For now, Meles Zenawi will press home his advantage. Slaughtering Islamists in the mangroves may earn Ethiopia the enmity of global jihadists, but it will win the widely unpopular Mr. Zenawi much needed political support at home and cash from a grateful America.” The Economist, January 6th-12th 2007 issue, Page 42.
As I was pondering over the idea that part of The Economist’s appraisal of the situation was wrong, it also made me recall a comment I had heard on a DC-based Amharic language call-in radio broadcast called “Aand Ethiopia”, (“One Ethiopia”), supposedly from one of its listeners. That comment was some thing along the following lines;
“Be’irgit Ye Meles Zenawin policy aldegifewm; nagar gin le’ager andinet siwaga edegifawalehu”: roughly translated “Of course I don’t support Meles Zenawi’s policy, but I stand behind him whenever he fights for our country.”
Although I am positive the regime in Ethiopia had won no political support as a result of its fiasco in Somalia, though it was preceded by a double-faced jingoist rhetoric, I thought that one could not simply wish away this kind of comment from such a serious international magazine as The Economist, in tandem with the kind of comment I heard on One Ethiopia radio.
During its preparation for the cowardly invasion, we have witnessed the regime and its diplomats grappling from one ground to another in a bid to justify the invasion: Jihadist threat against Ethiopia, the presence of Al Qai’da, ICU’s territorial ambition against Ethiopia, SOS call from the “Somali Government” in Baidowa, presence of Eritrea in Somalia, a 1995 assassination attempt against the late Abdul-Majid Hussein (God bless his sole), implementing a regional “Resolution” sponsored by IGAD, etc. In short the objective behind invading Somalia was defending the security and territorial integrity of Ethiopia from the ICU, guarding the Horn of Africa from “Islamic Extremism”, and protecting the world especially the US from the Al Qai’da network, all at the same time. What a righteous government, a devoted regional police, and a dutiful international servant!!!
None of these cover-ups, however, represent the true reasons for the debacle.
Ethiopians of all creeds know that the invasion of Somalia by Mr. Zenawi had nothing to do with defending the security or territorial integrity of Ethiopia, or with the fight against terrorism. The objective of the adventure was; 1) to divert the attention of Ethiopians from their struggle aimed at securing the release of their elected leaders and establishing democracy in their country; 2) to secure a continued support from the US Government by exploiting the American concern on a possibility of the stateless Somalia being a safe heaven for Al Qaida elements; and 3) to attack Ethiopian refugees who escaped Mr. Zenawi’s atrocities over many years and following the witch hunt unleashed by the regime after the May 2005 election.
Defending the territorial integrity of Ethiopia
Ethiopians know pretty well that the territorial integrity of Ethiopia has never been any where in the list of TPLF’s concern as a ruler of the country. There has been neither a foreign invader nor a domestic political in-fighting that left a permanent dent against the long-term national interest and territorial integrity of Ethiopia than TPLF itself. When the entire south-eastern part of Ethiopia bordering Somalia was invaded by Somalia at the end of the 1970s, the position taken by Zenawi’s party, then a rebel movement, was that the measure taken by the then Ziad Barre government of Somalia was not an act of foreign “invasion” but a support for the legitimate struggle of the people of the Ogden region. Moreover, Mr. Zenawi, on several occasions, has snubbed the history and territorial integrity of Ethiopia. According to his party’s ideology, the various regions of Ethiopia are colonies that are entitled to walk out from the country whenever they wish to do so. Therefore, even if there might be some Somali politicians that harbor irredentist claims against Ethiopia, there is no any real political or ideological difference between Mr. Zenawi’s party and the “Jihadists” or some irredentist Somali politicians regarding the territorial composition of Ethiopia.
Well before the regime started before its all out invasion, the deputy Foreign Minister of Ethiopia was shuttling between Addis Ababa and Djibouti for negotiations with the Islamic Court Union. The deputy Minister had also given several interviews regarding the issues then presented for negotiation as well as the outcome from those meetings. The Minister said many times that the demand presented by his government to the Islamic Courts Union of Somalia was one and only one, i.e., stop sheltering Ethiopian refugees and exiled opposition politicians. The exact words of the Minister were as follows: “our demand to the ICU was only one and it was very easy for them to agree with. Our demand was ‘stop harboring Ethiopian refugees and opposition politicians.’” The presence of Al Qaida and other pretexts are added only for the consumption of foreign diplomats. In grappling for reasons to the invasion, the Ethiopian government tried to add even the assassination attempt against its ex-minister which took place 13 years ago whereas, the ICU as a political group came to the fora only a little over a year ago by prevailing over the war lords most of whom had been fed and armed by TPLF.
Moreover, according to the TPLF ideology, Ethiopia is a country with no history extending longer than 100 years; it is a country with no integrated territory but composed of a patch of colonies whose right of secession is more sacrosanct than the so-called territorial integrity of the entity called Ethiopia. For the TPLF leadership, Ethiopians do not have common historical achievements, neither possess a shared history; they only have a various and self-contained tales of their ethnic cocoons that are alien to each other’s historical and cultural legacies. For the TPLF leadership, Ethiopian history does not have heroes or heroines but all demons that must be condemned by the new “Revolutionary generation.” For the TPLF leadership, Ethiopia begins with the new TPLF Constitution and the only heroes and heroines we should be chanting for and praising are the ones whose epics has been narrated in the chronicle titled “Terarochin Yanketekete Tiwoulid” (“A Generation that Moved the Mountains”.)
The invasion versus the fight against global terrorism
Similarly, the invasion has nothing to do with the fight against global terrorism; 1) until recently, among the closest buddies and business associates of Mr. Zenawi had been figures like Gadafi, the clerics in Iran, and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe; 2) Mr. Zenawi’s ruling party, TPLF, itself follows extremist ideology of its own which is a jumble of Stalinism, Mao’s little Red Book, and the Green Book of President Ghadafi; and 3) a version of an Al Qaida style suicide mission was one of the tactics employed by Zenawi’s party during its fight against the previous regime of Ethiopia. Therefore, attributing the invasion to the fight of terrorism or the Islamic Court’s territorial ambitions against Ethiopia is both erroneous and a gross simplification of the complex game Zenawi has been playing in Somalia over the last several years.
While Mr. Zenawi’s party has always been desperate for a diplomatic support from powerful western governments, mainly to offset its lack of support within the country, September 11 provided Mr. Zenawi’s party with a superior chance to maneuver the US foreign policy. Few days after 9/11 the discussion within Zenawi’s party was on how to exploit the US foreign and security policy to the strategic advantage of the party. During those discussions, Mr. Zenawi and his advisors were able to accurately foretell that the US foreign and security policy in the post 9/11 global scenario would be heavily informed by the fight against terrorism; hence, siding with the US would marshal an unlimited rewards for governments like that of Zenawi’s. The thesis was that 9/11 had dawned with a new paradigm of international relations where it would be possible for net recipient governments could frame their relationship with the US on a quid pro quo basis. The returns from investing in the coalition, as envisaged by Zenawi’s party, was that of a US turning a blind eye to the human rights atrocities committed by Zenawi in Ethiopia. Hence, Meles did not spend time to jump on the bandwagon of the coalition against global terrorism. Soon after, Meles was summoned to the White House with the then Kenyan president Arap Moi. The two of them were ordained as the staunchest allies in the fight against terrorism.
Although the stateless Somalia had always been of great interest to Meles for fear of opposition activities (read mainly OLF and ONLF) than terrorism per se, the post 9/11 scenario spurred Meles to dive into Somalia to prepare a fertile ground to weave a reliable string to be pulled vis-à-vis its dealings with the US. During the occasion of the anointing ceremony at the White House, Mr. Zenawi presented himself as the only tough guy who knows the nooks, creeks and bays of Somalia and that without his support any anti terrorism campaign in the region was doomed to failure. (In fact Mr. Zenawi and his comrades are pretty familiar with Somalia since Somalia was one of the launching pads used by the group in terrorizing the region in the ’70s and ‘80s. Therefore, the US policy makers had little reason to doubt the authority carried by Zenawi’s claim.)
The invasion and TPLF foreign policy
Over the last 16 years the TPLF government has drafted at least two foreign policy documents through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The over all foreign policy rhetoric and policy documents of the regime are all based on the following pervasive premises: all previous wars fought by Ethiopia with all foreign enemies, including the ones fought with Somalia, had been simply troubles invited by Ethiopia’s own governments: Ethiopia had no foreign enemies: Ethiopia has no national interest which is irreconcilable with its immediate or far neighbors and no country was a threat to the national interest of Ethiopia. During the various debates organized on the draft foreign policy documents there was one and only one catch-all reply given to all concerns, differing views, and queries coming from non-TPLF participants: “all the concerns and questions that depart from the TPLF appraisal of the past and foreign policy basis of the future are influenced by a ’Naftagna frame of mind.’”
In 1996, the regime drafted a revised foreign and security policy document and adopted the same with a huge fanfare. The war with Eritrea was fought while that document was still hot from the printing machines. The invasion of Somalia is also being conducted under the banner of the same foreign policy document replete with curses against the previous leaders of the country and the pious principles meant to be followed by the new government.
The timing of the invasion
Why was it now so urgent that Meles took military action against a country that is week and defenseless after more than 15 years of fratricidal wars in part fuelled and aggravated by Meles himself?
The may 2005 Election is at the root of every policy decision taken by TPLF since then. The outcome of the May 2005 election and the vicious measure taken by the government brought for Mr. Zenawi an occasion to experiment the returns from his investment in the global coalition. At the end of May 2005, the ruling party was making a clear preparation to engage in a mass murder to silence the people’s demand for the respect of the outcome of the May 2005 election. At those preparatory meetings of the party some officials had raised concerns related to possibilities of angry reactions from the international community possibly resulting in a diplomatic isolation of their government. The reply from Mr. Zenawi to the queries of his comrades was as follows;
First of all, we know the “ferenjies” (Ethiopian word to mean ‘white’ people); they might indeed make some noise for few days, but then they will recoil to their own problems;
Secondly, the Americans are now nursing their own headache in other parts of the world. Moreover, they can not afford to overlook the fact that we are their allies in the fight against terrorism.
Thereafter, Zenawi’s government massacred more than 200 civilians, wounded nearly a thousand, and jailed more than 40,000 Ethiopians including their elected leaders. Although anticipated by Mr. Zenawi, the reaction from the international community, particularly from the US administration, was by far more comforting than he gambled for.
That situation conclusively verified Mr. Zenawi’s thesis: to secure the US support on a sustained and unconditional basis, the Somalia factor must be played even more skillfully than before. Here, therefore, lies the nexus between the invasion, the human rights situation in Ethiopia, and the US policy in the Horn of Africa.
Accordingly, the presence of Al Qai’da and its domination over the ICU was a fabricated intelligence designed to heat up the scare and the otherwise legitimate US concern in the region; the invasion was pre-planned and carefully choreographed by Mr. Zenawi’s party. Ethiopians know very well from their experience at home that Mr. Zenawi’s party is a master in casting dummies, conjuring scares, forging claims, and seasoning make-believe stories. (That is how the Ethiopian government is conducting the fictitious charges against prominent Ethiopian politicians.) It was very easy for Mr. Zenawi to transpose his domestic skills to the foreign arena so as to deceive the US administration by overplaying his Somali card.
Just few days before the invasion, an official from the International Crisis Group had stayed in Somalia for weeks and visited many parts of the country including Mogadishu. Upon his return to the US he was interviewed by the National Public Radio (NPR) where he emphasized that the allegation of Al Qaida presence in Somalia was absolutely false and that the ICU falling under Al Qaida’s control was a fabrication. The journalist then asked the gentleman as to why Assistant Secretary Jendayi Frazer reiterated these allegations, to which he replied that it was because “the State Department relied on the information fed by the Government of Ethiopia which is exaggerating the situation in Somalia so as to secure a continued support from the US Government.”
In general, the post May 2005 domestic situation provided Meles with yet an other opportunity to experiment how reliable the returns from subscribing to the global coalition on terrorism are; in short the vigor of the American commitment to pay back its. Apart from the benefits gained from constantly replenishing the American fright that Somalia could be a sanctuary for Al’Qaida elements, heating up the Somali factor had an other advantage according to Meles’s calculation: that of diverting the attention of Ethiopians from Kaliti to Baidowa with the hope of getting the support of the Ethiopian people by playing the “Jihadist-coming” scare and “territorial ambitions” by the ICU.
The art of playing on our psychosis
No matter how differently we might entertain this according to our individual set of experiences, “le’Abesha, Imiye Ethiopia eyalk kezemerkilet Lela min yifeligal” is a kind of expression I heard many times from some TPLF cadres. Under normal circumstances, we ought not to have read much from expressions like this as they sound as common idioms uttered light-heartedly during social conversations. Nevertheless, for some one who had some degree of exposure to observe the very many irrational and senseless assumptions taken as basis of a serious policy by TPLF leadership, expressions like the one above resonate familiar sneer and reveal a subtle truth about both we Ethiopians and the postulations that inform some decisions by the TPLF leadership.
We all agree that one perhaps needs to know the mentality and psychic profile of the TPLF leadership very well in order to espouse a committed stand in the struggle against the regime. Indeed millions of Ethiopians currently have no illusion on what kind of group the TPLF leadership is. The May 2005 election was a living testimony. This is now a foregone conclusion in spite of the highly variable, inconsistent, smart-aleck, and deceptive nature exhibited by the regime. However real eye opener the pre May 2005 election debate proved to be, Ethiopians had, nevertheless, mastered the real disposition of the group well before the election campaign. In fact the huge challenge currently facing the democratic struggle is not lack of awareness on the part of the people; rather it seems that the struggle has not been able to evolve from that of a diagnosis phase to a phase of practical or pragmatic action towards achieving tangible results.
On the other hand, this is not to say that TPLF’s chameleonic approach to the exercise of power was without some measure of success. It had been able to deceive few Ethiopians who now and then fall victim of its sham propaganda. It took quiet a while for some Ethiopians and proved difficult for others to figure out the huge gap between the rhetoric, on the one hand, and real action on the other, of the TPLF leadership. Although Meles has never taken the trouble to hide his hatred for Ethiopia and its people, TPLF as a group has displayed a shrewd plasticity: from one which is a declared enemy of the national interest and sovereignty of Ethiopia to that of a party jealously guarding the country and its national interests. Accordingly, we have witnessed times when the group won the support of the Ethiopian people, especially at times when the regime poses itself as the guardian of the country’s unity and territorial integrity.
A case in point is the comment heared from Aand Ethiopia as quoted above which might have served as material for the kind of assessment reached by foreign reporters like The Economist. Therefore, although millions of Ethiopians are now in a situation where they need no lecturing on who the TPLF leadership is, there are occasions reminding us that there are some Ethiopians who still need a kind of “The Absolute Beginners Guide to TPLF.”
Even without giving credence to the customers of the so-called “Aand Ethiopia” radio, wich is a TPLF-funded emission established immediately after the squabble with Eritrea in May 1998, to entice the Diaspora into supporting the regime’s war effort, the regime’s skillful manipulation of the weak spots of Ethiopians for the unity and territorial integrity of their country has won Meles some degree of support from few and created confusion to few other Ethiopians, albeit temporary. Although it is fair to conclude that at this stage TPLF’s chance of luring Ethiopians even on the most sensitive issues of “unity and territorial integrity” has been a thing of the past, this is still one of the major sedatives employed by the regime to tranquilize Ethiopians in the face of crimes committed against them.
Of all the deceiving tactics utilized by TPLF to divert our attention or win our support, the most outrageous is the one when TPLF poses as the guardian of the country’s unity and territorial integrity.
Through time TPLF somehow figured out that there are matrices where it is absolutely impossible to achieve a desired political goal by merely resorting to indiscriminate killing and political assassinations. The most important eye opener for TPLF in this regard was the war with Eritrea, where galvanizing the nation was critical to run the regime’s war machinery.
Accordingly the May-June-July 1998 period was the time when the TPLF learned and effectively utilized the magic of playing to the tune of the weak spot of Ethiopians in responding to patriotic calls. During that time, some nationalist war cries that had already gone oblivious to our ears were dug out from the dust and started playing out on national TV and radio; historical figures that had previously been vilified by the TPLF were glamorized once again in the style of the Dergue era; some specific episodes resonating sovereignty and even survival meaning in the country’s history, such as the battle of Adwa, the League of Nations and the justice denied to our country in the face of the Italian invasion; the role played by Ethiopian statesmen in the decolonization of Africa, etc. were recited by the foreign Minister, narrated by Ambassadors, and rehearsed even by Mr. Zenawi, in an attempt to shade off the aversion he grew up with to the country’s past and its historical figures.
In 1998 Ethiopians responded to the government’s call in a characteristic fervor and patriotism displaying the legendary attributes of their forefathers in closing ranks whenever the country faces foreign threats against its sovereignty, no matter what the domestic situation or the political and ethnic dimensions of the relations among themselves had been prior to the emergence of a foreign threat. Accordingly, Ethiopians had been quiet prompt in extending their forgiveness to the TPLF in spite of the blasphemous acts it had committed against the country’s sovereignty and national interest.
When the conflict, as bloody and expensive as it was, came to an end, Ethiopians began holding their breath waiting for a some what different political scenario that would be more inclusive and broad based; a form of governance with open and development-friendly economic policies. Given the fertile ground created through the outpouring support the government enjoyed from the people during its war effort, very few people presumed that politics would remain the same let alone goes to the worst. However, a more inclusive political process and a more liberalized policy atmosphere people expected to ensue after the war never showed up.
Emboldened by his victory against the other prominent TPLF officials such as Seye Abraha, Meles assumed an even more totalitarian power; the all-pervading power of the TPLF in every field of the peoples’ socio-economic life became prevalent. The so-called “Revolutionary Democracy”, the Holly Grail of TPLF philosophy, paralyzed government structure from head to toe; the group’s rhetoric and ideological anthem reappeared fully with their default tune of violence and massacre. Since then, Ethiopians never had their day in court until May 15 2005.But again, what followed the outcome of that Day of Judgment has become our daily creed and needs no further elaboration.
Of course there is nothing wrong in supporting the international campaign against terrorism. In fact, the peoples of Ethiopia are staunch supporters of the fight against terrorism and all forms of extremism. However, the position taken by the Ethiopian government following the 9/11 attack was not out of a genuine conviction for this noble cause. Rather, it was a smart-aleck calculation aimed at profiting from the grief of the American people and their Government’s legitimate concern vis-à-vis the scourge of global terrorism. Moreover, the peoples of Ethiopia know from their history that the sovereignty of their country is best protected by a just and lawful means through the collective defense scheme that underlies international law, not by using a brute force and invading a sovereign country. In deed it seems Mr. Zenawi has, for the time being, succeeded in getting the thumbs up from the US administration, but his insolvency within the country has plummated into the abyss bringing the regime closer to its inevitable downfall.
We Ethiopians are on the front lines of a struggle against every form of terror including the type that is perpetrated against a people by “their own” government. Indeed, terrorism is abominable and Ethiopians are not strangers to fighting the scourge at every turn.
We Ethiopians are very patriotic people zealous of their independence and the sovereignty of their country. However, each and every Ethiopian must possess the capacity to discern the false Messiah that generates killing fields for our brothers and sisters in the name of fighting “jihadists” and protecting the territorial integrity of their country. As patriotic as we are, we must be aware that a regime like that of the TPLF cannot be our interlocutor in defending our country by playing on our psychosis to serve its own vicious political goals.
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Former diplomat Workie Briye can be reached for comments at [email protected].
