As you know, a strong social storm waged by Africans is shaking the ground of many autocratic governments and a new dawn of freedom and democracy is breaking in the African continent, especially North Africa. We are all witnessing the path of history bending towards the realization of a system of sanity and reason in place of long prevailed insanity and irrational politics. North Africa is spear heading this people’s movement that will surely be emulated by other oppressed Africans beyond the borders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
The inception and development of new ideas has been instrumental for the creation of a conscious and informed social movement that demands democratic rights and economic development by the people. As a result, the time the regime looks after only to its own security and personal and group aggrandizement by disregarding the welfare and interest of the people is becoming a reality of the past. Because, people are saying, Dear Chairman, Enough for social and economic shackles that autocrats imposed for decades on their own people. And everywhere this shackles will be obliterated and a new dawn of freedom and development shall come to Africa !
Your Excellency, with all due respect, I would like to be bold enough to suggest that, as colonialism was horrible and oppressive as it was it is also fair to admit that many postcolonial African leaders, including most of those in power today, were/are equally horrific and brutal. Besides those leaders of North Africa, it is also fair to include Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Al-Beshir of The Sudan, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and many others in this category of regimes that equally oppress their own people in the scale of colonial era. They allow no real opposition to exist, they are corrupt and self aggrandizing, they allow no freedom of expression, and the press etc. Most of these African leaders today are replicas of the French king Louis XIV, from 1643, who called himself, “l’etat, c’est Moi”- I am the state.
I am writing to you this letter not only as an Ethiopian but also as an African, to express my disgust with the way the “African union” acted following the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. While the people of these countries stood to their rights and demand reform and change, the African union has done nor said nothing to support the people’s cause as it should do. Even following the removal of two dictators in Tunisia and Egypt the union did not congratulated them nor has it expressed its readiness to support the democratic reform in these countries! However, I am sure Mr. Chairman, when Ben Ali and Mubarak declared landslide election victory in October 2009 and December 2010 respectively, you have either congratulated them or have ruled the conduct of the election process free and fair.
Can you see the paradox Mr. chairman? Where is your conscience and what is the purpose for the Union to exist if it is unable to act in these circumstances? Is it for the African dictators the Union works and not to the people? If the role of the African union is to be used as a forum by which one dictator defends the abuse and killing of the other dictator, then as an African citizen I believe that it will be time that the “African union” should be disbanded. Because, at the end of the day, this will not only save the meager resource the continent spend on this useless Union but it also means that the union cease to be a post colonial instrument that perpetuates the misery and oppression of the African people.
It was so appalling to see the African union keep silent, as it did during the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, while Moammer Ghadafi use its military power to quell the popular civilian movement for change in Libya. We have heard not a single word by the African union calling for restraint by any side. And no matter how many people these autocrats kill, I am sure the “African union” would not say nothing at all as it did before. It is indeed, so heart breaking to be an African under these circumstances and even it is condescending to say I am one. When our own black leaders and their Union is unable and unwilling to stand with the people but rather other “white people” from afar share our pain and come to our rescue, it is hard to comprehend the degree of shame to be black and the paradox it embodies. The reference of the continent as a “dark continent” emanates from these sorry realities, and it is indeed a “dark continent”
Dear Mr. chairman, besides your inability to act in defense of the plight of millions of Africans for democracy and human rights you stood in defense of the Libyan dictator by urging the international community to stop the action being taken by NATO, following the UN Security council resolution, which called for a no flight zone in Libya and stopped the advance of Gadhaffi forces in to areas held by the opposition. I was personally puzzled by the decision the “African Union Panel on Libya” took in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott. Is it in the interest of the “African Union” to keep in power tyrants at the expense of millions of African people who are yearning to democracy and dignity? For that matter, it is not far when you endorsed the Ethiopian election in 2005 and 2010 as “free” and “fair” when the European Union and Human rights Watch ruled it out to be repressive and unfair. So, it is not the first time the “Union” proved to be a tool tyrants use to silence peaceful opposition and cover their untold atrocities.
The question is, Where is the conscience of the leaders in the “African union” and what has the “Union” accomplished to the hopes and aspirations of the ordinary Africans beyond being used as a tool in a postcolonial Africa to oppress and brutalize its own population? The “Unions” record clearly proves the fact that it has lost its purpose to live for, and it is time to use the millions of dollars spent on the “African Union” for other purposes like, feeding the millions of people who are in danger of hunger in the horn of Africa, or take care of the refugees in Zimbabwe, invest it in the peace making and peace keeping efforts in Cote D’Ivoire and Somalia, and so forth.
One thing is clear Mr. Chairman, if there is one thing that the African Union could be credited as its accomplishment, then it will be that it was so effective in perpetuating dictatorship and misery in Africa!
As an individual aspiring democracy and freedom in Africa, and being one who is in exile exactly because of the absence of these rights in my country, I would like to commend the Western world. Particularly, the commitment and support of the US president Barack Obama to the side of those ordinary people who stood in quest of democracy and development in the face of their own autocratic and corrupt regimes is commendable. Africa looks forward to the, UN, US and EU, not “AU“ so as to support its aspiration for democratization, dignity, freedom and equality that our dictatorial regimes refused us and the “African Union” is accomplice of.
God bless you all !
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*Eyassu Lebenu was an Ethiopian diplomat who served under the current Ethiopian government. He defected recently due to his opposition to the continuing human rights violations and lack of political space for the opposition in Ethiopia. He can be reached at [email protected]
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Cc:
Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso,
President of the European Union Commission
Brussels, Belgium
Mr. Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary General of the United Nations
New York, USA
