By Seman Fereja
Four articles — Andargatchew, Daniel, Girma and Bertukan. Andargatchew advocates for a violent form of struggle while Bertukan stands diametrically opposed to the thesis. Daniel supports a form of struggle similar to that of ANC; but he is doubtful whether Andargatchew’s definition of violence matches his understanding of ANC’s form of struggle.
I don’t see any conflict between Andargatchew’s and Daniel’s articles, at least up to this moment, as Andargatchew hasn’t yet clarified the specific forms this ‘violence’ will be taking. In fact, leaving his supposition about the definition of Andargatchew’s term ‘Amets’, the positive contribution of Daniel’s article to the discussion is with regard to giving definitive forms to Andargatchew’s reference to Amets.
Girma Kassa’s is a bit difficult to follow. On the one hand, he lauds Tegbar League’s actions and yet denounces violence. In fact, he advocates even wider and coordinated simultaneous sets of actions similar to those of Tegbar League’s, which would cover the country so as to make governance by TPLF impossible. Here is where I lose Girma. Is this not what in simple language called insurrection? What would happen when the uprising in a certain woreda amasses the capability to kick out the agents of the state, but the agents become unwilling to relinquish their position and start shooting at the crowd? Will you be using violence to smoke them out or retreat in observance of Bertukan’s oath to Ephrem Yitshak? If you are supporting the throwing of stones at city buses, what on earth can be wrong about blowing a T-45 that comes to demolish whole villages? Or, to be prepared to stop Agazi killers from marching on school children?
I find Girma’s position logically untenable. If he is to be consistent, he should subscribe to either Daniel’s or Bertukan’s line. Mixing the two doesn’t help to clarify the situation. If he is saying that he stands against protracted warfare, it is understandable on the merits of the multitude of views of the commentators on EMF’s website. But, this immediately reduces Girma to Daniel’s view — protracted armed struggle is not a viable option. Apart from these, the remaining choice becomes only that of Bertukan’s line — the irreversible marriage to the peaceful struggle, presumably meaning also avoidance of any actions that lead to loss of life and hence confrontation with the state.
Girma’s questioning the morality of supporting violence from diaspora is also unclear. I cannot understand what makes his support for Tegbar League morally justifiable in contradistinction to Andargatchew’s advocacy for uprising. I don’t think Girma was standing at the head of the school children who were throwing stones at city buses when he lauded Tegbar League’s actions.
When Girma attempts to elevate the discussion to theoretical generalisation, he starkly commits the sins he was trying to accuse Andargatchew about. After misreading Andargatchew to have said that democracy is required in order to conduct peaceful struggle, he continues to tell us that no pre-condition is required to conduct peaceful struggle. Regrettably, I would like to refer him back to paragraph 3 under section 5 on page 18. According to my reading of Andargatchew’s article, I cannot find any place where he put the institutionalisation of a democratic system as a pre-condition for peaceful struggle. He has explicitly stated for this not to be the case when he wrote:
When we look at democratic systems from this angle, we find them to be the best and most capable of all currently existing systems with respect to accommodation and management of differences. Even though a given system may not be democratic, it can be capable of accommodating political difference. But, for this to happen certain conditions like…
This for me says only one thing: the best system that manages political conflicts is a democratic system. No more! In fact, when Andargatchew cites the need for the prevalence of those things like law, morality, monarchy, God etc… poised higher in a society than the conflicting parties, it is a clear indication of his endeavour to find preconditions that clearly fall far short of the scale of institutionalisation of a democratic system.
If Girma truly wants to engage in constructive discussions along these lines, what he should answer primarily is whether peaceful struggle could have been possible in Hitler’s Germany or Idi Amin’s Uganda or for that matter in Mengistu’s Ethiopia? If he is to answer ‘yes’ to the above question, I rest my case and am willing to sit and learn ‘how’. But, if he may answer in the negative, he should also make efforts to find out what conditions should have been in place there for peaceful forms of struggle to have been possible? By asserting his statement about the redundancy of pre-conditions for peaceful struggle on the basis of mis-quotes from Andargatchew, Girma can only be seen as having constructed suitable premises which make his pre-held conclusions plausible.
Most interesting is Bertukan’s — not least because of her position as a leader of a movement. Firstly, I am astounded by the speed at which she sprung for the rebuttal. This, from a movement whose best achievement during the last 8 months since its leaders were released from prison is only tearing itself into shreds over matters matured children even would contemptuously ignore. Regrettably, this can only be seen as a testimony to our worst fears about the capability of Kinijit’s leaders to live up to the trust invested in them by their followers and supporters.
Why hasn’t she released press releases in all these times against the machinations of Woyane and its electoral board when her movement’s ‘V’ sign and organisation name is snatched away from her? Why hasn’t she requested for the resignation of the Government of the day when the bullions in the national bank turned ‘Ballestra’? Or, denounced the sky rocketing life expenses for the ordinary Ethiopian, which even Lidetu had something to say about? Bertukan’s priorities are at best misplaced.
The following line from Bertukan’s letter is also significant on the merits of its undertones:
Based on the pretext of Kinijit leaders prolonged incarceration and EPRDF’s anti-democratic stance, a few supporters of Kinijit in the diaspora are raising questions against the peaceful form of struggle.
I think this is a complete miss of the cause that gave Kinijit’s leaders the prominence they have enjoyed for far too long: Ethiopians want change and Kinijit leaders put themselves forward as viable agents. Nothing more! The Kinijit leaders will enjoy their prominence so long as they can be seen to deliver. The interest of the need for change on the part those Ethiopians supporting Kinijit is paramount. It is not the other way round. The trust given to Kinijit’s leaders can be prolonged only so far as they are advancing the paramount interest of the followers’ need for change. This trust is a contract not a fief for life.
It would have been more appropriate for Kinijit’s leaders to start from true reflection on their past experiences. I believe such a reflection would convince Bertukan about the lack or failure of leadership on Kinijit’s part to be the cause for Andargatchew’s proposal for another option. The direction her movement is trudging on at the moment wouldn’t put her politically on any elevated platform than those of Lidetu or Beyene or Bulcha. Attainment of such a position requires much more than past glory. At least, Bertukan needs to tell us in what ways her form of struggle may be different from the parliamentarian opposition’s.
In my view, her reaction to Andargatchew’s article has put Bertukan on an inferior platform than Beyene and Bulcha albeit rhetorically. To the credit of the two parliamentarians, unlike Bertukan, I haven’t seen them missing opportunities to point their fingers at Woyane’s repression as the main culprit for encouraging violence in the country, rather than attacking their potential allies or second level differences, under similar circumstances.
If I recall correctly, one of the eight negotiation points Kinijit proposed as a way forward back in 2005 included the independence of the Ethiopian defence and security forces from the tutelage of EPRDF. Wouldn’t it be most appropriate for a leader of a movement to reiterate one of its cardinal points whenever the opportunities arise, as the reason to write the letter may be, well before making calls to armed opposition movements to lay their arms and join the “peaceful struggle”?
The interest of the movement would have advanced if Bertukan used her three pages letter to tell us about what the leadership has mapped out for the furtherance of the peaceful struggle. Are they planning to continue the struggle through their representatives in the parliament? Or are they entertaining calls for defiance actions that may lead to confrontation with the security forces? What will they do when the state bans them from exercising their constitutional rights to peacefully demonstrate in public or organise? Will they stand up to the security forces even if that may lead to violent confrontations or retreat? Or enter a plea to Ephrem Yishak or that woman in US state department? How are they organising the movement — publicly and openly or clandestinely? These are questions which Kinijit’s leaders should have answered to, well over eight months ago, on the day of their release from prison. This shouldn’t have waited for a solemn request from Kinijit’s believers or provocation from radical rebels.
Let us not forget that this is a cause for which hundred died, tens (if not hundreds) of thousands languished in Woyane’s prisons or lost their living or were exiled, another thousands were expropriated unlawfully and families separated. For a leader of a movement this should be much burden that wouldn’t allow a day’s peaceful sleep, let alone allow the squandering of such a length of precious time as eight months are.
I can’t therefore help raising an eyebrow while reading references to moral superiority interspersed in various places in Bertukan’s letter. In my view, Andargatchew can be seen here to have a higher moral stance than Bertukan and co., because of his endeavour to keep the movement going by looking at other options at the time when Bertukan’s “marriage with the peaceful struggle” was seen to be vacuous.
The three summarised points given as reasons for denouncing armed struggle are also vacuous. For the sake of completeness, I summarise and translate the core points as follows:
1. armed struggle doesn’t result in anything other than hatred, poverty and sufferings;
2. the use of arms is incompatible with the empowerment of citizens to freedom and integrity;
3. the use of force against oppressors is not morally superior to use of force for oppression.
To me, none of the above three make any sense at all, if they mean what they say—general truths. I am completely at a loss how resistance could be equated to oppression? By what reason or logic could one put Ethiopia’s patriotic fighters resistance on the same moral footing with the Italian fascist occupiers; or ANC’s resistance with apartheid rule? Hasn’t ANC’s resistance delivered equality to the black majority of South Africa; or our patriotic forbears’ resistance freedom to Ethiopians from racist fascist rule? The history of anti-colonial struggles during the second half of the last century is full of examples where armed resistance delivered freedom, prosperity, social justice and restored human integrity.
Needless to say, the horrors of war should be avoided as much as possible. If there are other means leading to the desired goals, no sane person, let alone, those claiming to champion the betterment of peoples’ living conditions, would opt for it. But modern day political reality is a bit convoluted to be captured by Aristotelian reasoning only.
People may be thrown into situations whereby they will be confronted with uncomfortable choices only — living under unacceptable suffering or take up arms with full responsibility for the consequences of there actions. Under such circumstances, it can’t be anyone’s prerogative to moralise against the person’s choice to take up arms unless you are to deliver him from his sufferings. The fact that the terms of the suffering may be acceptable for you cannot be an argument against the other party’s choice for raising arms. The reference to the latter’s choice as backward and uncivilised would also be at best unjustified and unfair. Sadly, the rhetoric is indicative of the chronic malaise that caused the cannibalisation of Kinijit.
————————-
The writer of this article can be reached through [email protected]