Amidst prayers, and religious ceremony, Mo Anbessa, Ethiopians for Constitutional Monarchy, held its first public meeting in Addis Ababa on November 18 at the former Haile Selassie I Theater (renamed National Theater by the Derg). The playing of the old “Ethiopia Hoy” national anthem for the first time in 17 years brought tears to the crowd.
After an opening address by the meeting chairman, Dr. Getachew Mekasha, detailing the aims and objectives of Mo Anbessa, prominent residents of Addis Ababa, church leaders, students, farmers and workers took turns in taking the floor to speak.
At meeting which lasted for four hours, the speakers focused attention on the burning issue of national unity in the face of the threat of disintegration.
The speakers stressed the role of the monarchy as a precious historic legacy worth preserving, and its value as a symbol of unity in its new proposed form. Atse Amha Selassie’s announcement about his intention to return to Ethiopia soon, carried by the VOA, heightened expectation.
The theater which has seating and standing room capacity of only 2000 had to turn away a crowd twice that number because of lack of space. In order to satisfy public demand, Mo Anbessa is now planning an open air meeting possibly at Meskal Square in the near future.
The meeting have passed several resolutions in the form of recommendations to the transitional government for implementation. The resolutions called on the transitional government to facilitate Atse Amha Selassie’s early return; and enumerating the benefits that occur from the Emperor’s return, the resolution pointed out among other things, that it will add greatly to the confidence building process to attract foreign investment and tourism, apart from greatly encouraging
the home-coming of the many thousands of Ethiopians now living abroad, and the return of real peace and stability to the country in general.
The meeting also called on the transitional government to name a commission immediately to enquire into the circumstances of innocent victims of the Derg, and catalog all its crimes against humanity, and violations of civil and human rights for future reference and the benefit of posterity.
A suitable monument was recommended to be erected in memory of all the victims. In particular, the meeting called on the administration to remove the remains of Emperor Haile Selassie, whose where abouts was reported to have been located, to a more suitable site, and rebury it with due honor in the presence of all the members of the royal family, and world leaders.
The event received full coverage in national media.
The Eritrean People Liberation Front (EPLF) is actively seeking diplomatic recognition. It also made it clear by preventing the German Ambassador to Ethiopian from visiting Asmara that it wants foreign relations directly and not through embassies in Addis Ababa.
The EPLF has the blessing of President Meles Zenawi who said late in October that foreign countries could deal directly with the Eritrean provisional government.
An EPLF delegation led by its acting minister of foreign affairs and politburo member, Mohammed Sayed Bary, and other EPLF officials recently visited East African countries and Egypt.
Egypt is expected to establish diplomatic relations with the separatist Eritrea soon. Egypt’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Omar Moussa, said in September that his government wants the “establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.” An Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, Mohammed Abd al Walid, was in Asmara late October. He announced that Egypt (itself a recipient of aid from the U.S. and Europe) pledged aid to Eritrea. Mr. Walid also announced that Egypt will establish a permanent diplomatic post in Asmara soon.
Other nations in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria and Iran are expected to take the same move, while Israel is firmly committed to a united Ethiopia.
Meanwhile, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement advising Germans not to travel to Eritrea, saying that the embassy cannot guarantee their consular protection in Eritrea cannot because EPLF is cooperating with embassy officials from Addis Ababa.
The EPLF has systematically stripped Eritrea of any trace of the former regime. The battlefields around Dekemhare, Ghinda and Keren have been meticulously cleaned of debris. The word `Ethiopia’ has been effaced from every public building. Ethiopian Airlines, whose daily flights from Asmara to Addis Ababa are fully booked until next year, have had their Asmara office and airport installations painted in the blue and green of the Eritrean flag.
While the EPLF insists on a separate international telephone code, such acts of symbolic chauvinism are gradually giving way to a pragmatic acceptance that the future viability of an independent Eritrea will be largely dependent on its economic integration with northern Ethiopia. The EPLF envisages the possibility of a trading block incorporating Djibouti, Eastern Sudan and northern Ethiopia, the natural hinterland for Massawa which, like Assab, will become a free port for goods in transit. The Addis Ababa authorities are also keen on regional integration: on September 20, they lifted visa requirements for Sudanese and Djiboutians.
Grandoise talk of a separate currency, or of Eritrea as the future Taiwan of the Red Sea, is hardly shared by the head of the newly created Department of Economic Planning and Coordination, Haile Wolde Tinsai, who has more pressing and prosaic problems. The EPLF alleges that bank records show that 500 million birr on deposit in Asmara were transferred to Addis Ababa prior to May. Eritreans are still able to draw only small sums of birr from the few banks offering a limited service. A 150 million birr donation from the Ethiopian government to the EPLF, announced in early September, temporarily eased their financial predicament, but Eritrea remains desperately short of foreign exchange. Eritrea’s annual fuel bill put at around US$40 and $60 million is required immediately to resurrect Asmara’s rudimentary industrial infrastructure. Remittances from Eritreans abroad cover only a fraction of total financial needs. The most significant source of investment capital – from Eritrean residents in Ethiopia – will remain largely inaccessible until current doubts over the devaluation of the birr are lifted. The EPLF has not, as widely believed, devalued the birr in Eritrea; nor could it, as it has no leverage over Ethiopian banks.
The EPLF’s representatives in Addis Ababa, Haile Menkarios, is excluded from negotiations between the Finance Ministry, the National Bank of Ethiopia and the International Monetary Fund over the conditions for future aid to Ethiopia. While World Bank project aid may be earmarked for Eritrea (a feasibility study for upgrading Assab’s facilities is continuing), until the referendum the EPLF will remain dependent on Ethiopia’s good offices for links with international institutions. Eritreans did not join the 10-member Ethiopian delegation at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meeting in Bangkok. As yet, Western governments are distinctly cool about committing consuls to Asmara.
Any international aid will be largely devoted to agriculture. The EPLF plans widespread privatizations, with foreign investment actively sought in developing tourism and exploiting proven mineral resources, notably copper. British Petroleum and Amoco both bid successfully for oil concessions along the Danakil coast from the Ethiopian government in March 1989, and are now in the process of renegotiating their mineral rights with the EPLF.
The EPLF will retain the free services of its troops until after the referendum, thus minimizing the its expenditure and avoiding an aggravation of either unemployment or growing income disparities. These are all the more evident as property prices spiral upwards and well-heeled, educated exiles return from Saudi Arabia, Europe and the United States.
Pawlos Nio Nio is receiving Medical treatment in Germany after he was diagnosed with Prosta Carcinoma, a disease curable with medication.
Retired from his 32-year career, Ato Pawlos enjoys an active life writing and researching historical books.
After having a prostate surgery, he was unable to use his left muscles and bones, as a result of the complications from the surgery. He was advised to go abroad for further treatment and friends raised the funds to send him to Germany.
Ato Pawlos is the author of 14 fictional and historical books. He is one of the most popular writers in Ethiopia.
For further medical attention, Ato Pawlos’s friends are collecting donations from Ethiopians and others. For more information on his condition and how to help, write to Prof. David Wiley, Director, African Studies Center, 100 International Programs, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
Thousands of people carrying banners and placards in Amharic, Oromigna, Tigrinya, English, and Arabic demonstrated in Addis Ababa Meskal Square to give moral support to EPRDF and its government’s Charter in early November.
Mulualem Abebe, administrator of Addis Ababa and EPRDF member said in is speech: “The skepticism of some who claim that the Charter will lead to the break-up of Ethiopia is based on ignorance exploited by some destructive groups to impede the democratic process going on in Ethiopia.”
The demonstration is seen as an EPRDF staged showcase by many, including the leader of the United Democratic Nationals Party, Ato Tsegaye Abiye. Tsegaye said that the EPRDF brought truck loads of EPRDF troops from around the city and its vicinity to act as demonstraters, realizing that Addis Ababa residents have now lost confidence in the Charter, and the EPRDF run transitional government.
A large number of the demonstrators demanded that former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam be extradited from Zimbabwe, where he lives now, to face trial. They also insisted that former high officials such Legesse Asfaw, Tesfaye Wolde Selassie and others accused of crimes be brought to justice.
Disarming a section of the population, while leaving others untouched has proved to be an invitation to disaster–sometimes of genocidal proportions. The killings and massacres that are reported to be taking place in various sections of the country, notably Dre Dawa, Harar, Arsi, Sidama, Jibat and Metcha, and Danakil, are caused in part by the imbalance created by the government’s lopsided disarmament policy. EPRDF leaders are painfully aware of their minority status, and instead of enforcing the policy equally on all sections of society, they are disarming those who they perceive to be potential rivals or even “enemies” while they leave those who are actively allied to them armed. It is no secret that their allies are doing the killing while EPRDF troops allegedly “watch as passive onlookers.”
President Meles Zenawi is quoted by TIME magazine as saying that “The choice is to disarm the irrational and arm the rational elements,” in the hope that those whom he categorizes as “rational” will chose not to use their weapons. Today in Ethiopia where fear and paranoia seem to rule supreme on all sides, how does one measure rationality or irrationality? Both past experience and the hard reality in the country today utterly contradict this view.
