Blogger/UKHabeshaI thought I had gotten my irritation with the misguided opponents of HR 2003 off my chest. No such luck. The arguments being advanced by the antagonists are getting clumsier and more and more annoying; and I am also getting e-mails that suggest to me that I haven’t hammered my message home. Hence this further attempt to make my point to my dear opponents of HR 2003 who consider themselves the patriotic and pitiful silent majority. This group of opponents is unlikely to represent the voice of the majority, but it is indeed pathetic in its arguments.
I quite agree that there could, in principle, be a debate on whether or not HR 2003 would surely bring about a significant change in democratising Ethiopia. My own view is that yes it would, or at least I see no reason how it would undermine democracy or harm anyone in any way in Ethiopia, other than its unbridled rulers. My problem is with the terms of the debate as portrayed by the anti-HR 2003 enthusiasts: a debate between patriots and traitors (of Ethiopian sovereignty). This is ludicrous.
We shouldn’t be debating if the passage of the bill jeopardises Ethiopia’s sovereignty – whatever that means. Once someone sits to judge on your fate, irrespective of the verdict, they have power over you. In this sense, the
sovereignty question is fait accompli. HR 2003 has come to the fore in the United States; the Lower House has passed it; and it is on to the Senate who may or may not endorse it. However, the fact remains that there is a judge or a jury to which the
sovereignty-cherishing patriotic Ethiopians and the
traitors alike are appealing in order to sway its verdict in their respective favour. ‘Begging for sovereignty’ is an oxymoron. Once you have to beg for it, albeit by a modern means of writing to your senator, your sovereignty is already gone - at least in the sense used by the anti-HR 2003 enthusiasts. Having said this, the
traitors have the moral high ground because all they are saying is: ‘if America is giving money to our brutal leaders, then it should make sure that they don’t use it to maintain a police state.
Now what is one to make of the claim that HR 2003 is “a modern version of the infamous Wuchale Treaty”? What do you say to someone who argues that bread is stone? Not much really, you just say well, bread is slightly softer than stone. The point is there is no treaty here. If there were one, then matters would be much simpler. Here we have these bright sons and daughters of Ethiopia who could see
the shrewd article in the treaty; and they should be able to advise the
sovereignty cherishing government of Ethiopia to tear the treaty into pieces and tell Yankees to get lost. End of story; except that there is no treaty here.
Once we leave aside this diatribe on
sovereignty and Wuchale Treaty the remaining issue would be a pragmatic evaluation of whether or not HR 2003 helps Ethiopia’s democratisation process. I haven’t read a single argument as to why and how the bill might harm Ethiopia or its people. All you read is slogans about maintaining sovereignty and denouncing colonization. One argument that has often been advanced is: ‘the regime is already committed itself to improve matters on its own, so no need to attach any string for the money that we need badly from America’. Well, if that is the case then there is no reason to worry about the bill because, the American president would then be able to certify that the Ethiopian government “is acting to addresses specific human rights concerns” and hence the restriction on assistance would never be applied.
On the contrary there is no shortage of arguments on how and why the bill might have a benign impact on Ethiopia’s fate. Nobody denies the fact that Ethiopia’s march to democracy, if it has ever started, has taken too long and has too little effect. Opinions differ as to what might have caused such a dismal outcome. However, there is little debate on the end result that what we have in Ethiopia is nothing more than a semblance of democracy (the ruling elite has been in power for 16 years now uncontested), that there is hardly any form of accountability on the part of the rulers (e.g. no one has yet been held accountable for the death of over 200 people in ‘election’-related violence), that the judiciary and the media are under the direct control of the executive and that military acts as the government’s militia.
What would possibly mellow the architects of such a police state? You cannot be certain; you can only speculate. Drying up some of the financial source might render the running of the police state rather costly. As the satirist Hama Tuma put it: repression is costly to the regime, the victims have just to suffer or die. Breads for prisoners and imported bullets for peaceful but nuisance demonstrators, etc are needed to keep the police state moving.
Restriction on entering the US where most of these elites aspire to make their home in future (and maybe home to their children right now) would probably be a powerful incentive to improve matters in Ethiopia.
It is just common sense that a little bridle on ruthless rulers won’t harm. A homemade bridle would have been nice, but better to have an imported one than none at all.
-------------------------------------------------------------------The blogger can be reached by crailo@ onetel.com -------------------------------------------------------------------
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