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Press Release Where Is the outrage?
The 21st must be Africa’s century. It is not a question of whether can Africa claim the 21st century. This has to be Africa’s century or Africa will perish. It has to be the century of the African renaissance? It has to be the century of the post-pessimistic turn against the casual moral condemnation of a continent with over 500 years of scar and pain. Africa is to change from speaking through its hurt, suffering, sores and wounds to that of speaking with resistance and hope to the world. It is supposed to change from corrupt government to democratic Government; from tyranny to democracy; from rule by arbitrary personal power to rule by law; from a Government by the voices and choices of the governed rather than by the whims and guns of dictators. Equally important, it was also critical to turn the tide of speech and representation about Africa. A new millennium offered the opportunity, a new optimism to initiate a new temper in Africa. For far too long Africa suffered from pessimism of description as well as pessimism of prescription. It has suffered from a condescending and often violent gaze from diagnosis to prescription. It is still the case everyone who cares to reflect on Africa begins often with an underlying tone of reproach. The African renaissance that began with the end of apartheid in South Africa provided the big idea for a non- reproachful and non-pessimistic and hopeful turn to think and speak, do , feel, reason and debate about Africa. The African renaissance ushered in a critical agenda of post-colonial liberation. The historical chapters of colonialism and apartheid have ended. South Africa joined Africa with a wonderful liberation that imparted a historic sense and energy that continues to excite the progressive imagination of all those who wish desperately to see Africa stand tall and strong by moving forward by protecting with shared obligation the dignity and humanity of all Africans the world over. Today we have indeed in Africa a new historical chapter of marching together for a deeper African integration and renewal at all levels of African existential and public life. This remains the basic trend despite the glitches and reversals Africans experience from time to time. The new agenda seems clear. To unite Africa, democracy must be rooted in all Africa. Without democratising Africa, it will not be easy to unite it and indeed free and create renascent Africa. And when the OAU gave way to the AU, it seems for a time the political will to make Africa democratic and people-centred seem to exist. There was great expectation that Africa will live up to the challenge of making Africa to stand united in freedom and move forward. 1. The Key Provisions of Africa’s Constitutive ActThe AU’s Constitutive Act promised Africans new possibilities and hopes to unite Africa on key values of respect of human rights, democratic governance, rule of law and periodic submission by Governments to a peer review mechanism, promises to find African mechanisms for building enduring peace and stability, human security and the protection of basic freedoms of speech, press, association and assembly. Gone were the days when a dictator having come through military means and chooses to terrorise a country by invoking respect for sovereignty. The AU Constuitive Act permits African intervention in other African states under the following conditions:
To the credit of the AU it has tried to take real measures by intervening and imposing sanctions on coup makers, and those who refuse to abide by popular election verdicts. What has emerged as an interesting fact is that sovereignty is no longer a barrier to AU interventions as in the OAU days. Under the guise of protecting sovereignty many crimes have been committed in Africa. The AU has thus added new duties and obligations to members. Formally AU has heralded a new orientation to the use and misuse of power against citizens. 2. Where is the Commitment and Consistency?It is not enough to put wonderful words in the Constuitive Act unless the AU acts on those principles. The AU is in Addis Ababa. The elected mayor of Addis Ababa with a land slide where the AU is located with has been locked up in jail. The entire elected leadership has been forcibly and violently put into jail. The popular verdict against the incumbent has been wasted by one of the most open robbery of the election in Africa where people voluntarily turned out to vote and express voice massively. The AU knows all these but remains silent, and in some instances gives carte blanche to the regime to do what it likes with the people and the opposition. This is indeed a scandal. It is a betrayal of Africa. Betrayal of democracy in Africa is a betrayal of Africa pure and simple. The AU can and should speak out. Not to utter even a whisper is indeed a tragedy for Africa as Africa cannot afford to wait another half century to bring democracy because of a number of its brutish and self-serving rulers that are not willing to hold Africa’s interest at heart. Have not the AU heard that the EU Parliament has voted denouncing the atrocities committed by the Meles regime? The EU has tried to stop budget support. From the AU, not even a word. How come when the partners from Europe speak up the brothers and sisters close buy shut their eyes and close their ears and lips? Do not they know their silence gives succour to tyranny in Ethiopia? Do they care? What ever happened to the African parliament? Why does it too remain silent when fellow parliamentarians, some of whom should be their colleagues in Pretoria, Teshwane, are thrown in jail for the simple fact that they happened to be elected not from the incumbent party that dictatorially harasses a nation for nearly a generation?
Africa must be the first to speak up when Africans impose tyranny and misdirect the democratic energy of a nation displayed so magnificently on May 15, 2005. Meles Zenawi has not only killed and jailed, but also he has used pre-emptive lethal force to terrorise the urban youth and the rural population. He deserves to be censored and not feted by the AU. 3. Meles’ Invitation to Global Governance Forum in South AfricaIt is a scandal after having voluntarily signed the AU’s Constuitive Act; some leaders in Africa still today go to the extent of changing constitutions to stay in power. Moreover they do not see how harmful it is to the creation of sustainable democratic institutions when the such leaders think they are like institutions themselves that need to be perpetuated. After half a century of decolonisation we would have thought Africa by now must be into a different stage of development and commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law and the sustenance of good government. The crass and obtuse regimes mismanaging some of our countries continue to claim and say, in Africa it is not ballots but bullets that decide power transfer, transition and upkeep. The regime in Ethiopia stereotype the Ethiopian people and down grade their capabilities and learning to change their condition by creating self-governance. The regime denigrates what the people achieved by devaluing their voice and votes for democracy with officially sanctioned theft and fraud. Measured by any standard one cares to adopt, what the Ethiopian people achieved in the shortest possible time in the May election with democracy is on a par to any European experience. It is certainly no less, if not, indeed, more. In fact, the turn out has been better in Ethiopia compared with many European elections and generally developed country cases. The people came, and voted with great discipline and grace. Nearly all incidents that spoiled the election atmosphere came from the regime’s incessant ambition to remain in power and secure an absolute majority in parliament by using many nefarious and unsavoury tactics. This election is not something that the regime can denigrate by calling it, this is an African election, whatever one means by that declaration. Generally speaking, the people in Africa have no problems voting for persons who will represent them given a democratic environment. Contrary to popular belief, they know and they have wisdom. It is the selfish and crude leaders like the ones that rule in Ethiopia that create the problem, not the fact of being an African election. Where there is an overwhelming and oppressive poverty of democracy in the ruling group and its dependence on force, violence and deception and foreign money as a normative choice, there is often stealing, killing and corruption. Once the regime is corrupt, kills and steals, it is impossible to secure its voluntary abdication through the franchise, voice and votes of the people. That is the problem. The Ethiopian people have done their part, they found a bad regime that abused their trust and fiddled big time their votes and muzzled their true voice. A Danish film Institute took nine years to make a documentary, in the soldiers’ footsteps, that show clearly how the elites that have been described as the darling of the west as the new breeds are capable of manufacturing opposition to themselves in order to impose terror on the population and opponents and give an air of indispensability to their rule. Every African must see this film to know the behaviour of the new breeds, how they frame in order to blame. In Ethiopia the opposition leadership and even artists, journalists, academics and others who speak for the respect of vote and voice have been accused with committing ‘treason..’ The AU knows this fraudulent charge by a fraudulent regime in Ethiopia. And it still remains silent. 4. Call to President Thabo Mbeki not to Fete but Denounce MelesWe heard that progressive South Africa and South Africa’s respected democratic leader, President Thabo Mbeki has invited Meles to participate in the Progressive Global Governance group. Here is an opportunity for Africa not to reward tyranny but to punish it. South Africa must put principle above diplomatic courtesy and show Meles the way back home. This will give a strong signal to both the AU and the AU parliament to denounce Meles and his regime like the EU parliament before them. South Africa must use all its influence to make sure the entire opposition leadership are unconditionally freed without any delay and with full apologies from the Meles regime for the crime it committed to date against them and the Ethiopian people. South Africa must lend its voice to the call for an international inquiry for the entire post- election crises engineered by the despotic and brutal Meles regime. South Africa and the AU must join the international call for the the release of all prisoners, the dismissal of all the absurd charges of ’’treason’ and genocide” against the opposition, to set uop an international inquiry consisting of the members of the African peer review mechanism and other internationally recognised personalities. The AU must recognise there can be no sustainable African integration and renaissance without the fullest possible democratisation of not only Ethiopia but Africa as a whole. The AU must show its outrage at the injustice that has befell a country that has been its home since 1963. The AU, we call on you not to fial Ethiopia! Do not fail Africa. Stand up and speak up to tyranny.
Professor Mammo Muchie, Chair of NES-Scandinavian Chapter Contact address:
Fibigerstraede 2 (Photo in the text shows a huge opposition rally in May 2005 in Addis Ababa, and troops ordered by the prime minister to patrol the streets after he knew his 14-year-old regime had no public support to remain in power by any peaceful and legal means.) Previous Articles |
Where Is the outrage? The inexplicable silence of the AU over the Ethiopian crisis
Home /Travel Guide/Where Is the outrage? The inexplicable silence of the AU over the Ethiopian crisis
