Armed struggle vs non-violent resistance

A response to OneEthiopia’s article

By Dr. Daniel Zerfu

January 17, 2006

“Some spoke of how they were taken away in mass round-ups in Addis Ababa and how they suffered appalling beatings at the hands of the security forces. Witnesses spoke of seeing people tortured and killed at Dedesa camp in west Ethiopia, where about 50,000 people were detained.” – The Observer; Jan 2, 2006 (Caption and photo montage: Ethiomedia; Photo: Courtesy of Andrew Heavens)

There are questions which we, and websites like yours, need not spend readers’ and your own resources and time debating, as they are not truly held by those who have a genuine wish to see Ethiopia shed its feudal, totalitarian, dictatorial/autocratic political heritage. However, the question of whether armed struggle or nonviolent resistance is the appropriate path to follow is, as I found out in many debates with fellow Ethiopians who would like, as much as me, to see the country liberated from its repressive yoke and ruled by democratic and civilised principles, a question where people who share the same goal often strongly differ on. Because of this, I do believe that outlets like Ethiomedia should provide a forum to discuss these.

Having said that the author of the piece endorsing armed struggle wrote eloquently, and that some of my relatives, who share my wishes for the country, believe in taking up arms, I can’t but help be aghast that this path finds followers who actually wish Ethiopia well. While I understand and completely share the frustration with the US administration’s indifference with the disaster unfolding in Ethiopia, borne of its long-time tight relationship with Meles, I continue to be surprised by the degree to which this frustration seems to overwhelm all common sense, thinking, and ultimately produces so counterproductive and self-destructive propositions.

I argue here that taking up armed struggle a) is utterly ineffective, b) will kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of the very Ethiopians we wish the best for, and the destruction will not only be physical but phychological, along the lines of the harm done to the country’s psyche during the dergue, c) will throw Ethiopia back decades and decades in development, and d) after all is said and done, will finally produce the kind of regime that those who died willingly never meant to die for (and those who were sacrificed without being asked if they wanted to be sacrificed – and these will be the vast majority of deaths — should never have had to pay the ultimate price for).

I will focus here on elaborating the four points I made above. Given that this article is already long at it stands, I call on Ethiomedia to seek out postings that, once and for all, eliminate the ignorance surrounding what nonviolent resistance is about. In my many discussions with friends, I observed how solidly and unshakably the notion was lodged in their minds that nonviolent resistance is the same thing as peaceful passivity and endless negotiations. Breaking this false notion is something that an article committed exclusively for educating the readers about nonviolent resistance, how it is defined, what it contains, and why it is often the only pathway to breaking the stranglehold of a dicatorial and brutal regime (the more brutal and militarily powerful this regime, the more this is true).

Ethiopia is known to have the best organised, strongest military in all of Africa. In addition to that, as we all know, those who hold the reigns of power are not simply allies and supporters of those who strategised and fought a long and brutal civil war — they are the very ones who did the fighting themselves. The TPLF fighters during the dergue were extremely well organised, highly disciplined, and well trained rebel group. This is not an accolade – I deeply despise what the regime is doing to the country. But anyone gung-ho about picking up arms has to know very well what military and strategic resources they themselves, or the villagers, farmers, and students they would be encouraging to fight, will encounter. Apart from these resources, the government has shown that it is restrained by no moral or principled bounds as to who gets killed or attacked. The most recent cases of high school and even elementary students being carried off to unknown places by the truckload are one, but not the only, testament.

Given this well-oiled and ruthless military machinery, it is a good idea to think not months, but years, and likely decades ahead. Let us look around to civil wars in our continent. Oftentimes, these civil wars have been prolonged, extra tens of thousands of human beings wasted, because various governments, neighbouring and overseas, have fueled both sides of the fighting for their own interests. At the end people may only vaguely remember what the original cause of the war was, after the war has taken a life of its own, sucking in many elements outside of the country into its orbit. It may have become war for war’s sake, though it may have begun with a pretty clear rationale.

In our particular case, this is also a post-2001 world, in which the US will have the biggest incentives to see stability, stability quickly, and stability under the regime it knows well and has built strong relationships with over the 14 years. Over these 14 years furthermore, Meles Zenawi has proven himself to be extremely adept at projecting a picture of himself and his government as democratic or moving in that direction, as the best bet the country has for eliminating poverty, and as a cool head that will ensure the country is not only democratic, but also a beacon of stability in a potentially volatile region. To the greatest bafflement of Ethiopians who know better, we have seen not only administrations like those of the UK, Germany, and the US, but also high profile academics like Joe Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs praise tunes to Meles’s character. Given this ability to contort the true nature of his regime, it will be a relatively easy task for Meles to portray Ethiopians who take up arms to defeat this increasingly repressive regime as – fill in the blank: radicals who want to create ethnic and religious tension, groups that are sympathetic to islamic fundamentalists, anti-western forces who will give the US a hard time if they win, etc. I wish we could discount that which sounds ridiculous, but we cannot: This is a government that committed genocidal acts against the Anuak and turns around to charge the likes of Dr. Yacob, of all people, and others of genocide, and is trying to sell that to the international community.

It is not for nothing that Meles, in a recent utterance in Addis Abeba, laid out the menu of options for the opposition the following way: Either you put your heads down, accept that fundamentally we hold power, and be content with the symbolic postions in government we grant you — or else go out, get a rebel group organised, and come back to fight us with weapons the same way we have fought the Dergue. Meles obviously is laying out a menu of strategies, all of which are practically guaranteed to keep his hold on power. We shouldn’t be surprised that the Meles-recommended set of options did not include: “Go ahead and form underground cells of students, youth and other courageous individuals, tapping into the vast degree of hatred and alienation from my government that pervades this country, and start a series of collective actions of nonviolent resistance that will incapacitate my many party enterprises, bring bureaucratic functioning to a grinding halt, and embolden all those regular Ethiopians by laying bare for everyone to see that our only power derives either from passive acquiescence of the people, or my superiority in military equipment and rebel-fighter’s experience.” No, nonviolent active resistence was not on his recommendation list, and for a good reason. Any effective struggle has to begin with an analysis of what is the Achilles’ heel of the enemy. The realm of military might is surely not that achilles heel. The fact that true support runs extremely thin in Ethiopia, unlike in several other countries where the dictator can count on some nontrivial fraction of the population as his true followers, is indeed the achilles heel. He may mobilise security forces and the military against the people, but he won’t be able to mobilise the people against the people, no matter how frantic a propaganda machine he would unleash.

Finally, what is usually very conspicuous by its absence in arguments like that of One Ethiopia calling for launching an armed rebellion movement is any discussion or contemplation what may follow the overthrow of the dictatorship by this means (which, as I said above, is a strong assumption to begin with). There are precious few examples in African history of where the outcome, at the end of the day, was that following the ceasing of fighting, free and fair elections followed and democratically minded and enlightened leaders are allowed to govern. So often the heads of rebels, the types that actually do the fighting, saw no reason after their victory to relinquish power to those that would be able to govern effectively and lead the country to prosperity, democracy, and civilisation. Their argument there is that it is them who shed their blood over the years or decades, now they ought to be rewarded with power. While such cases abound in Afica, we sadly don’t have to look beyond our country’s borders to see how this argument is used. Some think it is understandable that rebel fighters who fought for a good cause may hold this sentiment. Even if it is understandable (which I personally don’t think), that doesn’t mean it is also desirable and good for the Ethiopian people and the country as a whole.

In sum, while I know and feel the anger and frustration with the lack of support abroad for the cause of democracy in Ethiopia, my sentiments vary anywhere from stunned to disturbed that proponents of armed rebellion fail to contemplate the implictions of the actions they propose, implications that are totally contrary to the goals they share with most Ethiopians.