even another judge – should interfere in fact, or attempt to interfere, with the way in which a judge conducts his or her case and makes his or her decision.” (Italics added.)

Could it be said even casually that Zenawi’s authority is exercised in accordance with the Ethiopian “Constitution” or other written, publicly disclosed laws? Can it be said that there is such a thing as due process of law in Zenawi’s courts? Are there any constitutional or legal safeguards against dictatorial rule in Ethiopia? How often is the writ of habeas corpus ( Art. 19, sec. 4 of the Ethiopian “Constitution”) used in court to challenge the hundreds of thousands of illegal arrests and detentions in Ethiopia? The rule of law allows citizens to enjoy the freedoms provided in a constitution, and ultimately safeguarded by courts: Is there freedom of speech in Ethiopia? Is there a free press? Is there freedom of association or the right to petition for grievances? Is the Ethiopian judiciary the guardian of the Ethiopia “constitution”? Is it within Zenawi’s arbitrary powers to remove any judge from the bench if he so wills it? Could any court or judge in Ethiopia assert total independence from the political control of the regime? Could any judge hold accountable regime leaders for corruption, malfeasance or misconduct in office? Can anyone deny the pervasive use of “telephone law” (a common practice in which judges are told how to decided cases) by regime officials? Is it possible to imagine the exercise of judicial review by Ethiopian courts? Can anyone realistically imagine the judiciary can be made an independent institution in Ethiopia, free of the intimidation and influence of regime officials? Aren’t party hacks the backbone of the Ethiopian bench?

In its 2007 report, Human Rights Watch concluded:

In high-profile cases, courts show little independence or concern for defendants’ procedural rights. The two-month recess in the treason trial in August-September 2006, coupled with frequent shorter adjournments, ensured the defendants’ prolonged detention. The trial judges put off addressing defense objections to evidence and ignored claims of serious mistreatment by prison authorities. Although criminal courts in Ethiopia have some independence with respect to less prominent cases, the judiciary often acts only after unreasonably long delays, sometimes because of the courts’ workloads, more often because of excessive judicial deference to bad faith prosecution requests for time to search for evidence of a crime. (Italics added.)

The fact of the matter is that Zenawi holds absolute power — unbounded by any law — and pretensions to the creation of an independent judiciary in the context of such dictatorial rule is not just window dressing, it is an act of gross mendacity. Zenawi does not want an independent judiciary. Zenawi can’t handle an independent judiciary. He wants absolute power and complete control. It is delusional for anyone to believe — and intellectually dishonest for the for the NJI to propagate the canard — that the independence of the judiciary in Ethiopia can be achieved through technical refinements to the judicial structure and training of judicial officers under the rule of a one-man dictatorship.

Dictatorship and Judicial Independence are Like Oil and Vinegar

Dictatorship and judicial independence are like oil and vinegar. They do not mix. As vinegar is mostly water, dictatorship is mostly about the rule of one man. As oils are “hydrophobic” (chemically repel water), truly independent courts are “tyrano-phobic”. They repel arbitrary and dictatorial rule. For the two liquids that repel each other to remain in a stable configuration, the lighter of the two liquids must float to the surface and stay there in a unified mass. Oil is lighter than vinegar and therefore ends up on top in a unified mass. Dictatorship is heavier than the rule of law, and the courts must necessarily remain in a state of suspended animation under the relentless gravitational pull of a dictatorship.

Judicial Independence Pakistan Style (The Pinstripe Revolution)

There is an interesting lesson to be learned from the Pakistani “Pinstripe Revolution”, a four-month long lawyers’ movement in 2007 that came to symbolize the titanic and decades-old struggle between the rule of law and military rule in Pakistan. In 2007, General Pervez Musharaff, much like his predecessor junta leaders that dominated Pakistan’s history, declared an emergency and suspended the Constitution in a brazen attempt to subordinate the judiciary to his military dictatorship and maintain himself in power both as an army chief of staff and civilian president. Musharaff began the assault on the judiciary by literally removing from the bench Pakistan’s Chief Justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, on allegations of abuse of office. Chaudhry, well-known for his fearless judicial style particularly in human rights abuse cases, had expressed the view disapproving the amalgamation of military and civilian power in one person. Musharaff put Chaudhry under house arrest and installed one of his lackeys as an acting chief justice to implement his plans. He also ordered judges in the upper echelons of the bench to take a new oath under the emergency provisional constitutional order, which the Supreme Court later nullified. Musharaff also ordered the arrest and detention of the president of the Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association and other leading lawyers of that bar. These flagrant actions had a chilling effect on the Pakistani bar and bench. Pakistani lawyers understood the grave threat posed to the independence of the judiciary by Musharaff’s actions. Thousands of black-suited lawyers and activist mounted mass protests throughout the country and galvanized civil society in defense of the independence of the judiciary, garnering support from lawyers all over the world. After four months, Musharaff threw in the towel, and the Pakistani lawyers emerged victorious. The full Supreme Court bench was reinstated. In the end, the rule of law won the day in Pakistan and the independence of the judiciary was defended by the men in black and pin-striped suits.

H.R. 2003 Is Vital for Judicial Independence in Ethiopia

We must all support H.R. 2003 because it provides robust mechanisms to ensure the growth and full development of an independent judiciary in Ethiopia. (See e.g. H.R. 2003, Sec. 2 (1); Sec. 3 (3), (4); Sec. 4 (2) (A); Sec. 5 (3) (c)). Specifically, H.R. 2003 provides support for a “judicial monitoring process, consisting of local and international groups, with special focus on unwarranted government intervention on strictly judicial matters, and to investigate and report on actions to strengthen an independent judiciary.” By having such a monitoring process, it is possible to restore confidence in the judiciary and insulate it from political influence and interference. Unlike the voluminous catalogue of meaningless NJI recommendations, H.R. 2003 provisions relating to judicial independence require a credible and demonstrable commitment by the regime to respect the rule of law.

Rex Non Potest Peccare (The King Can Do No Wrong)

In English common law, there is the maxim which declares, “The King can do no wrong.” It was King Charles II who proclaimed that the King rules by divine right and therefore can do no wrong. There is an equivalent Amharic maxim, “Negus eye-keses, se-my eye-tares (One can not sue or charge a king or plough the sky.”) The constitutional idea behind the maxim was to provide sovereign immunity while ensuring no official wrongdoing would go unchallenged in a court of law. Charles II, however, took it literally. He believed there could be no redress for royal abuses. The King could not be sued in civil court, neither can he be charged in a criminal indictment. The King can not be held accountable for his official acts or omissions. There can be no claims for damages against the King, nor does an injunction lie as an equitable remedy against him. The King can do no wrong because the King is above the law. The King is the Law. When the King is the law, there is no need for the rule of law. No need for a constitution. No need for courts and judges and lawyers. As the eminent Paksitani jurist Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim said, “If the constitution is the soul of a nation, then the judiciary is its heart. Our nation is without a heart and a soul just now.” So it is in Ethiopia, just now! “There is no question that this is so.”
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[1] http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/5335
[2] NIJ Ethiopia Judiciary Assessment