EDITOR’S NOTE: A recent Economist article says that Meles Zenawi’s tribal junta has only a few weeks foreign exchange reserves left. A significant re-routing of remittances away from official channels by the Diaspora could wipe this remainder out quickly. Ethiopians in the diaspora can help starve the Woyanne killing machine by not using official money transfer channels. The following articles — which was originally posted in June 2009 — suggests several other methods on how to defeat the genocidal dictatorship in Ethiopia.
The effective use of non-violence in the Ethiopian context
By An American Friend
There are useful lessons that Ethiopia’s non-violent opposition can gain from the last election and by studying other countries’ non-violent democracy campaigns. As is well known, in 2005, the government stole national elections and violently suppressed opposition supporters that took to the streets in protest. This violence by the government had the effect of further de-legitimizing itself and mobilizing popular opinion against it. Subsequent attempts by the opposition to exert leverage through strikes and consumer boycotts fizzled. The government maintained its effective control of violent methods, used them to hold onto its key economic resources and foreign supporters, and succeeded in surviving another five years.
Many interpret these events as proving that the non-violent principles embraced by some opposition groups cannot work in the Ethiopian context. And it is true that, in other countries, violent means have sometimes worked as a direct mechanism of change, and sometimes in parallel with non-violent action. But an analysis of events since 2005 suggests another possible explanation for the failure by the non-violent opposition to enforce its election victory: the failure to exploit fully the complete range of tactics associated with non-violent action.
Perhaps a good place to look for lessons in this experience is with a review of the basic principles of non-violence. Many people misinterpret non-violent action as an attempt to change the hearts and minds of one’s oppressor by meekly and passively accepting the punishments he inflicts. Others perceive non-violence as mainly a matter of large public demonstrations, because these dramatic scenes are the ones most often seen in the media. These are indeed aspects of non-violence, but not always the most powerful ones. Nor are they necessarily the most applicable to Ethiopia’s situation.
Indeed, a survey of non-violence in other countries indicates that the most powerful form of non-violence is choking the dictatorship to death by cutting off its material support.
The regime’s victims themselves often provide much, or even most, of this support without realizing it. There is an old story about a cruel village chief who used to force the inhabitants of his village to bring him all the food. He grew strong while the others weakened. But if anyone rebelled, the chief would beat him into submission. One day, while they were in the fields gathering food for the chief, one villager proposed that everyone withhold the food from the Chief at the same time. So they hid there, where he could not find them, eating the food themselves and withholding it from the Chief. There were too many resisters for the Chief to find and beat them all. By uniting and refusing to cooperate, and staying out of reach, they were able to stop feeding the Chief. He soon weakened and died. Then the villagers could return and eat the food themselves.
This fable illustrates the situation in Ethiopia today.
The government has two main weapons: violence and the division of its opponents. But, to implement its violence, the government needs money, especially foreign exchange, to buy arms, equipment and keep its officials loyal. So, following the illustration of the village chief, it is necessary to cut off the government’s supply of money without presenting an easy target to its soldiers.
This is a very different approach than the public protests and activities that have dominated most opposition activities to date. Massive public gatherings can have powerful psychological, propaganda and recruitment value. But, even if large rallies, also known as methods of concentration, can be organized, they will provide the government, with its advantage in violence, an easy way to hurt protesters. The failure of Kinijit’s street demonstrations, following the 2005 election fraud, to bring down the government and the recent denials of public demonstration permits to UDJ are illustrations of the limitations of such methods at this stage of the revolution.
Sometimes it’s better for resisters to stay out of reach of soldiers by using so-called methods of dispersion instead. With methods of dispersion, people can keep a low profile while simply cutting off the government’s money. They can opt out of, and disrupt, vital government-controlled economic resources until the regime crumbles.
The strikes and boycotts previously attempted by Kinijit were not successful, primarily due to the financial hardship that complying with these actions required. But this doesn’t mean that such methods of economic non-cooperation are useless. There are other tactics waiting to be used.
The opposition stands for, and should be associated with, making the average Ethiopian richer and economic resistance tactics for Ethiopia should channel natural human self-interest. Methods that allow the individual to hold onto more of his money and property may give resisters a greater direct personal stake in the struggle and spread the message that democratization is directly beneficial. These non-cooperation tactics would include tax boycotts and rent boycotts, whereby people can keep more of their own money.
One way to remove the government’s financial support is by stopping its supply of foreign exchange. The government relies on foreign exchange earned from the Diaspora’s foreign remittances to finance its arms purchases. People in the Diaspora can deny this foreign exchange to the government by bypassing official foreign exchange channels when sending money home.
In Ethiopia, citizens can withdraw their money from government-controlled banks, causing the banks to collapse. Such methods avoid open confrontation in the streets with soldiers. In fact, when people see soldiers in the street, they should greet them with friendly gestures.
Because the government relies on coffee exports, develop methods that will disrupt its earning foreign exchange from the export of coffee, such as private smuggling or exploiting vulnerabilities in its transportation. In the Diaspora, organize consumer boycotts or pressure large buyers, such as Japanese importers and Starbucks, not to buy Ethiopian coffee until human rights are implemented.
The government seeks to prevent the best quality coffee from being consumed locally. Therefore, let the preparation and consumption of good quality coffee by the people be a symbol of resistance.
Because economic resistance avoids confrontation, it shifts the advantage to the opposition, because the battlefield is now economic and where the people themselves dominate, instead of military, where the government has the temporary advantage. Such so-called dispersed tactics, by avoiding soldiers, will allow more people to join, thus fostering unified action. Most importantly, dispersed tactics, by not offering a target to the government, can continue longer, thus meeting another key requirement for success—sustainability.
Sustainability means the movement’s ability to continue functioning despite government repression or the arrest of its leaders. A comparative study of non-violence campaigns in other countries reveals that sustainability is the most critical factor in success. Sustainability promotes divisions between the government and its supporters.
Improve sustainability by strengthening organizational infrastructure. At every level, a democracy movement needs redundant leadership and communications structures that can take over if one level or link is severed, thus allowing for continued functioning in the face of repression.
Coordinated action at the national level is also important. For example, tax and rent boycotts should obviously be undertaken by as many people at the same time as possible. But unification should not be interpreted as meaning a single, monolithic movement in which everyone acts in the same way all at once. A nationwide movement should be capable of coordinated action towards the specific goal of cutting off the government’s resources but, at the same time, be composed of sub-groups that each are capable of independent leadership, communications and action. The general movement should be like a swarm of bees that attacks its target as one, but with each bee also fighting in small groups or even as individuals.
Enlist organizations and groups of all types to the movement, not just political ones. These independent groups should send their own delegates to regional and national organizations for coordinating action on a national scale. Especially, students, workers and farmers must form strong links. But they must also be capable of acting independently.
Each sub-group must be aware of the overarching goals, but capable of its own decisions and actions, all the way down to the village, neighborhood and street organization level. Include NGO’s, even those not involved with human rights. Each one has a meeting space, contacts and, sometimes, support services and infrastructure that can be borrowed (trucks, faxes, secretarial staff, etc.). Create youth squads in small, disciplined units that coordinate at the neighborhood or block level.
The government has imposed its own leadership on several important institutions, such as local governments, the military, unions and the Church in order to prevent them from acting independently. But there are many times and places, even within these institutions, when and where the government cannot easily reach. These free spaces should be expanded and developed in order to create opportunities for meeting, education, sharing information, planning and implementing actions beyond the government’s control. This will strengthen the people and weaken the government.
For example, communities can elect their own parallel authorities at the local level, including village, neighborhood and block, simply bypassing government-imposed authority. People can begin to live freely and independently of the government by forming their own election monitoring commission, courts, street and area committees, strike centers, people’s committees, political conferences, democracy salons, posters, and “hit and run” demonstrations (“hit and runs” are unannounced street actions that appear suddenly without warning and dissolve before the police can arrive.).
These free political spaces can begin to assume some functions of government, such as information distribution, dispute resolution, self-help projects (for example, mass clean ups and sanitation projects as a form of protest), marriages, public order and welfare, document recording and so on. Communities can elect their own local land title committees that will give land titles to owners with valid claims.
The creation of such democratically chosen civic space can be gradually expanded over time to assume more and more of the government’s functions, including taxation, law enforcement and the acquisition and distribution of resources.
Within the Church and Islamic hierarchies, religious communities can establish their own autonomous groups that do not consult nor recognize illegitimate, government-appointed religious hierarchies. Congregations can give their church or mosque dues directly to freely chosen religious leaders instead of the government-imposed religious authorities.
Within the military, soldiers can form their own solidarity committees and elect their own committee leaders.
Workers can bypass official union leadership by electing their own leaders to operate in parallel to the government-imposed ones. At the same time, union leadership should mirror the national umbrella movement’s redundant organizational structures by allowing decentralized groups within it to function independently. These must be capable of cooperating with the overall union leadership and with the national movement on grand strategy, but also of operating on their own. Each sub-group should also mirror the national movement in seeking sustainability by avoiding open conflict, adopting a wide range of methods and tactics, having redundant leadership and communications channels and non-hierarchical links with every sort of community group. Turn workplaces into democracy forums. Workers should elect their strike leaders. Establish strike centers. Evaluate the union’s capacity for information flow and devise hidden media sources.
If there are any workers who are hard to replace in businesses critical to the government’s income, especially its foreign exchange earnings, they should strike if feasible. Demands should be practical and local, as workers may not want to take risks for vague concepts like “freedom.” When sufficient leverage is created through these methods, link economic demands to political ones.
However, it is difficult for Ethiopian workers to go on strike because of financial hardship. Before undertaking a strike, they must try to obtain strike funding from outside sources, such as sympathetic foreign countries or foreign unions. If they cannot obtain strike funding, slowdowns and economic sabotage can exert similar economic pressure on a dictatorship without the resisting workers having to reveal themselves or come into open confrontation with the government. Such non-confrontational activities should be focused against businesses owned by government officials and supporters, or which contribute to the government’s income, especially its foreign exchange reserves. These tactics can also be applied to government offices themselves, such as tax or administrative agencies, for example.
Use opportunities for free association within the country’s various institutions to educate the people about the role they play themselves in their own imprisonment. Many people do not realize that they are supporting their own repression, and an important part of a democracy movement is educating them about this. Every time they recognize the dictatorship’s authority, every time they pay taxes to it, every time they help it earn foreign exchange, every time they rely on its political channels instead of creating their own, they strengthen and legitimize the machinery that traps them. The government cannot survive without the unwitting help of its victims. Make the people aware of the opportunities available to them to assert their own independence. When the dictatorship’s victims learn how much power they really have and understand the specific and most critical ways in which they are supporting the government, they can stop their supportive behavior and the government will collapse.
The efficient flow of information to the people is the next critical factor in achieving unified action. The umbrella movement should provide information to the people about the government’s negative actions and inform people how collectively withdrawing their cooperation from it can dissolve an oppressive regime. It is important to liberate people from attitudes of weakness and subservience.
Underground media and the free spaces created by developing parallel political structures and independent associations can serve as good channels for educating people about democracy. Evaluate the movement’s capacity to generate and move information securely and efficiently. Create as many overlapping channels of underground media– printed newspapers, leaflets and posters, published from multiple hidden locations– as possible so they can survive the eventual government crackdown. Encourage people freely to do their own underground publishing. Distribute printed media using “hit and run” methods.
Use such media to inform the people about the goal of shutting off the government’s economic support. Teach the importance of resilient, unified action. Use it to explain how the people are unwittingly supporting the government, how they can stop supporting it and how to create autonomous civic space. Encourage independent initiatives.
Workers should develop similar, hidden media structures within their autonomous organizations, as should the military, religious organizations and students. Pastoral letters and sermons from mid- and lower ranking Church and Moslem leaders and political funerals or memorial services are also good means of mass persuasion.
When educating the people, use simple fables and parables to illustrate the concepts of non-cooperation. Encourage people to think independently and to envision a better system for themselves. Encourage a “revolution of the spirit.” Encourage people to start their own literacy and educational campaigns for their local associations.
When the movement makes any public pronouncements, always do so in the name of “the people.”
In the Diaspora, promote grassroots campaigns among Westerners to end direct support of the government and re-route humanitarian support, emphasizing the issue of genocide. Periods when the international media are likely to be visiting Ethiopia are opportunities for special efforts.
Having a wide range of tactics is also part of sustainability. Each group, even every individual, can decide what’s the best way to stop supporting the government. But all should be aware of the overarching strategy of recruiting more and more people to join in cutting off the government’s resources, especially its money.
Don’t let the pressure ebb or falter, it must persistently and aggressively be kept up. Tactics should always be evolving, increasing and changing. Goals must be specific and easy for everyone to understand. Actions should be overlapping and, although independently led, all aimed at shared goals.
Beware government provocations to violence, which shifts the battle to where the government has the advantage and creates excuses for crackdowns. Promote forms of peer pressure to coerce people into participating in economic non-cooperation, economic sabotage and other methods of non-violent resistance. At the same time, the people should shun the government authorities wherever possible. Informers and collaborators should be socially ostracized.
Don’t fall into the trap of relying on the government’s controlled political channels for action. Don’t participate in elections unless the conditions for a fair contest are truly secured, including pre-election. If a decision is made to participate in elections, use the campaign as an opportunity for additional mobilization. Be both a political party and a social movement. Exploit any opportunities for public education that temporary pre-election liberalization of the media by the government may provide. But do not rely on this. If the opposition does participate in elections, establish your own election monitoring commission.
It is especially important to continue the dispersed methods of resistance described above after the post-election crackdown. This is where sustainability is critical to victory.
After sustainability is well established is the time to re-emphasize efforts to peel business, military and international support away from the dictatorship. The national umbrella organization should establish a parallel government. Only after significant security defections occur, significant splits among key government supporters emerge, sustainable communications capacity is established and a situation of dual sovereignty evolves, should concentration tactics be added to the dispersed ones.
The leverage created by sustainability should be used to force the government to step down and allow the opposition’s parallel government to take over and prepare for free and fair elections. Don’t negotiate with the dictatorship. Don’t ask it for permits and permissions. This only legitimizes it. Instead, focus on dissolving it by cutting off its sources of support.
The Woyanne dictatorship is weak. Its support is wavering. Its resources are dwindling. And there are many tools of non-violence, especially in the area of dispersed tactics, which have not yet been deployed.
Thus, considering what has worked in other countries, the obvious vulnerabilities of the dictatorship and the multiple tactical possibilities still untried, it is possible to advance a hypothesis that, in 2005, Kinijit should have followed up after the post-election crackdown with a wider range of dispersed and sustainable sanctions on the regime emphasizing individual self-enrichment. This lesson might be tested in 2009 and 2010.
Studious application of non-violent action may be able to end the Woyanne/EPRDF regime while minimizing physical harm to either side.