I am an Ethiopian who lives in suburban Maryland and works for the NIH/NCI, a research institution in Bethesda, Maryland. I am writing this open letter to you in all sincerity and with all the intent to be constructive. At the same time, I want to give you the opportunity to make amends and useful changes so that the egregious mistakes committed by the embassy at the April 9 meeting on Howard University campus should not happen again. I understand that it has been a few months since you have taken your current position and know it is unfair to put all the blame on you personally. I want to point to you, however, where the problem came from and what you could have done to avert some of the unnecessary practices of the embassy that, above all else, harm the country we all love and what you may be able to do in the future. My interest in writing this is not also to make any personal or political hay out of what was done to me on April 9, 2011 when I was summarily denied entry to the meeting hall by your screeners at the entrance. I only use myself as an example to show you the larger picture.
Dear Mr. Ambassador,
I was formally invited by an embassy staffer, a decent Ethiopian, who happens to know me and my views and who, on more than one occasion, had a civil discussion and debate with me. When I drove 20 miles from my home that morning to Howard University, the only preparation I made was read the 158-page document entitled: “The Growth and Transformation Plan.” I was not prepared for what I was going to face at the entrance of the hall. I believed the messages you put out on the media that all of us, irrespective of our views, were welcome to the meeting. How can I suspect that a person of your position could give out a false public announcement? First, I faced the wrath of the protestors as I was crossing their picket lines. Then I met the people who were deployed by the embassy to man the gate, and do the sad job of screening participants and deciding what type of Ethiopian should be let in and what type should be kept out. I was told I was ineligible to enter and saw many people being returned from entering. One screener told me in the face that he reads my writings on the Internet and that the meeting is not for my kind of people. I asked him if this was the policy of the embassy and he told me yes. He further told me, and I quote him verbatim: “ante Tigre Titela Yelem ende min litisera Metah” (አንተ ትግሬ ትጠላ የለም እንዴ? ምን ልትሰራ መጣህ?). There were a lot of media people, including from the VOA, a reporter for Howard University students’ paper, and a television crew right behind me who witnessed the event. Obviously the individual, who is an ethnic Tigrean, has conflated my criticism of the government with hating Tigreans. I felt sorry for him. I know this notion exists and he is not the only person who believes this kind of crap. Obviously, he doesn’t have a clue that there are a lot of Tigreans in my family that I love and that some of my best friends are Tigeans. I wanted to tell him that hatred thrives in his kind of little heads. I also had some more beautiful words to describe and educate him with, but since the area on both sides of the picket line was filled with many epithets, I didn’t want to add to that and spoil an ongoing party and left the place. But at least for a moment, I felt both the pain and courage of the people in my country who are in and out of prison for expressing their views and the many who have to flee the country because of that. When my friend, Dr. Fitsum Achamyeleh, a human rights lawyer by profession, who falls through the cracks of the screeners and braved to ask some inconvenient questions, told me that he was threatened with physical attack by some thugs on your side, only for asking a question, I felt relieved I didn’t come in. Given a chance, I would have asked you some uncomfortable questions, including the economic meaning about the “burn the village in order to save it” policy you are currently doing in Western Ethiopia, by selling land at dirt-cheap prices, evicting the population at will, and making them work for the agro-business tycoons for a slave labor of $0.73 cents a day, and I would have asked you to show me on a map of Ethiopia, the places that your government claims has no owners.
Dear Mr. Ambassador,
From what I have come to learn about the same meetings held in other cities, the discrimination you instituted in DC was not an isolated case. It is disturbingly systematic and occurred in a pattern. I know your government has various ambitious economic plans and mega projects a number of which are planned with zero dollars set aside, and require wide and huge public participation. Many of us want to help but you are closing the door on us. I can’t, for the life of me, understand where you and your government get this idea that you can galvanize massive public support for mega projects and achieve economic development while at the same time creating a breeding ground for social and political conflict and upheaval.
Dear Ambassador,
I have heard many on your side blame the protestors for all the disturbances that took place that day. But to be frank with you, once I was summarily denied entry to the meeting hall, my sympathies were with the protestors. I myself was the proof to the point they were trying to make. You may all want to use them as scapegoats for the failure of such a big meeting for which poor Ethiopian tax payers paid expensively. To be honest with you, I saw the protestors standing on a higher moral ground than the embassy, the organizers and your government. You may all want to caricature the protestors in any way you want, and give them any name you like. The truth is that these were good Ethiopians who love their country and want to contribute positively given the right environment. I have seen doctors, engineers and lawyers and business people among them and many young and educated Ethiopians. I personally was contemplating about taking sabbatical to help in the socioeconomic and environmental survey of the proposed mega dam.
If you were serious about solving problems and needed their support for the projects in Ethiopia, you could have simply done the following. You could have gone out to where they were demonstrating, grab a bullhorn and demand that they listen to you. I believe they would. You can ask them to give you representatives from among them to talk to and tell them that you will let them in, promise them that you will allow half the questions in the hall would be for opponents of the government, and half for your supporters, and demand from them that you want them to be civil. I believe they would have accepted it or if they refuse, you could have taken the moral high ground from them. Had you thought about this possibility beforehand, you didn’t need to buss people from other cities to fill the seats in the hall. That was the courageous thing to do. Sneaking in and out through the back door and avoiding facing them was not. At the end of the day, it looked like that you were interested in the politics of it rather than the economic transformation you were talking about. That was what they were accusing you and in many ways you seemed to have proven.
Dear Mr. Ambassador,
To give you some clarity and, by way of my example, help you understand the motive of most of the people who stood on the other side of the picket line on April 9, please allow me to briefly describe myself to you. I am a critic of your government who often writes commentaries on many matters Ethiopian. I don’t do it in hiding and always made sure that I have written my name and address on my commentaries. I live most of my adult life around academia doing teaching and research and understand how important it is to have my facts and data straight before opening my mouth or write anything. I exercise self doubt and don’t allow myself to be overwhelmed by the conventional wisdom. I account when I make mistakes, and I make a lot of them. I love passionate, reasoned and civil debate. You may also want to know that I have, on many occasions, cooperated with the embassy when I believed the interests of our country and people weigh more than the differences I have with the government. I confess that I had done that even if it often meant I have to hold my nose and do it. One such case was the Ethio-Eritrean war (1998-2000). I was one of a few key people who coordinated various kinds of support and fund raising for the war effort. I was very eager to take that same energy towards fighting the obscene poverty in our country. I literally begged Ambassador Berhane Gebrekiristos, his deputy Ato Fisha Adugna who were in your place at the time, and Ato Abay Tsehaye, who I happened to meet at about the same time, to open up the country for a little more democracy, exercise tolerance, empty the prisons of political prisoners, and direct that massive energy and goodwill for the good of the country and our suffering people.
I even helped organize a community meeting with Ato Meles Zenawi and spoke at the meeting pleading with him for tolerance and little democracy. I crossed picket lines to do that. Many among the protestors you saw on April 9, 2011 have been at the forefront of this effort. That experiment failed miserably. It failed mainly because of the obstinacy of your government and partly because a number of individuals who were actively doing this with me decided to use the access the event created for them to government officials, to carve out some space for themselves or collect government perks and favors. The slogan of these perk seekers as I remember it at the time was “a defeated shabia and a bruised woyane is good for me”. Many of these perk seeking individuals are still here and I am told they run around the embassy and helped organize the event on April 9. I often hear them these days claim that they have defeated the Diaspora opposition to your government and that, what is left of off it are only a few trouble makers. If you have believed them, as I suspect you and many officials might, I think you are making a serious mistake. Perhaps the perk seekers have told you that there will be three protestors on April 9 at Howard University. These perk seekers are beneficiaries of the polarization. It is their business and they have thrived in it. But I can frankly tell you that the hostility and opposition to your government is as it has always been if not worse. The lull in intensity, in my view, is mainly due to the frustration that resulted from the senseless division within the opposition.
Dear Mr. Ambassador,
It is not too late to make amends. First, apologize to the community. Apologies don’t kill people nor do they reduce any respect for you or your government. Call another free meeting. Approach the community leaders and talk to them. Ask the community to organize independently and take part in at least a section of a development project in Ethiopia. Put a check on government perk seekers. They will not bring any meaningful idea or investment to Ethiopia. Stop paying some of the people who have rented radio stations to shower the community with bizarre analysis and insult the community.
Study the model created during the Ethio Eritrean war. Although I have difference with their views, I have a lot of respect for Ambassador Berhane G Kirstos and his Deputy Fisha Adugna for being willing to attend a massive meeting of Ethiopians of diverse views (more than ten times the one you had on April 9) organized by their opponents and critics. They were, of course heckled and were asked to answer inconvenient questions. They stood their ground and told the cowed it is their country that they shouldn’t let down in time of its need. The result was a massive cooperation and unity that I have never seen. As I stated above, it failed largely because of your governments extremist politics. If you are sincere about fighting poverty instead of using it for political purposes as many Ethiopians suspect, and as the actions of your government suggest, you have to summon the courage to do these tough things. You can include me among the people who would help. Please sir, don’t play politics with our tragic poverty. As you are well aware, there is a storm gathering all around our country. God give you the wisdom to see it.
Thank you and please accept the highest of my regards. [email protected]
