A divided elite, a bleeding nation and the 2005 elections By B. Tsehaye March 8, 2004

A divided elite, a bleeding nation and the 2005 elections
By B. Tsehaye
March 8, 2004

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I am one of those who always hope that our elite will
some day come together, and make history like our
forefathers have done at Adwa in 1896. Together, we
can become a force to lead EPRDF to a democratic
election and to save our country from further
breakdown of law and order. Indeed, if the divisive
elements both within the country and abroad continue
to prevail in the next few months, we may not have a
sufficient strong pressure to bear on Meles Zenawi and
EPRDF to move to an open and democratic election which
will be free and fair to all Ethiopians at home and
abroad.

A democratically-elected government is the only way
to legitimacy and to bring peace and harmony among
all Ethiopian anywhere on the globe, and thereby pave
the way for an all-round political, social and
economic development with the full and equal
participation of all Ethiopians. To help in achieving
this lofty goal, I want to recall some events from the
past in order to serve as a basis for useful lessons
to mould our Country’s future,

I would like to recall with you some of our recent
history of division ( Pardon any errors since I am not
a historian !) with the hope that the common threads
in that history will help us to gather some lessons
and make a radical departure from a wasted past and
take a bold step into the future in the best interest
of all of us and our Motherland.

I shall first briefly recall our collective (i)
experience in the student movement of the 1960s and
1970s, (ii) experiences of the elite in Government,
and (iii) the political power game and party
proliferation since the 1990s. Then, I shall conclude
with an appeal to my fellow elites to avoid division
and march together in the remaining months of 2004 by
agreeing on, and implementing, a humble proposal for a
WAY FORWARD.

EXPERIENCES IN THE STUDENT MOVEMENT OF THE 1960S AND
1970S

The Ethiopian student movement can, perhaps, be
regarded as having started at UCAA in 1959, partly
because of the infusion of new ideas since 1958 from
foreign students who were attending UCAA as
scholarship students, and partly because of the
simmering but covert dissatisfaction of Ethiopians of
Eritrean origin with the developments in the
administrative arrangements of the federation, and
partly due to the prevailing leftist agenda of that
day and the impatience of students with the pace of
development in Ethiopia. The movement gathered
momentum year after year, and it gave rise to UCU,
NUEUS and the “Crocodiles”.

Abroad, there were ESUNA and ESANA in North America,
and ESUE in Europe, and a group in Algiers that laid
down the ideological basis for EPRP and the first
enunciation of “right of secession”, which came to be
one of the central points of disagreement of EPRP with
the 17th. SESUNA Congress which decided that
regionalism was as bad as feudalism and imperialism,
and, latter on with MEISON, which had Haile Fida as
one of its foremost leaders.

In fact, it was Haile Fida who traveled to Algiers in
1971 to convince the Berhane Meskel group there to
merge with Haile’s group, but they disagreed on (a)
their assessment of the political situation in
Ethiopia, (b) the way forward, (c) organizational
matters, (d) the national question and EPRP’s adoption
of the “right of secession”, and (e) the nature of the
struggle wherein Haile’s group opted for a peaceful
one whereas Berhane Meskel’s group chose armed
struggle.

However, both groups were Marxists, and their
differences were entirely on the means to their common
goal, if, indeed, they had a common goal. Then, the
issue of going back home was either ” through Bale or
Bole”, the Bole option being that of MEISON. Hence,
whereas the end was probably identical, there was a
difference in the means, and that difference persisted
throughout the 1970s and led to the costly and
destructive sacrifices in the 1970s and latter.
Couldn’t that have been avoided ? If compromise was
undesirable at that time, could it be that one or both
groups had other motives for being in the struggle ?
One never knows !

EXPERIENCES OF THE ELITE IN GOVERNMENT

The early 1970s brought in the Derg, largely because
of the inability of the elite to make compromises and
work together for their common good and for that of
the Motherland. Derg had never dreamt of ruling the
Country, but the power vacuum created by the elite
gave it all the confidence to rule Ethiopia. The
result was a disaster: the first victims of the
break-down of the rule of law and the forerunner of
the barbaric actions under the Derg were some 60
members of His Imperial Majesties Government who were
butchered without any due process overnight, and that
was the first signal that there would be no way to
stop those same guns from murdering others
indiscriminately in the months to come. That period
of madness led to the loss of thousands of our
brightest youth and several of the best of Ethiopia’s
sons and daughters either through outright murder or
through a mass exodus to save their lives.

Then factions soon arose within the Derg and several
members of the Derg were eliminated, including General
Teferi Benti, Lt. Alemayehu Haile and Captain Mogus;
slightly latter, Atnafu Abate and several others were
murdered; lastly there was an attempted coup in 1980
and that also led to the death and murder of so many
Derg members and military leaders. Again, members of
the Derg could not settle their differences in a
cultured way, and the outcome was brute force and
further destruction. Derg wanted to always prevail
only with the gun, and its guns finally gave in, and
it lost out to TPLF/EPLF, which appeared to be even
nastier in many respects.

TPLF and EPLF had been fighting together to bleed
Ethiopia at Nakfa, Afabet, Massawa and all over
Eritrea, but once in power, differences arose and they
also opted to settle those differences with guns in
1998. The most bloody war in Ethiopian history was
fought between two Ethiopian brothers; some 70,000 of
our youth were sacrificed, and close to 30 billion
Birr was wasted in a country with some 15,000,000
famine victims. Again, the absence of a compromising
culture between those two led to further national
bleeding !

The other two groups that temporarily came together in
1991 were OLF and TPLF/EPRDF to form the Transitional
Government; again a rift was created between them not
long after 1991, and no compromise was reached so that
OLF had to go back to the bush. Apparently, either
TPLF did not want to listen, or OLF was too
pig-headed, or both were under the “ Listen to me! I
have to rule ” culture. As a result, the ground was
prepared for further conflict between two brothers
once again.

OBSESSION WITH POLITICAL POWER AND THE DISEASE OF
PARTY PROLIFERATION

The love for political power is an obsession that
spans across religious, cultural, ethnic and regional
lines. As a result, even when political programs are
very much alike, and proclaimed objectives are almost
identical, groups of Ethiopians of all ages have had
this disastrous obsession to form political parties
all over the country and all over the globe.
Obvious examples are the ten or more small political
parties in the USA most of whom are members of UEDF,
some 65 or more political parties in the Motherland,
and, only God knows how many more elsewhere. All this
is done by an elite which is never ashamed to make
eloquent speeches to enhance democratization in our
bleeding Motherland, and swears day and night that it
is prepared to make sacrifices to bring better days
for all Ethiopians. This obsession has led Ethiopia
to pay a heavy price in the 1960s and 1970s, and then
again in the 1980s and 1990s. The proliferation in
Ethiopia has been deliberately and officially
encouraged and supported by the ethnic-driven minority
government to ensure its hold on to power. Has the
elite learnt any lessons from all those disasters ?

Why should there be 10 or more small political parties
in the USA if all have given their hearts and minds
for a common struggle to save Ethiopia and bring it
back to the club of respectable nations once again ?
Why should there be 65 or more political parties in
the Motherland when the issue that is at hand is an
issue that affects each and every Ethiopian without
any regard for religion, sex, age, ethnic origin,
political creed, or philosophical orientation ?

All these political parties are led by the elite,
which is, therefore, responsible for all this
political chaos since the 1960s. This is not to say
that I condemn, wholesale, all that has been done in
the past, but what I am saying is that what is gone
is gone, and whatever mistakes have been made, they
have all been made in good faith by a generation which
has had little or no democratic culture to fall back
on. There was the rich Ethiopian culture to benefit
from, but the wind of change at the time was such that
one’s own culture was denigrated, and a foreign
culture was picked up to bring better days for
Ethiopia. That foreign-based vision is very much
similar to that of the 17th. Century when Emperor
Susnios decided to replace the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church with the Catholic Church, and thereby led
Ethiopia to be awash with the blood of even his own
kinsmen.

That is exactly what we tried to do in the 1970s, and
we paid very dearly for all that youthful bravado. By
contrast, “ Land to the Tiller” was more wisely
carried out in Japan in 1868, and in South Korea and
Taiwan in the 20th. Century, and the results of those
constructive reforms are now self-evident since South
Korea and Taiwan are among the “Tigers” of South-East
Asia, and Japan is the second most powerful economic
power in the World today. In the Ethiopia scenario,
youth and haste made waste, and 99% of Ethiopia is
still paying dearly for that youthful revolution even
to this day ! What are the lessons from all this ?

Clearly, if the elite is really serious about
Ethiopia, then a proliferation of parties is not going
to be helpful. Such party proliferation has arisen
because the elite is still refusing to listen to one
another. The “ I know all; you listen to me! “
attitude is till prevalent in the USA and elsewhere.
There may be those who want to make some business out
of it, and those that have a dream of being rulers by
being catapulted to power on the back of others, and
both of these are inimical to the common struggle to
liberate Ethiopia from autocratic rule. These ones
will not take any advice or any pleas from anywhere,
but the rest will, hopefully, rethink their stand,
talk to each other and then come together to advance
the common cause of a bleeding motherland.

For all those who genuinely love Ethiopia and the
Ethiopian people, it cannot be a problem to come to an
agreement on a common peaceful struggle to realize
(a) a united and stable Ethiopia, (ii) a democratic
Ethiopia, and (iii) a prosperous Ethiopia. None
should say that they have to lead the struggle, which
should be led by all for the benefit of all
Ethiopians. That was how Fascist Italy was evicted
by the so-called our “feudal ” forefathers, and so was
the brilliant victory against the aggressors in Adwa
in 1996. This generation of Ethiopians has
completely failed to even equal the heroic and
far-sighted acts of the “feudal” forefathers, and
shame on us all ! Unity is what they showed us if we
want to be victorious and we need it badly today !

In this regard, we have to draw lessons from (a) the
failure of the Berhane Meskel and Haile groups to
unite in 1971 after the Algiers meeting, (b) the
failure of the unity after the Ghion Conference in
1993, when Dr. Beyene Petros was appointed as
Chairman, (iii) the failure of the unity after the
Paris Conference, which again appointed Dr. Beyene
Petros as Chairman, (iv) the impending failure of the
Washington Conference in July 2003 when Dr. Beyene
Petros of SEPDC was again appointed as Chairman, Dr.
Merera of ONC as First Vice- Chairman and Ato Fassika
Belete of EPRP as Second Vice-Chairman, the leadership
to be rotated only among these three persons every 6
months, and the second Vice-Chairman with colossal
powers to lead the struggle from the USA, (v) the
disintegration of EDU into three groups, (vi) the
disintegration of TPLF, (vii) the disintegration of
Medhin into two groups, and ( viii) the failure of the
unity discussions of AEUP and EDUP most recently.

What is common to all the disarray in all the
instances cited above ? Lack of internal democracy
may be the principal culprit; the absence of a
compromise culture and the “ I know all ” syndrome
may be another; lack of transparency is still another,
and a dogged determination and love for naked power
and to ensure individual loyalty even when it does not
appear to be right or democratic may be other causes.
In all cases, there might have been something wrong in
the way unity was formed, and there might be strong
elements of fair play missing in all cases. Such
problems can be avoided if we all start from
“Ethiopia First !”. The interests of all individuals
and groups can then be effectively addressed by the
Ethiopian people once we have achieved a united and
democratic Ethiopia in 2005.

Let us all rethink all our stands, never ever
determined to be defensive, but to work together
towards the common good for all Ethiopians ! How can
we blame EPRDF when we provide the principal raison
d’etre for its continued rule ? Lack of internal
democracy, cronyism, loyalty, dogma, an obsession for
power are our primary enemies, and we need to fight
them all honestly. How can undemocratic opposition
parties or their coalition be any better than
undemocratic EPRDF if we want safeguard the long-term
best interests of all Ethiopians ?

THE WAY FORWARD

The only logical way forward for those who love their
country is unity for the sake of our bleeding
Motherland and for our own sakes ! Let us put dogma
aside, cronyism, ethnicity and factionalism aside and
agree on a coalition of independent parties such that
the coalition is unconditionally internally
democratic. Let no one try to have an upper hand
either directly or indirectly, and let all members of
the coalition do what they can do best: Those in the
Diaspora can be responsible for the international
lobby and propaganda, and let those in Ethiopia
continue to coordinate their organizational effort to
prepare adequately for the elections in 2005. The
overall leadership of the coalitions should be under
those parties in Ethiopia, and those in the Diaspora
will give critical support to realize the overall
objective to unseat the autocratic government in 2005.
A formula can be agreed to share power after an
election victory in 2005 based commonly shared
democratic agendas for all Ethiopia, but not based on
neo-feudal considerations since feudalism under any
colors is still an enemy of all Ethiopia !

To do this effectively, UEDF will have to urgently
revisit its political program and constitution to make
sure that all members of the coalition are in full
support of a (i) united Ethiopia, (ii) a democratic
Ethiopia, and (iii) a prosperous Ethiopia, and that
UEDF is fully internally democratic. This has to be
done early in 2004 if we are to win in 2005.

The next step in this direction is for all those
parties in the Diaspora to form a coalition under a
common national political agenda consistent with that
of UEDF; those in Ethiopia will have to do likewise
and form another coalition so that joint effective
preparations may be made for the elections in 2005.
Coalitions like JADE, which was a fairly active
coalition of AEUP, ONC and SEPDC before July 2003,
will have to come back to life, with the additional
participation of EDUP. Such coalitions will have to
have a political agenda that goes well beyond
sectarian interests, emulating those in Maichew and
Adwa, and UEDF can effectively serve as a forum for
preparing the ground for the formulation of such a
national agenda.

We should all remember that the current enemies of all
Ethiopians are: (i) backwardness and poverty, (ii)
famine, (iii) Disease, and (iv) a self-serving
autocratic system which nurtures the preceding three
enemies. These enemies know no religious, ethnic,
age, sex or regional boundaries; they are the
enemies of all Ethiopians from north to south and
from east to west. Hence, we have every good reason
to wage a joint peaceful war on all of them and come
out victorious in the defense of all political and
economic rights and civil liberties for all Ethiopians
within and outside Ethiopia during the national
elections in 2005. A democratic and prosperous
Ethiopia will be our best guarantee to ensure a safer,
stable and prosperous home for all our children, and
the surest and safest way for any members of the
Diaspora to come back home.

Lastly, are you not tired of the humiliation from the
uninterrupted image of Ethiopia as the “ Land of
famine”? Look at prosperous USA, the melting-pot of
some 1000 ethnic groups, and we can also make it!

May unity prevail ! May God bless you all!