• How are key internal actors in Ethiopia big factors in denying freedom and democracy in Ethiopia?
• Will the ruling EPRDF/TPLF government use the upcoming elections to further legitimize its stranglehold on 93 % of Ethiopians?

Five years, hundreds of dead bodies, thousands of imprisonments, disappearances, evictions and land confiscations later after the 2005 parliamentary elections , Ethiopia is yet to stage other sham elections for its total seats of 547 in the House People’s Representative— commonly known as ‘national parliament’—in May 210.

The least obvious and tricky factors when discussing the complex Ethiopian political turmoil is the role of key international actors in thwarting the freedom and democracy Ethiopians have been long yearning for. Naming and identifying the influences of these key actors is no longer a myth or speculation. As we know it and as the 2009 Human Rights Watch World Report makes it clear, they are two relatively wealthy and democratic western nations. They are the United States and the United Kingdom. Many in Ethiopia worry that financial assistance from these two countries will be used to shatter the freedom and democracy they yearned for in the coming May 2010 national elections as in the previous three parliamentary elections the country had held. I would like to quote a relevant text from Human Rights Watch (HRW) report to illustrate and argue how foreign funding from the UK and the U.S makes Ethiopian human rights records not only poor, but also non-existent in all its dimensions be it elections, political repression, war crimes by the Ethiopian military forces, regional refugee renditions, civil society and free expression, inter alia:

The United States and European donor states provide the Ethiopian government with large sums of bilateral assistance, including direct budgetary support from the United Kingdom and military assistance from the US. The US is Ethiopia's largest bilateral donor and has also provided logistical and political support for Ethiopia's protracted intervention in Somalia, and provides bilateral assistance to the Ethiopian military.

The report states donor governments view Ethiopia as an ally in an unstable region and in the case of the US, in the “global war on terror”. Western countries erroneously assume Ethiopia is a stable country, but fail to acknowledge the fact that the Ethiopian government came to power through the barrel of the gun, killing and destroying everyone and everything in its way. It is a government that imposed itself on the 93 % of Ethiopia, yet only is representative of the Tigre people who constitute about 7% of Ethiopian population. The consequence of the foreign aid did not just have the role of fighting extremism in Somalia, but also bred and nurtured a genetically distinct vampire state of Ethiopia that devours all others than its tribal base. HRW’s assessment of Ethiopia is not different from my own assertion—the government of Ethiopia was not and is not legitimate:

Ethiopia has among the worst human rights records in Africa. Its troops have used scorched-earth counterinsurgency policies, including strangling people and burning villages, to displace rural villagers (p.18).

To the extent that there is no room for exaggerations, the adjectives of world languages seem not to be enough to describe and carry the tone of the nature and magnitude of the destructive acts by EPRDF/TPLF ruling party in Ethiopia.

We talk about such problems not to make the key international actors in Ethiopia guilty, shameful and embarrassed, yet all of which are right to do, but to urge the actors to take actions and withdraw the direct financial aid they give to the Ethiopia’s regime. These actors need to break their silence about the despicable acts of this government.

I would not expect the U.S and the U.K to get physically involved in overthrowing the Ethiopian regime. To encourage democracy and freedom, the actors do not have to send drone aircrafts to the Ethiopian palace in order to take out PM Meles Zenawi terrorist-attack style. One wishes to indicate the dangers of supporting a vampire state unrepresentative of the wills of the majority of the peoples of Ethiopia, however.

The ruling party’s past behaviors are predictors of what one would expect in the May 2010 parliamentary elections. In the elections of 2005, many international observers, including the European Union elections observers reported that the elections ‘fell short of established international standards.’ With all its absolute military, bureaucratic and financial powers, the Ethiopian government will declare itself the winner of the May 2010 parliamentary elections. The aftermaths are predictable: there will be scores of killings accompanied by mass arrests and imprisonments of prominent opposition leaders. It is easy to downplay these as the necessary symptoms of third world slow-paced democratization process, but there is more at stake.

If there were a stiff international pressure following the ‘highly contested’ 2005 elections, the carnages would have earned Ethiopia some form of power sharing deal or negotiations. Unlike in Zimbabwe and Kenya, whom western nations have had interests in the oppositions than the governments, that did not happen in Ethiopia where the main actors were the same but did not have any regard for the will of the Ethiopian populace.

In Zimbabwe, for example, the chief international actors wanted to topple Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). For whatever interests they had there, the West rightly supported Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai’s opposition, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). This resulted in the 2008-2009 negotiations, which culminated in power-sharing deals. Mugabe was angry and resistant and had no choice but compromise and share power.

In Kenya, there was a similar western-backed scenario between the Kenyan ruling party and opposition rivals where the incumbent Mwai Kibaki had conceded to his loss and shared power with the opposition leader Raila Odinga. It does not require any level of sophistication to figure out the situations in Kenya and Zimbabwe of 2008-2009 were similar to that of Ethiopia’s 1995, 2000 and 2005 elections. There were oppositions in all three countries, there was even greater amount of violence and human rights abuses in Ethiopia, which should have made the west respond as strongly as they did in Zimbabwe and Kenya. But they did not. The main foreign actors ran years of media denouncement or criticisms against the Zimbabwean and Kenyan ruling parties. In case of Zimbabwe, they imposed sanctions against the country and its ruling politicians. However, the foreign actors were disturbingly silent in all instances of the tribally-based Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Front/Tigre People Liberation Front (EPRDF/TPLF) grabbing power by force with impunity.

Will such double standard from key international players in Ethiopia be repeated in the May 2010 elections? To a gullible observer, the period leading up to and on the day of elections in Ethiopia seem so democratic and free that one can even think they are in ancient Athens, U.K or even the U.S. Nonetheless, some Ethiopian oppositions groups and rebels such as the Sidama Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front have issued statements that the upcoming elections will be sham and the regime will use it to legitimize itself and that oppositions must boycott it.

I am not buying the boycotting arguments because it is said by some opposition groups and rebels, but I cannot deny the validity of it since these groups once were political parties but later turned rebels after being forced out of contested elections and outlawed.

Opinions of the significance of boycotting the coming elections are abundant. But I insist that the Ethiopian peoples rally behind the major Ethiopian opposition coalition, Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum (aka Medrek/Forum) to alert the world to the continuing electoral crimes. The various Ethiopian communities living in the countries of main international actors in Ethiopia must get together and stage mass rallies, demanding the withdrawal of direct financial assistance to the ruling Zenawi’s EPRDF/TPLF. We must present our case strongly to the U.S and the U.K publics because their governments are turning a deaf ear to the Ethiopian voters.

Predictions can be made that the key foreign actors in Ethiopia will remain indifferent in the May 2010 elections. If at all they wake and start to support the peoples of Ethiopia, all we ask is to put the Ethiopian government under pressure as much as they put Zimbabwean and Kenyan ruling parties under pressure following elections there.

What can main international actors do?

• They can send genuine election observers who will arrive much earlier and leave much later than the election dates;
• Withdraw direct financial aid;
• international media networks can send reporters and provide coverage of the elections and their aftermaths;

• Follow the model of Zimbabwe and force the striking of power-sharing deals between the opposition and the ruling military junta.

Given past indifference to the wills of the Ethiopian people, my recommendations may seem unrealistic fantasies, but if the actors implement at least some of them, they will make up for the unintended destruction that British and American tax-payers’ money is doing to the poor and ever-crying populace of Ethiopia. 85 million poor Ethiopians deserve life, freedom and democracy.

Links:

EU-EOM. 2005. Ethiopia Legislative Elections 2005.
http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/human_rights/election_observation/ethiopia/final_report_en.pdf

Gadaa.Com. January 14, 2009 online edition. “ Ethiopia: Medrek Bahir Dar Rally Attracts 5000 People/Video.
http://www.gadaa.com/oduu/?p=2359

HRW. 2009. Ethiopia.
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/79222

HRW World Report. 2009. Full Document
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/wr2009_web.pdf

NEBE. 2005. Official Elections Results.
http://www.electionsethiopia.org/Election%20Results.html

SLF. 2009. SLF Statement on Upcoming National Elections in Ethiopia
http://www.sidamaliberation-front.org/slf_statement11.htm

The Carter Center. 2005. Final Statement on the Carter Center Observation of the Ethiopia 2005 National Elections, September 2005.

http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/2199.pdf

The Washington Post. Feb 29, 2009 online edition. Kenyan Rivals Sign Power-Sharing Agreement.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022801040.html

Wikipedia. 2008-2009. Zimbabwean Political Negotiations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Zimbabwean_political_negotiations

Five years, hundreds of dead bodies, thousands of imprisonments, disappearances, evictions and land confiscations later after the 2005 parliamentary elections , Ethiopia is yet to stage other sham elections for its total seats of 547 in the House People’s Representative— commonly known as ‘national parliament’—in May 210.