Forty policemen march two-by-two through a remote Ethiopian town drawing stares from local farmers for their incongruous high-tech stab vests, body armour and riot helmets.
“Look, they are trying to terrify us,” says opposition politician Teshale Idosa, his eyes widening. “And it is working. They are terrifying. We are terrified.”
The tension is palpable in the Horn of Africa nation’s Oromia region ahead of national elections Sunday, with six people killed in just four weeks.
The region is home to the Oromo, Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group with 27 million out of 80 million people. The area also produces most of the coffee in Africa’s biggest grower, along with oil seeds, sesame and livestock, which are all key exports.
Oromia is seen by analysts as key to the future of sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous nation, a country that is Washington’s main ally in the region and a growing destination for foreign direct investment.
On the road to Midakegne, soldiers and police stop and search cars, pat people down and check IDs, sometimes taking notes. Locals often seem frightened to talk about politics.
The eight-party opposition coalition, Medrek, says two of the six dead were theirs, while the ruling party says it has lost one candidate and a policeman was killed.
Another two died when a grenade was flung into a meeting of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), part of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition
VOTER CONFUSION
Also playing on people’s nerves is the fact that Ethiopia’s last national elections in 2005 ended with a disputed result. Seven policemen and 193 protesters died in street riots in the capital Addis Ababa and top opposition leaders were jailed.
The opposition argues it would sweep to power if the ruling party stopped intimidating and jailing its members. The government dismisses that accusation as nonsense and says it will win easily on its development record.
The ruling party has embarked on massive investment in infrastructure such as roads and energy. The International Monetary Fund said last month that Ethiopia would excel this year with growth in excess of 5 percent.
Many people in Oromia told Reuters they were confused about how to vote, with some towns overwhelmingly supporting the opposition coalition Medrek, and others the OPDO.
Opposition figures say the Oromo have never had any power despite the OPDO’s place in the government. They see that party as controlled by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s Tigrayan People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (TPLF) — which they say runs the other three parties in the ruling coalition.
Some farmers told Reuters that officials deny them seeds and fertilizer to force them into joining the OPDO. One man said he was fired after 20 years as a chemistry teacher because he joined Medrek. OPDO members denied the allegations.
“Our party is fully independent and Oromo,” OPDO official Alemayehu Ejio, told Reuters. “We are even more popular now because of our development work.”
ELECTRICITY AND WATER
In Midakegne, 40 km (25 miles) from the nearest Tarmac road, the opposition says a 23-year-old activist, Biyansa Daba, was beaten to death. The government says he died of cancer and that the opposition is trying to spoil a poll it will lose.
Merera Gudina, leader of Medrek member party, the Oromo People’s Congress, is tailed on the road to the secluded town by three men in a pick-up truck. His car, and another containing Medrek activists, are stopped and searched by soldiers.
When Merera arrives and makes a speech, promising more power to the Oromo people, he is filmed and photographed by the three men while armed police watch.
OPDO officials in Midakegne repeated that Biyansa died of cancer, but three people separately approached Reuters to say he was severely beaten.
Earlier the same day, as the OPDO held a large rally in the town of Gorosole, locals told Reuters they would vote for the ruling party because they were grateful for electrification and the provision of safe drinking water to the town’s school.
The ruling party often points to its development achievements. Signs of progress in Oromia since the 2005 elections are evident.
An impressive road network has been built, towns have electricity and telephone masts are everywhere.
Just as the meeting is about to reach its climax — the unveiling of the new water tap for the school — Merera and his supporters appear in two cars and drive through the crowd. They throw leaflets into the air, and at the OPDO officials.
“Look at them,” shouts Yohannes Mitiku, Merera’s rival for the area’s parliamentary seat. “They are trying to ruin our rally because they see that people support us.”
“They say we intimidate them but yet they feel free to do this,” he told Reuters.
Once the tap is unveiled, people filter back to villages in the surrounding hills, their absence revealing an empty street littered with leaflets and flags.
“Yes, the OPDO have been developing Oromia,” says an old man who has watched the commotion. “But it’s development and repression at the same time. They can build roads to the moon but I won’t vote for them until we’re equal.”
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Afrigue en ligne) — Western diplomatic missions in Addis Ababa have sent out warning messages to their citizens in Ethiopia or those planning to travel there, as tension builds in the Horn of Africa country ahead of the 23 May polls.
The French Embassy, in an email sent to the country’s citizens Thursday Morning, advised them to avoid public places, public transportation systems and stay away from any demonstrations and public gatherings by Ethiopians.
The Embassy also warned the citizens to prepare stocks of food, water, electricity sources and fuel ahead of the polling day.
For those out of the capital, Addis Ababa, the Embassy has also announced a 24-hour-ready telephone service through which that they can contact the diplomatic mission in case of trouble.
Few days earlier, the U.S. Embassy had sent out a similar message to U.S. citizens in Ethiopia and those planning to travel to Addis in the coming weeks.
Amid fear of violence, tension is rising in Ethiopia ahead of the national elections, with accusations and counter-accusations of harassment and killings by the opposition and the government.
Already, violence has erupted among students in the countries major public universities.
Though government said a conflict last Saturday among Addis Ababa University students of the Oromo and Tigre ethnic groups was due to mobile phones theft, its spokesperson Wednesday admitted that it later took an ethnic dimension and blamed it on two opposition parties under the largest opposition coalition, Medrek.
‘Starting points might be the mobiles,’ Bereket Simon, chief of Government Communication Affairs Office, said Wednesday. ‘But hard core supporters of Arena and OPC trying to rally each other have had their hands adding fuel to the fire’.
Reports indicate that conflicts have expanded to Haromaya and Mekele ” public universities in the hearts of Oromia and Tigray regions, home to Arena and OPC, respectively â” but Bereket said he was not aware of such incidents.
Government said on Saturday a grenade thrown into a meeting of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), part of the ruling coalition, killed two and injured 14.
On Sunday, a policeman was stabbed to death by OPC members following an order by an officer of the party, government alleged. On Monday, the ruling party accused opposition members of killing one of its candidates.
The coalition of eight opposition parties, Medrek, said three of its members have been killed since campaigning began over two months ago.
Medrek is fielding the second-highest number of candidates after the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Front (EPRDF).
A 24 March Human Rights Watch reports accused Ethiopian government of waging a coordinated and sustained attack on political opponents, journalists and rights activists ahead of the elections.
In the midst of the growing tension, however, government said its security forces would not use live ammunition or lethal weapons if violence occur during the elections.
Though it said it expected peaceful elections this time, the government has also warned that the police are prepared to handle any outbreak of violence ‘professionally’.
Ethiopia has had little experience with elections. Several powerless parliaments were chosen over the decades, with few voters and minimal consequences. When the Derg fell and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was consolidating its power, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) realized that the invitation they got to participate in government and an election was intended to co-opt them, not to share power with them. The Oromos — the biggest ethnic group in Ethiopia — turned it down and and withdrew to the political margin where they have usually been. The government-created Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) remained their sole voice, such as it is, in the EPRDF.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi remains the only leader the EPRDF, the ruling party, has had since before they took over in 1991. The Tigre People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) created and still controls the EPRDF. Although there are non-Tigreans in the power structure, even in senior positions, the TPLF dominates the party and Meles controls the TPLF.
How to square this with elections? The answer is simple: you can’t. By definition, elections are intended to distribute power according to ballot results. In Ethiopia — not alone in this — being voted out is not an acceptable election result. It will not be allowed to happen.
In 2005, Ethiopia was recovering from war and drought. It had successfully broken its promise and dodged the postwar border decision from The Hague. All four guarantors of the agreement (the UN, US, EU and AU) looked the other way. There had been several good harvests, foreign aid was pouring in and coffee prices were recovering.
A few small parties emerged to contest the election. Several of them combined to present a meaningful challenge. Badly misreading the public mood, the overconfident EPRDF allowed unprecedented public debate on the all-important broadcast media. The public was riveted by the broadcasts and voter registration surged. An opposition rally in Addis Ababa just before election day drew a crowd some estimated at close to a million! Even if inflated, it was a huge and peaceful assembly. The government’s counter-rally gathered a respectable but smaller crowd.
On election day so many voters lined up that some polling stations were forced to stay open well past midnight. Some estimated that an unheard of 90% of registered voters actually turned out. Why did they show up in such numbers? What where they thinking? In a country without a democratic tradition, with low rates of education and literacy, why were so many people willing to stand in line for hours to vote…a concept many probably didn’t fully understand? And what happened to those emotions?
Many voted against the government. The EPRDF lost the entire City Council in Addis Ababa and was badly beaten in parliamentary races in many urban areas, where the results became known quickly. In a panic, the government barred election observers (including the Carter Center) as the majority of the ballots — Ethiopia is 80%+ rural — were counted. The opposition, without evidence, claimed it had won. The government, also without evidence, claimed it had won. To no one’s surprise, the government won big.
The streets of Addis were soon filled with uniforms and armored vehicles. I saw them myself, having arrived in Addis a few days after the election, and was there when violence broke out. It followed a familiar pattern, one that I had also seen in the 1960s when student protesters marched against Emperor Haile Selassie. Angry students gathered, shouting abusive language and refusing to disperse when ordered to do so. Shots were fired, far more shots than in the 1960s and with many more casualties. There were several public clashes and altogether nearly 200 were killed.
When the dust settled, tens of thousands had been rounded up and sent to detention camps. Most were soon released. Many opposition leaders were arrested, charged with treason and released 18 months later in a deal intended to blunt their political careers. The parties they had created were infiltrated, splintered and effectively neutered. One, Birtukan Mideksa, the most popular opposition figure in the country, was rearrested. She remains in jail.
The EPRDF is not going to let history repeat itself. Under intense pressure, the surviving opposition have tried to mount election campaigns, but they are small, weak, underfunded and harassed by government supporters. A few have been killed, including both candidates and supporters. The government claims that one of its people has been killed. Much of the violence is in Oromia, but also in Tigre, where an embarrassing home-province challenge to the TPLF emerged.
The number of victims is small but the message is unmistakable. Running against this government is dangerous. There are periodic reminders of just how dangerous. With the outcome never in doubt, the courage of the opposition is impressive. The strength of the government’s response reveals its anxiety.
Questions come to mind. What happened to 2005’s enthusiasm? Forgotten? Stored away for another time? No one saw trouble coming in 2005. Could something similar happen in 2010…after the elections, if not before? The students again? Is the government show of force aimed at them in particular, reminding them of the cost of protest? The EPRDF’s own leadership — Meles himself — left the campus to fight the Derg…
(Shlomo Bachrach was on the staff of Peace Corps/Ethiopia following several years as a lecturer at Haile sbachrachSelassie I University in Addis Ababa. He is currently editor of East Africa Forum, a news group and online archive of news from the Horn of Africa at EastAfricaForum.net. Shlomo has another blog on our site: The Arts: Music of the World.)
LEWISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA — In December, an Ethiopian court sentenced Bucknell University Professor of Economics Berhanu Nega, former mayor of Addis Ababa, to death in absentia for terrorism.
Q: Your colleagues and friends understand that this charge is bogus, but do you hear from others who don’t?
A: I haven’t heard from anyone who takes this as a serious judicial decision — only the Ethiopian government and its blind supporters. Even the government knows that the decision of the court is nothing but a reflection of the regime’s desires rather than based on any reasonable evidence. It sends a message to the public — there is no court to save you, you live by our rules, if you question our rules, we will do what we want, and no one will stop us.
Q: The death sentence is real, and you were jailed under the Zenawi government. Are you afraid?
A: One of the reasons you struggle for freedom and liberty is because you feel that life isn’t meaningful without liberty. I am not worried — not because the government would not try to harm me, but I now live in a society of laws that will protect me. You can’t live in fear. If you allow this kind of fear to determine your actions, dictatorships will exist forever.
Q: What sustained you while you were imprisoned?
A: First, the Ethiopian people and their yearning for freedom. While I was incredibly disappointed by U.S. and European policymakers and diplomats when I was in prison, I also was hearing about Bucknell, my colleagues, students and people at other universities supporting freedom. This connection at the human level, that people love and support freedom everywhere, recognizing that freedom is a human condition, is the hope for humanity that keeps you going. It was a source of hope for me when I was in prison, and I suspect for all people fighting for liberty around the world.
Q: What is your hope for Ethiopia?
A: Unless the international community takes the position of outrage as it did in Guinea, the government will not change. The brutality of this regime is mind boggling. This is a government known for committing genocide against its people. Its basic strategy is to stay in power by terrorizing people and by dividing them on primordial grounds. There are several groups fighting against the government. Unless there is a serious intervention, the whole region will blow up. I encourage Western policymakers to recognize what is happening and adjust their policy before it is too late to make a difference. The only credible and durable solution for the region, in my view, is the democratization of Ethiopia.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Bloomberg) — An activist campaigning for Ethiopia’s opposition Medrek alliance was shot dead in a rural part of Oromiya, the third killing in a week in the southwestern region ahead of elections on May 23.
Girma Kabe was killed on May 4 in the North Shewa district, Negasso Gidada, a Medrek official, said in a mobile-phone interview today.
“He was posting posters in daylight and he was shot,” Negasso said. “Our people say it was a deliberate political killing.”
Tensions have been rising in Oromiya ahead of this month’s vote. On May 7, two people were killed in southern Oromiya when an unidentified person threw a hand grenade at a meeting celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization, which support’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
The man who killed Girma may be a member of a militia loyal to Meles’s Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, said Merara Gudina, a leader of Medrek’s ethnic Oromo wing. The EPRDF said Girma was involved in a personal dispute and was a supporter of Meles’s party, which has ruled the Horn of Africa country for the past 19 years.
“He was not killed by our security and our militia,” said Zelalem Jamanie, an executive committee member of the EPRDF’s ethnic Oromo wing, when reached on his mobile phone today. “The person who killed him, he has his own private gun. There is some problem between them.”
Oromos are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, though national politics in the country has been dominated for more than a century by politicians and feudal lords from the smaller Amhara and Tigrayan ethnic groups.
Security forces loyal to Meles killed at least 193 people in the aftermath of Ethiopia’s disputed 2005 elections. Medrek leader Birtukan Mideksa remains in jail under a life sentence after being charged with treason following that poll.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at [email protected].
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) — Ethiopia’s ruling party accused the opposition on Friday of killing one of its candidates ahead of this month’s national election, in an allegation denied by the main opposition alliance.
Both sides have stepped up rhetoric ahead of the May 23 election — the first vote in the Horn of Africa country since 2005 when a disputed poll ended with street riots and the jailing of politicians.
Ethiopian government spokesman Shimeles Kemal said one of the ruling party’s candidates had been stabbed to death, in a first murder accusation against Medrek, the country’s main opposition coalition.
“Itana Idossa was stabbed to death by Medrek members a week ago after he left a meeting,” he said. “Police have apprehended suspects — Medrek activists.”
Medrek dismissed the accusation. “The people who killed him have no connection with us,” Merera Gudina, leader of one of the coalition parties, the Oromo Peoples’ Congress, told Reuters.
The ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front is expected to win the election comfortably. Medrek is seen as the biggest political force challenging the 19-year-old government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
At the time of the 2005 vote, the government said the violence was part of a plan to force an unconstitutional change. Security forces killed 193 people on the streets and top opposition leaders were imprisoned. Seven policemen were killed.
The opposition says their candidates and voters are harassed and intimidated. The government, for its part, says the opposition plans to incite street violence and discredit the poll because it has no chance of winning.
The political climate in Ethiopia is watched closely by investors eyeing oil and gas exploration and large-scale farming projects there.
Last month, a senior Medrek official, Bulcha Demeksa, said an opposition activist was bludgeoned to death with a gun butt by ruling party members.
The ruling party responded by saying the man died of cancer and vowed to prosecute Bulcha. On Thursday, the man’s father told Voice of America radio station that his son was beaten to death by government militia men.
Both killings happened in the Oromia region, home to Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group, the Oromo, who number 27 million out of 80 million people.
In March, a Medrek candidate in the north of the huge country, Aregawi Gebre-Yohannes, was attacked and stabbed to death. The opposition says his killing was a political murder, but the government says he died in a bar fight. A man has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for his murder. (Reporting by Barry Malone, editing by George Obulutsa and Maria Golovnina)
