Birtukan Mideksa surrendering ceremony

It is not a new thing for Ethiopian political leaders to betray their supporters, and the people of Ethiopia, in general. Even the great Hailu Shawel had succumbed to that tradition. So it is not with any shock or surprise we learned about the betrayal of Birtukan Mideksa whom just recently we referred to as “lady liberty.”

Birtukan has followed the footstep of her former leader, Hailu Shawel, to the Ethiopian political graveyard so soon after she became a leader on her own right. At least Hailu Shawel lasted several years as a respected leader. Even the now discredited Lidetu Ayalew and Taye Woldesemayat lasted many years as popular leaders. Birtukan’s fall from grace is as sudden as her meteoric rise.

What Birtukan Mideksa did on Wednesday, June 18, 2008, and for several months before that, was a complete surrender of herself, her colleagues, her supporters, and her party to the Meles dictatorship in the most shameless way.

Here is what Birtukan did:

1) In September 2007, she assured her followers that the name of the party, Kinijit, will not be changed no matter what. She explicitly said that keeping the name Kinijit is one of the issues that the party will fight for. But when she returned to Ethiopia, within a few weeks, she changed her mind and abandoned Kinijit as the name of the party just because Woyanne told her so. She did not put up any resistance — be it legal, political, diplomatic… none. We did not say much, wanting to give her the benefit of the doubt.

2) Since September 2007 — for the past 10 months — Birtukan said not a word of criticism against the Meles dictatorship when it burned down villages, engaged in indiscriminate execution of civilians, including women and children, gang rape of women, and committed other horrible crimes against fellow Ethiopians in Ogaden and the people of Somalia. She did not utter a word of concern about Woyanne’s secret land deal with Sudan, or about the millions of starving children… During this period, the only word of complain, concern or criticism that came from Birtukan was against freedom fighters who chose to raise arms to defend themselves and their people from the brutal dictatorship. She called their method of defending themselves “backward.” We did not say much, except grumbling a little, because we really wanted her to succeed.

3) Birtukan had promised her supporters that Kinijitj’s 8-point peace proposal will continue to be the primary rallying point of the party. She even mentioned that when she testified before the U.S. Congress. She said: “The proposals that are currently being deliberated in this House [of Representatives] are vital to the revitalization of human rights in Ethiopia, and in many ways reflect the policy positions of the CUDP, and many stated in our 8-point proposal.” But when she returned to Ethiopia, she arbitrarily set aside the 8-point proposal without any discussion, explanation, reason… We only complained privately. Did not say much in public.

4) For the past 10 months, few or none of the families of Kinijit activists, particularly the young ones, who endured incredible suffering have not received any attention. Those young Kinijit activists were the workhorse of the party. They are now totally abandoned by Birtukan. ER has raised this issue often, but the only answer from Birtukan was, the party lacks the capacity to provide economic assistance to its activists. She was saying this while a quarter of a million dollars was sitting in the bank doing nothing.

Birtukan went on committing one blunder after another with little or no public criticism. Most of the young leaders of the party left quietly, disappointed and frustrated with Birtukan’s lack of leadership, and willful submission to the Woyanne tyranny. Many of the older leaders remain in the party because of yilugnta (ይሉኝታ). They will drop out one by one soon after the current commotion ends.

UDJ’s general meeting on Wednesday was a culmination of all of Birtukan’s blunders. To start with, most of the delegates who attended the meeting cannot really be called delegates. They were handpicked and paid by Birtukan to come to the meeting and crown her. The delegates represent no organized constituency, with the exception of a few. Secondly, the whole party formation process took only one day — including drafting, discussing, and approving the party’s bylaws and political program, nominating and electing the council members and the executives. In short, the so-called general assembly was similar to Meles Zenawi’s rubber stamp parliament. Every thing was decided for the ‘delegates’ in advance of the general assembly.

Birtukan and her UDJ will soon join Beyene, Lidetu and their fake parties as Woyanne decoys.

Oh, she will be glad to know that from now on she will be a regular guest at the American embassy cocktail parties.

On top of all the faking that went on in Addis Ababa, the Diaspora UDJ supporters are making too much noise, pretending to be happy as if something big has happened. But the hard truth some refuse to swallow is that what happened on June 18 was a camouflaged surrender ceremony — Birtukan surrendering to Woyanne.

STRASBOURG, France — Ana Gomes, Member of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, invites her colleagues to a meeting with Dr. Berhanu Nega, Mayor-elect of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and former senior leader CUD, who was released from prison one year ago.

The meeting, aiming at discussing the current political and human rights situation in Ethiopia, will take place on 25 June, at 18.30, in room ASP 5G 305.

Berhanu Nega was a founding member of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). Dr. Nega played an important role in the 2005 Ethiopian general elections. At the time, he was elected as mayor of Addis Ababa but could not serve since he was arrested during the political persecution that followed the elections.

Dr. Berhanu Nega is currently one of the leaders of Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice, Democracy and Freedom.

Some of the leaders of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit) have gathered 300 people and formally created a new party named Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) today in Addis Ababa. See details at Kinijit North America’s web site here.

Let’s go straight to the crux of the matter: UDJ by its actions and positions had demonstrated itself to be a political party without a popular base. It is a fake party without popular constituency — like Beyene Petros’s UEDF, Lidetu Ayalew’s EUDP, and the many other useless political groupings whose only benefit is to make Woyanne look legitimate or democrat.

UDJ, in particular, is a great disappointment, because it had a potential to position itself as a genuine opposition party by doing things such as:

1) Keeping its former name Kinijit.
2) Not accepting the legitimacy of the Woyanne-dominated Election Board.
3) Ignoring Woyanne’s ban on public meetings.
4) Speaking out against Woyanne atrocities through out Ethiopia, particularly the wholesale massacres of Ethiopians in Ogaden.
5) Demanding the resignation of Meles Zenawi and all Woyanne top leaders…

They may risk arrest and other dangers by doing the things mentioned above. But if they present themselves as leaders, what else do they expect? If they are afraid of arrest, they should stay home. How many times other leaders of ‘peaceful struggle’ were jailed, beaten up, and killed? How many times Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mandela, San Suu Kyi, and others were arrested, beaten up, and assassinated because they refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the tyrannical system that brutalized and enslaved their people. San Suu Kyi of Burma gets arrested almost every other week. On the other hand, take a look at what the UDJ leaders are doing:

1) When Woyanne told them that they cannot use Kinijit as their name, they said, ‘yes, master’ and changed their name, submitting themselves to the illegitimate regime.

2) After they changed their name, Woyanne still refused to give them legal status. But they continued to beg the dictatorship through Western diplomats.

3) When Woyanne security agents banned their meeting, they run to U.S. and U.K. ambassadors for help. Woyanne said yes to its puppet masters, U.S. and U.K. diplomats, and allowed UDJ to meet, but only inside their office. Without any hint of resistance, they accepted Woyanne’s condition and held their meeting in their office today.

4) In the past 10 months, when millions of our people faced death from starvation as result of Woyanne’s mismanagement of the country’s resources, when tens of thousands of fellow Ethiopians were slaughtered in Ogaden, when a neighboring country, Somalia, was pillaged by Woyanne occupation forces in the name of Ethiopia, when high commodity prices caused so much suffering, when large tracts of land were given away to Sudan in a secret deal, not a word of concern was expressed by the UDJ leaders. The only criticism we hear coming out of the mouths of UDJ leaders these days is directed at freedom fighters who raised arms to defend themselves and their people from the Woyanne brutal dictatorship.

It is because of all these reasons and more that Ethiopian Review believes UDJ is another fake party by any measurement.

Let’s call a spade ‘spade’. UDJ is Fake.

NOTE TO KINIJIT NORTH AMERICA: Not a penny of the money collected in the name of Kinijit from Ethiopians in the Diaspora should be given to UDJ, because UDJ is not Kinijit and doesn’t stand for the principles that Kinijit upheld. It would be a betrayal of public trust on the part of Kinijit North America to give any of the money under its controls to UDJ.