Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the Ambassadors’ Donors Group met on May 9, 2005 in Addis Ababa. From a series of questions fielded, Meles was asked what pushed him to borrow a word from the Rwanda genocide – i.e. Interhamwe – even though Ethiopia was basking in a peaceful political climate as evidenced in Addis by the flawless conduct of an opposition rally estimated at over two million supporters. Instead of rushing to Zenawi’s response, Ethiomedia has chosen to ask Ethiopians whether we truly know the prime minister, and if we have doubts, to critically examine and re-examine the scary intentions the PM has for this country and any power contender as peaceful and popular as the incomparable CUD:
Robert (Bob) Dewar, Ambassador of the United Kingdom, asks Prime Minister Meles Zenawi the following question:
“I would like to raise the importance of the coming week, in making the electoral space more open. It is important that the process is taken forward transprently and fairly, the vote and the tabulation. This should be a message to be reinforced by every body, to carry out the code of conduct, that allegations should be investigaged, hate speech and defamation has to be curtailed, refraining from language that could incite violence. I just wanted to emphasize these points, because we are in a very important period.
Guido La Tella, Ambassador of Italy, asks a second question:
I would like to praise you and your government for the last two days. The two rallies are important moments in the history of democracy in Ethiopia. Apart from some power cuts, it was tremendous. All who were present were able to see the wonderful atmosphere.
I would like to raise two points:
A. As Bob (the UK ambassador) hinted without saying it clearly, there are some words being spoken with reference to Rwanda and the Interhamwe. What was the basis to push the government to use these harsh languages?
B. We are hearing that some points in the Press Law could be included in the new Penal Code. We were wondering why after a long process of dialogue, certain points were decided to be included in the Penal Code?
H.E. Prime Minister Meles:
Thank you Ambassadors for the indiscreet questions, and I’ll also start by responding to them:
We believe the opposition have two fundamental, intrinsic natural problems.
The first has to do with the fact that they are anti-systemic and are against the constitutional order, not against the constitution. Being against the constitution is not something strange. If people have concerns about the Ethiopian constitution, it will simply be natural. Those cannot be anti-systemic, who wishes to change this or that article of the constitution. It is not the last word of the Bible; it can be changed. What distinguishes these two is that they – the opposition – want to change the constitution by unconstitutional means. Now such groups, I am told are tolerated in every country. In the U.S., they use such colorful languages: “clear and present danger.” They have every right to carry on wiht their activities. Even Nazis are allowed to organize in the US because they do not pose a clear and present danger.
But I see this problem in our opposition as they are anti-systemic. They want to change the constitution by unconstitutional means. Parties who want to do this are okay so long as they are on the fringe of the political spectrum. But they do not enhance democracy in any country. You do not have to take my word for it; just read their manifesto. After winning the election, they plan to establish a transitional government. Initially, I did not understand it. Just like what Blair did after winning the elections, you establish a government, not a transitional one. And they published this in a book. They say that governing on the basis of the current constitution is like governing like the TPLF. We can change the constitution only through unconstitutional means, by establishing parallel institutions.
That in my view can pose a threat to stability in Ethiopia. So long as these groups are on the fringes, they add color and spice. But in the long run, they will create a problem. If we do not have a loyal opposition, loyal to the constitutional order, then the choice for the people will be the EPRDF or chaos. And this is not a good choice, and not good for democracy. But this for me is not the main weakness of the opposition. It is a weakness, but it is not the major one. The main weakness of the opposition is that they have identified a number of scapegoats. These scape goats are not Jews because most of them have left. These are not Tutsis because we do not have Tutsis here. Despite what the Interhamwes used to say, Tutsis are Rwandans. The scapegoats here are primarily Tigrayans, the Muslims and minority ethnic groups. Even in the very successful demonstration we had yesterday, some of the statements of the opposition was in coded language. What they said yesterday was – “We will send the EPRDF to where it came from.” The EPRDF is tantamount to the TPLF, which is tantamount to the Tigrayans. Because of the numbers in the rally, they became bolder than normally. They had a slogan “Kick the Tigrayans, send them back home.” Interhamwe used to say, “Send the Tutsis home through the Nile dead.” Now these are not the spur of the moment statements. Everyone of us say lots of things when we are nervous. That will not be an exaggeration and should not be taken lightly. These are ideas published in books and are circulating in their thousands, books in the market, articulating these views.
Tigrayans are accused of many things:
Siding up with the EPLF to make Ethiopia landlocked,
Not fighting for the Red Sea, but fighting for Badme,
Stabbing the then Ethiopian Army in the back while it was fighting Eritrean rebels,
Squeezing Ethiopian dry and taking all to Tigray,
The Muslims, the Gambellas and Benishanguls of this world are accused of benefiting from the spoils.
The way we feel about this is that they are okay if they are on the fringes. They become fringes by defeating their ideology and politics in an open democratic contest. For example, the British fascists have their vision of a separate government, but they are harmless because the bulk of the population in the UK is innoculated against such groups. The same is true in the US. France also has its share of these types. But they are not a threat and can be managed. But everywhere the people are innoculated, if these ideas are assumed and not published. These ideas and groups have to be fought not administratively, because they will go underground. They have to be fought in a fair and democratic contest.
That is why we were so generous in allocating airtime to the opposition. We wanted to give them a long enough rope for them to hang politically, by expressing their views in the most ugliest form so that the people can see what they stand for.
So as far as our rhetoric is concerned, we have said that they are the Interhamwe. Not because they will send the Tutsis back home, but the Tigrayans back home, nomrally on all fours. It is their politics and not their organizations we are fighting agaisnt. Hitler’s group might have been made of drunkards in Munich, but their ideology was important. That is what we feel. That is why we say that these people want to change the constitution by other means. That is why we say the Ethiopian people should punish them through the process, with no room for violence. But I am sure you would admit that we have given them as much space as they can use. And do not believe the electricity cuts. This happens everywhere – within 15 minutes. The EEPCO people were trying to connect the lines. This does not happen even here in my office. We wanted for the people to see this. This is the only way to innoculate the people. Any other way does not work. We have not targeted any ethnic group. We have not targeted anyone in our rhetoric. What we said is that the ideology of the Interhamwe should not be tolerated, and there should not be any violence. We have grievance redressing mechanisms – including the courts. There is no reason for violence. It is a message worth conveying.
With regards to the demonstrations, my view is that especially of the opposition, it is very good, because, I think now people can clearly see for themselves that the government is making it possible for anyone to express any opinion, including Interhamwe views, just like the Nazis in the US and similar groups in the UK or France. That we have made it possible for them to say what they want and to demonstrate as much as they want. The government went out of its way to have these in an orderly manner. But this was not only the result of the government’s effort. Many participated for different reasons. Many in the taxi business were active in mobilizing and participating. They have quasi legitimate concerns with regards to taxes. Sometimes this week will be the deadline to pay these taxes. It would have been electorally wrong for the EPRDF to do that. We could have postponed the deadline, but we wanted them to know that taxes are not electoral issues. We feel that taxes have to be paid. We have concentrated on value creation. We didn’t want to compromise this. Some of the them do not have the money. They were saying that if the government is having debt cancellation under the HIPC they should also benefit from this. Some of the unemployed youth in Addis, quite a number of tehm took part. As I am sure you know that the EPRDF was confusing thoe who are seeking jobs and those who are criminals.
Many of these were active in making the demonstration peaceful. Fifty to sixty percent of the demonstrators were high school students. These have concerns about the education policy. And obviously they are young and when you are young, you want to storm the skies. But because they are not voters, we have not targeted them in our political work. Then there is of course the hard core of the Interhamwe. Some demobilized soldiers, former members of the WPE and some criminal elements in town. But this is a small group, small percentage of those who came out yesterday.
Much of it were people who had concerns and felt that these were not addressed by the EPRDF. I do not believe that the demonstration will have significant impact on the election. The total figures do not add up. In Addis, we do not even have 2 million registered voters; it is probably one million. So far as the outcome of the election is concerned we do not believe it changes anything. As far as messages received are concerned, we believe it changes something. Mixing the unemployed with the criminals is wrong. The attention we gave to high school students was inadequate. The attention we gave to the university students was adequate. They are also voters. There was clearly a desire to have a peaceful demonstration. The police might have had a share in taht but as far as the outcome of the election is concerned, I am not unduly worried, not only in the country as a whole but also in Addis Ababa.
But there is another concern which in my view could mislead the opposition in being more aggressive. One of the slogan in yesterday’s demonstration read “Power Now” – meaning before the election. But that was not picked up by the bulk of the electorate. They were also talking about May 17th. What might transpire then, I don’t know. Whatever it might be, it will be a huge miscalculation. Many who took part I believe will not share this.
I do not think the bulk of the demonstrators have any intention apart from voting. But again, the opposition could miscalculate. We will try to convince them not to miscalculate. However perfect the election might be, if there is violence afterwards it tarnishes the whole process. As a former guerilla we have always a Plan B if Plan A does not work. We will try to encourage the opposition to express concerns through legal means rather than through violence.
Plan B will be to confirm legality without too much bloodshed. We have experience in Addis. Many hope that Plan A will work. So with regards to the election my message is:
a. We will be happy with any result that the Ethiopian people will give. We will live with that. If the opposition wins, then the Ethiopian people have not grasped the ideology of the Interhamwe. No regrets. If the opposition gets certain number of seats, then it means that people are not really convinced of the Interhamwes. If they get no seat then the people are convinced of the threat of the Interhamwe. We will implement the decision of the Ethiopian people.
b. With regards to making sure that the process remains to be flawless as possible, we will do everything we can to ensure that this is the case, because we are convinced that there is more reason today in Ethiopia to give space for the opposition than the case is for example in Norway. More air time, more opportunities to demonstrate, more opportunities for them to show thesmselves to the Ethiopian people. If they are defeated, then they will know it was the people and not the P.M. who had done that. We want them to know this is an unadulterated way. We want a clear fight with the Interhamwe.
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(The above report was excerpted from a classified document shared with Ethiomedia by Binyam Kedir Abdu, the former First Secretary at Ethiopian Embassay in Kuwait. Today Binyam lives in the United States).
