Beyond the pathetic and at times ridiculous theatrics of Ethiopians ordered not only to mourn but also to show visible signs of a boundless grief over the death of Meles Zenawi, henceforth advertised as a great and beloved Ethiopian leader, I hear a murmur that increasingly sounds like a condescending laughter. Who is laughing? Perhaps history is laughing at the extraordinary reversal of Meles and the TPLF. When the guerrilla troops of the TPLF marched on Addis Ababa in 1991 and their leaders seized power, they promised freedom and democracy for all the peoples of Ethiopia. After 20 years of total rule, what we observe is people mourning a leader in the North Korean style, that is, the reality of a government that feels entitled to order its people even how to feel.
This is a new landmark: already whatever Ethiopians used to have belongs to the government, including their house, their land, and the schools to which they send their children, just as they are told to which ethnic bantustan they belong and which party they should follow under pain of being demoted to second or even third rate citizens. I would hardly be surprised if the government soon orders Ethiopians who to marry and which religion to adopt. The totalitarian strangle is tightening every day to the point of utter suffocation of what makes their humanity, namely, their ability to govern themselves.
The recent drama of a prolonged and effusive official mourning is deliberately staged to achieve two interrelated results. On the one hand, by demanding that Ethiopians show an outpouring grief over the death of Meles, his successors and followers want to further humiliate them so as to erase any temptation of protest, obvious as it is that a humiliated, broken people is unable to stand up for itself. On the other hand, the submission of the people to the point of manifesting grief over the demise of their oppressor provides his successors with a semblance of legitimacy. The more Meles is glorified and his successors swear to continue his “great” work, the more they acquire the mantle of legitimacy by presenting themselves as his trusted heirs. This borrowed legitimacy is necessary to find some form of acceptance among party members, the military establishment, and the troops.
It should be noted that the strategy could backfire. Indeed, the more Meles is exalted, the less his successors appear as able people. The excessive exaltation of Meles leaves the impression that he did everything by himself, that he was the only decider, planner, and executor. His stature is now so high that his successors look like dwarfs licking his boots. This confirms what Sebhat Nega supposedly said, to wit, that “in his death, Meles took with him the TPLF as well.” Meles’s glory is obtained at the expense of the TPLF and, as repeatedly confirmed by history, the rise of a dictator always undermines his followers. Even though dictatorship was thought necessary to impose the interests of the party, the first loser is always the party in that it creates a force that it can no longer control.
The most stunning reversal is however the fuss aimed at presenting Meles as a great Ethiopian nationalist leader. Meles, who all along ridiculed Ethiopian nationalism, landlocked Ethiopia, fragmented the country into ethnic states, officially and repeatedly stigmatized Ethiopian legacy, even went to the extent of defending the secession of Tigray, is now exalted as a staunch Ethiopian nationalist. What is more, he who defined himself so pompously as a Tigrean nationalist, wanted his funeral ceremony and his burial to take place in Addis Ababa, as though he had nothing to do with Tigray. That the once vehement Tigrean nationalist suddenly found Tigray too small for him represents the apex of paradox. There is after all a winner in the 20 years of wasted rule and it is Ethiopia. The fact that Meles’s body did not even touch the soil of Tigray is his mea culpa and final tribute to Ethiopian nationhood.
Lastly, I have a free advice for Meles’s successors. Instead of trying to find the legitimacy that they lack by hiding behind the ghost of Meles, they should seriously consider the only path that provides them with their own legitimacy. The resolution to continue Meles’s policy is a deadlock and ultimately dangerous for their own survival and interests. To continue the same policy without Meles would require them to be more repressive and totalitarian than Meles ever was, the outcome of which can only be the exasperation of popular unrests. Even if we assume that the EPRDF has the ability to become more repressive, the implementation of the policy will necessitate another “strong man.” And this means back to square one, that is, back to one-man dictatorship with all its risks and restrictions on the ruling party itself. Notably, the rise of such a dictator, assuming it is possible, would come at the cost of the unity of the EPRDF and even of the TPLF.
The only viable path is to correct Meles’s mistake by opening up the political space to opposition forces and by lifting all the restrictions on freedom of speech and organization as well as by liberating all political prisoners. To do so would confer a new legitimacy on Meles’s successors while at the same time removing the possibility of another round of dictatorial rule and reaffirming the unity of the EPRDF and of the various parties that compose it. In other words, both the EPRDF and the TPLF need the participation of opposition forces to regain an internally working democratic condition and preserve their unity.
As things stand now, I see no better way to move in a different direction than to confirm Haile Mariam Desalegn as the new prime minister. More than his status as deputy prime minister, what militates in favor of his confirmation is that he represents the southern peoples and, as such, can intercede between the big competing forces within the EPRDF. This gives him the strategic position to preserve the unity of the party and opens up a space for the participation of the opposition. Let there be no misunderstanding: I am not saying that Haile Mariam is the right person. Some such conclusion would be utterly premature and unfounded on any reliable proof. Rather, I am suggesting that he should be given the benefit of the doubt, given his strategic position. At any rate, we will soon know whether he can take advantage of his position and initiate a new direction.
In the absence of a legitimate autopsy report, a death certificate or a credible official statement relating to the reason behind the hospitalization and eventual death of the former ruler of one of the most populous countries in Africa, there are compelling medical and circumstantial arguments to suggest that the episode of May 18, 2012, in which the valiant Abebe Gellaw confronted Zenawi, might have played a major role in accelerating the demise of the dictator.
Prior to August 21, 2012, when the TPLF cadres that are currently terrorizing the country announced his death, Zenawi had not been seen in public for several weeks, and there had only been conflicting reports about his conditions or whereabouts issued by the Woyanne propaganda machinery.
Nonetheless, there were several pieces of circumstantial evidence that indicated the deteriorating condition of Zenawi’s health in the aftermath of the May18th encounter with Abebe Gellaw. Most notably, immediately after the confrontation, Zenawi reportedly failed to attend a function at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, D.C., that was organized to express gratitude to his followers in the Diaspora. A few weeks later, he was seen as a ghost-like creature during his meeting with Chinese officials at the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. The final confirmation of his ailment later came when he failed to attend an African Union summit in Addis Ababa in July.
While there is no conclusive medical evidence to indicate that shock can actually kill a person, there is ample literature to surmise that it can impact the cardiovascular system, and thereby exacerbate a deteriorating or compromised condition leading to death.
In the medical literature, fear and stress are known to cause substantial biochemical conflicts between the sympathetic and parasympathetic responses when a person is faced with an imminent danger, the so-called fight-or-flight phenomenon. In particular, shock, as an extreme stress reaction, ensues when the stress level is so high that the endocrine and nervous systems are unable to cope with the circumstance. People who have underlying health problems may, therefore, experience fatalities as a result of the exacerbation of these conditions.
In their book, Gleitman et al. (2004)[1] report that, in the face of extreme stress, catecholamine hormones, such as adrenaline, trigger physical reactions, including acceleration of heart and lung action, constriction of blood vessels, and shaking. For someone with cardiovascular problems, a huge release of catecholamines can lead to instant or eventual death.
Some of the above events were, of course, observed in Zenawi’s reaction to the unexpected challenge by Gellaw. In one of his weekly commentaries, Alemayehu G. Mariam poetically captured the moment as follows:
“…. For seven seconds, the mighty Zenawi zoned out into a catatonic trance like the patrons of opium dens. For a fleeting moment, he seemed almost comatose. His head was bowed, his back hunched, his chin drooped, his lips quivered and his eyes gazed vacantly at the floor just like the criminal defendant who got handed a life sentence or worse. A close-up video showed him breathing heavily, almost semi-hyperventilating. His pectoral muscles heaved spastically under his shirt. An imminent cardiac event?” [2]
For a dictator who, distrusting the people he ruled with an iron fist, had insulated himself with one of the most skilled and highly armed protective security details in the world; for a dictator who, out fear and insecurity, had never interacted or mingled with the people that he had so despised, mocked and disparaged during his two decades of tyranny; the sudden outburst of such dreaded phrases as “Meles Zenawi is a dictator!” in that world forum was a shocking experience that his frail body had not been accustomed to or able to withstand.
Although the secretive TPLF ruling party never revealed the general health condition of the dictator while he was in office, rumors did abound about his poor health resulting from a slapdash life-style, including smoking, drinking and other substance abuse – all risk factors for cardiovascular and oncological complications.
In view of the indirect association of death and shock in a compromised person, and given the poor state of Zenawi’s health prior to the event, it is not beyond the realm of possibilities to surmise that the May 18th confrontation might have contributed to his death.
If Gellaw’s heroic action had a role in the death of the dictator, then it would explain in part why the TPLF cadres kept the condition of the late dictator and the bona fide cause of his death a highly guarded secret. Manifestly, any suggestion that the event of May 18th contributed to the demise of the dictator would hearten others to follow suit and challenge the repressive rule of the TPLF. Most importantly, if there was the perspicacity that one person could contribute in a momentous way to bring down a vicious dictator, despite his ostensibly impenetrable security details, the millions of oppressed citizens would be emboldened and an organized mass uprising would be inevitable to end the monopoly enjoyed by the minority thugs on the nation’s political and military power structure and scarce resources.
The North Korean style funeral ceremony and the idolization of the deceased is also part of an overall orchestrated stratagem to demonstrate spurious invincibility and to thwart any semblance of vulnerability. The attempt to paint a larger-than-life picture of the deceased despot, and the much advertized claim that he was a respected leader in the world forum is, of course, at variance with the low esteem in which the despot was held by world leaders in private conversations. As revealed in the United States diplomatic cables leak, he was in fact a light weight in the eyes of diplomats and heads of states. Contrary to the myth propagated by his henchmen, in the opinion of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, he was an “economic illiterate”, while in the assessment of George W. Bush he was nothing more than “an errand boy”. What the TPLF cadres are doing in his death validates what Former US ambassador Donald Yamamoto observed when the dictator was alive: a “democratic deficit” example, and someone “begging to get world attention to have his ideologies acceptable.” [3]
The death of the dictator a short while after his encounter with Abebe Gellaw may serve both as a metaphor and as a template for the demise of tyranny in Ethiopia. Authoritarianism inherently is an aberration in human society, and hence a sick political system. So, as in the case of Zenawi, a major shock could unavoidably trigger the collapse of the system, as has been recently observed in the Middle East and other regions ruled by tyrants. This shock could come in the form of popular uprisings, concerted resistance by the people, organized lobbying by the Diaspora to cut the supply line of foreign aid, or internal fractures spearheaded by pro-democratic factions.
The only way out of this predicament for TPLF rulers is to recognize and respect the will of the people to live in freedom and liberty. In the short term, they should open up the political space and invite all opposition leaders for a genuine dialog to chart a framework for a democratic Ethiopia in which individual rights will be unconditionally respected, and all citizens will have equal opportunities in the pursuit of happiness and determination of the government of their choice.
If the TPLF insists in propagating the failed autocratic, ethnic-based and corrupt policies of the late dictator, then all freedom loving Ethiopians back home and in the Diaspora should rise in unity and give the aberrant system a shock from which it will never recover. It is a mathematical impossibility for a minority group to dream it would be able to perpetuate its repression over eighty million people for much longer.
It is time for the West to refrain from continuing to nurture the activities of a criminal regime and derailing the aspirations of the people to live in freedom and prosperity. In this regard, pro-democracy groups and individuals in the Diaspora have a historic role to play and influence donor nations and institutions.
* Henry Gleitman, Alan J. Fridlund and Daniel Reisberg (2004). Psychology (6 ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-97767-6.)
* http://addisvoice.com/2012/05/ethiopia-meles-speechless/
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak_(Region_%E2%80%94_Africa)#Ethiopia
The late Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi’s funeral Sunday has been scaled down because of security threats, according to an Ethiopian Review correspondent in Addis Ababa.
The gathering for the funeral at the Addis Ababa Holy Trinity Cathedral has also been reduced to a small number of foreign dignitaries and senior members of the ruling party, while the people are being ordered to go to the various tents that has been set up through out Addis Ababa and watch the ceremony on TV.
The number of people coming from other regions of Ethiopia for the funeral has also been reduced to 200 per region.
The main fear on the part of the junta is that a riot could break out if there is a large crowd and things could easily get out of hand.
It is not clear where Meles Zenwi will be buried, but we have been informed that it will not be at the Holy Trinity cemetery. There is a wide spread speculation that his body is placed inside a freezer at a secure location and may be set to this birth place, Adwa.
This is an extremely stressful time for the TPLF junta. … stay tuned for updates.
EDITOR’S NOTE: There is a total clampdown on the independent press in Ethiopia. Even foreign correspondents are working under constant threats, frequently being called into Bereket Simon’s office to be threatened with expulsion from the country. In the report below by William Davison of Bloomberg, we removed all the junk that he was forced to add to his report in order to placate the junta and kept only the few hard facts.
By William Davison
ADDIS ABABA (Bloomberg) — [ … ] Throughout the capital, the mood is somber as Sunday’s funeral looms. Normally deafening bars keep stereos switched off. State television offers blanket coverage of the mourning. There are few outliers. An articulate young journalist – as appreciative of Meles’s rules as millions of his compatriots – reports on Facebook of the intimidation he suffered when he sat on a poster of the premier outside the palace after paying his respects to Meles.
“I was mad that my respect for the late PM could be simplified by the manner I treated a poster,” he writes.
One individual was hauled to a police station for disrespectfully listening to music on headphones, another user alleges below. […]
In an afternoon of stalking the mini-city of flats freshly hoisted by the government and now cluttered with barbers, bars, grocery stores and hordes of people, just one person expresses some doubt. “The EPRDF [Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front] is one party. They dominate everything,” a Russian-educated trader says in perfect English about the Meles-led ruling coalition. “There is no freedom for journalists. A lot of them are in prison.” Those would include dissident Ethiopian writer Eskinder Nega, who was recently sentenced to 18 years in prison for terrorism offenses.
The trader then requests to remain anonymous.
The system’s excesses are also on public display. The mobilization skills of the 6 million-strong party, previously used to permeate state and society, bolster crushing election victories, and encourage donations for Meles’s political masterstroke, the damming of the Nile, are in overdrive. Colleagues cannot travel to Addis Ababa for a meeting next week, one individual informs: all public transport is tied up busing people in for the funeral. Teams of government workers were parading through central Addis Aug. 31, chanting slogans and brandishing placards about the necessity to keep Meles’s dream alive.
The dynamics are similar to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam fundraising campaign: Both Meles and the Nile hydropower project – which signaled Ethiopia’s intention to use a huge asset historically monopolized by Egypt – would be staggeringly popular without any leverage being applied by the EPRDF’s leaders and cadres; yet they still turn the screw in order to strengthen their grip on power.
Critics sneer at some of the party’s alleged tactics: “they’re all receiving per diems”; “homeless beggars on television are praising Meles”; “they’re wheeling the sick out of hospital to join the crowds.”
A leaked letter purportedly from university administrators demanding that staff attend a mourning ceremony makes its way round the Web. “Got it. The North Korean comparisons are justified,” pontificated a media advocate from New York, suggesting that the mourning was not sincere.
But Kemal indicates otherwise. “I cried. Nobody pushed me, nobody paid me. I cried,” he volunteers about his response to Meles’s death.
[…] Away from the public pomp, nervous Ethiopians and Addis’s chattering classes opine that the future is uncertain. Very little is known about the inner workings of an opaque ruling party. Only time will tell whether its stability and thus the country’s is wrecked by factional squabbling. Only the years and decades to come will define his legacy […]
A large group of donkeys residing in Addis Ababa went to the National Palace to pay respect to the late Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi, according to ETV.
On a serious note, the donkeys are better than all the people pigs who cried for the genocidal dictator who has been looting Ethiopia and terrorizing its people for the past 21 years. They cry for a guy who calls them adhgi (agasses). We agree with Meles on that — they are agasses.
Airline boycott has a storied past in South Africa as part of a broader consumer boycott by activists standing against state repression. These activists who called for a free and democratic South Africa understood that, if one is serious about human rights and democracy, then every
nonviolent resistance, including economic boycott, must be waged.
For 21 years, the violent and manipulative TPLF rulers have been coercing where they can — such as human rights defenders in Ethiopia and everyone else in the country. And where they can’t coerce, for example, outside of the country, they have been playing with the minds of pro-democracy Ethiopians abroad, leading us to dither and to limit ourselves in the nonviolent methods we use to wage our fight against dictatorship in our country. It is time that we take the example of the freedom-fighters in South Africa. We should take action and stop flying Ethiopian Airlines (EAL) to put pressure on the oppresses.
With every flight on EAL, we are dutifully handing over our scarce cash, in the form of foreign currency, and are unwittingly keeping the hungry TPLF well-fed and the military loyal to them.
Here are just a few significant moments in the boycott movement against the South African Apartheid rule’s airline, South African Airways (SAA). This can inspire us to do our part and quit using EAL:
As early as the 1960s, several African states pioneered the application of pressure on the brutal Apartheid regime through the regime’s airline, by prohibiting the use of their airspace by SAA. This made it exceedingly difficult for the regime to operate its airline. Under effective grassroots activism, SAA started to become a liability for respected firms left and right that had been associated with SAA. For example, in 1985, the well-established Washington D.C. law firm Covington & Burling, which used to represent SAA, dropped it as a client.
Patriotic anti-apartheid activists were able to also influence US policy to pass in 1986 the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. Among other things, the law banned flights by SAA into the United States. Soon thereafter, Australia followed suit with a similar legislation concerning SAA.
In 1988 anti-Apartheid activists in London unrelentingly occupied SAA’s offices there, as part of the ‘No Rights? No Flights!’ campaign. Activists realized that one of the ways to effectively strike at the heart of the violent and racist white rule in South Africa was to target a boycott where it hurt the repressive rulers: at their treasured cash-cow, the government controlled airline. The poster on the left in the picture above (and enlarged below) subverts the Apartheid regime’s advertisement slogan for the purpose of galvanizing consumers to stop flying SAA.
Economic boycotts such as these, along with a wide range of methods to resist the authoritarian racial rule in South Africa, led to the crumbling of Apartheid rule in 1990.
