H. E. Vicki Huddleston, US Charge d’Affaires in Ethiopia, told us on VOA on April 14, 2006 how ANC went on negotiating and building democracy with the South African Apartheid Government, presumably under Botha, while Mandela was in prison. That was not true, but her association of Apartheid South Africa with today’s Ethiopia is fitting since there is so much similarity in their systems of government.
She also told us that Mandela had taken over the leadership of ANC after his release – which was true – and CUD, she advised, must follow that example by also agreeing to the creation of a new CUD without the approval of CUD’s leaders who are behind bars under trumped-up charges. Presumably, the new party will have the blessing of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his supporters, but then it will not be CUD any more, and it will not be useful in a purposeful multiparty system.
It is, first of all, proper to correct Her Excellency’s perceptions by saying a little about ANC before April 1994. This brief historical review may also have lessons for CUD and its supporters.
ANC’s struggle against minority domination starts at the beginning of the 20th century, in 1912; the year of its formation. Its methods were entirely peaceful up to 1961 when a frustrated Mandela and associates came up with Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation), the military wing of ANC, to meet Apartheid’s brute force with force. MK, PAC’s Alpha, Azania Peoples Liberation Army and others then began to make Apartheid’s South Africa chaotic and ungovernable. 1961 was also the year when Mandela ignored the ban and came out to address a Republic Day strike against the 1961 Constitution that declared South Africa as a Republic, without consulting black South Africans.
In November 1962, Mandela was arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison, charged for the bombing and destruction since the Republic Day strike. He was again brought from prison to court, and charged, and he remained in Roben island, sentenced for life, and stayed there right up to early February 1990. While Mandela was in prison, were there any negotiations with the Apartheid regime? None officially!
While Mandela and the other leaders of ANC ( Govan Mbeki, Zephania Mothopeng, Harry Gwala, Walter Sisulu, etc…) remained in prison, there was plenty of violent anti-Apartheid activity by patriotic military wings like MK and those of AZAPO, PAC and others, but there was no official negotiation since Apartheid leaders, unlike those of Ethiopia, rightly felt that it was no use trying to negotiate with rank and file when the leaders were behind bars. However, such CSOs as The Institute for a Democratic South Africa had sponsored a number of delegations which shuttled between Lusaka and South Africa, but very little came out of that effort.
The first official rapprochement came after an exhausted and terrorized Apartheid regime submitted to the power of anti-Apartheid patriotic forces and decided to negotiate with the opposition after first releasing ANC’s leaders, Govan Mbeki in November 1987, then Z. Mothopeng and Harry Gwala in 1988, and finally Nelson Mandela in February 1990, following discussions at tea with ailing Prime Minister Botha in July 1989 soon after which De Clerk took over as Prime Minister.
That same February 1990, ANC, PAC, South African Communist Party and others were also unbanned, all their leaders were released from prison and negotiations were formally launched between the De Clerk-led Apartheid Government and the opposition to establish an all-inclusive democracy.
Mandela and De Clerk then met for the first time and set the stage for the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) which met from December 1991 to May 1992. However, it did not go very far, but it set the stage for future negotiations by issuing a declaration which underlined a commitment to a unified South Africa, peaceful constitutional change, universal suffrage in a multiparty democracy, separation of powers, and a Bill of Rights. The detailed and decisive negotiations came in Kempton Park starting from April 1993 when Mr. Ramaphosa officially led the ANC negotiating team and Mr. Meyer led that of the Apartheid Government, other parties also participating with their respective teams.
It is enlightening to recall a little more about the manner in which those historic negotiations proceeded under a 26-member Facilitating Committee which agreed on a rotating chair from a multiparty panel of all 26 parties, also adopting the principle of “ sufficient consensus” to arrive at decisions:
The highest decision making body was a Plenary with ten delegates per party, led by party leaders;
A Negotiating Council, comprising each party’s chief negotiator and one advisor, was the forum of actual debate, meeting several times per week to iron out differences;
A Planning Committee of ten that met daily to keep the forum moving forward and to control issues that were controversial; preparing discussion on less controversial issues at the beginning to give parties time to adjust for more controversial topics latter;
Technical Committees, made up mostly of lawyers, to discuss all issues presented directly to them by all parties, to rework them and find points of agreement and also make proposals on divisive issues to the Negotiating Council ; different groups attended to different issues: one dealt with equitable political conditions like political prisoners and exiles, regulation of the public media, security laws, political intimidation and violence, liberation armies; another concentrated on constitutional principles like power sharing, division of powers between local and central governments, a bill of rights and the role of traditional leaders; a third worked on how to move from apartheid to democracy using an interim government, leading eventually to the Transitional Executive Council (TEC), with the security sub-councils, the intelligence sub-council, the law-order-stability and security sub-council, the defense sub-council, the finance sub-council, the foreign affairs sub-council, the regional authorities sub-council, and the women sub-council under it.
We must re-emphasize here why democracy was born so speedily and so successfully at the very first democratic election in April 1994 after over a century of intensive conflict and civil war. The explanation lies in the fact that ANC, its allies and the ruling party, backed by armed wings, took precautions to ensure a new democratic constitution, an independent broadcasting corporation and an independent mass media authority, an independent electoral commission, an electoral law of international standard, and an effective Transitional Executive Council and several sub-councils to oversee the democratic transition and the elections of April 1994.
The South Africans did all that after Nelson Mandela and other opposition political leaders were released from prison in February 1990 and after all opposition parties were un-banned. The Apartheid Government never tried to cook up another ANC, and it could not have done it even if it had wanted. Further, all parties wanted to save South Africa from further bleeding !
By contrast, in spite of the readiness of the people of Ethiopia for democratic change, Ethiopia failed to have free and fair elections on May 15, 2005 because it had failed to make adequate preparations to ensure (i) the independence of the National Election Board, (ii) an electoral law of international standard, (iii) the establishment of an independent electoral court, (iv) the independence of the public mass media and their supervisory authority, (v) the neutrality of the police-defense-security forces, and (vi) the independence of the free press. Donors, including the US Embassy and USAID, avoided giving support for essential reform even when requested well before 2005. The principal culprit, though, was Meles’s inflexible undemocratic nature and the resulting lack of political will to accept democratic governance.
Donor countries and the World Bank, which Her Excellency has reported as being committed to the fabrication of a new CUD without involving CUD’s leaders, must know that the people’s sovereign will is bound to eventually prevail. Donors have been generous for over 50 years, but that has not saved Ethiopia from backwardness, poverty and famine. In fact, according to World Bank reports, also quoted by USAID/Ethiopia, per capita income was $160 in 1990 and only $100 ten years latter in 2000 under EPRDF, in spite of billions of generous development assistance through Point Four, IDA, IMF, World Bank, USAID, CIDA, SIDA, GTZ, and other donors.
Donor nations and IFIs must honestly ask why there is still such government-led barbarity and ever more poverty in Ethiopia in spite of such plentiful in-flow of all types of foreign aid for decades. The answer is clear: all that aid was largely squandered away by undemocratic governments which lacked transparency, accountability and respect for rule of law, and they often destroyed most of whatever was built by their predecessors, as EPRDF did with Addis Ababa University, Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopian Telecommunications, Ethiopian Electric and Power Authority and others in the 1990s.
The Emperor’s Government was relatively more humane but lacked basic democratic qualities; the military Derg and EPRDF are both brutal dictatorships which treated the people as objects, and created a bankrupt state which went on begging the international community year after year wherever nature refused to give us rains.
This is why those of us who have deep roots in the poor majority keep on reminding donor nations to keep their money for now and help us, first and foremost, to speedily build democratic institutions that will not be abused by any one party. The argument that democratization is a process is an apology for Meles’s dictatorship; Mandela’s South Africa has proven it totally wrong by establishing a democratic Rainbow Nation right after the first democratic election in April 1994.
Today, just like 32 years ago, we are unable to carry out free and fair elections, or to ensure justice, or to ensure a free press, or to deliver neutral and professional defense-police-security services, or to advance tangible social and economic development. What we still have starvation or death to millions from natural causes and from government-made policies, wars and conflicts, as in Gambela, or in inter-ethnic conflicts as in Southern and south-eastern Ethiopia, Eastern Wellega, Arba Gugu, western Ethiopia, northern Ethiopia, or through direct armed government invasion of schools.
Her Excellency’s remarks to the press on April 5, 2005 emphasizes that it is time for commitment and engagement, and it is true, but engagement has to be all-inclusive , as in the successful engagement in South Africa in CODESA and in the Kempton Park negotiations. The review of the National Election Board and parliamentary rules and procedures, the review of the status of the public mass media, creating an environment for a free press, the protection of human rights and the take-over of Addis Ababa cannot be done when the leaders of the largest opposition party are in jail under fabricated charges. Apartheid South Africa did not usher in peace and democracy by keeping Mandela and other opposition leaders in jail and by banning their parties; it did achieve peace and democracy after it released all opposition leaders, including those sentenced to jail for life and unbanned their political organizations in February 1990, and engaged in an all-inclusive conference to build a democratic South Africa.
We have to do the same thing in Ethiopia: immediately release all post-election prisoners, unban their organizations and sit at an all-inclusive conference to settle all political problems through negotiation. That is exactly what CUD’s leaders had also wanted in their 8-point proposal way back in October 2005, and, in this respect Her Excellency is in full agreement with CUD’s leadership.
However, It is no use to “… strongly urge reduction of trial, a reduction of charges, the possibility of bail, a speedy, fair, and transparent trial.”, as Her Excellency has remarked on April 5, 2006. Our reasons are (i) those people are completely innocent since all charges are fabricated, as for VOA’s five journalists, and (ii) there are no independent courts in Ethiopia since the Chairman of the National Election Board (NEB) is the President of the Federal Supreme Court, and he is also President of the Constitutional Commission and also President of the Judicial Administration Council so that his ruling at NEB will stand in the partisan courts which are all under his/EPRDF direct control, and in the constitutional court as well. That is why CUD’s leaders have refused to defend themselves since all sentences are made by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Her Excellency must stop thinking as if US-type courts exist in Ethiopia.
It is also no use for the donor community to continue to support Meles’s regime with millions of Dollars of aid under such pretexts as “ Protections of basic Services” and “ Protection of the Poor”; Ishac Diwan of the World Bank was also a ready accomplice with $ 255 million, effectively as budgetary support, in this crime against a Nation that was terrorized by a Government that derived its legitimacy almost entirely from the Donor Community. This sends the unfortunate message to millions of our frustrated youth that resort to peaceful means to solve the Nation’s political problems has failed !
The current drama to destroy CUD is incredible: the Ruling Party is negotiating with hand-picked members of CUD by ignoring the leaders, but it has failed, and it will fail. Equally bad is the continued effort to cook up a new party without the approval of CUD’s leaders. Both actions are designed to kill CUD and legitimize the continued imprisonment of CUD’s leaders and supporters; the drama is bound to suggest violence as the only remaining feasible approach to achieve freedom and democracy in Ethiopia, in the manner of ANC’s “The Spear of the Nation”.
To summarize, there were no official ANC-NP negotiations before February 1990, the date of release of Mandela and other political leaders. Her Excellency forgot to remark that ANC was always ANC since 1912, perhaps partly because no one would dare to tamper with ANC. As briefly sketched above, ANC-NP negotiations in both CODESA and the Kempton Park forum were carried out after a Mandela-led ANC took the driving seat in the negotiations. Let us also summarize the facts regarding CUD, the party to be fabricated to kill CUD and ANC:
De Clerk started negotiations with ANC only after unbanning all opposition parties and after releasing their leaders, including Nelson Mandela, in February 1990; De Clerk or his supporters never resorted to any madness of attempting to bring peace to South Africa by fabricating NP-fabricated agreements or procedures negotiated with NP-made mercenaries;
ANC was not registered before 1990, and it did not have to. Hence, when ANC leaders were released, they still were ANC’s leaders. On the other hand, CUD is legally registered, but effectively banned, and its leaders behind bars, though CUD continues to live as CUD in peoples hearts and minds with or without EPRDF acceptance. If a new party is cooked up with the same name, it is not going to be CUD anymore, as also explained on April 16, 2006 by the Government Party Registrar. Hence, upon release, CUD’s leaders cannot take over the leadership of this new party, as Her Excellency wants us to believe, like Mandela and others have done upon release in February 1990, However, Kinijit’s leaders will continue to be leaders of Kinijit since their legitimacy is based on popular support; the new party’s leaders will, therefore, need to think carefully before betraying their electorate, CUD and their imprisoned popular leadership;
CUD is a coalition of four parties and it has successfully participated in the May 15, 2005 elections with landslide victories in Addis Ababa and elsewhere, but the new party is being staged with some 1500 founding members, with no seats in Addis Ababa’s City Council so that it has no legitimacy whatsoever to administer Addis Ababa;
ANC has remained ANC from birth, in 1912, right up to this moment, for over 93 years, without serious sabotage, defections or betrayals, with the “The Spear of the Nation” as its protective and defensive shield from 1961 to 1994;
De Clerk or his supporters never tried to negotiate with any group which was not appointed by ANC’s leadership;
There is no law which empowers any one to ignore the leadership of a legal and victorious party and cook up a team to take over the reigns of any government, including that in Addis Ababa, or even to negotiate with the rank and file without the permission of the party leadership. The US Embassy should not be a party to the destruction of democratic and popular CUD whose leadership and political program are immensely more democratic as opposed to that of Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
The only way to bring peace to Ethiopia is to unconditionally and immediately release all post-election prisoners, as was rightly done in South Africa in February 1990, institute controls to ensure that CUD and other parties can reopen all their offices in any part of the country, and bring all opposition parties and EPRDF to the negotiating table without delay and before any resort to anything like “The Spear of the Nation.”. Carrying on non-inclusive negotiations, as Bereket Simon is doing today with one or two parties , and keeping the CUD leadership and others in jail and all its party offices shut down by EPRDF is counter-productive and very dangerous.
Civil war, fed by desperation, is what we all want to avoid, but that can be done only if the US Embassy becomes an even-handed and neutral broker for lasting peace, freedom and democracy by facilitating balanced negotiations among all political leaders, including those of CUD, to build genuinely democratic institutions that can carry out free and fair elections, dispense justice, guarantee a free press, maintain rule of law and stop tyranny. A democratic Ethiopia is a superior guarantee for US partnership against international terrorism and to promote peace and stability in the Horn of Africa.
Her Excellency has also remarked to the press on April 5, 2006 as follows: “ We believe that the EPRDF won the elections; the Carter Center said that the elections were generally credible.” Here lies, perhaps, the basis of practically all current Embassy-related problems with regard to elections since there is a fundamental error by the US Embassy, and that is that the Carter Center Election team of 50 observers has written a report on what it has observed in urban Ethiopia and not on the entire country. The Carter Center’s 50 observers may have observed some 50 to 70 urban constituencies, at most, out of over 500 constituencies, excluding Ogaden.
The Report of the Carter Center Team explicitly says in its final report, under May 15 Election Day, that “ Due to logistical constraints, Carter Center Observer teams were deployed to largely urban areas.” Hence, when Carter Center’s final election report states that “The majority of the constituency results based on the May 15 polling and tabulation are credible and reflect competitive conditions.” under its Executive Summary and again under Conclusion, it is referring only to elections in urban areas where CUD and UEDF have been the winners, and that was also acknowledged by CUD at the time. The Embassy’s problems relating to the elections appear to emanate from this wrong extension of the Carter Center statements to the whole country, thereby making it appear as if it is intentionally legitimizing a brutal regime.
CUD’s 8-point preconditions of last October 2005 confirm CUD’s commitment and desire for engagement, and that fully agrees with Her Excellency’s April 5, 2006 remarks to the press that “… it is a time to move forward, it is a time of commitment, it is a time of engagement, a time of change…” However, her statement , “ …I urge all parties in Ethiopia to take the example of Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned, but allowed the political process to move forward in his country.” needs to be corrected since the political process moved forward in CODESA and in the Kempton Park forum after Mandela was set free, he himself started and led the negotiations after his release in February 1990. Her Excellency’s best and historic contribution to Ethiopia will be to help in expediting the release of CUD’s leaders and supporters since that is the necessary and sufficient precondition for the political process to move forward. NELSON MANDELA NEVER ALLOWED THE POLITICAL PROCESS TO MOVE FORWARD WHILE HE WAS IN PRISON; HE MOVED IT FORWARD HIMSELF AFTER HIS PARTY WAS UNBANNED AND AFTER HE WAS SET FREE IN FEBRUARY 1990.
Well before Her Excellency’s interview with VOA of April 14, 2006, millions of voters queued up for as long as 22 hours on May 15-16, 2005 to give their votes, and that had amply demonstrated to the world that they knew that democracy could not be realized without commitment and engagement. That was also why over two million came out in a peaceful demonstration of public support for CUD from far and near on May 8, 2005 without any gifts of t-shirts or caps or money or free bus transport, as EPRDF had done on May 7, 2005 to get only a few thousand on board. Hence, Ethiopia’s democratization problem is one caused by a brutal regime which has denied citizens their right to elect their own leaders, and continuing to be supported by diplomats like Her Excellency when the only nation-wide international election team of observers of over 200 Europeans of EU EOM has publicly declared to the world that “… the elections fell short of international principles for genuine democratic elections.”[EU EOM Final Report, p.3]
The US Embassy has to rethink its role more carefully to serve the cause of freedom, democracy and peace in Ethiopia. The Congressman Smith Sub-Committee of the US Congress is doing a lot to support democratization and discourage tyranny in Ethiopia. We are immensely grateful for the invaluable support of both Republicans and Democrats for the recent passage of HR 4423, which also rightly includes a call for the immediate and unconditional release of all post-election prisoners, as in the historic December 15, 2005 resolutions of the European Parliament. We are confident that HR 4423 will also play a pivotal role in advancing the cause of democracy in Ethiopia.
Kinijit’s members, supporters and all those who stand for democratic ideals, peace and stability in the Horn of Africa have to redouble their effort to strengthen and speed up the struggle for freedom and democracy. The first challenge, though, is to get all post-election prisoners, supporters, students, leaders of CSOs and journalists released from those cruel and dirty prisons.
Adwa is our primary example of what even a poor but united and determined nation can do. There are also important lessons from ANC which has achieved freedom and democracy for a united South Africa after a bloody and tortuous struggle of over 82 years.
Ethiopians in the Diaspora are doing extremely well, but more efficient resource mobilization and more effective opposition to tyranny require still better coordination on all fronts, and that is possible if we borrow “Ethiopia Tikdem” from Derg , put it to heart and use it as our guide for all our actions against tyranny. Let me conclude using words from the past:
gefa gefa adirigew wittaw akebetun,
lib yasegnew neger ayigegn eletun.
