By Teodros Kiros
The dark days of November 2005
It was 5 years ago on “November 1, 2005, that the ruling Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne) under the leadership of Meles Zenawi unleashed a new form of terror on the people of Ethiopia. The repercussion of the terror campaign is still felt throughout Ethiopia and around the world, wherever Ethiopians reside.
Following the May 5, 2005, elections, before the votes were counted, Meles declared victory and suspended his own constitution, stripping the people of Ethiopia the right to free speech, and other basic civil rights.
When Ethiopians peacefully protested the regime’s actions, Meles responded by giving a shoot-to-kill order to his death squads. Meles Zenawi’s forces gunned down hundreds of unarmed citizens, rounded up over 40,000 young Ethiopians and sent them to detention camps in remote parts of the country. Meles also ordered the shutting down of independent newspapers and the arrest of their staff. November 2005 was one of the darkest moments in Ethiopia’s history.
Ethiopians around the world remember the November 2005 massacre, the victims of the TPLF regime for the past 20 years by honoring the martyrs who paid the ultimate price and by also resolving to intensify the struggle for freedom and democracy against the anti-Ethiopia minority ethnic dictatorship of Meles Zenawi.
Birtukan Medeksa, the symbol of MAAT, characteristically modest, moderate and brilliant was one of the victims of the dark days of remember. She was among those who were imprisoned for challenging the outcomes of the November election and became a beacon of change. The regime imprisoned her twice and now Birtukan is on her way to America for psychological treatment. Most of the heroes of November are now residing in America and Europe and desperately trying to revive the sunny moments of 2005.
These were the dark days of Ethiopian politics. The darkness that hovered over the Ethiopian nation is now twilight. Silenced voices hover the cemeteries of the dead. Those who remain are profoundly dismayed. We must ask, however, where are the voices of the taxi drivers who protested.
Where are those five million Ethiopians who protested against the rigged elections, and were called hooligans, although they were classical protestors who challenged the regime and refused to be silenced by guns.
The voices of 2005 are very much like the Egyptian voices of 2011, but their heroism did not get the media attention that the Arab world is rightly getting.
History demands of us that we remember these dark days as we engage the prevailing regime to meet us on the streets of democracy for regime change.
We appeal to the regime in the name of love of country to step down peacefully and give the Ethiopian people new voices of deciding their destiny. We must trust the people to articulate dispassionately an Ethiopian voice and frame a vision of a participatory and deliberative democracy in which merit and service to country are the new criteria by which leadership is measured and distributed.
Our guiding principle ought to be the liberation of the people is the activity of the people and their activity can be organized by a genuine participatory and deliberative democracy.
A future article will examine the structure of a new political party, which will organize a disciplined people’s uprising.