By Graham Peebles | mwcnews.net
July 16, 2012
An ideological poison is polluting all life within Ethiopia, flowing into every area of civil society. Local governance, urban and rural neighbourhoods, farming, education and the judiciary all are washed in Revolutionary Democracy’, the doctrine of the ruling party. Human Rights Watch (HRW) in their detailed report ‘Development without Freedom’ (DWF) quote Ethiopia’s Prime Minister for the last twenty years Meles Zenawi explaining that “when Revolutionary Democracy permeates the entire society, individuals will start to think alike and all persons will cease having their own independent outlook. In this order, individual thinking becomes simply part of collective thinking because the individual will not be in a position to reflect on concepts that have not been prescribed by Revolutionary Democracy.” A society of automatons is the EPRDF vision, The Borg Collective in the Horn of Africa, men women and children of the seventy or so tribal groups of Ethiopia all dancing to one repressive tune sung by the ruling EPRDF.
Dollars and nonsense
Ethiopia receives around $3 billion dollars in long-term development aid each year (second only to Indonesia); this is more than a third of the country’s total annual budget. Funds and resources donated to support the needy, in the hands of the Zenawi regime are being employed as a means of manipulating the Ethiopian people along partisan ideological lines. HRW states in DWF, “the Ethiopian government is using development aid as a tool of political repression by conditioning access to essential government services on support for the ruling party.”
The EPRDF has complete control of funds donated to Ethiopia by the Development Assistance Group (DAG), a consortium of the main donors, including the World Bank, USA, the European Commission and Britain. The government holds the purse strings of every dollar and cent allocated for the four major areas of development work: Protection of Basic Services (PBS), the Productive Safety Net Programme, Public Sector Capacity Building and the General Education Quality Improvement.
The largest single donor is the USA, which in 2011 according to US state department figures “provided $847 million in assistance, including more than $323 million in food aid.” The European Commission gives 400 million and Britain, via the Department Foreign Investment and Development (DFID) has committed £331million ($516million) per year until 2015. The British taxpayers’ pounds according to DFID “will meet the needs of the very poorest and support proven results-driven programmes that will bring healthcare, education and water to millions of people.” Well intentioned perhaps, however in attempting to ‘meet the needs of the very poorest’, as DFID claim, HRW research found that all international development aid, “flows through, and directly supports, a virtual one-party state with a deplorable human rights record, [whose] practices include jailing and silencing critics and media, enacting laws to undermine human rights activity, and hobbling the political opposition.” Facts well known to donors, who are content it seems to allow, indeed support the politicization of aid, a catalogue of human rights violations and the widespread suppression of the people,forced to live in an ideological straight jacket fastened tight by agents of the Zenawi government, at national, regional and community level.
Conditional support
The EPRDF government controls all areas of government and civil society in Ethiopia, from the judiciary to the classroom, the media to the farm, telecommunication and the banks.
The EPRDF controls all areas of government and civil society in Ethiopia, from the judiciary to the classroom, the media to the farm, telecommunication and the banks. Its reach into urban neighborhoods and rural communities was greatly increased before the 2008 elections, when the number of seats in the woreda and kebele were expanded from 15 to 300. Only the EPRDF was able to field candidates in all councils and with opposition parties largely boycotting the unfair elections, the EPRDF ‘won’ over 99.9% of the seats, meaning as HRW state “the ruling party had total control of the rural majority of the Ethiopian population.”
Through the regional offices of the woreda and kebele the government exercises its ability to control ordinary rural and urban Ethiopians; it is here that the administration of daily life takes place. Local offices approve or reject, applications from farmers for seeds and fertilizer, decide on micro credit support, distribute food to the needy (10 – 20 million rely on food aid), allocate education and employment opportunities, issue business permits and ID cards. The result, as HRW state is “state/party officials have significant influence over the livelihoods of citizens.” An understatement, in fact they govern all aspects of life, within the city or the village, for the teacher or the judge, the women seeking to start a small business, or the Mother desperate to feed her family. All are at the mercy of government officials.
Emergency food relief is given as part of the PBS program, a highly expensive complex development scheme, which assigns around $1 billion a year reports HRW, in a “block grant to the federal government,” they disperse the funds through their kebele’s and woreda offices. Distribution is based not on need, but on political association, support the opposition groups in Ethiopia and find your name scratched from the food aid list and go hungry, HRW found “the partisan allocation of food aid, [is] a problem that has been anecdotally reported in many areas and over many years in Ethiopia, especially in recent years in Somali region.” Such political discrimination of food aid distribution is not only immoral; it is in violation of international law. Farmers who Express dissent towards the government have the agricultural seeds and fertilizer needed to grow crops for their family and community withheld, voice concern over local governance as a teacher and find your career destroyed and your job taken away. HRW found “the EPRDF controls every woreda in the country, and can discriminate against any household or kebele within these administrative areas.” Given such repressive illegal actions it is inexplicable that the DFID in its Plan For Ethiopia (PFE) state the government shows “a strong commitment to fight corruption.” What the EPRDF shows is a strong commitment to suppress dissent, silence all critical voices and control the people utterly.
Big Ethiopian brother
Ethiopia is a one party state, with no freedom of speech, or assembly nor freedom of the media and where opposition forces critical of the government are silenced in the most brutal fashion. It is puzzling then, that the DFID (PFE) states, “Ethiopia has also made some progress toward establishing a functioning democracy,” It is certainly not an image of democracy recognizable to anyone who holds human rights and freedom of expression central to such an ideal and is contradicted by USAID’s statement in its Strategy Plan for Ethiopia where they acknowledge the“$13 million+ that USAID/Ethiopia invested between 2006 and 2010 specifically to promote democratic transition produced little in the way of tangible results, and specific programs have been the subject of stalling and even outright hostility.” The DFID however, go on to compound the misrepresentation asserting, “Ethiopia has achieved a strong degree of political stability through decentralized regional government.” If by ‘stability’ the DFID mean lack of popular resistance to imposed governance, through the fearful subjugation of the people, then yes this the EPRDF has succeeded in doing.
Opposition to the government is not tolerated nor is there decentralized governance, as Thomas Staal, USAID Mission Director to Ethiopia recently stated, and “the [Ethiopian] government wants to be able to control political space very carefully The kebele, woreda and sub kebele’s are extensions of central government, carrying out the divisive partisan policies of the EPRDF, the sole expression of democratic principles in Ethiopia are those found within constitutional articles, that sit neatly filed upon ministerial shelves, collecting dust, as HRW make clear “democracy [is] a hollow concept in a country steered by a powerful party-driven government in which the distinction between party and state is almost impossible to define.” And In their report “One Hundred Ways of Putting Pressure Violations of Freedom of Expression and Association in Ethiopia“ HRW echo USAID’s comment, observing that “despite the lip service given to democracy and human rights, respect for core civil and political rights such as freedom of expression and association in Ethiopia is deteriorating.” DFID officials it seems have been duped by a plethora of conformist federal laws and signatures to multiple international treatises, into accepting the word of a government that terrifies its people and tramples on international human rights law.
Partisan monitoring
Not only are all key development programs implemented by the EPRDF, but also monitoring is also undertaken in partnership with government agencies. Objective accurate monitoring is essential in determining the effectiveness of development programs; it is difficult to see how unbiased data can be collected under such highly restrictive circumstances. HRW makes the point that “donors should recognize that Ethiopia’s own accountability systems are moribund, and that the principal barrier to detecting distortion is the Ethiopian government.” Their view that independent monitoring “is needed (without the participation of the Ethiopian Government)” is clearly correct and the bare minimum donors should insist on.
In its wisdom however, the DFID – a key donor, whilst recognizing the importance of monitoring appears happy to rely on the Ethiopian government, in which they naively invest such trust. They plan to “continue to monitor progress using national data drawn from administrative and survey sources,” i.e. the Ethiopian government. This demonstration of neglect by the DFID is an abdication of duty not only to British taxpayers, but also to the people of Ethiopia, who the EPRDF, with the help of international donors, continue to suppress and intimidate. They cannot and should not be trusted, HRW Deputy Director Jan England’s Open Letter to DFID Secretary of State Andrew Mitchell makes this plain, “the Ethiopian government is extremely resistant to scrutiny the British government and other donors to Ethiopia should not allow the Ethiopian government to dictate the terms on which British public money is monitored, and every effort should be made to prevent British development aid from strengthening authoritarian rule and repression.”
Ideological imposition
At the core of the EPRDF’s suppression and disregard for human rights is an ideological obsession. Revolutionary Democracy. Evangelical party political indoctrination takes place in within schools, teacher training institutions, the civil service and the judiciary. All contrary to international law, the Ethiopian constitution and federal laws, composed to conform to universal legal standards, conveniently cited by politician and diplomats, ignored and unenforced they mean nothing to the people.
School children above grade 10 (aged 15/16 years) are required to attend training sessions in the party ideology, policies on economic development, land sales and education. Admission to university, although not legally the case is implicitly dependent upon membership of the party, HRW found “students were under the impression that they needed party membership cards to gain admission to university.” The EPRDF stamp is also required to secure government jobs after graduation. All teachers, civil servants and judges are under pressure to tow the party line, to join the EPRDF and follow its doctrine, failure to do so impacts on employment and career prospects. Ethiopia’s largest donor, the USA, in the State Department human rights country report for 2011 notes, “Students in schools and universities were indoctrinated in the core precepts of the ruling EPDRF party’s concept of “revolutionary democracy…. the ruling party “stacks” student enrolment at Addis Ababa University… Authorities did not permit teachers at any level to deviate from official lesson plans and actively prohibited partisan political activity and association of any kind.”
Educational brainwashing of course contravenes the Ethiopian constitution, which clearly states in Article 90/2 “Education shall be provided in a manner that is free from any religious influence, political partisanship or cultural prejudice.” Words, righteous and legally binding are of no concern to Zenawi, his ministers, foreign diplomats and the cadres or spies who patrol the city neighbourhoods, university campus and civil service offices, infiltrate villages and towns of rural Ethiopia intimidating and blackmailing the people. International donors however, should be deeply concerned and take urgent actions to stop such violations of national and international law and the politicisation of aid distribution including emergency food relief.
Mixed Motives distorted action
Western governments reasons for providing development aid to Ethiopia are both humanitarian and strategic, USAID in its country plan, calls Ethiopia “the most strategically important partner in the region,” and the DFID states, “Ethiopia matters to the UK for a range of development, foreign policy and security reasons.”
Regional stability and the ‘fight against terrorism’ is cited as justification for continuing to support the EPRDF, in spite of extensive human rights abuses, the partisan distribution of aid and state terrorism. In fact, far from bringing stability to the area, the Zenawi regime is a cause of instability, this Anna Gomez makes plain “the Al-Shabab militia [Islamist group in Somalia] have only grown stronger [emphasis mine] and survival has been made more difficult since Ethiopian troops invaded in 2006, at the behest of George W. Bush.”
With conflicting interests, some might say corrupt and corrupting, donor countries find themselves funding a deeply repressive violent regime, enabling a coordinated policy of ideological indoctrination to take place, as HRW found “the government has used donor-supported programs, salaries, and training opportunities as political weapons to control the population, punish dissent, and undermine political opponents” Western donors silence and complicity in the face of such violations of international law is as Anna Gomez rightly says in the Bureau of Investigative Journalism 4th August 2011 “letting down all those who fight for justice and democracy and increasing the potential for conflict in Ethiopia and in Africa.”
The politicization and manipulation of aid distribution by the EPRDF violates international law and all standards of moral decency. Those providing aid must take urgent action to ensure this illegal practice comes to an end. Donors are well aware of the human rights abuses taking place, but have turned a blind eye to the repression of civil and political rights and a deaf ear to the cries of the many for justice and freedom. Western governments silence amounts to collusion; it is a gross misuse of taxpayer’s money and a betrayal, of international human rights laws and the Ethiopian people.
Graham is Director of The Create Trust, a UK registered charity, supporting fundamental social change and the human rights of individuals in acute need.
Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, is in a “critical” condition in hospital in Brussels and may not survive, according to diplomatic sources.
ByAislinn Laing, Johannesburg and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels | The Telegraph
The 57-year-old premier dictator has not been seen publicly for several weeks and missed a crunch African Union summit his country was hosting at the weekend at which a new chair was elected.
The Ethiopian government Woyanne junta has confirmed that he is unwell but repeated promises of updates on his condition have been delayed.
On Wednesday, a Western diplomatic source in Brussels told the Telegraph that he is now “critically ill”.
“He is being treated as a private person and the information is confidential but it is understood that he is critically ill,” the diplomat said.
Mr Zenawi is thought to be receiving treatment for an unspecified condition at the Saint Luc University Hospital in Brussels. The hospital is a centre for the treatment of blood or “haematological” cancers.
Other diplomats told the AFP that Mr Zenawi might not survive his illness.
“He is in a critical state, his life is in danger,” said one.
“He is in a critical state but is alive,” another added.
Ethiopia’s ambassador in Brussels and the hospital authorities refused to comment on the reports.
In Addis Ababa, however, Bereket Simon, a government spokesman, insisted that Mr Zenawi, who has held power in the populous Horn of Africa nation for over two decades, was recovering. “He is not in a critical state. He is in good condition,” he told AFP.
Questions surfaced about Mr Meles’s health when he missed a two-day African Union summit Sunday and Monday in Addis Ababa, apparently for the first time since 1991. He was last seen looking thin and pale at the G20 summit in Mexico in June.
Whatever Mr Zenawi’s condition, anger is growing among Ethiopians at the refusal of his government to provide clarity on the situation and speculation has begun to swirl about possible successors.
The one-time Marxist, who toppled the brutal dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991, has run Ethiopia through strongly centralised control for two decades and analysts struggle to envisage how the country would be operate without him.
Adjoa Anyimadu, Chatham House’s Horn of Africa expert, said that Mr Zenawi’s force of personality meant that few other Ethiopian politicians were well-known.
“He is the face of the Ethiopian ruling class so it’s difficult to see who would take over from him,” she said.
Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) Calls on TPLF/EPRDF to Halt Plans for Massive Arrests and Crackdown on Muslim Leaders Following AU Meeting
SMNE Condemns Killings, Arrests and TPLF/EPRDF Inference in Religious Freedom; Calling Ethiopian Leaders and Public to Stand Together
July 18, 2012
Religious leaders, political leaders, international donors, the African Union and others, including the Ethiopian public—whether Muslim or not—should condemn the recent TPLF/EPRDF attack on Muslims, who have been peacefully rallying for freedom from government interference in their internal religious affairs for over eight months. Now, word has leaked out from sources within the country, that the TPLF/ERPDF is planning massive arrests of Muslim activists and leaders, including members of the Independent Islamic Arbitration Committee, an elected group which has been leading the cry for religious independence. Allegedly, none of this will take place until African Union meetings end, later this week.
In the last month the numbers of protestors have risen to include hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians in various locations in Addis Ababa as well as outside the capital city of Ethiopia. Six civilian protestors, one only six years of age, were killed a month ago and this past weekend, security forces killed four more after entering the Awalia Mosque in Addis, in an attempt to interfere with plans being made for a protest the following day. In addition to those shot and killed by security forces, a number of others were wounded and over 160 persons were arrested and remain in detention.
Forty additional arrests were made of women who had gone to the prison, only to take food and water to their family members. Reports from the ground indicate that the TPLF/EPRDF has been trying to force the women to confess to criminal activity they never committed in order to be freed. Among those arrested were women as old as 80 and as young as 12, as well as pregnant women. Thirty-three of these women have now been released, according to the latest figures from our sources.
As the regime cracks down on the Muslims, these fellow Ethiopians are only more determined to continue to rally for freedoms guaranteed in the Ethiopian Constitution, but as they do, tensions are dramatically increasing between Muslims and the TPLF/EPRDF and we call on all Ethiopians, of any background or religion, to stand side by side with our fellow Ethiopians as they demand religious freedom.
We, in the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE), condemn this unjust treatment of our Ethiopian Muslim brothers and sisters and offer our deep condolences to the families of the victims. We cannot afford to be indifferent to the pain of any of our fellow Ethiopians, ignoring their need at such a time as this; for “no one will be free until all are free!” We also pledge our support in their struggle for truth, justice and freedom for it is our shared struggle. Are they not fighting the same fight for justice, liberty and freedom of worship, thought and belief as are we and other Ethiopians?
A short time ago, our Ethiopian Muslims and Ethiopian Evangelical Christians stood with leaders and members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Toronto in condemning the planned destruction of the fourth century Waldeba Monastery and the eighteen churches in the surrounding area by the TPLF/EPRDF in order to make way for a government-controlled sugar plantation. This should be a proud moment in our recent history.
Shortly after that, Ethiopian Orthodox leaders came out with a strong statement of support towards Ethiopian Muslims, agreeing with their demand for freedom from religious interference by the TPLF/EPRDF, which they and others have also experienced as a church body. This was an excellent demonstration of what religious leaders can do for a nation! Now, there is another critical opportunity for those in positions of leadership to take in continuing to support this call.
Some from the grassroots are hoping those in leadership will say it for them, fearing their own voices will not be heard above the clamor and fearing that without it, others will assume a lack of support from people of different ethnic, political and faith backgrounds. One Ethiopian woman from Los Angeles, who was highly concerned about the need to publically condemn the recent attacks on Muslims, summed it up very well. She asked:
“Why are our [political and religious] leaders not saying or doing more to support the Muslims right now? I’m an Ethiopian Orthodox believer [and an Amhara], but who will hear me? If our leaders do not speak out, Muslims will put us all in a box and will think we Christians do not care, but we do!”
As we in the SMNE have said before, the only way we can “live well” as a society is when we are willing to defend and to protect the God-given rights of others; especially when they cannot do it for themselves or when by joining together, we can better overcome injustice or wrongdoing. Ignoring it when we can do something will hurt us as a whole.
For example, when a pain inflicts a part of our body—even our little finger—it affects the rest. This applies to a nation. Right now, pain is being inflicted on part of the body of Ethiopia. This part of our body is our Muslim brothers and sisters. They are not just one tribe, but they are made up of people of different ethnicities, different political views, different ages, different genders, different socio-economic groups and different regions. The whole body, which is the Ethiopian people, should react when something is done to one of the parts of their body—the Ethiopian Muslims. We cannot ignore it!
In the past, a small ethnic group could be massacred in one corner of Ethiopia and no one would even notice, let alone come out in its defense; however, when a few are killed in Addis, there is an outpouring of crying, grief and sympathy from people throughout the world. The same thing happens when a freedom fighter from a small group is arrested—no one says anything—but when someone else is arrested from Addis, the amount of outrage both inside and outside of the country is overflowing. This kind of indifference towards some of us occurs most easily where groups of people have been devalued. This kind of devaluation of our people is what we in the SMNE are fighting against.
Right now, our fellow Ethiopians of Muslim faith are being denied religious freedom. It is excellent that the Ethiopian Orthodox came out to stand with Ethiopians of Muslim faith and vice versa. Such solidarity was big step but it is not the end of what must be done, not only by them but by others. The voices of leaders and people of other faith backgrounds, supporting principles of justice, compassion and freedom for all Ethiopians, would bring great healing to our country.
This applies to the rest of Ethiopians who should not sit by, watching and doing nothing, thinking that the freedom these people are fighting for maybe is not the same freedom as what “I” or “we” non-Muslims are fighting for. However, like cattle, the butcher comes to take one of “them” away and the rest do not react because it is not yet “us.” We should know by now, this regime targets one group at a time, whether in places like Gambella, Afar, the Ogaden or in Southern Nations or whether it is a church in the Amhara region, a mosque in Oromia or a cemetery in Addis.
Ethiopians of faith, especially the leadership, should make it very clear that all of us—including TPLF/EPRDF members in churches and mosques throughout the country—should be fighting for the mutual religious freedom and defense of the God-given rights of all of us. Right now, we have victims, bystanders, beneficiaries and perpetrators, all standing alongside of each other in many of our houses of faith. The leadership has often been silent in the past or even, at times, aligned with the perpetrators rather than with the victims, perhaps out of fear or even opportunism. At such a time as this, Ethiopians need the religious leaders to visibly lead the way in confronting what is evil and immoral, while also bringing to its members—and to Ethiopian society—a path to reconciliation and the restoration of justice.
Some, or even many within the faith community, will want to go further, making public statements, even confessions, of its silence, its fear, its apathy, its ethnic prejudices and its neglect in standing up for the justice and rights of those within their communities as well as those in communities of different faiths and ethnicities. Can you imagine how such an example could lead the way for others to do the same and in doing so, bring about healthy change?
Some people may feel suspicious that “the Muslims are here— right now—to take over and they want Shari’ah law.” However, “the Muslims are not coming;” they have been here in Ethiopia for a thousand years and have repeatedly said that they are not for Shari’ah law but want religious tolerance for all Ethiopians! This should not surprise us because it reinforces our own past experience as Ethiopians of differing faiths who have been living together and getting along with each other for as long as any of us can remember.
What the TPLF/EPRDF wants is to isolate the Muslims from other Ethiopians; using fear-mongering not only in the West, but also among Ethiopians in order to isolate the Muslims from other Ethiopians. By demonizing and dehumanizing all Muslims or by putting them in a box called “Islamic radicals” has earned the TPLF/EPRDF significant revenue from the West. We must refuse to support this thinking or the violent actions now being carried out by the TPLF/EPRDF in response to it. If non-Muslim Ethiopians fall victim to this anti-Muslim campaign; not only will they be making a big mistake, creating division when unity is so needed, but they will also be prolonging the TPLF.
In the last few days, the TPLF/EPRDF may have targeted “Muslims,” but they killed our fellow human beings, given intrinsic value by our Creator, the same God who gave life to each of us. Those who died could be a mother, a brother, a sister or a son. They each have a name and have someone who loves and cares about them. They may be from Ethiopia and come from a certain tribe or region, but they are “us.” They are members of our Ethiopian family so the pain of their loss should not only be left to the mother who brought them into this world, but should be felt by every one of us as we put humanity before ethnicity. Their pain is our pain. When they are not free, we are not free. When they have a loss, we have a loss.
Our conscience should be our invitation to be part of the struggle. Today it is the Muslim in need of defense, but tomorrow it could be the Orthodox, the Evangelical, the Catholic or the non-believer from any of the countless tribes of Ethiopia. We should look at the bigger picture and call on Ethiopians to condemn these actions by the TPLF/EPRDF against our brothers and sisters and their plans to arrest their leaders for peaceful protest, guaranteed under the Ethiopian Constitution that has become meaningless.
For outsiders, including donors who are listening to Meles’ claims that the “radical Muslims” are coming to Ethiopia, we can counter by saying, “we know them,” for they did not arrive just yesterday or when the War on Terror started in 2001 or twenty years ago when the TPLF came into power, for we have lived together for long enough to know.
As the previously mentioned woman from LA, concluded, “The poor Muslims are expecting the leaders to say and do more to support them. I feel it [the outrage for what has happened] and now the leaders should say it!” This woman speaks the language of the New Ethiopia. Can we Ethiopians join together to build it? I think so but let us show it!
Before concluding here is a special word to the African Union:
As the shooting, killing and arrests were being carried out in Addis Ababa, members of the African Union were meeting close by on the matter of human rights, security and stability in Africa—focusing on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, the Republic of South Sudan and Somalia—with no mention of Ethiopia.
Now, as soon as you leave this impressive building, the new headquarters of the African Union, the TPLF/EPRDF will be cracking down on Muslim leaders and activists. If reports prove to be accurate, massive arrests will be made of those simply calling for freedom to practice their religion without government interference in their internal affairs. Will you speak out? Will you condemn the killing of innocent people that took place at the front door of your meeting? The need for improved security existed only a few kilometers from where you were discussing the subject.
For the AU to have significance on changing the suffering, poverty and conflict on this continent, its members must speak for the people! Yet, for Ethiopia to truly change it cannot come from the outside, we Ethiopians must say it ourselves!
So, on behalf of the SMNE, our Ethiopian Muslims and the justice-SEEKING people of Ethiopia, I want to speak directly to every member of the TPLF/ERPDF.
Do not kill, wound or arrest these Ethiopian Muslims or any people of faith who are only claiming their human rights under God’s universal law, international human rights laws and the Ethiopian Constitution! Become part of a New Ethiopia where you will have a place! We cannot go on like this any longer! It will only get worse! How much blood will it take before enough has been shed? For how long will the blood of the slain cry out for justice? What you are doing is wrong and immoral. It will require its own penalty from those who refuse to change their ways. Know that opportunity for repentance, forgiveness and transformation can suddenly elude us without warning. Do now what is right!
Seek God’s way and correct what you have done wrong so that “righteousness and peace kiss each other.” (Isaiah 85:10b)
“The good action and the bad are not alike. Repel the evil one by one which is better! And behold! He between whom and you there was enmity, shall be as if he were a fervent friend. (Sura 41:34)
May God bless all our people and bring us peace, love and mutual respect as we repent of our ways and struggle together to create a New Ethiopia where there will be room for all of us.
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Please do not hesitate to e-mail your comments to Mr. Obang Metho, Executive Director of the SMNE at: [email protected]. You can find more about us through our website at: www.solidaritymovement.org
Ethiopia and human rights
Jailed for doing his job
The Economist
July 17, 2012
ETHIOPIA’S prime minister, Meles Zenawi, likes to present himself to the world as a peacemaker and a paragon of development. At a recent summit of African leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, which is also the headquarters of the African Union, he sought to mediate between the two Sudans. He also made much of a huge loan to help connect Ethiopia’s mega-dam projects to a regional power grid.
The bad side of Mr Meles was on show before the African grandees arrived, when a prominent journalist, Eskinder Nega, was sentenced to 18 years in prison—for doing his job. He had persistently criticised the government for stifling dissent. After his newspaper had been shut down by the authorities, he had been publishing online.
Mr Nega, who won a major award in May from PEN America, a writers’ club that promotes press freedom, fell the victim to the same anti-terrorism laws he had tried to question. Shortly before his arrest in September last year, he had written a column criticising the government for jailing several of his colleagues, as well as two Swedish journalists, under vague anti-terror statutes passed in 2009. Along with 23 others, including opposition activists and fellow journalists, he was convicted of links to a banned opposition group based in the United States.
Mr Nega has been in and out of prison in his homeland since first opening a newspaper in 1999. His reports of violence by security forces that followed a disputed election in 2005 got him and his wife jailed for 17 months. Not everyone is as dogged as the 43-year-old blogger: the government’s willingness to jail critics has driven many journalists into exile. Many of those convicted alongside him had already fled abroad.
On a recent visit to Addis Ababa, Baobab attempted to set up a round table with local journalists to talk about challenges to freedom of expression. All but one of the participants withdrew at the last minute, several admitting that they were afraid of arrest. A veteran human-rights activist, Mesfin Woldemariam, did turn up to express his frustration at how Western governments friendly to Mr Meles are prepared to ignore his government’s human-rights abuses.
The American chapter of PEN is among many groups that have denounced Mr Nega’s sentence, calling on governments to reflect on their relations with Ethiopia. Many diplomats in Addis Ababa hoped that their polite lobbying and their presence at Mr Nega’s trial would soften the outcome. It did not.
Alemayehu G Mariam
Free to Speak
To paraphrase an old expression, “There are two things that are quintessentially important in any society. The first is free speech and I can’t remember the second one.”
Free speech is the bedrock of all human freedoms. In my view, the value a society gives to freedom of expression determines whether that society is free or unfree. A society is unfree if individuals are afraid to speak their minds, to think unpopular thoughts, to criticize government, or to dispute ideas and opinions. Expressive freedoms were so paramount to the founders of the American Republic that they provided constitutional protections unrivalled in the history of mankind. In breathtakingly uncompromising, unambiguous, and sweeping words that could be found in the English language, they declared: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
There are many reasons that justify sweeping protections for free speech in any society. Without freedom of speech, the person is like a corked bottle, keeping under pressure his/her ideas, views or feelings about politics, government or society. Leaders and institutions could not be criticized or held accountable where free speech and the press are criminalized. There is little room for any meaningful artistic, literary or intellectual pursuits where free expression is censored or sanctioned. In short, without free speech, “self-development is crippled, social progress grinds to a halt, and official lies become the only ‘truth.’”
I am not writing here to discuss the abstract virtues of or government infringement on free speech. Many of my readers know that I take an uncompromising view on the practice of free speech. When dictator Meles Zenawi came to speak at Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum in September 2010, I defended his right to speak despite strong disapproval and scathing criticism from friends, colleagues and others. Yes, even Zenawi, who has the dubious honor of being called the “second-leading jailer of journalists in Africa” by the Committee to Protect Journalists, has the right to engage in free speech. When the 500+ page memoir of former Ethiopian junta leader and dictator Mengistu Hailemariam was electronically scanned this past January in violation of copyright laws and posted online because Mengistu was a “mass murderer” who should not “benefit from the sale of his book”, I defended his right to write and express himself. In defending the free speech rights of these two brothers-in-dictatorship, I was practicing Noam Chomsky’s axiom that “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” I venture to add that by not defending the rights of those we despise, we risk becoming their clones.
Free speech encompasses not only the right to speak (and not to speak) to others but also the right to hear (or not to hear) from others. It is a decision for each individual to make. I like to keep an open and critical mind; and therefore listen very attentively to those with whom I disagree strongly. It is logically impossible for me to agree or disagree (or even to disagree disagreeably) without listening to those with whom I agree or disagree. If I suspect a claim to be false, I contest the facts. If I find the truth shrouded, I undress the lies. If I disagree with an idea, I challenge it. If I agree with a point of view, I bolster it. But to do all these, I have to tolerate the right of free expression of those with whom I agree or disagree. But free speech is not only about my right to expression, but also the right of others to do the same.
The Fierce Urgency of Now for the Unfree to Speak, to Write, to Advocate… Freely
All of the foregoing discussion is intended to provide a springboard for a more specific discussion of the plight of those I characterize as “unfree” to speak or write publicly. There are legions of Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian scholars involved in the study of Ethiopian society, commentators and intellectuals who feel unfree to speak or write on matters of great public importance to Ethiopians. Many scholars in Ethiopia are silenced by official threats of employment termination, summary dismissals and even arrest and prosecution. The fear of “censorship by mudslinging and public vilification” keeps many Diaspora Ethiopian scholars silent. Many of these scholars often point to the barrage of personal attacks they face whenever they write or speak on matters that do not conform to the prevailing orthodoxy. If they say something politically incorrect, they are jumped on. If they express views that oppose one group or another at a conference, their names are dragged in the mud. If they write a historical analysis, they are vilified as apologists of a bygone era. They are intimidated and unnerved into silence by the self-appointed and self-righteous censors of democracy. As a result, many learned and experienced Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian scholars who have spent years studying Ethiopia have completely withdrawn from participation in the vital public debates of the day.
But all scholars involved in the study of Ethiopia face the fierce urgency of now. They must renounce the vows of silence they have imposed upon themselves or has been imposed upon them by the self-appointed and self-righteous censors of democracy and come forward to help the people of Ethiopia transition from dictatorship to democracy. Ethiopia today stands at the crossroads. The signs of change are plain to see. The dawn of freedom and democracy that enveloped North Africa and the Middle East is ever slowly swallowing the darkness of dictatorship and tyranny. The best days of Ethiopia’s dictators are long gone. These are the desperate days of desperate dictators who are playing out their end game by resorting to desperate measures. We see them stoking the flames of sectarianism. They are clamping down on all avenues of free expression. They are unleashing unspeakable violence to cling to power. They are finally facing the music; they are now beginning to understand the true meaning of Gandhi’s message: “There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.” So in the end game, the tyrants and murderers will pull out their trump card, their long-planned final solution: “Après moi le deluge (after me the flood)!” (or in the words of the proverbial donkey, “after me, no more grass”). But they seem to forget that floods, fires and earthquakes do not discriminate; they consume and destroy everything in their path.
But these are also hopeful days for the people. They can finally see a flickering light at the end of the long dark tunnel of tyranny. They can see a beacon of light pointing in the direction of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. The tables are turning in plain view. The people are losing their fear of the tyrants; and the tyrants are showing their fear of the people. They are worried sick of what the people might do. The people are also angry and hungry. Anger leads to bitterness, hatred and violence. Hunger destroys not only the body but also the soul. A hungry man is an angry man. That is what the tyrants fear as the last chapter of the end game is being written.
The times they are a-changing. Ethiopian scholars can no longer stand on sidelines as spectators in these trying times. They cannot afford to be “summer soldiers, sunshine patriots” and fair-weathered fans of freedom, democracy and human rights, as Thomas Paine might have put it. They must be actively engaged in the struggle against tyranny now; and not prepare to struggle for power later. They must stand with the people now, and not stand by them later.
Ethiopian scholars and intellectuals must share their expertise and knowledge to overcome not only the tyranny of man but also the tyranny of hunger, disease, ignorance and poverty. Tyranny must be confronted on all fronts. It is up to the agricultural experts to make battle plans to defeat the tyranny of hunger and famine. According to the Legatum Index, “Ethiopia’s education system is poor at all levels and its population is deeply dissatisfied.” Ethiopia’s educational scholars must rise to challenge the tyranny of a hopelessly decayed educational system. “On most health outcomes, Ethiopia performs very poorly.” According to Foreign Policy, “There are more Ethiopian physicians practicing in Chicago today than in all of Ethiopia, a country of 80 million and Africa’s second-most populous country.” Shouldn’t Diaspora Ethiopian physicians gather their forces to confront the tyranny of disease that afflicts our people? Shouldn’t Ethiopian economists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, historians, artists, researchers, etc., come forward and forge alliances to confront tyranny in all its manifestations?
Writing and speaking in their fields of expertise is only the beginning. I plead with members of the Ethiopian academic and scholarly community to also become public intellectuals. The internet has become the great equalizer not only between citizens and all powerful governments but also between the intelligentsia and “ignorigentsia” (the willfully ignorant or woefully uninformed). In many ways, the internet has given free speech its ultimate expression. The learned scholars and academics and those spewing words of provocation, hatred and intolerance potentially have equal access to the hearts and minds of millions. But for all of the information and resources available on the internet, there is precious little that is relevant, enlightening and actionable. Ethiopian intellectuals need to organize themselves to bridge the information and knowledge gap and come up with fresh and creative ideas to help transition Ethiopia from dictatorship to democracy.
Nearly two decades ago, the late Prof. Edward Said of Columbia University in a series of lectures argued that the role of the intellectual in society is not merely to advance knowledge and learning but also human freedom. He made his arguments even more compellingly for exiled intellectuals. Prof. Said urged scholars to aspire to become public intellectuals connecting their scholarship to issues and policies that impact the lives of ordinary people. He argued that intellectuals must advocate and work for progressive change while remaining vigilant over those who abuse and misuse their power. Above all, the intellectual has an obligation to always speak truth to power and the duty to stand for and with the voiceless, the powerless and the defenseless:
… The intellectual in my sense of the word, is neither a pacifier nor a consensus builder, but someone whose whole being is staked on a critical sense, a sense of being unwilling to accept easy formulas, or ready-made clichés, or the smooth, ever-so-accommodating confirmations of what the powerful or conventional have to say, and what they do. Not just passively unwilling, but actively willing to say so in public. This is not always a matter of being a critic of government policy, but rather of thinking of the intellectual vocation as maintaining a state of constant alertness, of a perpetual willingness not to let half-truths or received ideas steer one along…”
….
And this role [the intellectual’s] has an edge to it, and cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them) to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations, and whose raison d’etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug.
In the same vein, the late Czech president, human rights advocate and playwright Vaclav Havel wrote,
The intellectual should constantly disturb, should bear witness to the misery of the world, should be provocative by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and open pressure and manipulations, should be the chief doubter of systems, of power and its incantations, should be a witness to their mendacity.”
I believe Ethiopia’s intelligentsia could play the roles described by Said and Havel, and even go beyond their prescriptions and serve as consensus-builders, bridge-builders, facilitators, promoters and pacifiers. I would like to urge them to become Ethiopia’s eyes, ears and mouths and teach and preach to the younger generation and the broader masses. They do not have to be concerned about dumbing down their messages to the people, for when speaking truth to power the people get the message loud and clear.
These are different times. A new age is dawning without the old virtues that infused public dialogue and discourse. Civility, decency and respect in the public sphere were once considered necessary. The virtue of civility made it possible to disagree without being disagreeable; decency demanded that we agree to disagree without becoming mortal enemies. But the internet offers a convenient refuge of anonymity and unaccountability to the cacophonous and intolerant hordes whose mission is to drown out these virtues. But there is one surefire solution. Follow George Bernard Shaw’s wise admonition: “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it!”
As one does not avoid going to sleep for fear of having nightmares, one must not disengage from public debate on the vital issues that affect Ethiopia today for fear of mudslinging and censorship by public vilification. Regardless, Ethiopian scholars and intellectuals must answer the urgent question of the day: Are they prepared to “bear witness to the misery” of the Ethiopian people by speaking truth to power?
Now is the time to stand up and be counted!
(to be continued in a future commentary…)
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at: http://www.ecadforum.com/Amharic/archives/category/al-mariam-amharic and http://ethioforum.org/?cat=24
Previous commentaries by the author are available at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/ and www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/
