Copycat Dictators and Cartoon Democracies in Africa
Ivory Coast, December 2010. Laurent Gbagbo says he won the presidential election. The Independent Ivorian Election Commission (CEI) said former prime minister Alassane Ouattara is the winner by a nine-point margin. The African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations, the United States, the European Union all say Ouattara is the winner. Gbagbo is only the latest African dictator to steal an election in broad daylight, flip his middle finger at his people, thumb his nose at the international community and cling to power like a barnacle to a sunken ship.
Ethiopia, May 2010. Meles Zenawi said he won the parliamentary election by 99.6 percent. The European Union Election Observer Team said the election “lacked a level playing field” and “failed to meet international standards”. Translation from diplomatic language: The election was stolen. Ditto for the May 2005 elections.
The Sudan, April 2010. Omar al-Bashir claimed victory by winning nearly 70 percent of the vote. The EU EOM declared the “deficiencies in the legal and electoral framework in the campaign environment led the overall process to fall short of a number of international standards for genuine democratic elections.” Translation: al-Bashir stole the election.
Niger, February 2010. Calling itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD), a group of army officers stormed Niger’s presidential palace and snatched president Mamadou Tandja and his ministers. In 2009, Tandja had dissolved the National Assembly and set up a “Constitutional Court” to pave the way for him to become president-for-life. Presidential elections are scheduled for early January, 2011.
Zimbabwe, March 2008. In the first round of votes, Morgan Tsvangirai won 48 percent of the vote to Mugabe’s 43 percent. Tsvangirai withdrew from the runoff in June after Mugabe cracked down on Tsvangirai’s supporters. Mugabe declared victory. The African Union called for a “government of national unity”. Former South African President Thabo Mbeki mediated and Tsvangirai agreed to serve as prime minister. A stolen election made to look like a not-stolen-election.
Kenya, December 2007. Mwai Kibaki declared himself winner of the presidential election. After 1500 Kenyans were killed in post-election violence and some six hundred thousand displaced, intense international pressure was applied on Kibaki, who agreed to have Raila Odinga serve as prime minster in a coalition government. Another stolen election in Africa.
Massive election fraud, voting irregularities, vote buying, voter and opposition party intimidation, bogus voter registration, rigged polling stations, corrupt election commissioners and so on were common elsewhere in Africa including Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria and Egypt. In 2011, “elections” will be held in Chad, the Central African Republic, Malagasy, Uganda, Zambia, Nigeria and other countries. Will there be more stolen elections? One thing is for sure: In January, the Southern Sudanese independence referendum will be held with little doubt about its outcome.
Ivory Coast Headed for Civil War?
The tragedy about Gbagbo is that the one-time university professor was one of the courageous Ivorian leaders who had struggled against civilian and military dictatorships. He was the chief opponent of Ivorian president-for-life Félix Houphouet-Boigny. Today Gbagbo wants to become Félix Houphouet-Boigny reincarnate. After a decade in power, Gbagbo has become addicted to the sweet life (la dolce vita) of dictatorship. He is said to have the support of the country’s military. He controls the south, and “rebels” are said to control much of the north where Ouattara has his support. To complicate matters, there are reports that rogue remnants of Charles Taylor’s bloodthirsty Liberian army are being recruited by both sides of the crises as a perfect storm of civil war gathers over the Ivorian horizon. Is Ivory Coast headed for a replay of the two-year civil war that began in 2002? Unless Gbagbo peacefully leaves power, it seems inevitable that violence and conflict will again reign in the Ivory Coast destroying thousands of lives and the economy of one of the more prosperous African countries.
The international community led by the U.S and France appears to be orchestrating diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions and a cutoff of access to funds at the regional West African bank to force Gbagbo to step aside. ECOWAS (a group of some dozen West African countries) is said to be considering military action; but there is little evidence that it has an offensive military capability to rout Gbagbo’s troops. Gbagbo has intimated that he will retaliate against immigrants from ECOWAS countries in Ivory Coast should military action be initiated to dislodge him. He remains steadfastly defiant and has escalated the crackdown on opponents. He continues to round up opposition supporters; and street killings, abductions and detentions by the military and armed youth thugs are said to be widespread. Gbagbo has repeatedly claimed that the “international community has declared war” on Ivory Coast and he has a constitutional duty to defend the country against such aggression.
The Lesson of Ivory Coast
Informed analysts suggest that Ivory Coast will prove to be a global test case of whether the international community could develop consensus to uphold the outcomes of democratic elections against a defiant African dictator who refuses to leave power peacefully. I disagree for two reasons. First, dictatorships in Africa have always been tolerated by the international community. As in the past, the West will cackle, bray, neigh and yelp about Gbagbo, but at the end of the day they will yawn and walk away shaking their heads and repeating the words of former French President Jacques Chirac, “Africa is not ready for democracy!” Second, the AU and ECOWAS will make sure that nothing is done that will set a precedent for an African dictator being removed from power through international action. These are the same crooks who are today coddling and shielding al-Bashir from prosecution in the International Criminal Court. Today it is Gbagbo; tomorrow it could be any one of them. Africa’s dictators will never, ever allow such a precedent to be established.
Things Keep Falling Apart After One-Half Century of African Independence
Things keep falling apart in Africa because over the past one-half century of independence it has been nearly impossible to hold Africa’s so-called leaders accountable. For fifty years, African “leaders” have been telling Africans and the world that Africa’s problems are all externally caused. Africa is what it is (or is not) because of its colonial legacy. It is the white man. It is imperialism. It is capitalism. It is the International Monetary Fund. It is the World Bank. The continent’s underdevelopment, poverty, backwardness, mismanagement are all caused by evil powers outside the continent. The latest re-invention of the old African Boogeyman is “globalization” and “neoliberalism”, which Zenawi claims has “created three consecutive lost decades for Africa”.
There are indisputable reasons why things keep falling apart in Africa. The major one is the lack of competent leadership with vision, purpose and integrity. Indeed the common thread that sews the vast majority of post-independence African leaders is not steadfast commitment to good governance and democratic practices, but their incredible sense of entitlement to rule forever and ever and ever. In 1964, Kwame Nkrumah invented the whole idea of president-for-life becoming the first certified post-independence African dictator. Many others followed. In 1970, H. Kamuzu Banda of Malawi declared himself ‘President-for-Life”. Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the military ruler of the Central African Republic, kicked it up a notch in the mid-1970s. He coronated himself “Emperor”. Idi Amin of Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast, Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Albert Bernard Bongo of Gabon, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Ismail Omar Guellah of tiny Djbouti, and countless others have clung or continue to cling to power as rulers-for-life. It boggles the mind to call these individuals “leaders”; they are, as the great Afrobeat legend and human rights activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti described them, “animals in human skin”. I would call them hyenas in designer suits or uniforms.
These “animals in human skin” have stoked ethnic and tribal hatred, caused fragmentation and sectarian tensions and have unleashed unspeakable violence on their populations to cling to power in much the same way as the old colonial masters. In Ivory Coast and Nigeria today violent confrontations are being orchestrated by “leaders” along ethnic and religious lines. Just in the past few days, there has been a surge in violence in Nigeria, a country said to be evenly split between Christian and Muslims, with the firebombing of churches. Various scholars have expressed concern over the “heightening of the resurgence of ethnic identity politics in Nigeria” and the rise of armed ethnic militias which not only challenge the legitimacy of the Nigerian state but are also spearheading separatist movements to dismember the Nigerian nation. Given these tensions, more and more “marginalized” Nigerians are said to choose their ethnic identities over loyalty to the Nigerian nation. No doubt echoes of the Biafran War of 1967 reverberate in the minds of concerned Nigerians. Ethnicity and sectarianism are also a core element of the current Ivorian crises. Gbagbo accuses Muslims, who are in the majority in the north, of aiding and supporting the “rebels” who control the region. They have been subjected to attacks and persecution.
As Africa burns in ethnic, political and sectarian fires, the unctuous, hypocritical and self-righteous Western governments frolic in bed with the corrupt dictators in power. They jibber-jabber about democracy, human rights, the rule of law, accountability, transparency and the rest of it, but will gladly hold hands with bloodthirsty African dictators and walk down the primrose path to maintain their oil, mineral and military strategic interests. No Western government involved in Africa will openly admit it, but each and every one of them shares wholeheartedly Chirac’s view that “Africa is not ready for democracy” and that “multi-partyism” is a “kind of luxury,” that is unaffordable by a country like the Ivory Coast (or any other African country for that matter).
Chinua Achebe and Why Things are in Free Fall in Africa
In Things Fall Apart (1959), the great African novelist Chinua Achebe tells the story of the initial encounters in the 1890s between Ibo villagers in Nigeria and white European missionaries and colonial officials. That was the time when things really began to “fall apart” in Africa. The white man “put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” But his depiction could apply to the “falling apart” of many other African societies as a result of contact with colonialism and Christianity. But over the last one-half century, colonialism has become extinct and the white man has “left” Africa. The African leaders who replaced the colonial masters have not hearkened back to pre-colonial Africa and used traditional values and methods to hold the center and keep things from falling apart. Rather, they have followed in the colonial footsteps and lorded over vampiric states which have attenuated and frayed the fabric of the post-independent African societies to ensure their hold on power.
Robert Guest, Africa editor for The Economist, in his book The Shackled Continent (2004), argues that “Africa is the only continent to have grown poorer over the last three decades” while other developing countries and regions have grown. Africa was better off at the end of colonialism than it is today. According to the U.N., life expectancy in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Mozambique and Swaziland for the period 2005-2010 is less than 44 years, the worst in the world. The average annual income in Zimbabwe at independence in 1980 was USD $950. In 2009, 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars (with a “T”) was worth about USD $300. In the same year, a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe cost 300 billion Zimbabwean dollars (with a “B”). The tens of billions in foreign aid money has done very little to improve the lives of Africans. The reason for things falling apart in Africa is statism (the state as the principal change agent) and central planning, according to Guest. The bottom line is that the masses of Africans today are denied basic political and economic freedoms while the privileged few live the sweet life of luxury, not entirely unlike the “good old” colonial times.
Guest concludes that “Africans are poor because they are poorly governed.” The answer to Africa’s problems lies in upholding the rule of law, enforcing contracts, safeguarding property rights and putting more stock in freedom than in force. Much of Africa today is under the control of “Vampire states”. As the noted African economist George Ayittey explains, the “vampire African states” are “governments which have been hijacked by a phalanx of bandits and crooks who would use the instruments of the state machinery to enrich themselves and their cronies and their tribesmen and exclude everybody else.” (“Hyena States” would be a fitting alternative in the African landscape.) Africa is ruled by thugs in designer suits who buy votes and loyalties with cash handouts.
Things have fallen apart in Africa for a long time because of colonialism, capitalism, socialism, Marxism, communism, tribalism, ethnic chauvinism… neoliberalism, globalism and what have you. Things are in total free fall in Africa today because Africa has become a collection of vampiric states ruled by kleptocrats who have sucked it dry of its natural and human resources. It is easy to blame the white man and his colonialism, capitalism and all the other “isms” for Africa’s ailments, but as Cassius said to Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” The fault is not in the African people, the African landscape or skyscape. Africa is rich and blessed with natural and human resources. The fault is in the African brutes and their vampiric regimes.
Achebe took the title for his book Things Fall Apart from William Butler Yeats’s classic poem, which in partial rendition reads:
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, (substitute Africa)
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
For what it is worth, my humble view is that the African center cannot hold and things always fall apart because the best and the brightest of Africans lack all conviction to do what is right, while the worst are full of passionate intensity to divide the people ethnically, tribally, racially, ideologically, religiously, regionally, geographically, linguistically, culturally, economically, socially, constitutionally, systematically… and rule them with an iron fist. “Ces’t la vie en Afrique!” as the French might say; but to gainsay Jacques Chirac, “Africa is ready for democracy!” (L’Afrique est prêt pour la démocratie!).
In December 2008, I wrote a weekly column entitled “Groundhog Year in Prison Nation” summarizing some of my weekly columns for that year. I used the “groundhog year” analogy following the title of the motion picture “Groundhog Day” in which a hapless television weatherman is trapped in a time warp and finds himself repeating the same day over and over. I wrote[1]:
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!
It is December 2010, the end of the first decade of the 21st Century. Are Ethiopians better off today than they were in 2009, 2005…2000?
Does bread (teff) cost more today than it did a year ago…, five years ago? Cooking oil, household fuel, beef, poultry, gasoline, housing, water, electricity, public transport…?
Are there more poor people today in Ethiopia than there were a year ago… five years ago? More unemployment among youth, less educational opportunities, less health care?
Is there more corruption, more secrecy, less transparency and less accountability in December 2010 than in December 2009…?
Are elections more free and fair in 2010 than they were in 2008, 2005?
Is there more press freedom today than five years ago? More human rights violations?
Is Ethiopia more dependent on international charity for its daily bread today than a year ago…?
Is there more environmental pollution, habitat destruction, forced human displacement and land grabs in Ethiopia today than there was in 2005?
Are businesses paying more taxes and bribes in Ethiopia today than in years past?
Is Ethiopia today at the very bottom of the global Index of Economic Freedom (limited access to financing, inefficient government bureaucracy, inadequate supply of infrastructure)?
Let the reader answer these self-evident questions. Suffice it to say, “It is what it is!”
Montage of Scenes From 2010 Time Loop
So here we are in Ethiopian Groundhog Year 2010. As a year-end overview, I decided to select and highlight a few of my columns from the multiple dozens of weekly and other commentaries I wrote in 2010 and published on the various Ethiopian pro-democracy websites, and the Huffington Post[2] where all of my commentaries for the year are readily available.
January 2010 – Looking Through the Glass, Brightly
“Ethiopia is the country of the future,” Birtukan Midekssa would often say epigrammatically. Ethiopia’s number 1 political prisoner is always preoccupied with her country’s future and destiny. Her deep concern for Ethiopia is exceeded only by her boundless optimism for its future… To be the country of the future necessarily means not being the country of the past. Birtukan’s Ethiopia of the future is necessarily the categorical antitheses of an imperial autocracy, a military bureaucracy and a dictatorship of kleptocracy. Her vision of the future Ethiopia is a unified country built on a steel platform of multiparty democracy. Birtukan would have been pleased to explain her vision and dreams of the future country of Ethiopia; unfortunately, she cannot speak for herself as she has been condemned to “rot” in jail.
February 2010- Putting Lipstick on a Pig
Ethiopia’s dictators think we are all damned fools. They want us to believe that a pig with lipstick is actually a swan floating on a placid lake, or a butterfly fluttering in the rose garden or even a lamb frolicking in the meadows. Put some lipstick on hyperinflation and you have one of the “fastest developing economies in the world”. Put lipstick on power outages, and the grids come alive with megawattage. Slap a little lipstick on famine, and voila! Ethiopians are suffering from a slight case of “severe malnutrition”. Adorn your atrocious human rights record by appointing a “human rights” chief, and lo and behold, grievous government wrongs are transformed magically into robust human rights protections. Slam your opposition in jail, smother the independent press and criminalize civil society while applying dainty lipstick to a mannequin of democracy. The point is, “You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper and call it ‘democracy’ but after 20 years it stinks to high heaven!”
March 2010- Waiting for Godot to Leave
The politics of “succession” to Zenawi’s “throne” has become a veritable theatre of the absurd. The personalities waiting in the wings to take over the “throne” (or to protect and safeguard it) bring to mind the witless characters in Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy play Waiting for Godot, arguably the most important English play of the 20th Century. In that play, two vagabond characters anxiously wait on a country road by a tree for the arrival of a mysterious person named Godot, who can save them and answer all their questions. They wait for days on end but Godot never shows up… and the two characters keep returning to the same place day after day to wait for him; but they cannot remember exactly what happened the day before. Godot never came. Waiting for Zenawi to leave power is like waiting for Godot to arrive. It ain’t happening. He is not only the savior and the man with all the answers, he is also the Great Patron who makes everything work.
April, 2010- C’est la Vie? C’est la Vie en Prison!
When Meles Zenawi, the arch dictator in Ethiopia, was asked about Birtukan’s health in his prison on March 23, 2010, he was comically philosophical about it. He said Birtukan health is in “perfect condition”, except that she may be putting on some weight. “The health situation of Birtukan, the last I heard, is in perfect condition. She may have gained a few kilos, but other than that, and that may be for lack of exercise, I understand she is in perfect health… I am not surprised that they [U.S. State Department] have characterized Birtukan as a political prisoner, because I understand they have also characterized Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and Oromia Liberation Front (OLF) terrorists… as political prisoners… But that is life; I think the French say, ‘C’est la Vie.’
May, 2010- Speaking Truth to Power
For the past year, I have been predicting that the 2010 Ethiopian “election” will prove to be a sham, a travesty of democracy and a mockery and caricature of democratic elections. Without my literary and rhetorical flourish, that is now the exact conclusion of the international election observers. The “Preliminary Statement” of the European Union Election Observation Mission- Ethiopia 2010 stated: “The electoral process fell short of certain international commitments, notably regarding the transparency of the process and the lack of a level playing field for all contesting parties.” … Johnnie Carson, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the State Department told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee that “we note with some degree of remorse that the elections were not up to international standards… The [Ethiopian] government has taken clear and decisive steps that would ensure that it would garner an electoral victory.” Even Herman Cohen, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State who served as “mediator” in the so-called May 1991 London Peace Talks which resulted in the establishment of the Zenawi regime decried the outcome: “… I don’t think it was a fair election.”
June, 2010- Speaking Truth to the Powerless
Now that the hoopla around Meles Zenawi’s “election” is over, it is time for the Ethiopian opposition to take stock and re-think the way it has been doing business. We begin with the obvious question: “What happened to the Ethiopian opposition in the make-believe election of 2010?” Zenawi will argue vigorously that he defeated them by a margin of 99.6 percent (545 of 547 parliamentary seats). If that were the real “defeat” for the opposition, I would not worry much. Losing a sham election is like losing one’s appendix. But there is a different kind of defeat that I find more worrisome. It is a defeat in the eyes and hearts of the people. I am afraid the opposition collectively has suffered considerable loss of credibility in the eyes of the people by making a public spectacle of its endless bickering, carping, dithering, internal squabbles, disorganization, inability to unite, pettiness, jockeying for power, and by failing to articulate a coherent set of guiding principles or ideas for the country’s future.
July, 2010- Hummingbirds and Forest Fires
World history shows that individuals and small groups — the hummingbirds — do make a difference in bringing about change in their societies. The few dozen leaders of the American Revolution and the founders of the government of the United States were driven to independence by a “long train of abuses and usurpations” leading to “absolute despotism” as so eloquently and timelessly expressed in the Declaration of Independence… The Bolsheviks (vultures in hummingbird feathers) won the Russian Revolution arguably defending the rights of the working class and peasants against the harsh oppression of Czarist dictatorship. They managed to establish a totalitarian system which thankfully swept itself into the dustbin of history two decades ago… Gandhi and a small group of followers in India led nationwide campaigns to alleviate poverty, make India economically self-reliant, broaden the rights of urban laborers, peasants and women, end the odious custom of untouchability and bring about tolerance and understanding among religious and ethnic groups. Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo led ANC’s Defiance Campaign and crafted the Freedom Charter which provided the ideological basis for the long struggle against apartheid and served as the foundation for the current South African Constitution. In the United States, Martin Luther King and some 60 church leaders formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, becoming the driving force of the American civil rights movement.
August, 2010 – Steel Vises, Clenched Fists and Closing Walls
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton gave a speech in Poland… and singled out Ethiopia along with Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others to warn the world that “we must be wary of the steel vise in which governments around the world are slowly crushing civil society and the human spirit.”… She pointed out: “Last year, Ethiopia imposed a series of strict new rules on NGOs. Very few groups have been able to re-register under this new framework, particularly organizations working on sensitive issues like human rights.”… Secretary Clinton said the acid test for the success or failure of U.S. foreign policy is whether “more people in more places are better able to exercise their universal rights and live up to their potential because of our actions?” By this measure, U.S. policy in Ethiopia has been a total, unmitigated and dismal failure. The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable…
September, 2010- Indoctri-Nation
Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education issued a “directive” effectively outlawing distance learning (or education programs that are not delivered in the traditional university classroom or campus) throughout the country… Wholesale elimination of private distance learning programs by “directive”, or more accurately bureaucratic fiat, is a flagrant violation of Higher Education Proclamation No. 650/2009. Under this Proclamation, the Ministry of Education and its sub-agencies have the authority to regulate and “revoke accreditation” of a private institution which fails to meet statutory criteria on a case-by-case basis following a fact-finding and appeals process…. I believe the regime has a long term strategy to use the universities as breeding grounds for its ideologues and hatcheries for the thousands of loyal and dependent bureaucrats they need to sustain their domination and rule. The monopoly created for the state in the disciplines of law and teaching (which I will predict will gradually include other disciplines in the future) is a clear indication of the trend to gradually create a cadre of “educated” elites to serve the next generation of dictators to come.
October, 2010- Birtukan Unbound!
Birtukan was held for months in a dark room with no human contact except a few minutes a week with her mother and daughter. Fear, anxiety and despair were her only companions. Heartache knocked constantly on the door to her dark room needling her: “Did you do the right thing leaving three year-old Hal’le to the care of your aging mother?” Self-doubt kept her awake in that dark room where time stood still asking her the same question over and over: “Is it worth all this suffering? Give up!” But a voice in her conscience would echo thunderously, “Like hell you’re going to give up, Birtukan. Fight on. Keep on fighting. ‘Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.'” In the end Birtukan signed Zenawi’s scrap of paper making exception to convictions of honor and good sense. We expected nothing less from such a great young woman…. Prisoners can be brainwashed to say anything by those who control them. Prisoners who have endured torture, extreme degradation and abuse have been known to do shocking things to please their captors and ease their own pain and suffering. Abused prisoners have been known to deceive themselves into believing the cruelty of their captors as acts of kindness. It is called the “Stockholm Syndrome.” When the victim is under the total and complete control of her captor for her basic needs of survival and her very existence, she will say and do anything to please her captor.
November, 2010- Remember the Slaughter of 2005
November is a cruel month. Bleak, woeful, and grim is the month of November in the melancholy verse of Thomas Hood:
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member–
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!
//
And no justice for the hundreds massacred in Ethiopia in November (2005).
No redress for the countless men, women and children shot and wounded and left for dead.
No apologies for the tens of thousands illegally imprisoned.
No restitution for survivors or the families of the dead.
No trace of those who disappeared.
No atonement for the crimes of November.
No absolution for the slaughter of November.
November is to remember.
December, 2010- “So What!”
So what are the lessons of Groundhog Year 2010? The first decade of the 21st Century?
Lesson I. Crush your opponents with full force. Alternatively, vegetate them forever.
Lesson II. If you get into America’s face and stick it to her, she will always back down. Always!
Lesson III. “Democratization is a matter of survival.” If democracy stays alive in Ethiopia, Zenawi cannot survive. If Zenawi survives, democracy cannot stay alive.
Lesson IV: If you want democracy, you must struggle and sacrifice for it.
Lesson V. If your rights are being violated, defend them!
Lesson VI. Elections are like children’s marble game where everybody can play as long as the guy who owns the marbles wins all the time.
Lesson VII. If you want to win, you need to organize, mobilize and energize your base. You need to teach, preach and reach the people.
Lesson VIII. You want funding, don’t beg for it; dig deeper into your own wallets.
Lesson: IX. There is one law, one regime, one ruler, one circus master and only one man who runs the show in Ethiopia.
Lesson X: The greatest lesson of 2010 and the first decade of the 21st Century:
DESPAIR NOT! “THERE HAVE BEEN TYRANTS AND MURDERERS AND FOR A TIME THEY SEEM INVINCIBLE BUT IN THE END, THEY ALWAYS FAIL — THINK OF IT ALWAYS.” Mahatma Gandhi.
“So what! Soo what!! Sooo whaaat!!!” was the repetitive mantra of dictator Meles Zenawi recently in response to pesky questions lobbed at him in parliament about his so-called Growth and Transformation Plan[1] (GTP), which will presumably make Ethiopia self-sufficient in food production in the next five years and expand the “industrial-led export sector”, infrastructures and what have you. It was vintage Zenawi. He gets a few challenging questions and he ignites into spontaneous self-combustion, a meltdown: “So what if the GTP doesn’t work! So what if we don’t have the money to implement it? So what if don’t have the institutional capacity to do it?! So what? I don’t have to tell you diddly squat. I will do as I please. It’s my way or you’re hitting the friggin’ highway!”
So what about Wikileaks?
The latest droplet of Wikileaks cable leak shows that back in January 2010, Zenawi met[2] with U.S. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero and Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson for a couple of hours and gave them a piece of his mind, or a tongue lashing depending on your point of view. There were two fascinating things about the meeting: 1) the summary of the discussions (or hectoring monologue), and 2) the ambiance of the meeting of which we get a glimpse.
After carefully studying and analyzing the cable summaries, one is immediately struck by the absence of any meaningful dialogue on the issues. Rather one is overwhelmed by a sense of unrestrained monologue directed at the Americans with rhetorical flair. Extrapolating from Zenawi’s known demeanor, behavior and pattern and practice in Q & A sessions in parliament (particularly when he is asked challenging questions or is on the receiving end of an unexpected reposte from a member), media interviews, speeches and his recent shocking verbal assault on the European Union Election Observer Mission as “garbage”, one can retrospectively imagine that Otero/Carson must have had a traumatizing 2 hours. Reasoning deductively and reading between the lines in the cable summaries, Zenawi appears angry, frustrated, defensive and defiant. He tries to persuasively convince Otero/Carson of his good intentions for the country, but ends up hectoring, lecturing and talking down to them on elementary principles of democracy. The tone of his voice seemed condescending and contemptuous. His words were tinged with bitterness, and he seemed impatient with his guests. Overall, the meeting seems to have been a 2-hour monologue delivered with rhetorical fury as Otero/Carson cringed in stunned disbelief.
In response to Otero/Carson’s concerns about the crackdown on civil society organizations, narrowing political space and the imprisonment of Birtukan Midekssa, the first female political party leader in Ethiopian history, Zenawi tries to outplay them with clever sophistry. He said “his government placed no restrictions on its citizens’ democratic and civil rights, only the right of foreign entities to fund them.” He seemed conveniently oblivious to the fact that he receives billions in foreign aid annually which he uses to entrench his political party, a notorious fact known to the population and donors since the stolen election of 2005. He counseled “those Ethiopians who want to engage in political activity to organize and fund themselves”. He said “foreign funding of charities” is welcome as long as the money is given to his side, and not to the other guys. It seems he lost his temper at one point haranguing Otero/Carson: “Ethiopians must organize and fund themselves and defend their own rights” because they “were not too poor to organize themselves and establish their own democratic traditions, recalling that within his lifetime illiterate peasants and poor students had overthrown an ancient imperial dynasty.”
Zenawi made it clear to Otero/Carson that he had nothing but contempt for his opposition. They are all just a bunch of whiners and wimps. He pontificated, “When people are committed to democracy and forced to make sacrifices for it, they won’t let any leader take it away from them.” He preached that in “our own struggle against the Derg regime, we received no foreign funding, but were willing to sacrifice and die for [our] cause.” He matter-of-factly declared that Ethiopians must “take ownership of their democratic development, be willing to sacrifice for it, and defend their own rights.”
Zenawi flashed a moment of reasonableness as he assured Otero/Carson not to be concerned about the 2010 election because it “will be free, fair, transparent, and peaceful…” But a question about potential violence caused by the opposition sent him into total spontaneous self-combustion: “If opposition groups resort to violence in an attempt to discredit the election,” Zenawi vowed, “We will crush them with our full force; they will all vegetate like Birtukan (Midekssa) in jail forever.” He asserted with bombastic bravado that there is no power on earth that can save them. “Nothing can protect them except the laws and constitution of Ethiopia!” Capisci! Otero? Carson? One can imagine Zenawi pounding his desk and screaming, “Capisci! Capisci!”
It is apparent from the cablegram that Otero and Carson were stunned into silence by Zenawi’s obstinacy and dogmatic single-mindedness in refusing to allow more political space, ease restrictions on opposition groups and civil society organizations and release Birtukan. As the two representatives of the World’s Greatest Superpower left the 2-hour verbal mauling, there could be no doubt in their minds that they had just met the “law and constitution of Ethiopia.” There is no indication that Otero/Carson learned any lessons from their close encounter of the fourth kind, but there are many to be learned indeed.
Lesson I. Crush your opponents with full force. Alternatively, vegetate them forever.
Anyone who opposes Zenawi will be crushed. Not with a teeny weeny bit of force. Not with reasonable force. Not even partial force. They will be crushed “with full force”. They will be crushed like roaches, bedbugs or spiders. Squish!
If you can’t crush them, then cage them like ferrets or rabbits; and sit back and watch them vegetate. Throw them in the dungeons. Let them rot in jail. So what! Who is going to save them? Better yet, coop them in solitary confinement and watch them turn into potted plants. See them go brain dead. Watch them go raving nuts, crazy. So what!
Lesson II. If you get into America’s face and stick it to her, she will always back down. Always!
American politicians like to talk big; but they rarely back up their talk with action. They have forked tongues, like serpents. They will jibber jabber about democracy, human rights and all that, but when things are down for the count, you will find them standing around twiddling their fingers and whistling Dixie. In fact, if you stand up to them, they will back down. There was a time when American foreign policy was guided by the old West African proverb: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” Now, they just speak softly, and instead of carrying a big stick they carry a big wad of cash, billions of it, and hand them out to those who have committed crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
The whole thing works backwards with the Americans. The more bad stuff you do, the more you are rewarded. Take the May 2005 Ethiopia election and all the nasty stuff that happened after that: an election stole, hundreds of citizens massacred in the streets, tens of thousands imprisoned, nearly all opposition leaders rounded-up and vegetated for nearly two years, anti-free press and anti-civic society laws enacted, Birtukan Midekssa incarcerated for 21-months incluyding prolonged periods of solitary confinement, Somalia invaded against the strong advise and disapproval of the U.S. (wink, wink) and on and on. So what did the folks at the U.S. State Department do? They patted Zenawi on the back and handed him blank checks for billions of American tax dollars. So what are the Americans going to do after the May 2010 elections? Send billions more in American tax dollars, of course. Duh!!!
Lesson III. “Democratization is a matter of survival.”
Zenawi says, “democratization is a matter of survival.” Zenawi’s survival, that is. If there is real democracy in the country, Zenawi’s regime will not survive because he will be voted out of office in heartbeat. If democracy stays alive in Ethiopia, Zenawi cannot survive. If Zenawi survives, democracy cannot stay alive. Stated more plainly, democracy and dictatorship cannot exist together in the same place and at the same time. Democracy necessarily means the end of dictatorship and vise versa. Therefore, there will be no democracy in Ethiopia as long as Zenawi’s regime survives. So what!
Lesson IV: If you want democracy, you must struggle and sacrifice for it.
Democracy is not something you get in a ballot casting match. All that pluralism and multipartyism stuff is hogwash. If you want democracy, you must “struggle, sacrifice and die for it”. What Zenawi is really saying is that “You ain’t gonna get the democracy we got through the bullet by stuffing ballots in a box.” There is no problem playing the whole election thing. It makes everybody happy, especially the American and European moneybags who dole out billions every year. But when push comes to shove, that is, if your idea is to push, shove and vote us out of power, it ain’t happening because “We will crush you with our full force.”
Lesson V. If your rights are being violated, defend them!
The opposition has been told, retold, advised and warned that the “international community will not be able to save them,” says Zenawi. But it is not just the international community that is powerless to help them. International law, international human rights treaties, international conventions, international diplomacy, the International Criminal Court, international public opinion, whatever – they are all useless to the opposition. So what if their rights are violated?
Lesson VI. Elections are like children’s marble game where everybody can play as long as the guy who owns the marbles wins all the time.
So what is all this hoopla and fuss about elections and democracy? The opposition is always whining, groaning and moaning about “free, fair, transparent, and peaceful” elections. The election business is not complicated. It is like playing marbles, except one guy owns all of the marbles and makes one rule: “He who owns the marbles wins all the time.”(a rule that is sometimes referred to as the “laws and constitution of Ethiopia”). In his election “victory” speech this past May, Zenawi proclaimed, “The important point in the election process is not the result of the election. It is not about which party won the election.” In other words, elections are not about winning or losing; they are about how you play the game. The opposition played the game, very badly and lost. So what if they don’t want to play anymore? It’s all good. They can hit the highway. We will bring in players who are willing to play the game and never expect or want to win.
Lesson VII. If you want to win, organize…
So what do you need to do if you want to win? Moaning, groaning, whining, wailing and sobbing ain’t going to do you much good. You need to organize, mobilize and energize your base. You need to teach, preach and reach the people.
Lesson VIII. You want funding, don’t beg for it like we do; dig deeper into your own wallets.
Cash? That is always a problem. It is OK to beg and collect billions in aid every year. It is OK to get Safety Net cash and Emergency Food Assistance and give it out to poor farmers in exchange for their votes. But no outside funds for the opposition because they and the “leaders of CSOs [civil society organizations] that receive foreign funding are not accountable to their organizations.” It is all about accountability and transparency. Zenawi is accountable for all of the aid money he gets, the opposition and the CSOs are not accountable for the meager international donations they get. So what if they need cash? Let them dig deep into their wallets.
Lesson: IX. The Rule and Power of One
Everybody, dig this: “There is one law, one regime, one ruler, one circus master and only one man who runs the show in Ethiopia.”
Hopefully you have all heard or read about WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organization that publishes documents from anonymous news sources and leaks. It has been doing that since 2006. These past few days it has been publishing leaked US State Department diplomatic cables. The US is not amused. It is ironic to see the “Western Democracies” crying foul, hacking and forcing Amazon, Pay Pal, Visa and eBay from offering service to WikiLeaks. On the other hand those that abhor government secrecy are overjoyed.
Naturally I was curious to read what the US has to say about our country. I was eager to find out what our Ferenji ‘enablers’ think of their little ‘Kebele’ administrators. The Ethiopian people do not need WikiLeaks to know the ruthless nature of the ethnic based regime in power. They live the nightmare. I was more focused to see if the US Embassy assessment of Meles and company reflects reality on the ground.
I was not disappointed. Actually I was rather impressed by the richness, detail and frank reporting by the diplomats. They actually get it! Their analysis of Zimbabwe and Mugabe is brilliant to say the least:
To give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactician and has long thrived on his ability to abruptly change the rules of the game, radicalize the political dynamic and force everyone else to react to his agenda. However, he is fundamentally hampered by several factors: his ego and belief in his own infallibility; his obsessive focus on the past as a justification for everything in the present and future; his deep ignorance on economic issues (coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him
the authority to suspend the laws of economics, including supply and demand); and his essentially short-term, tactical style.
One can actually substitute Meles for Mugabe and the description will be right on target. The Embassy cables from Mr. Putin’s Russia is downright scary. Today’s Russia is described as ‘highly centralized, occasionally brutal and all but irretrievably cynical and corrupt. The Kremlin, by this description, lies at the center of a constellation of official and quasi-official rackets.’ Again the similarity with the Meles regime is eerie to say the least. The regime doesn’t seem to discriminate where it gets its arsenal of coercive ideas.
Well the cables from Addis Abeba are beginning to come out. I am not disappointed. We have seen two and they seem to bring everything we know about the banana republic into sharp focus. It gives us a clear picture of the nature of Meles and his relationship with his ‘enablers’. One can stretch the analogy and describe it as ‘mutually beneficial.’ The tricky part is answering exactly beneficial to whom? Yes my friend that is the gist of the matter.
I am going to concentrate on the meeting between Meles Zenawi accompanied by his advisor Gebretensae Gebremichael and US Assistant Secretary Maria Otero, Assistant Secretary Johnny Carson and NSC Senior Director Michelle Gavin in January of 2020. One thing the cables shows us is the fuzzy nature of ‘diplomatic speak.’ The language is very anemic leaving it open to various interpretations, the sentences are short and ideas are thrown in as suggestions to nudge the listener to a desired outcome.
This particular meeting was to get Meles, who represented Africa at the Copenhagen climate summit, to sign the Copenhagen accord. Although the summit was felt to be a failure due to the absence of a binding agreement, the US was convinced it serves its interest and was focused on forcing its friends and client states to sign on the doted line.
Mrs. Otero’s mission was to get the signature, Mr. Carson’s role was to point out President Obama’s ‘commitment’ to democracy and the rule of law while the NSC’s (National Security Council) representative was there to assure Meles to take Carson’s pronouncements with a grain of salt. As usual, language played a central role in the discussion. Please note that the US diplomats, in order not to be seen as clueless idiots, informed the regime their concern regarding the forthcoming elections, the so called charities law enacted by the regime and the situation regarding opposition leader Birtukan, and the Diaspora that is a constant headache. It was all done in a low-key manner.
There is no such thing as subtlety and finesse when it comes to Meles Zenawi. The description ‘a bull in china store’ is a perfect fit. He must have been in a euphoric mood. His words were very forceful and crude. His logic was clear only to himself. It requires cojones to lecture Assistant Secretary Carson regarding the true meaning of fighting for democracy. Assistant Secretary Carson was born when a Black American was a second-class citizen in his own country. He was part of the Civil Right struggle. He knows what it means to be denied freedom. I will quote the cable so you can feel the anger:
Meles said his country’s inability to develop a strong democracy was not due to insufficient understanding of democratic principles, but rather because Ethiopians had not internalized those principles. Ethiopia should follow the example of the U.S. and European countries, he said, where democracy developed organically and citizens had a stake in its establishment. When people are committed to democracy and forced to make sacrifices for it, Meles said, “they won’t let any leader take it away from them.” But “when they are spoon-fed democracy, they will give it up when their source of funding and encouragement is removed.” Referencing his own struggle against the Derg regime, Meles said he and his compatriots received no foreign funding, but were willing to sacrifice and die for their cause, and Ethiopians today must take ownership of their democratic development, be willing to sacrifice for it, and defend their own rights.
Please read it again. The statement does not make sense. The statement is full of holes and is based on lies and made-up facts. It is a product of a deranged mind. The Ethiopian people have internalized the true meaning of democracy. Based on the principle of one-person one vote the Ethiopian people stood all day to cast their ballot in May 2005. When Ato Meles tried to nullify their vote they came out and protested. They were met with an overwhelming force. Like any rational human being they retreated. Weakness should not be looked at as ignorance. No one has ‘spoon-fed democracy’ to our people; rather our rulers have shoved the bayonet down our throat. As for the struggle Ato Meles and his party waged, it is not a license to further abuse and ill govern. I thought Ato Meles and his party fought for our collective freedom then what is this talk about further struggle after they liberated us. Do we have to pick up arms to get rid of them too? It is doable but is it necessary?
I said Assistant Secretary Maria Otero came to collect a signature. The cables are a good example of big power using big stick diplomacy cushioned in diplomatic language:
U/S Otero urged Meles to sign the Copenhagen accord on climate change and explained that it is a point of departure for further discussion and movement forward on the topic.
You know what that means in simple everyday English? Unless you sign on the doted line there is no need to speak anymore. The record shows Meles protested that he has ‘personal’ assurance from Obama for releasing the money and it has not happened yet and Secretary Gavin assured him she ‘would look into it.’ It looks like Meles does not understand that Mr. Obama does not have the authority to make personal assurance. He has to talk to his experts, consult his allies and inform Congress. Only despots make personal decisions in the name of their subjects.
You know what came to mind when I read that? My son when he was a baby always wants to eat the desert before the meal and I tell him eat your dinner and then you can have your dessert. Here we are as a government and Meles wants his dessert before he delivers Africa. How pathetic.
You notice the title says orphan Ethiopia. I read Prof. Alemayehu’s analysis regarding our conflict with Somalia. I felt depressed. I read WikiLeaks cable regarding elections and climate change and I felt more depressed. We have President Obama, Secretary Otero, Secretary Carson and Secretary Gavin systematically advancing the national interest of their country. Sitting across the table from them we have a despot fighting for his family and friends communal interest. The US strategy is to fight the terrorist menace far away from American shores and they are willing to make friends with the devil as long as it keeps the battle far from the homeland. We have Meles and company using every trick to stay in power even if it means betraying their people, their country and their flag to stay in power one more day.
We ventured into Somalia to deflect attention from election theft; we support climate change accord for a fistful of dollars and may be a future job for Meles. In the mean time our country and people are on a forced march backwards into the past. The revelations from WikiLeaks are not done yet. What would tomorrow bring?
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Sir Walter Scott, the English novelist and poet. It looks like the U.S. of A is really in a pickle tangled in a web of lies, deceit and diplomatic chicanery about its role and involvement in the 2006 invasion of Somalia by the dictator in Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi. The truth about the “fantastic Somalia job” (invasion), as the crown prince of Abu Dhabi called it, is now coming to light in the diplomatic cables acquired by Wikileaks, the organization dedicated to publishing sensitive documents from anonymous sources and whistleblowers. David Axe (Wired.com) citing Wikileaks cables last week argued that the U.S. had actually hired Zenawi to “do its dirty work” in Somalia. Axe wrote[1]:
It was an off-hand compliment during a January 2007 dinner [the month following Zenawi’s full scale invasion of Somalia] meeting between Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, plus staff, and then-U.S. Central Commander boss General John Abizaid…. ‘The Somalia job was fantastic,’ Al Nahyan interjected… At the time of Al Nahyan’s comment, the dust was just settling from Ethiopia’s Blitzkrieg-style assault toward Mogadishu. Some 50,000 Ethiopian troops… had cut a bloody swath through the lightly-armed forces of the Islamic Courts Union…. Washington certainly had a motive to get involved in Somalia… Already with two escalating wars on its own plate, the U.S. was in no position to openly lead its own large-scale attack on Somalia. It’d have been far simpler to simply sponsor somebody else to do the dirty work. Enter Ethiopia…. All the same, evidence was mounting that the U.S. had played a leading role in the Ethiopian invasion. Journalists only strongly suspected it, but Abu Dhabi prince Al Nayhan apparently knew it for certain, if his praise of “the Somalia job” was any indication…. Today, U.S. Special Forces continue to target terrorists in Somalia. There are arguably more of them than ever, thanks in part to the botched Ethiopian invasion. ‘We’ve made a lot of mistakes and Ethiopia’s entry in 2006 was not a really good idea,’ U.S. diplomat Donald Yamamoto said in March.
Blowback and Plausible Deniability
There appear to be two parallel cover stories invented from the beginning to explain U.S. involvement (and alternatively, non-involvement) in Zenawi’s invasion of Somalia. The first story is that Zenawi presented the U.S. a fait accompli (done deal) to invade Somalia. The U.S. advised against such an invasion but reluctantly supported it after it became clear that Zenawi’s decision was irreversible. The second is what may be called “throw-Zenawi-under-the-bus” story. If there is a blowback on the U.S. from Zenawi’s invasion because of high civilian casualties, other humanitarian disasters or prolonged stalemate, the U.S. could simply dump the entire blame on Zenawi and claim plausible deniability. In other words, “Zenawi did it on his own. The U.S. had nothing to do with it. The U.S. advised him not to invade. Blame Zenawi.” The straight story is that the U.S. not only supported the invasion but was actually snagged into supporting the invasion by the clever, calculating and cunning Zenawi.
The available evidence suggests that Zenawi had been spinning his own web of deceit and lies to entangle the U.S. in a Horn war in 2006 for two purposes: 1) to ingratiate himself with the U.S. and panhandle for more aid handouts, and 2) effectively deflect criticism of his miserable human rights record in the aftermath of the stolen May 2005 elections. In the run up to the Somali invasion, Zenawi was facing withering criticism and condemnation for his massive repression, massacres of hundreds of unarmed protesters and jailing of nearly all the opposition leaders, independent newspaper publishers, civic society leaders and human rights advocates in the country. By the Spring of 2006, an unprecedented bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress to cut off aid to Zenawi unless he improved his human rights record. Zenawi clearly understood that significant American support was essential for the very survival of his repressive regime. Zenawi was also keenly aware of American obsession, fixation and preoccupation with Al Qaeda in the Horn. Zenawi calculated that if he could seduce and snag the U.S. in an invasion of Somalia by presenting himself as an “Al Qaeda Hunter in the Horn”, he could have the best of all possible worlds. He could make best friends for life with the U.S. and forever forestall any actions that could result in a cutoff of U.S. aid to his regime or other unpleasant diplomatic pressure.
The evidence suggests that to accomplish this objective Zenawi concocted “false intelligence” to entice the U.S. into supporting his invasion of Somalia by essentially sounding the siren call that will always catch America’s attention: “The Jihadists are coming!!!” On June 6, 2006, six months before the full-scale invasion that led to the siege of Mogadishu and one month before a small contingent of Zenawi’s troops were sent to defend the Somali “Transitional Federal Government” (TGF) in Baidoa, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen, who incidentally facilitated Zenawi’s takeover of power in Ethiopia in May 1991, shared an illuminating and well-informed insight:
Also, there are friends in the region, like the Ethiopians, who probably are feeding false intelligence about terrorists being hidden and that sort of thing, because the Ethiopians are deadly afraid of Moslem control and also they have their own Moslem problem among the Oromo ethnic group in Ethiopia. So they want to keep the Islamists out of power, and they will bring the U.S. into it, if they can.
By early Summer of 2006, former Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, who advised the U.S. Secretary of State and the Under Secretary for Political Affairs on African matters, was quietly working behind the scenes to facilitate the invasion of Somalia and spinning a web of lies and deception to conceal the nature of U.S. involvement. By mid-July 2006, the die had been cast and the initial invasion of Somalia had occurred when Zenawi deployed a contingent of his troops to prop up the TGF. In the preceding weeks, Frazer was priming the diplomatic circles and mollifying world public opinion by claiming that while the U.S. does not support an invasion of Somalia, it will not allow the “disintegration” of the TGF by jihadists and will “rally” to support Zenawi if he were to invade.[2]:
A confidential UN cable obtained by Human Rights Watch indicates that in a conversation with UN officials in June 2006, US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer noted that the situation in Somalia was ‘uncertain.’ According to the notes, she presented the view that Eritrea had stepped over the line and that Ethiopia viewed Eritrean action in Somalia ‘as tantamount to opening a second front against Ethiopia.’ Dr. Frazer’s best-case scenario was that the ICU and TFG would engage in dialogue; the worst-case scenario was the expansion of the ICU throughout Somalia and the disintegration of the TFG. Dr. Frazer noted that the latter scenario would have a major negative impact in the Horn and that the US and IGAD would not allow it. She allegedly expressed the view that while the US feared an Ethiopian intervention could rally ‘foreign elements,’ the US would rally with Ethiopia if the ‘Jihadists’ took over.
By mid-December 2006, less than two weeks before Zenawi fully unleashed his “blitzkrieg” on Somalia and rumbled into Mogadishu, Fraser was setting the propaganda stage to convince the world that jihadists were provoking an Ethiopian attack. The N.Y. Times reported on December 14, 2006, that Frazer “said that diplomatic and intelligence officials believed that the Islamists could be trying to provoke an Ethiopian attack as a ‘rallying cry for support’ to their side.” On December 27, 2006, just as Zenawi’s troops were storming through the desert to Mogadishu after capturing the strategic town of Jowhar ninety miles to the north, the U.S. State Department endorsed the invasion by declaring that Islamist forces were creating “genuine security concerns” for Ethiopia. U.S. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said: “Ethiopia has genuine security concerns with regard to developments in Somalia and has provided support at the request of the legitimate governing authority, the Transitional Federal institutions.”
All along, the U.S. had been working quietly with Zenawi providing training and military aid in manifest anticipation of the Somalia invasion. The invasion deal was sealed on December 4, 2006, when General John Abizaid, Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), met with Zenawi in Addis Ababa on what was billed as a “courtesy call to an ally”. Following Zenawi’s invasion of Somalia three weeks later, it became clear that the “courtesy call” was actually “the final handshake” to go forward with a full scale invasion[3]. On January 8, 2007, a little over a week after Zenawi’s troops had triumphantly captured Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, U.S.A. TODAY reported[4] :
The U.S. and Ethiopian militaries have ‘a close working relationship,’ Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter said. The ties include intelligence sharing, arms aid and training that gives the Ethiopians ‘the capacity to defend their borders and intercept terrorists and weapons of mass destruction,‘ he said. There are about 100 U.S. military personnel currently working in Ethiopia, Carpenter said.
Two weeks earlier on December 24, 2006, as heavy shelling and air strikes were directed at “jihadist” forces in border areas and the town of Beledweyne was being bombarded, Zenawi had described his decision to invade Somalia using almost the same words as the Pentagon. In a televised address Zenawi said, “Ethiopian defense forces were forced to enter into war to the protect the sovereignty of the nation and to blunt repeated attacks by Islamic courts terrorists and anti-Ethiopian elements they are supporting.”
By August 2007, Zenawi’s troops were bogged down in Somalia and the human cost was proving to be horrendous: Tens of thousands of civilians had died and over 870,000 Somalis had been forced to flee their homes in Mogadishu alone. By then, Somalia could only be described as “as one of the worst humanitarian situations in Africa.” The U.S. could see a huge blowback heading its way; it was time to take cover. Fraser did not blink once when she threw Zenawi under the bus. She said it was all Zenawi’s fault. On September 6, 2007, TIME Magazine reported[5]:
But, as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer has said, Washington opposed the invasion of Somalia. ‘We urged the Ethiopian military not to go into Somalia,’ said Frazer last month. ‘They did so because of their own national-security interests.’ This version of events, contrary to a common perception that the invasion was backed or even initiated by the U.S., is supported by accounts of a November 2006 meeting in Addis between Meles and the then head of U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid. Sources from both sides relate that Abizaid told Meles he was ‘not allowed’ to invade Somalia, adding Somalia would become ‘Ethiopia’s Iraq.’ (An official in Washington disputes the precise language, but confirms the essence of the discussion.
Fraser repeated the same story line on February 12, 2008, when she told Newsweek Magazine[6]:
We told them [Ethiopia] that they should not go in. Once they went in absolutely we had to try to assist them and the [Somali] transitional federal government, which had invited them in. We support the transitional federal government and its decision to ask the Ethiopians to assist them.
The web of lies and deception had come to a complete circle in late 2007, and the “fantastic Somalia job” had managed to create a grotesque theater of death and destruction throughout Somalia.
The Jihadists Are Coming!
As many of my readers are aware, I have written extensively on the illegal invasion of Somalia on a number of occasions. I will reference three columns that I wrote on the issue. On November 28, 2006, a month before Zenawi’s tanks “blitzkrieged” their way into Mogadishu, I wrote a column entitled, “The Jihadists are Coming!”, arguing that Zenawi had fabricated the Somali jihadist threat to deflect attention from his dismal human rights record and repression and to buy the good will and diplomatic support of the U.S.[7]:
But the whole jihadist business smacks of political fantasy. It’s surreal. Mr. Zenawi says the Somali jihadists and their Al Qaeda partners should be opposed and defeated because they are undemocratic, anti-democratic, oppressive and authoritarian. The jihadists don’t believe in human rights and do not allow political or social dissent. They are fanatics who want to impose one-party rule, and do not believe in a democracy where the people elect their representatives. Duh!!! Has Mr. Zenawi looked at the mirror lately?
On October 2, 2008, in a column entitled, “The End of Pax Zenawi in Somalia”, I questioned whether the military effort to impose “Zenawi’s Peace” on the Somali people had finally collapsed[8]:
The situation in Somalia has turned Code Red. Things are deteriorating very fast for Zenawi’s troops. The Al-Shabaab “jihadists” have taken over Southern Somalia, and are ravenously eyeing Mogadishu. It is no longer “hit-and-run” guerrilla warfare. It is capture-and-stay…. Zenawi’s forces are in full “strategic retreat” to Mogadishu. After nearly two years of intervention and occupation of Somalia, there are no signs of success; and an anniversary of total failure in the quicksand of Somalia awaits Zenawi this coming December. Could this be the end of Pax Zenawi in Somalia?
On November 3, 2008, I followed up with another column entitled, “The 843-Day War”, based on a systematic content analysis of Zenawi’s public statements, and laid out the intricately fabricated sophistry Zenawi had used to justify his invasion of Somalia. I concluded:
It appears Zenawi completely underestimated the insurgents and the Somali people and overestimated the military prowess of his troops. He really did not know the Somalis as much as he thought he knew them. He underestimated their resolve to fight a force that had invaded and occupied their country.
Unmitigated Catastrophe in Somalia
Perhaps there is nothing surprising about disclosures of use of deceit and trumped-up intelligence by the Bush Administration to justify a proxy preemptive attack on a shattered nation that presented no credible threat to the United States. The tragedy is that by the time Zenawi had announced his decision to pull out his troops by December 2008, Somalia had become an “unmitigated catastrophe.” According to Human Rights Watch:
In 2008 the human rights and humanitarian situation in Somalia deteriorated into unmitigated catastrophe. Several thousand civilians have been killed in fighting. More than one million Somalis are now displaced from their homes and thousands flee across the country’s borders every month. Mogadishu, a bustling city of 1.2 million people in 2006, has seen more than 870,000 of its residents displaced by the armed conflict.
Someone, someday will be held accountable for all of the crimes against humanity, and the Almighty committed in Somalia.
The fact of the matter is that Zenawi would never invade Somalia except with the blessing and full support of the U.S. He is too cunning, too calculating and too sly to invade Somalia all by himself and at the explicit and strong disapproval of the U.S., as it has been claimed by Frazer. It is interesting to note that the U.S. has never condemned Zenawi’s invasion of Somalia, despite protestations that the U.S. had strongly advised against invasion and warned Zenawi that “Somalia would be Ethiopia’s Iraq.” Suffice it to say that the story of the Somali invasion of 2006 is akin to two spiders spinning their webs to entangle each other and suddenly found themselves in the middle of a hornet’s nest.
On March 12, 2010, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, Donald Yamamoto said, “We’ve made a lot of mistakes and Ethiopia’s entry in 2006 was not a really good idea.” He did not clarify the nature of the “mistakes”. Could it be that it was “not a really good idea” because the U.S. was exposed as a not-so-silent partner in the outsourced invasion of Somalia? Or could it be that it was a mistake because the hired gun botched the Somalia job? Perhaps the U.S. still supports Zenawi to the hilt because he did and continues to do such a “fantastic job in Somalia”.
As they say, “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.” Well, it looks like Wikileaks is slowly lifting the curtain on the funny business the U.S. and Zenawi have been doing in the dark all these years.
RELEASE ALL ETHIOPIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS.
[1] http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/12/wikileaked-cable-confirms-u-s-secret-somalia-op/
[2] See “Shell-Shocked: Civilians Under Siege in Mogadishu,” Human Rights Watch, Vol. 19, 12(a), August 2007, p. 22, fn. 63.
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/13/alqaida.usa
[4] http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-07-ethiopia_x.htm
[5] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1659389,00.html#ixzz173rg1uwr
[6] http://www.newsweek.com/2008/02/11/fragile-institutions.html
[7] http://almariamforthedefense.blogspot.com/2006/11/jihadists-are-coming.html
[8] http://www.abugidainfo.com/?p=6175
[9] http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/6041
[10] Human Rights Watch, “So Much to Fear: War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia,” December 2008, p.19
Looking up from the sewers, everything must look like garbage!
Last week, dictator Meles Zenawi ripped the final election report of the 2010 European Union Election Observer Mission to Ethiopia (EU EOM) as “trash that deserves to be thrown in the garbage“. He said, “The report is not about our election. It is just the view of some Western neo-liberals who are unhappy about the strength of the ruling party. Anybody who has paper and ink can scribble whatever they want.”
On August 29, 2005, Zenawi slammed the final election report of the 2005 EU EOM Ethiopia 2005 Report as “garbage” and a “farce”. He said, “The statement, in my view, shows that the mission has turned out to be something worse than a farce… We shall, in the coming days and weeks, see what we can do to expose the pack of lies and innuendoes that characterize the garbage in this report.” No wonder Zenawi got chosen as Africa’s chief environmentalist and representative to the global climate change conference. He is an expert in recycling garbage.
The fact of the matter is that Zenawi cannot mistreat a member of the European Parliament and officials authorized by the same body the way he mistreats and demeans his own members of parliament. Talking down and hurling abusive language at members of his own parliament is one thing, but doing the same to a mission authorized by the European Parliament is an entirely different matter. To call the EU EOM Report “garbage” is to invite others to use the same word to describe the election itself. Such language is unacceptable, as they say in the diplomatic world.
Zenawi is legendary for his mastery and exquisite delivery of gutter language. He can out-tongue-lash, out-mudsling, out-vilify and out-smear any politician on the African continent. He is the iconic in-your-face mudslinger-cum-bully who will unsheath his claws, bare his teeth and pounce at the faintest sign of criticism. Just as he called the EU EOM 2005 Report a “pack of lies and innuendoes”, he blasted the March 11, 2010 U.S. State Department’s “Reports on Human Rights Practices” on Ethiopia[1] as “lies, lies and implausible lies.” He ridiculed the U.S. State Department for not being able to tell a crooked lie straight: “The least one could expect from this report, even if there are lies is that they would be plausible ones,” snarled Zenawi. “But that is not the case. It is very easy to ridicule it [report], because it is so full of loopholes. They could very easily have closed the loopholes and still continued to lie.” His consigliere, Bereket Simon chimed in: “It is the same old junk. It’s a report that intends to punish the image (sic) of Ethiopia and try if possible to derail the peaceful and democratic election process.” In the same month, Zenawi lambasted the Voice of America as the voice of genocide: “We have been convinced for many years that in many respects, the VOA Amharic Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda.”
Just before the May 2010 election, Zenawi cranked up his “Insulto-Matic” machine and verbally shredded his former comrade-in-arms and rhetorically clobbered his critics[2]. He called them “muckrakers,” “mud dwellers” and good-for-nothing “chaff” and “husk.” He accused them of being “anti-democratic,” “anti-people” fomenters of “interhamwe.” He characterized them as “sooty,” “sleazy,” “gun-toting marauders,” “pompous egotists” and every other name in the book. He repeatedly denounced his opposition for “rolling in a quagmire of mud” and trying to “smear mud on the people”. He said they were “dirtying up the people like themselves.” After all was said in that speech, it was clear that he was the only one doing all the mud-slinging and mud-rolling (chika jiraf and chika mab-kwat).
Last month, Simon broadsided Human Rights Watch as ‘a frustrated, self-appointed kingmaker institution” for issuing a 105-page report entitled: “Development without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia”. Simon told the Voice of America: “This is a report by some highly frustrated and self-appointed kingmaker institution in the U.S. Just because what they dreamt of in Ethiopia didn’t take place, they are doing whatever they can to tarnish the image of the country.” It was a curious choice of royal metaphor to use by the chief mouthpiece of the emperor with no clothes.
In December 2009, after keeping Birtukan Midekssa, the first female opposition political party leader in Ethiopia history, in solitary confinement for months, Zenawi mocked her as a “silly chicken” that “hanged herself”. He cautioned: “As our parents say, ‘A hen once heard of a fad and hanged herself trying to follow it.'” In April 2008, he scoffed at the international human rights organizations who criticized his “press law” by telling them that his new press law will be “on par with the best in the world.”
It’s always the same old lying, thieving, conniving and scheming neoliberal, neo-colonial, hegemonic and globalizing neo-imperialist SOBs and their local lackeys against Zenawi!
Sound, Fury and Buffoonery
The use of vulgarity, slamming opponents with foul and pejorative language and open display of contempt and disrespect for the opposition and critics are Zenawi’s stock in trade. He has perfected the art of mudslinging and mudrolling (chika jiraf and chika mabkwat). Regular followers of his public statements no longer cringe as he caricatures himself in his unrestrained use of barnyard language. His repeated public rhetorical meltdowns have become a source of perverse amusement for some. The question is whether Zenawi is full of sound and fury that signifies nothing; or whether there is a method to his rhetorical buffoonery?
It is rather obvious that Zenawi likes to be brazenly provocative. Every time criticism gets under his skin, he goes ballistic, bombastic and hyperbolic. As many of my readers know, I am fascinated by the “grammar of dictators”[3]. I am particularly intrigued by the thoughts and ideas that circulate in the minds of dictators who are drunk as a skunk on power, though I am disgusted by the filthy words that ooze out of their mouths. To be sure, my interests go beyond simple intellectual curiosity. As a political scientist and a lawyer, I have a special professional interest in the use of language and words in political discourse and legal and forensic analysis. I believe language is the roadmap of the mind. To find out what is in a person’s mind, I say, follow the word trail. Words provide snapshots of what is deeply buried under the landscape and terrains of the mind. When we speak, our words reveal the state of our mind, the temperature of our feelings and emotions and the clarity or opacity in which we perceive the world. Most importantly, the words we use reflect our values, principles and upbringing, or the lack thereof. When we communicate using filthy and vulgar language, we reveal our filthy and vulgar values. When we express ourselves in scatological (filthy) and eschatological (end of the world) language, we reveal our deepest beliefs and convictions about who we are and how we view the world. Immoral and depraved language is the outward sign of one’s inner moral bankruptcy.
So, why would anyone descend from the sublimely grand stage of world politics to use gutter language? Part of the answer to this question may be found in Thijs Berman’s (the head of the EU EOM to Ethiopia 2010) response to Zenawi’s vulgarism: “One-hundred and seventy independent observers have been working here in Ethiopia to assess the electoral process in a very serious and professional way. Anyone who tries to show contempt for this professional work shows contempt for himself. It is degrading for the prime minister to react this way.” In other words, when Zenawi points an index finger at the EU EOM Mission and calls them “garbage”, he would be wise to keep in mind that three fingers are pointing straight at him.
A more systematic explanation of “gutter diplomacy” (the use of gutter language for political discourse and diplomatic communication) may be found in the literature of political psychology and forensic linguistics. As I have observed previously[4], “all dictators are criminals.” As a criminal defense lawyer and political scientist, I have had ample opportunities to observe firsthand the workings of the criminal mind, and academically to study dictators as “state criminals.” My conclusion is that the difference between the street criminal and the state criminal is a matter of degree and magnitude. The street criminal targets individuals in the neighborhood for his criminal wrongdoing. The state criminal targets the people of an entire nation.
Dictators who have wielded power over a period of time suffer a psychopathological condition that could best be described as “aggressive megalomanical narcissistic syndrome”. Simply stated, as dictators steal and accumulate more wealth and aggrandize political power by killing, jailing and torturing their opponents, they begin to fantasize that they are omnipotent and invincible. They convince themselves that the image they see in the mirror every morning is an awesome demigod to be worshipped and feared. They fall in love with the image in the mirror (narcissism) and begin to worship that image as an omnipotent deity (megalomania). They isolate themselves in an echo chamber cut off from the outside world and surround themselves with fawning sycophants and yes-men who constantly tell them how great, how powerful and how special they are. The dictators become obsessed with the image in the mirror and fantasize about the grandiose and extravagant things they can do. They brood over fantasies of a historic and heroic destiny. They believe their own press releases. They become shameless, conscience-less and arrogant. They convince themselves that as demigods they are as near-perfect as any part-human, part-god can get. So if there is fault, it can never be theirs; it must be the fault of the lowly plebeians. So they dump (as in dumping garbage) their faults on their victims and enjoy watching them wallowing in it.
“Fault dumping” or blaming the victim is an important defensive and offensive weapon in the psychological arsenal of all criminals. The wife beater says, “I didn’t do it. She made me do it!” The dope dealer who pushes drugs on neighborhood children excuses himself by claiming that he is “just trying to make a living”. He does not see the obvious contradiction of making a living by killing children with poisonous drugs. The state criminal is no different. He shifts the blame on his victims. If 200 unarmed protesters are gunned down in the street, it is their own damn fault. They had no business out in the streets. If there are food shortages, it is because people are eating too much. May be they should eat one meal every three days.
“Fault dumping” psychologically nourishes criminals and enables them to justify their crimes and cruelties by diminishing, debasing and degrading their victims. Since most hard core criminals are basically insecure about themselves and have an abysmally low sense of self-worth, the try to prove their superiority and invincibility by degrading, disparaging, dishonoring, humiliating and insulting those who do and try to do things according to the established rules and procedures. State criminals crave the constant admiration and reaffirmation of others, particularly those they perceive to be superior to them. They believe that because they are special, they are entitled to absolute respect, honor and loyalty, and the approval and obedience of all. They loathe and fear criticism because it represents rejection in their minds and destroys their fragile self-image of faultless demigods. Anyone who criticizes them or defies their will automatically triggers a narcissistic meltdown. They become totally enraged and lash out uncontrollably. They lose their sense of decorum and propriety; and because they have lost their sense of shame, they are unable to tell the proper boundaries of civilized behavior and good manners and find themselves freefalling into the gutter where they begin to communicate in their own special language of “thugspeak” or “gutterese”.
The Language of “Thugspeak” or “Gutterese”
Readers familiar with George Orwell and others writing in his genre are familiar with words like “doublespeak”, “doubletalk” and “doublethink.” These terms signify the use of language to deliberately disguise and distort the meaning of words, or to force acceptance of mutually contradictory beliefs as harmonious. I would like to indulge in a neologism of sorts (by minting a couple of new words as it were) by introducing the words “thugspeak” (the language of thugs) and “gutterese” (the language of the gutter) in understanding the political use of language to shock and horrify, to intimidate and harass, to badger and to verbally bludgeon, to bully and to browbeat, to disarm and disconcert, to stun and to stupefy, to demoralize and to demonize, to unnerve, to outrage and to distract one’s adversaries.
When Zenawi declared that the EU EOM Report “deserves to be thrown in the garbage” and represents nothing more than the “scribblings of anyone with pen and pencil”, what he is doing is using “thugspeak” or “gutterese” to bully, psychologically bludgeon, humiliate and demonize the EU EOM. Zenawi’s words may be shocking to the EU EOM, but they have long been part of his linguistic repertoire. But to understand Zenawi’s tongue-lashing and tongue-blasting of the EU EOM, one has to first translate the Report into the language of “thugspeak” or “gutterese”. For the second time in 5 years, the EU EOM told Zenawi that the “electoral process fell short of international commitments for elections” and there was a “lack of a level playing field for all contesting parties.” Translated from EU EOM diplomatese (language of diplomats) into “thugspeak” or “gutterese”, that means, “You stole the election!” It is this barely veiled accusation of election thievery that is at the core of Zenawi’s sound, fury, rage and complete meltdown.
The fact of the matter is that the EU EOM report hurt Zenawi in the most vulnerable part of his psyche, his fragile ego. It is too much to bear for a man who perceives himself to be Africa’s foremost “revolutionary new breed intellectual leader” who rubs elbows with the world’s high and mighty. He cannot jack up the EU EOM on “treason” or “terrorism” charges. He cannot jail them. He cannot confront and fight them in the diplomatic arena or challenge them factually and analytically on their findings in a free and open forum. The only thing he could do is to try and drag them down into the gutter for a mudfest. All of the media theatricality, temper tantrums and verbal pyrotechnics are the frontline weapons of “gutter warfare” deployed to discredit, vilify and humiliate the EU EOM, distract the international community and misdirect the Ethiopian public from focusing on the body of the crime: the stolen election. But EU EOM Mission head Berman would not take the bait and descend into the gutter. He seems to be all too familiar with the proverbial mud wrestling match with the pig. Both contestants get dirty, but the pig enjoys the experience infinitely more.
Trash or Truth
The interesting thing about the EU EOM Report is that it is as balanced as any report compiled by an independent group of observers following specific guidelines could reasonably be. I concede that grudgingly because I have a lot of bones to pick with the Report. I could rattle off 41 objections to the report in one breath. For instance, I believe the Report could have been more resolute in its findings and conclusions about the rampant irregularities and illegalities on election day and the days immediately preceding that. The Report could have comprehensively documented the massive diversion of aid for political purposes. The Report could have responded more aggressively in verifying and pursuing opposition complaints of pre-election harassment and voter intimidation on election day, and so on.
On balance, the Report had many good and positive things to say about the electoral process and the regime. Zenawi disserves himself by throwing out the baby with the bath water. The fact that Zenawi won 99.6 percent of the seats is not the EU EOM’s fault. He said he won those seats fair and square. The EU EOM Report simply said such an outcome is manifestly incredible and could not be reasonably expected from a free and fair election anywhere. There is absolutely nothing in the report that justifies calling it “garbage” or the “scribble of anyone with pen and paper.” Following are verbatim extracts of most of the major findings and conclusions of the Report:
The 23 May 2010 elections were held in a generally peaceful environment, as unanimously called for by all stakeholders.
The Ethiopian Constitution and legal framework provided an adequate basis for the conduct of
genuine elections in line with international and regional commitments subscribed to by Ethiopia.
The Constitution, Electoral Law and other election-related regulations protect political and civil
rights and allow for genuine elections, as well as the freedoms of association, assembly, movement and expression.
The NEBE administered the elections in a competent and professional manner given its limited
resources, overcoming significant technical challenges.
Candidate registration was carried out in an adequate manner. The requirements for candidates
were not discriminatory.
The media covered the main campaign events in a relatively neutral tone. However, state-owned media failed to ensure a balanced coverage, giving the ruling party more than 50% of its total coverage in both print and broadcast media.
The provisions for complaints related to voting, counting and consolidation were significantly
strengthened in the last five years.
Election Day unfolded in a generally peaceful and orderly manner, with a high voter turnout.
Secrecy of the vote was respected despite minor irregularities.
Some shortcomings were noted in the training of polling station staff and in the consistency and coherence of technical information received and aggregated by the electoral authority, such as complete polling station lists, which affected the overall transparency of the process.
The freedoms of assembly, of expression and of movement were not consistently respected
throughout the country during the campaign period, generally to the detriment of opposition
parties.
The separation between the ruling party and the public administration was blurred at the local
level in many parts of the country. The EU EOM directly observed cases of misuse of state
resources in the ruling party’s campaign activities.
Women are under-represented in the Ethiopian political scene and within the electoral
administration.
In 27% of cases observed, polling station results were different to those previously recorded by observers at polling stations. In several cases, incomplete or incorrect forms from polling stations were corrected or completed at constituency electoral offices. The transparency of the process was considered unsatisfactory in 40% of observed cases.
The ruling party and its partner parties won 544 of the 547 seats to the HPR and all but four of
the 1,904 seats in the State Councils.
The electoral process fell short of international commitments for elections, notably regarding the transparency of the process and the lack of a level playing field for all contesting parties.
Apologies and Thanks are Due to Thijs Berman and His Team of Observers
When the 60-person African Union (AU) observer team led by former Botswana president Ketumile Masire instantly concluded that the May 2010 “elections were free and fair and [they] found no evidence of intimidation and misuse of state resources for ruling party campaigns”, I was tempted to use intemperate language to express my disapproval, but I restrained myself and stuck to the facts and the standards set in the African Union Election Observation and Monitoring Guidelines.[5] I wrote[6]:
With all due respect to Masire, it seems that he made his declaration clueless of the observation standards he is required to follow in the AU Elections Observation and Monitoring Guidelines. If he had done so, he would have known that there is no logical, factual or documentary basis for him to declare the ‘elections were largely consistent with the African Union regulations and standards.
I have some significant reservations about the EU EOM Report as indicated above. But I would never characterize the Report as “garbage”. The reason is simple. I have carefully studied the guidelines in the 224-page “European Union Handbook for Election Observation (2nd ed.)”.[7] I have familiarized myself with the EU EOM activities in other countries. The only proper basis for me to evaluate the Report is to fairly determine if it fails to uphold the standards set forth in the Handbook. While I disagree with the interpretations, inferences, deductions and conclusions in the Report, there is nothing that leads me to believe that EU EOM performed its duties in disregard of its duties in the Handbook or supplementary guidelines. There is no evidence to show that EU EOM did not perform its duties professionally, honorably, in good faith or with lack of neutrality and impartiality. There is no justification whatsoever to use scatological language to criticize the work of such a distinguished group of election observers.
I would like the 170-members of the EU EOM who spent months in Ethiopia preparing to perform their duties to know that they do deserve a few things — the respect, gratitude and appreciation of the Ethiopian people. Their report belongs in the annals of Ethiopian democracy, or more aptly the struggle for democracy. Though I disagree with many aspects of their Report, I personally thank them all for a job well done. I am particularly grateful to Mr. Berman who, by declining to engage in mudslinging of his own, has reaffirmed for us the virtues of civility, tolerance, self-respect, discernment and good manners. It is possible for the high and mighty to disagree without being bad-tempered, ill-natured and disagreeable. Mr. Berman has witnessed the birth of a still born democracy in Ethiopia. I hope he also had a chance to witness the age-old decency, dignity, humility, integrity and respectfulness of the Ethiopian people as well. For what little it is worth, I offer each and every one of the 170 members of the EU EOM 2010 Ethiopia my sincere and humble apologies.
