All three have had different objectives, but all have, inadvertently or otherwise, bled Ethiopia or even dismembered it. However, TPLF is by far the worst of the lot. We shall look at each of these groups briefly first and then suggest how AFD can proceed to avoid the chronic pitfalls of our dismal past.

UNDEMOCRATIC LOCAL FORCES

Putting the uninformed but patriotic former feudal rulers aside, this is the home-grown group led by our elite who invariably have had undemocratic agenda since none of them have stood for democratic rights for all Ethiopians. This group includes all leftist elements in the 1960s and 1970s, and it comprises Derg, EPRP, MEISON, OLF, ELF, TPLF, EPLF, and all those other leftist groups as well as recent-comers, led by such men as Bulcha Demeksa and Beyene Petros. The new-comers continue to succumb to the vicious tactics of EPRDF to crush the democratic aspirations and hopes of the people of Ethiopia by either outright serving EPRDF in its divide-and-rule designs, or by joining hands with the brutal regime and its external backers to destroy a fledgling multiparty system, and hence their own parties, especially after the elections of May 15, 2005. Lidetu, claiming to be democratic, stands out as a first-class traitor.

None of those in the above group had a national democratic agenda based on accepted principles of liberal or social democracy; Beyene’s role in UEDF and Amrach Hailoch was simply a marriage of convenience, as proven since 2005. Indeed, Beyene and his associates have never had a firm country-wide commitment for respect for human rights and rule of law. If they had any, they would not have betrayed the wishes of the people, since October 2005, by joining EPRDF in upholding the May 2005 elections as free and fair or in condemning CUD’s leaders as anti-constitutional. Indeed, Beyene has never dared to confront EPRDF in defense of basic freedoms, transparency, accountability and rule of law; he had been TPLF/EPRDF’s ally and partner in betraying Ethiopia’s territorial integrity ever since the days of the Transitional Government in 1991. For that service, he was appointed Vice-Minister.

In the early 1970s, some opted for a bloody revolution against the feudal sate, but all that they have succeeded to do has been to destroy Ethiopia’s rich values, traditions and whatever little Ethiopia has built for decades, thereby exposing Ethiopia to still more invasion and poverty; some others have also appeared to defend the rights of only selected groups of Ethiopians when they know very well that the entire nation is in chains, and when the penultimate goal has, most likely, been to establish a neo-feudal system where all but the ruling elite will continue to be slaves. A shining example of such elite deception is TPLF whose role has also been particularly treacherous: it had killed thousands of our youths in our National Defense Forces in the 1970s and 1980s, and its leader, Meles Zenawi, had also requested for, and facilitated, the dismemberment of Eritrea. He is still in power because of our divided elite !

Upstarts like Ayele Chamiso, Mohamed Ali and Temesgen Zewde, have completely betrayed their party, their colleagues, their political leaders and the democratic aspirations and hopes of the Ethiopian people. Indeed, Beyene, Bulcha, Lidetu, Temesgen, Tim Clarke of the EU Commission, the US Embassy and the World Bank know very well that it is EPRDF that has always violated rule of law and disobeyed the Constitution by:

• abusing the entire Chapter 3 on Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, including
  the right of bail, freedoms of organization, assembly and expression, thereby stifling independent political parties, the press and the right to vote and to be elected by closing down party offices, and jailing opposition party supporters, members of the private press and leaders of CSOs;

• violating Article 29 which provides for media financed by or under the control of
  the State to operate “ in a manner ensuring (its) capacity to entertain diversity in the expression of opinion”, whereas the EPRDF has always used, including today, such public mass media for poisonous propaganda against the opposition under the eyes of all supporting diplomats;

• putting the legislature and the judiciary under the Prime Minister in violation of
  Articles 50 and 78 of the constitution;

• putting all responsibilities for constitutional interpretation (Article 83) under the Prime
  Minister through Kemal Bedri and an EPRDF-controlled House of the Federation;

• violating Article 88 which provides for self-rule, but is openly denied, as in Addis
  Ababa where CUD has had a landslide victory but has been denied its right of
  administering it with the incredible support of even the US Embassy;

• deploying Agazi Division and Federal police units to legitimize fraudulent elections,
  including liberal use of US Humvees in Addis Ababa against unarmed citizens, thereby violating
  Art. 87 which provides for armed forces to carry out their functions free of any partisanship to
  any political organization;

• violating Article 90 which provides for education that is “ free from any religious
  influence, political partisanship or cultural prejudices”, by encouraging ethnic groups to be formed, and different religions to demand places of worship, on campuses and even in dormitories, as seen recently in Arba Minch, and earlier in Addis Ababa universities;

• violating Article 102 which provides for an independent National Election Board (NEB) that is “independent of any influence” when the practice has been that the Prime Minister has hand-picked and appointed Kemal Bedri, the President of the Federal Supreme Court and President of the Constitutional Commission, to be Chairman of NEB since 1994, thereby denying the opposition any chances of justice in courts or a fair constitutional interpretation.

The list of EPRDF constitutional violations is long. In spite of such anti-democratic record by EPRDF and its continuous harassment, incarceration, beating and shooting of Oromos, Afars, Amharas, Annuaks, Ogadeni, Sidamas and others by Agazi Division and Federal Police, Beyene Petros and Bulcha Demeksa have sheepishly come out recently to announce a senseless agreement with EPRDF to respect the Constitution and rule of law when the only law offender is EPRDF itself. The only objective of this cheap announcement is to validate EPRDF’s illegal actions against CUD’s leaders, perhaps also at the instigation of the US Embassy, World Bank’s local Director, and EU’s Commissioner Tim Clarke.

This divide-and-rule strategy is also evident in the current negotiations on parliamentary code of ethics and Procedures where EPRDF negotiates with one or two parties, separately, leaving out the most popular political party after illegally throwing its leaders into jail using trumped-up charges; this entire activity is a foolish drama designed to give a democratic image to a belligerent regime, and to justify aid being poured out by powerful backers like the UK, World Bank, EU Commission and the US Embassy. A similarly childish drama is being enacted by EPRDF with the management boards of public mass media, which now have representatives from satellite political groups, EPRDF still appointing all of them and chairing all three boards of ETV and Radio, the public press and ENA.
The overall outcome of the actions of the home-grown parties, since the 1960s, has been to facilitate the dismemberment of Ethiopia, to prolong a painful and costly undemocratic one-party rule, further aggravating poverty, backwardness and inter-ethnic conflict, and to create pre-conditions for a one-party constitution that has ensured a one-man rule. Indeed, since 1974, Ethiopia has ended up having two brutal regimes, the latest having no qualms about dismembering Ethiopia, or cooking up a devastating civil war on a scale never seen before in the country’s history of 3000 years, or instigating continuous inter-clan and inter-ethnic conflicts between people that have lived together in peace for centuries.

The recent formation of AFD by OLF, ONLF, Kinijit and others is a bold step into a promising future that is similar to the democratic developments in Apartheid South Africa between February 1990 and 1994. AFD needs our strongest support, but it still has a lot more to do since the MOU and Statutes fail, among other problems, to clearly commit AFD’s members to a united and democratic Ethiopia where self-determination and secession must necessarily be things of the past in a democratic state. Indeed, given AFD’s collective vision of a united and democratic Ethiopia, those articles in the political programs of OLF and ONLF that provide for secession will have to go publicly both from these Statutes and in the respective political programs. The Chairman of AFD has to take the lead.

ANTI-ETHIOPIAN FORCES

This group has consisted of some African states and others located mostly around the Red Sea. Their principal interest has been to ensure that (i) Communism does not spill over from Ethiopia to the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring States, (ii) Ethiopia remains weak, poor and divided so that such natural resources as its rivers may not be exploited to create a strong national economy, and (iii) the Red Sea is an Arab Sea, as in the days of the Ottoman Empire a few hundred years ago.

The excuse for such interference was always given to them by such undemocratic regimes as the Derg that imported communism without any thought of its relevance or usefulness, but to serve it as a tool to legitimize its brutal and inhuman rule; EPRDF came in riding a seemingly anti-communist bandwagon with extensive support from Arab and powerful western nations, and armed with ethnicity to disarm various Ethiopians for a short period; however, all that has turned out to be deception and treachery.

Repeating history once again, Prime Minister Meles’s regime has now created such unbearable political conditions that it has caused the emergence of anti-EPRDF forces like OLF, ONLF, ARDUF, EPPF, ENUPF, EPF and others that have resorted to armed struggle since hopes for peaceful negotiations have been repeatedly dashed by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s belligerence and the insensitive support of some western powers and the Word Bank using such flimsy excuses as the Protection of Basis Services, while denying protection for political rights and civil liberties. AFD is the most recent powerful outcome of that same EPRDF belligerence and the costly lessons learned during the last three decades.

One wonders why the West had to fight the Soviet block or Germany in the 20th century if filling stomachs or buying medicine for malaria or AIDS is all that mattered in life. Indeed, Americans appeared to have forgotten that their founding fathers had resorted to Boston Tea Party and war against Great Britain to defend their right of “ No taxation without representation”. Race differences aside, why is democratic US siding with anti-democratic EPRDF when all fundamental rights are so flagrantly violated by the Meles’s regime ? What happened to President Bush’s second inaugural promise against dictators ?

Today, the EPRDF regime has seemingly friendly relations with most of its neighbors, except Eritrea and Somalia; the anti-Ethiopia states around the Red Sea and beyond appear to be satisfied for the moment since Ethiopia is now successfully dismembered and divided, and since Ethiopia is no more, at least formally, a communist state. However, the continued belligerence of Meles and his determination to keep Ethiopia as a one-party state, the explosive situation associated with Eritrea, and the imminent threat of a spill-over of the chaos from Somalia will continue to destabilize the Horn of Africa.

It is strange that America has consistently failed, over several decades, to see that a strong, united and democratic Ethiopia is the surest guarantee for stability in the Horn of Africa. The current development of AFD will, hopefully, assist the American Government and its allies to see the value of supporting democracy instead of propping up a tottering brutal regime. Indeed, AFD is a powerful and historic development alongside the historic resolutions of EU parliament last December 2005, and it is bound to also provide valuable support for the passage of HR. 4423 by the US Congress.

ANTI-COMMUNIST AND ANTI-CAPITALIST FORCS

This group consists of the super-powers and their allies in the 1960s to 1980s, during the Cold War period when Ethiopia was dragged into the power struggle between the West and the Soviet block in the 1970s. The home-grown group was again the principal tool of super power rivalry. Our youth of the 1960s and 1970s were carried away by the heavenly-like but empty promises of Maoism and Marxism-Leninism without any regard for their relevance to Ethiopia or their overall implications in the geo-political struggles. Indeed, our youthful elite used very little of their brains, but a lot more of their emotions, to import an ideology which had been rejected even by the land of its birth.

The Soviet Union and China encouraged and supported our youthful elite to revolt in the 1960s and 1970s against the state which had foolishly provided the excuses by denying all opportunities for political dialogue. The Soviets first armed Somalia against Ethiopia, but, then, they dumped Somalia pretty quickly when a besieged and illegitimate Derg agreed to come under the Soviet sphere of influence in 1974, and they then armed Ethiopia, thereby creating conditions for the two sister nations to wage a bloody war in the 1970s at very great material and human cost. The West and its Arab allies, on the other hand, provided lethal and non-lethal support to the insurgents to counteract the actions of the communists.

Ethiopia ended up being a battlefield, and it all happened because we had a government that had blindly imported communism, primarily at the instigation of our dreaming elite, thereby inviting deadly rivalry between the super powers on our soil.

If Derg were elected by the people in a free and fair election, thereby empowering all Ethiopians to have a voice in all national affairs through their democratically elected representatives, then the import of communism by a minority elite would have been avoided, and our people and national defense forces would have remained united and strong so that Somalia would not have taken that unwise and uncalculated risk of invading Ethiopia in 1977.

The Cold war was also a critical factor for the dismemberment of Ethiopia. The US and its Arab allies assisted the TPLF and EPLF insurgents that eventually dismembered Ethiopia in 1991. The most recent outcome of that dismemberment was another devastating war in 1998 between two independent but undemocratic and unstable states created with the strong support of the US Government and its Arab allies with the ultimate collaboration of UN’s Boutros Ghalli, Egypt’s former Foreign Minister.

WHAT SHOULD AFD DO TO ENSURE VISIBLE SUCCESS SOON?

The very first thing for AFD to do is to realize that we are now in the 21st century when the world is moving towards stronger political and economic blocks, and to also learn from the costly mistakes of all those political actors since the 1960s. Let me summarize a few of those mistakes of the last 35 years that led to the repeated failures of the political opposition to unseat unpopular Derg and EPRDF:

• None of the opposition parties that operated between the 1960s and the 1980s were democratic; they all had essentially similar undemocratic policies as the Derg in that they never ever had any dream of effecting free and fair elections under a multiparty system with universal suffrage; EPRDF has given proof of this during the last three elections since 1991; MEISON, EPRP and other leftist parties would have probably done no better since their policies were all based on class analysis, with no culture of negotiation to settle differences with others;
• Each opposition party during Derg’s reign wanted to come to power, and force was the only way to do that so that the opposition was totally disunited since it wanted power for itself so that it was even worse than the feudal chiefs of 18th. century Ethiopia;
• Since there was no accountability to the people, each opposition party during Derg had little or no respect for the people which have been, treated, at best, as the servants of the state, or otherwise as material goods, such as cannon fodder, to keep communist leaders in power;
• The opposition since May 1991 has also been disunited; parties of all descriptions were allowed to register and exist so long as they were weak and disorganized; strong opposition parties were harassed, forcefully closed or undermined by creating surrogates, surprisingly with active support from US Embassy; this disunited went into the elections of May 15, 2005 without ensuring a level playing field: the National Election Board, the electoral law, the public mass media, election security, and the courts were all partisan. This error turned out to be very costly in terms of lives, property and the overall welfare of the entire nation.

In summary, disregarding the situation before 1991, Ethiopia has had a disunited and ill-prepared legal opposition after 1991. Denied timely support by UNDP, the World Bank and western diplomats, that divided opposition did not have a sufficiently strong political leverage to bring about a meaningful change in the electoral system and in such vital support services as the courts, the security and the public mass media before going into the elections.

The political opposition in the Diaspora also had a hand in ensuring that the legal opposition had no unity; an example is the failure of the Joint Action for Democracy in Ethiopia (JADE), formed n 1993, by ONC, SEPDC and AEUP. JADE was killed by opposition parties in the Diaspora using Beyene as their agent; they were eager to form UEDF in July 1993. However, UEDF itself fell apart right away since it lacked internal democracy. Likewise, Lidetu and EPRDF also sabotaged the unity talks with AEUP.

Hence, inadequately prepared and disunited, UEDF and CUD, among others, went into the elections of May 2005, with Beyene apparently unhappy about CUD’s nation-wide popularity, and, latter, of its successes. Those elections were, as widely expected, fraudulent, according to EU EOM, which covered both rural and urban Ethiopia; the report of Carter Center’s Observation team was favorable, but that report covered only urban Ethiopia. However, US Embassy and Donald Yamamoto of the US Department of State chose to use those results reported by Carter Center as results for the whole country to justify a continuation of US policy of financial and military support for Meles’s regime.

Nevertheless, we are very grateful to UEDF, to CUD’s leaders, to OFDM and to CUD’s support groups in North America for their historic and valuable contribution, the latter for first strengthening AEUP, and then CUD after October 2005. The successes of CUD and the Ethiopian people of all ethnic groups and religions include the shattered ethnic and religious divide built by EPRDF since 1991, mobilization of the people to join the peaceful struggle to defend their rights and freedoms, forcing EPRDF to retreat from a number of its retrogressive policies and foolish laws like the one fabricated by the outgoing parliament last June 2005 on Parliamentary Code of Ethics and procedures, forcing EPRDF to make some improvements in services, and forcing EPRDF to lower taxes that have been killing small businesses.

It is important to also note that the votes given to CUD in Oromia and in southern Ethiopia were not a protest vote, as asserted by the Chairman of AFD and OLF recently in his interview with Tensae Radio, since CUD competed for those votes in Oromia and in southern Ethiopia with ONC, OFDM and OPDO, the first two Oromo parties having entirely different political programs from both OPDO and CUD. Indeed, it cannot be denied that CUD did break the ethnic-based divide. As a result, EPRDF was so furious that it threw innocent CUD leaders illegally into jail because of those resounding successes !

Clearly, therefore, the unconditional and immediate release of CUD’s leaders and all other political prisoners should be AFD’s priority since that will then greatly enhance its popular support, and also ensure that the democratic struggle will move on since no opposition leaders and supporters will be abandoned to perish in jail. If we abandon these ones today, we will have no more leaders or supporters to come forward tomorrow ! ANC’s supporters did just that from 1912 to February 1990, and serious negotiations with Apartheid leaders then started in 1991 after the opposition activists and their leaders, including Mandela, were released from jail, and after unbanning all opposition parties.

Indeed, right at the beginning of the negotiations in 1990, South African political parties, represented by racists like CP, ethnic parties like IFP, communists in SACP, and multi-ethnic parties like ANC, first made a collective commitment to a united and democratic South Africa, universal suffrage in a multiparty democracy, separation of powers, and a bill of rights. Those broad principles then led to the formation of several technical committees to work on the questions of political prisoners, a new democratic constitution, a new electoral system, regulation of the public mass media, security laws and political harassment and intimidation, liberation armies, the definition of the administrative and political divisions of South Africa, and the nature and authority of the transitional council to oversee the transition up to the first democratic elections in April 1994. The South Africans had to do that to avoid in-fighting and civil war after the first democratic elections.

Those carefully planned negotiations of the South Africans from 1990 to 1994 gave birth to the powerful Rainbow Nation in the very first democratic elections of April 1994. They planned well and prepared well, leaving nothing to chance or to foreign diplomats, while maintaining their respective parties’ independence, and they achieved a united and democratic South Africa in April 1994 after over 100 years of bitter struggle and blood-letting. By doing so, they threw out the apologetic thesis of Africa’s dictators, deceitful academics and western apologists that building democracy is a process.

That is also what AFD needs to do: create a common democratic platform, like the South Africans, right away since the local elections are only a few months from now, and the next national and regional elections are only under 4 years away. Such a common platform needs to start with an objective review of the current EPRDF constitution and an examination of the following, among others:

• Parliamentary or Presidential models for effective checks and balances ?
• Unicameral or bicameral parliament, and responsibilities ?
• Independence of the Executive, judiciary and legislative branches, and functions
• Penalties for violating the Constitution by the Prime Minister and/or Head of State, and organs and procedures for their implementation as in the US Constitution
• Separation of powers between local and central government
• A bill of rights
• Redefinition of provinces for efficient and democratic local government and to ensure better local participation and control; the current divisive Kilils have to go since they are designed more for divide-and-rule purposes rather than for the empowerment of the people
• A constitutional court that is professional and independent of all branches of government
• Independence of public mass media, Public Human Rights Commission, Anti-corruption Commission, Police and National Defense Forces, civil service, public schools and universities, National Election Board, etc.
• Terms of office of the State President and/or Prime Minister, and health and educational requirements of the Head of State/Prime Minister
• Agreement between members of AFD during the transition to Democracy

Any delay to agree on such a common political platform and prepare for the upcoming local elections is as good as handing over Ethiopia, once again, to EPRDF for 3 or 4 more years, and to also significantly reduce the chances of opposition victory in 2010.

AFD should follow-up its agreement on fundamental democratic principles used in a common platform, along the lines suggested above, with the appointment of several professional technical committees for reasonably distinct issues to prepare specialized documents that also consolidate any additional related party suggestions for discussion first by a negotiating council, and then final approval by a plenary comprising party leaders and their assistants. One such technical committee is for an independent electoral management organization, an electoral law of international standard, an independent electoral court at the level of the supreme court [That is what South Africans did in 1994] and for all related services like access to public mass media, and party and election security from wayward police, national defense forces and local EPRDF cadres and government officials, all in view of preparations for the upcoming local elections in a few months’ time. This was what we had advised since 2002, but to no avail since EPRDF and diplomats refused to cooperate. This time, though, AFD should see to it that it is strong enough to make EPRDF cooperate.

Such a democratic platform as the one suggested above is different from a party political program in that it will consist of only the sort of fundamental democratic principles that are universally enshrined in the constitutions of the USA, Great Britain, South Africa or any other democratic states; they will also create an enabling environment for all competing democratic parties in the up-coming local elections. All Ethiopian political parties, whether socialist, communist, conservative, liberal, regional or sub-regional, will then respect those common and universal principles as all political parties do in the US, Europe and elsewhere in democratic countries.

AFD’s should not hesitate to commit itself to a united and democratic Ethiopia to free Ethiopians from an oppressive regime, and also free the elite from continuing to be EPRDF’s accomplices in the perpetuation of misery, poverty and backwardness. It is time for a bold commitment to lay down the foundations for a democratic system, in the manner of South Africa’s political parties, in preparation for the up-coming local elections and for the inevitable negotiations with EPRDF.

UEDF needs to be brought into AFD which has to be a strong and credible force for unity and democracy in the eyes of our people and the international community. Die-hard anti-opposition elements and spies, like Lidetu, should be avoided, but the door must be left open for Merera and Bulcha. Like Mandela, AFD’s leaders should also be ready “ to crawl on their hands and knees” to achieve opposition unity.

The divided and non-democratic struggles of the elite since the 1960s have diminished Ethiopia to such an extent that when the African Union recently nominated three African nations to represent Africa as permanent members of a would-be reformed UN Security Council, the name of Ethiopia – the founding member of OAU, AU, the League of Nations and the UN – was nowhere in sight. I do not blame our African brothers for ignoring Ethiopia since we have brought such shame upon ourselves. It is time for a radical and speedy democratic change, and AFD has come with a pleasant bang; it is on the right path, but still imperfect and inadequate for a united and democratic Ethiopia. AFD should be the beginning of the end of our elite’s divided struggles against a diabolical dictatorship !