The Tyrant defying the Will of the People

 

The issue of an all-Ethiopia resistance forum

 

Part two

 

May 30, 2006

 

Kahsay Berhe E-mail: bkahsay@aol.com

 

3. The question of the incarcerated political leaders and others

 

Keep far from false charge, and do not slay the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. (Exodus 25:7)

 

The opposition parties that won the trust of the peoplein the May 2005 elections have no extensive security network, party army, or any large party business empires. These attributes of the opposition parties are assets and not liabilities for Ethiopia and Ethiopians. The people including the party members may be free to support or oppose or to remove the parties from power if they fail to deliver what they promised. Members could freely express their opinion without fear for their lives from their leaders.

 

In democracy, transfer of power democratically is possible because of the existence of political contenders in the form of political parties. A political party is, as the name indicates, only one part in a body of democratic system in society that constitutes one socio-political geography.Therefore, a political party must accept the existence of other rival political parties. Each party determines the content of its own political program. No other party or a government has the right to disband any party because of the content of its program, with the exception of certain legally clear-cut exceptions, e.g. if any party program proves through court rulings to be unconstitutional or to pursue unlawful ideas.

 

Multiparty democracy functions when each political party is committed to recognize and respect the existence of other parties, offer the people equal chance of membership without distinction of sex, language, race, religion etc., that it must not resort to force in order to seize state power, it ought to respect the rights of its members to participate in the process of shaping the programs and policies of their parties. Does the CUD violate any of these issues? Does the CUD deny other political groups their right to exist? Does it follow a policy that excludes certain sections of society because of their language, religion or race? Did it resort to force to snatch political power?

 

The TPLF/EPRDF accuses the multi-ethnic opposition parties specially the CUD of striving to form a unitary state and pursue anti-ethnic policies. Firstly, contrary to the allegation by the TPLF/EPRDF, the CUD had multiethnic leadership. The 2005 election manifesto of the CUD unambiguously states that the party stands for a federal democratic Ethiopia and for the rights of the nationalities to use their language, to take care of their heritage and develop their culture. (CUD, Election Manifesto 2005). Secondly, there is not clearly demarcated Tigray-Amhara division in Ethiopia. The confrontation is between the TPLF led junta and the Ethiopian people regardless to language and religion.

 

For the TPLF any organization or individual standing for Ethiopian unity is Amhara chauvinist, or Greater Ethiopianist.

 

The pan-Ethiopian political organizations were neither exclusively Amhara organizations nor Amhara dominated. The organizations portrayed as Amhara chauvinists at that time did not only work with other ethnic groups, moreover, in reality, they worked under the leaderships of non-Amhara groups. If we look at the three most important multiethnic organizations of the time, EDU, MEISONE & EPRP, we can nowhere trace Amhara domination. The first three consecutive leaders of the EPRP (Berhane Meskel Rheda, Dr.Tesfay Debesay and Zeru Kehishen) were Tigreans. The first leader of the MEISONE (Haile Fida) was an Oromo. The Tigrean prince, Ras Mengesha Seyoum, also led the EDU. The allegation that the Ethiopian multiethnic political organizations during the 1970s represented Amhara chauvinism is therefore, unfounded (Kahsay Berhe, Ethiopia: Democratization and Unity, 2005, p. 71).

 

To accuse the opposition especially the CUD of instigating the bloodbath in Addis Ababa and other places in the country is unfounded. To call the incarcerated leaders traitors is an insult to the millions of Ethiopians who elected them. It is the right of Ethiopians to hold demonstrations to enforce their rights. Meles Zenawi put aside his "own" constitution and mowed down the stone throwing demonstrators. He did it in Addis Ababa in 1993 and 2003 i.e., long before CUD existed. www.chora.virtualave.net/minister-students38.htm .The anti-CUD campaign is to keep Meles Zenawi in power at the cost of the Ethiopian people, including the people of Tigray.

 

When a government fails to uphold the rights of the people it is the right of the people to take any legal measures of resistance, e.g. through demonstrations and strikes. It is also a noble duty for political parties to organize such mass protests. The government is obliged to provide solutions to the problems or it must step down. After the loss of the election, Meles Zenawi prompted to mobilize the army and curbed the democratic rights of the people by decree. Incriminating and jailing the opposition and journalists is an attempt by the regime of Meles Zenawi to completely annul the election result and suppress the democratic movement.

 

It is right that the CUD has political programs different from those of the EPRDF and UEDF. Because these parties have different programs, they have competed against each other in the May 2005 elections. Now, after the elections, the regime disbanded the CUD, imprisoned its leaders and accused them of genocide and treason (as outlined before). The TPLF/EPRDF regime is organizing a court drama to mobilize its forces to suppress the expressed democratic interests of the people. Government functionaries and party cadres began to condemn the accused as criminals even before any court hearing. I think there is just one single, simple motivation for all the actions against the opposition and the press: the coordinated and systematic war waged by the ruling party against the democratic movement of the Ethiopian people.

 

Today, the political scene in Ethiopia can be described as the confrontation between the group in power fighting in order to stay in power on one side and the resistance of the democratic political forces and the people to regain their rights on the other. As part of its war, the ruling clique has committed mass murder, confined tens of thousands of people and has made unfounded accusations against political leaders and people from the free press to terrorize them through the threat of capital punishment or life sentence, the tyrant being the prosecutor, the judge and the executor in one person. See also ‘Can one accuse a tyrant in Ethiopia? By Tesfay Atsbeha and Kahsay Berhe, 1997 at www.justiceinethiopia.net/archieves.html

 

The crack down on the opposition and the press is not mainly directed against individuals, certain parties, and particular press media but it is a systematic attack on the developing democratic institutions and the people for the sake of perpetuating a one-man-led party rule. Therefore, defending the political and free press pioneers who are languishing in dungeons means defending our rights. All Ethiopians, regardless of party affiliation, all political parties and all civic organizations must stand in unison to support the jailed and to uphold the cause of the Ethiopian people.

 

If we fail to protect and nurture democratic institutions and their organizers and leaders, we condemn ourselves to forces that are outside our control and let them utilize state power to control and suppress us. Membership in any party is a right of individuals in a pluralistic society. Moreover, we need a system of free party democracy that offers the people alternatives to choose from. Therefore, it is our national right and duty to defend the victims of tyranny whether we share their views or not. If we behave indifferently to the suppression of one party to which we do not belong, we betray our rights and ourselves.

 

Many of the opposition parties promised to lead us towards regaining our liberty, defending our sovereignty and territorial integrity of our motherland. They promised us to be partners in the struggle for freedom and unity. They promised us to institute a democratic government that recognizes the rights of individuals and groups. These leaders are defenseless now and society must defend their name, lives and families. Their lives may be in danger because they stand up for our interests; they may have been thrown into prison because the people elected them and they are blackmailed because of their noble stand.

 

Most of the prisoners of conscience are from the CUD and certain newspapers but what really is at stake is the democratization and freedom of speech in Ethiopia. Some of the victims like Professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam are the founders and leaders of the EHRC. Many of them were frequently imprisoned for being voices of the voiceless. Some, like Asefa Maru, were murdered on day light in Addis Ababa by the regime’s security forces. Are we, Ethiopians without gratitude to those compatriots who stood — and more than often sacrificed their lives for what we hope will emerge one day?

 

Struggling for the release of the incarcerated leaders means standing for what they stand. Fighting for the cause of the imprisoned patriots means promoting unity and exposing the impostors for their cheating us out of our just future. It means striving for a unified struggle of the Ethiopian people from west to east and from south to north. It means not succumbing to the propaganda and provocation by the pretenders, not playing into their hands, and not add fuel to the ethnic flames they keep kindling. Ethnic politics could be combated through all-inclusive concerted struggle. It means building many bridges for understanding between citizens and combating any divisive idea whenever and wherever it reveals itself.

 

As we have seen, the TPLF/EPRDF suffered defeats in the May 2005 elections. The vanquished refused to admit defeat and rejected all chances to enter into negotiations with the opposition to form a government of national unity. The TPLF/EPRDF is now in a dilemma. It must either respect its constitution and refrain from the massive clamp down on the rights of the people to association and free speechor otherwise take a headlong collision course with the people. Meles Zenawi has chosen the latter course.

 

The constitution could in no way form a legal basis for Meles Zenawi to remain in power. On the other hand, the people and the opposition do not have the means to get Meles Zenawi to respect his constitution and consequently accept the verdict of the people. There is now anything but rule of law in the country. Therefore, the confrontation between the TPLF/EPRDF and the people will have to be terminated not within the frames of the constitution but outside it, which also applies to the fate of those in jail.

 

4. Motive forces of Meles Zenawi?

 

To be continued