Ethiopian Review Editorial
Representatives of Kinijit support committees through out the United States will come to Washington DC for a conference this coming weekend, August 18-19, 2006. The meeting was called by the chairman of the Kinijit North America Support Committee (KNASC) at the urging of some local support committee representatives who are opposing the newly formed Kinijit International Political Leadership. The majority of the executive committee members had objected to holding the conference, arguing that the International Leadership (IL) must first get itself organized and become fully functional. But the KNASC chairman decided to call a conference, brushing off the majority’s concern.
The purpose of the conference was to reject the IL, if possible, or to make the KNASC independent of the political leadership so that its officials can continue to do what ever they choose to do without any accountability. Most of these local representatives have either appointed themselves or were appointed by some of the KNASC officials. Many of them have no formal structure. They are a one-man show. Not surprisingly, most of the problems inside the KNASC are caused by these unelected so-called “representatives.” Because their loyalty is to the individuals inside the KNASC who appointed them, not the Kinijit members in their local areas. They feel accountable to no one. Those local committees that have duly elected their representatives, such as Washington DC, Boston, Atlanta, and a few others, are the most active and problem-free. Even though this weekend’s conference was called with the intention of sabotaging the IL, it is a good opportunity for the IL to take decisive measures in asserting its leadership over these unruly elements. If it cannot do that, it will be the start of its undoing.
The Kinijit IL finally moving forward
After receiving a great deal of criticism for lack of action, finally this week the IL has started to take some decisive actions through a democratic decision-making process. First, the IL has finally decided to disassociate the party from its hijacked web site (kinijit.org), after attempts failed to persuade the hijackers to return the site to the public relations committee. On Tuesday, the IL released a timely and important message directed at the armed forces in Ethiopia. The IL has also been able to finally focus on securing the release of the jailed Kinijit leaders. This has been a very productive week for the IL indeed. While the power-mongers are busy conspiring against it, the IL was attending to the business of the party, at the same time taking actions against those who have paralyzed Kinijit for the past several months.
Necessary measures
One of the proposed solutions to bring order back to Kinijit is to disband the current KNASC and replace it with a body that is composed of elected representatives from local committees. Those representatives who are not democratically elected by their local committees must be given a short deadline to conduct elections in their respective localities. The IL has the mandate and authority to take such measures.
Another important step is to separate the IL and the KNASC’s new leadership and strictly limit the KNASC’s role to mobilizing financial and material support for the party.
The IL should be the original six
The Kinijit leaders in jail appointed only six individuals to the international leadership for a good reason. First, they wanted the leadership to be small enough to meet often and make decisions without delays. Second, the individuals selected were believed by the leaders to have political skills. Six more individuals were added under coercion and blackmail, not in consideration of what is best for the party. Many of the six new individuals who were added to the IL do not have any political skill. One of them, in fact, is politically extremely damaging to Kinijit. He is single-handedly responsible for the U.S. State Department’s negative views towards Kinijit, not to mention the numerous supporters who left the party because of his uncivil behavior. For the IL to be effective, it needs to be organized according to the jailed leaders’ design.
Protect Kinijit’s image
Kinijit, a party that advocates justice, peace, love, and tolerance is currently attracting some of the thuggish elements in our society. These self-proclaimed “Kinijit supporters” are similar in their character to Woyanne supporters–uncivil, intolerant, and ignorant. They claim to be Kinijit supporters, giving a false impression that most Kinijitians are like them. There is no doubt that some of them are Woyanne agent-provocateurs.