Ethiopian Review has asked scholars and prominent individuals what 10 things they would do immediately if they are elected president or prime minister of Ethiopia. The following is by Dr Getachew Metaferia. (Click here to read what others wrote.)
If I am accorded the highest honor of serving Ethiopia, I will initiate and execute the following policies. I hope any democratic leadership of Ethiopia can also consider them.
1. Based on our long history, shared values, and diversity, I will consult with a broad spectrum of our population and set a national collective aspiration, a vision, for Ethiopia. A nation without vision lives day-by-day and is destined to obliterate itself gradually. Our national vision is not abstract but embraces virtues such as: meet the basic needs of our people, declare war on poverty, cherish our diversity, tolerate differing opinion, etc.
2. I will convene a national peace and reconciliation conference. We must create a culture of peace in Ethiopia; reconcile our differences, and move on to build a pluralist Ethiopia where citizens feel safe and free, their human rights guaranteed, and equality assured.
3. Establish a constitution review panel. The constitution must ensure separation of power between the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. Establish rule of law, guarantee ethnic, religious and gender equality, and build a vibrant democratic society.
4. Build transparent, efficient and effective government bureaucracy led by incorruptible professional civil servants and technocrats whose goal is to serve the nation and not any ruling party. The same goes with the national defense force whose objective is to defend the nation and maintain military ethics of the highest order. Our foreign policy, crafted and executed by professional Foreign Service officers, must promote and maintain the long-term national interest of the country.
5. Empanel blue-ribbon commissions, consisting of elders, religious leaders, learned individuals, civil society actors, and experts to investigate certain issues, such as land grab by foreigners, ethnic and religious-based conflicts, and submit their findings with appropriate recommendations.
6. Provide quality education and improve access to education that propels Ethiopia to the 21st century. Education is every one’s human right, essential for the growth of the individual, and the nation. Our philosophy of education must be based on the history and cultures of Ethiopia and must address the needs of the 21st century. It must be practical and help solve Ethiopia’s myriad problems.
7. Build infrastructure to develop healthy communities. Healthy citizens ensure the security of Ethiopia and quality health service is a fundamental right.
8. Develop and expand Ethiopia’s agriculture sector; launch green revolution so that Ethiopia can feed itself. Restructure the land tenure system, utilize our rivers for irrigation, and initiate integrated rural development system.
9. Build small industries and protect them from foreign competitors that have become detrimental to our budding industries and to the ingenuity of our citizens.
10. Provide the Ethiopian diaspora with opportunities to use its resources [financial, intellectual, and expertise] in helping build the country in a more coordinated, creative, and transparent way. Its investment must be focused on development and must not compete or undermine the efforts of Ethiopians in the country. Provide health services, create jobs, transfer skills and expertise and build confidence between the diaspora and Ethiopians in the country.
(Dr. Getachew Metaferia teaches political science at Morgan State University. His recent book is titled Ethiopia and the United States: History, Diplomacy, and Analysis. [Algora Publishing, 2009]. He can be reached at [email protected])
Last week, a couple of interesting political statements grabbed the cyber headlines. One was a truly entertaining piece entitled “Letter from Ethiopia,” by the indomitable Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega. Eskinder’s “Letter” sought to make sense of the power jockeying that is apparently taking place backstage to replace dictator Meles Zenawi. The other was a bombastic speech given by Zenawi to a captive audience in Mekele in observance of the 35th anniversary of the founding of his liberation movement. In that speech, Zenawi unleashed a torrent of vitriol against his opponents and critics to rival Hugo Chavez’s, and indulged in a little bit of megalomaniacal braggadocio and self-glorification for democratizing Ethiopia and inundating it with prosperity.
Using the so-called election scheduled for May, 2010 as a backdrop, Eskinder crystal-balled the inevitable implosion of the ruling “EPDRF” party, and sketched out the qualifications of the motley crew of droll characters standing in line as heirs-apparent to succeed Zenawi on the “throne”.
Scratch beyond the surface and the EPRDF [Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front] is really not the monolithic dinosaur as it is most commonly stereotyped. [It has become] a coalition of four distinct phenomenon: the increasing confusion of the dominant TPLF [Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front], the acute cynicism of the ANDM [Amhara National Democratic Movement], the desperate nihilism of the OPDO [Oromo People’s Democratic Organization] and the inevitable irrelevance of the incongruent SEPM [South Ethiopian People’s Movement] (a grab bag of some 40 ethnic groups from the southern part of the country). ”
In the battle royal for the “throne” are a number of goofy and cagey characters including “OPDO’s Girma Biru” who is said to be “managerially competent” but a dud and a wimp when it comes to formulating a “grand vision and [lacks] the ruthlessness deemed crucial to keep the EPRDF vibrant and intact.” OPDO chairman Abadula Gemeda, the butt of “the city’s political jokes”, is considered a possible contender and given full credit for his own “comical intellectual pretensions.” ANDM’s Addisu Legesse is said to be held in “particular high esteem” by Zenawi for his servility and slavish loyalty beyond and above the call of duty. Then there is the Svengalian master of intrigue, Bereket Simon whose “influence is expected to wane once Meles eventually leaves the limelight.” The crocodilian Sebhat Nega, “king maker for two decades”, has apparently “chosen to leave TPLF’s politburo” but remains a member of the Central Committee as puppet-master extraordinaire.
In other words, 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, but each day a young messenger comes to tell them Godot will be there tomorrow. As they wait each day, they try to find something to do. They keep busy chatting, arguing, singing, playing games, swapping hats, taking their shoes off, napping and doing all sorts of trivial things just “to hold the terrible silence at bay”. Each day, the characters tell each other that they can not go on waiting. They are so tired of waiting day after day that they contemplate suicide. Godot never shows up but the two characters keep returning to the same place day after day to wait for him; but they can not 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. In his Mekele speech, Zenawi made it clear that he is staying put and the great business of state business will go on as usual; and but for the wicked opposition elements and pesky critics, how things could really be awesome! But he did not hold back in visiting his wrath on his opposition and critics. With rhetorical flourish, he lambasted his former comrade-in-arms, opposition elements and critics with the Amharic equivalent of “muckrakers”, “mud dwellers” and good-for-nothing “chaff” and “husk”. He accused them of being “anti-democratic”, “anti-people” fomenters of “interhamwe”. He called them “sooty”, “sleazy”, “gun-toting marauders”, “pompous egotists” and every other name than could be pumped out of the Insulto-Matic machine. He repeatedly denounced his opposition for rolling in a quagmire of mud and trying to smear mud on the people. After all was said in that speech, it was clear that he was the one doing all the mud-slinging and mud-rolling (chika jiraf and chika mab-kwat). (It must have been a bad hair day for him [no pun intended]!)
Zenawi pulled no punches slamming and vilifying his opponents and critics:
There are those who maintain an eagle eye on the regime with bitter animosity and sully it by painting and drenching it in soot. Regardless, our country has marched into democracy confidently and irreversibly.
Anti-democratic and anti-people forces have so much contempt that they badger our uneducated people telling them chaff is wheat. However, our people are used to winnowing the chaff in the wind and keeping the wheat. Our enemies are peddling chaff to the people and trying to find holes to sabotage our peoples’ democracy, peace and development. But since our organization knows that our operation is airtight, we are not concerned.
The chaff hope to provoke the people into anger and incite them to undemocratically resort to violence. Although they (the “chaff”) can not dirty up the people like themselves, they may try to smear the people with mud in the hope of inciting them into lawlessness.
It was an unstatesmanlike speech, to say the least. But there were a few odd things about the speech itself. Even though the speech was given to a captive audience in Mekele, the clear impression that is created for the listener is that the people of Tigray will be doing the winnowing of the useless “chaff” from the valuable “wheat.” The contextualization of the speech subtly cuts off the people of Tigray from the rest of the country. The incredible amount of venom in the speech could make a snake puke. The allusion-fest to “mud”, “soot,” “chaff”, “wheat”, etc., and the thinly veiled ad hominem attacks, derision and disparagement of opponents and critics points to a deficit of intellectual discipline and rigor to argue and fiercely debate the issues in the court of public opinion. Instead of name-calling, one ought to use hard evidence and logical analysis to disprove the allegations, contentions or analysis of the opponents and critics. In this regard, there is a rather humorous tu quoque (two wrongs make a right) logical fallacy that infuses the whole speech. Zenawi takes the position that since his critics “wallow” in mud and keep slinging it at him, it is right for him to wallow in and sling mud and muck back at them while professing to command the moral high ground. In other words, it is right to “fight mud with mud.” The problem of a mud fight is that everybody gets dirty. It is morally superior and infinitely more pragmatic to fight the “mud slingers” by slinging back at them, not mud pies, but facts, evidence, data and logical analysis.
The speech is also noteworthy for its self-righteousness, messianic fervor and dogmatic certitude in the speaker’s rectitude: Everybody is chaff except the winnowed wheat. Everyone is a member of the Evil Empire except the anointed Jedi Knights of the TPLF who are the guardians of peace and justice in the Republic (to borrow from a popular American motion picture “Star Wars”). Such a Manichean worldview (Weltanschauung) of good and evil and chaff and wheat is symptomatic of narcissistic self-absorption, a behavioral pattern well documented in the psychological literature; and empirically observed in terms of faulty reasoning, acute hostility towards others groups, rigid character attributes and blindness to one’s failings.
The real issue is not about name calling, mudslinging or even determining the true bearers of the democratic cross. The real issue is about the accountability of a personalist dictatorship that is sustained through a self-aggrandizing oligarchy that now craves a veneer of legitimacy by staging a democratic “election” for international donors. The fact remains that no amount of mudslinging, soot smearing or bombastic speech can mask the true nature of an election in a dictatorship. One can put the finest lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day the pig is still a pig.
As Zenawi’s speech shows, he exercises absolute imperial power for self-gratification and self-glorification; and his declared aim is to mold Ethiopian society in his own image. His ruling regime fundamentally believes that political power grows out of the barrel of the gun (not from the consent of the people), fully aware of their own feebleness without the gun. Their raison d’etre is to amass and centralize political and economic power at all costs and maintain themselves in power by greed, fear and blind ambition.
We fully accept the metaphor of “chaff” and “wheat” as a judicious and appropriate way not just to understand Ethiopian politics today but also as a practical way of resolving the crises of confidence in governance and proper determination of leadership succession. It is the right time now to put the metaphor to a real test: Let the Ethiopian people winnow the “chaff” from the “wheat” in the calm winds of a genuinely free and fair election in May 2010! That seems highly unlikely; and the chaff that stands in the way of the people “shall inherit the wind”.
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Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, newamericamedia.org and other sites.
A week ago, on February 22, several Ethiopians joined tens of thousands Eritreans at the worldwide protest rally against the UN sanction against Eritrea.
The sanction was a plot concocted by the Woyanne regime lobbyists in the U.S. headed by Ambassador Susan Rice. When Ambassador Rice and other corrupt officials at the State Department had failed to get a bill passed through the U.S. Senate labeling Eritrea a terror-sponsoring state, they brought together some puppet African dictators such as Museveni of Uganda to push a resolution through the U.N. that accuses Eritrea of providing weapons to Somali Islamist group al Shabab without offering an iota of evidence.
In fact, a UN special envoy accuses Woyanne, the ruling tribal junta in Ethiopia, of selling weapons to al Shabab and others in Somalia.
The real reason behind Woyanne’s campaign to have the U.N. impose sanction against Eritrea is that the Eritrean people and government have been providing moral and political support to Ethiopian freedom fighters such as Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF). The hidden purpose of the sanction is to eliminate any opening for EPPF and others to operate in Ethiopia. Therefore, the U.N. sanction is indirectly imposed on Ethiopia so that the Woyanne regime is free to pillage and plunder the country without any serious opposition.
Ethiopians are well aware of this fact and EPPF chapters around the world held an emergency conference on January 3 to take a stand against the sanction, and to also show their solidarity with the people of Eritrea. They passed a strong resolution condemning the sanction.
Feb. 22 provided another opportunity for Ethiopians to stand in solidarity with Eritreans. The unintended consequence of the Woyanne-Rice UN sanction is that it has brought the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea more closer than ever.
When I and other Ethiopians who reside in the Washington DC metro area arrived in front of the White House, where the protest rally was being held last Monday, Eritreans were out in thousands already. The Eritreans, who arrived from several states in the east coast of the U.S., greeted us warmly and enthusiastically. When a large Ethiopian flag unfurled in the middle of the crowed, Eritreans cheered loudly in an expression of appreciation.
After witnessing the excitement with which the Eritreans received us, I knew there and then that we were making history. For the first time since the Woyanne junta took power, I started to see light at the end of the tunnel for bringing change in Ethiopia and the whole Horn of Africa region, which has been made a perennial war zone by the Woyanne warlords.
The reaction by Woyannes to such solidarity with Eritreans is as expected. They were foaming at the mouth in condemning us for standing with Eritreans. I don’t blame them — such solidarity will cause their demise and they more than any one else are aware of it.
Those of us who advocate Ethiopia-Eritrea solidarity are the prime target of Woyannes. They are coming at us from every direction. So when Ethiopian Review’s server crashed right after the Feb. 22 protest rally under mysterious circumstances, I became suspicious. The web site’s massive database completely disappeared without a trace. We are investigating the cause. Fortunately, anticipating such an incident, we have been keeping back ups of all Ethiopian Review files at multiple locations and we were able to bring most sections of the web site back online in a couple of days.
The alliance of Ethiopians and Eritreans should not be allowed to be derailed by Woyanne or any one else. There is a lot at stake for the people of both nations. As long as Ethiopian Review is up and running, it will continue to be a leading advocate of such collaboration and solidarity, which will lead to the liberation of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa from a parasite called Woyanne.
Former members of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (Woyanne) led by Seye Abraha are preparing to challenge those in power led by Meles Zenawi in Woyanne’s own turf — Tigray. J. Sirak of opride.com reports the following:
TPLF finds itself having to defend its home turf, the Tigray region, in the upcoming elections. Medrek, a coalition of eight opposition parties, is going after the big names. Despite a growing anxiety about TPLF’s use of force to rig the election, the opposition is fielding candidates in the ruling party’s strong hold areas.
* Seye Abraha a former TPLF politburo member is running in Qola Tembein.
* Gebru Asrat, the former president of Tigray State and chairman of Arena Tigray is running for the parliament seat in Mekele.
* Asgede GebreSelassie, one of the leading TPLF founders, is running against Abay Tsehaye, TPLF’s Minister of Federal Affairs and National Security Advisor to the PM. Abay Tsehaye, was elected to the House of Peoples Representatives from Selekleka in 2005.
* Aregash Adane, the top woman during the TPLF struggle and one of the most revered fighters will run in Adwa against Meles Zenawi. This is a key post because at the event Meles loses the parliament seat, according to Ethiopian constitution, he cannot stand for the Premiership post. Article 73 of the constitution states that the Prime Minister “shall be elected from among members of the House of Peoples’ Representatives”. Reliable sources also tell Opride.com that Mr. Zenawi might run in Addis Ababa.
* Arena Tigray also announced that it will field candidates in 34 of the 38 constituencies in Tigray. The remaining four seats will be contested by Tigreans in UDJ.
Yet despite such interesting strategic moves by the oppositions, it’s inconceivable to think that the TPLF will allow the opposition to pick limited seats in Tigray, let alone win majority.
EthiopianReview.com’s server had crashed on Tuesday morning causing the site to be down for the past three days. We have been working feverishly to fix the problem. We lost 4 days of data, and we are yet to restore the Forum and other sections of the web site. For now the front page is partially up and Top Stories section is also functioning now. All the other sections will be restored shortly.
On behalf of my colleagues at Ethiopian Review, I would like to thank those of you who sent us emails expressing your concerns and best wishes.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Also remember that a special envoy to the U.N. reported (read here) that much of Al Shabab’s weapons are being bought from Woyanne and Uganda military commanders in Somalia with the full knowledge of U.S. Department officials. The U.S. Congress needs to investigate this corruption and force the State Department to clean up its acts.
ABU DHABI (Reuters) – The international body fighting money laundering and terrorist financing on Thursday blacklisted Ethiopia, Iran, Angola, North Korea, and Ecuador as posing risks to the international financial system.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), comprising governments and regional organizations named the countries after a meeting in The United Arab Emirates’ capital Abu Dhabi.
Publication of the blacklist follows promises by the Group of 20 major economies last year to crack down on the problem, calling on the FATF to identify “uncooperative jurisdictions”.
Iran has been named as a jurisdiction where risks emanate due to the ongoing and substantial money laundering and terrorist financing, the FATF said in a statement, urging member countries to apply counter measures against Iran to protect the international financial system.
“The FATF remains particularly concerned about Iran’s failure to address the risk of terrorist financing and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system,” the statement said.
Angola, the People’s Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ecuador and Ethiopia have been named as jurisdictions that have not committed to the FATFs action plan and the international anti-money laundering/countering terrorist financing standards.
Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Sao Tome & Principe are jurisdictions that continue to have anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing deficiencies that remain to be addressed, the statement said.
Global Witness, an international NGO welcomed the FATF move of coming out with such a list but said that majority of countries on the list are poor countries and not OECD members.
“There are also problems in the world’s key financial centres where those systems allow exposed politicians, terrorists, nuclear proliferators and organised criminals to access funds they need,” Anthea Lawson, a campaigner for Global Witness told Reuters by phone.
The latest list is based on evaluations by FATF on whether a country has laws in place. “What is not measured is whether these laws are enforced and if that is done, many more countries would be on the blacklist,” she said, citing the example of the USA which is not showing signs of what it should do.
(Reporting by Stanley Carvalho; Editing by Ron Askew)
