By Mukhtar M. Omer
23 July 2012
Schadenfreude as an instrument of regime change
Meles is ill, possibly terminally. His absence from the African Union
(AU) summit finally served as the proverbial white-hair which a
ravenous hyena vomited in the middle of a village which could not
account for one of its elderly women. It was a seamless alibi, for it is
well-known that Meles relishes big stages and would not have missed one
if he was fine. The news of Meles’s bad health sparked speculations,
rumors, lies and muddles of all sort. The bulk of the buzz that followed
the confirmation of Meles’s illness centered on whether he will survive
or not, whether he is indeed alive or already dead, and on potential
line-up of rivals in the duel for power within the ruling party. All
these issues are relevant, but they should not have been made the most
important in the larger scheme of the current Ethiopian politics.
The noise of optimism in the opposition corridors following news of
Meles’s illness is an instinctive expression of Schadenfreude by an
opposition so eager for a representational triumph, after decades of
unrelenting setbacks and failures. It is not the hubbub of hopeful
antagonists who expect the demise of Meles to usher a dawn of new
politics in Ethiopia. In fact, it is a vivid sketch of the level of
desperation in the divided and outwitted Ethiopian political opposition.
The exit of Meles can only offer any political dividend if the
opposition is able to chart a winning political agenda and strategy. In
the absence of this, the ghoulish joy of the last few days cannot be
anything above and over an agitated moment of foolish exuberance. The
death of Meles is not a sin quo non for political transition. Nor should
his survival be a deterrent to such transition. Meles’s bad health, at
best, predisposes TPLF weakness; it does not preordain opposition
resurgence.
If Meles is incapacitated, Haile-Mariam Desalegn, the Deputy Prime
Minister and Foreign Minister, will likely succeed him. Meles has been
grooming Haile-Mariam for the Premiership. Haile-Mariam is a Woleita
from the politically underdog Southern Nations, Nationalities and People
Region (SNNPR) and is unlikely to have any real authority. Real power
will remain with the military chief-of-staff General Mohamed (Samora)
Yunis and the executive committee of TPLF. Azeb Mesfin, Meles’s wife,
will continue to play key role in the short-run, and the system will
survive the tremors caused by Meles’s sudden departure. Tigray People’s
Liberation Front (TPLF) bigwigs like Birhane Gabre-Kiristos, Tewodros
Adhenom, Abay Woldu and others will be on the saddle. The founding
father of the TPLF, Sibhat Nega, could make a come-back and start to
recoup some influence by way of political primogeniture. Nega was in the
cold for some time, sidelined by Meles, after he clashed with Azeb. Any
existing fissures between the ruling personalities will be healed or
roofed in the immediate future as the fear of collective demise looms.
The servile Bereket Simon and his Amhara National Democtatic Movement
(ANDM) will remain loyal to the new leaders. The Oromo People’s
Democratic Organisation (OPDO), a constituent party of the EPRDF, has
neither the ambition nor the ability to mount any challenge to the TPLF.
The political contour and direction will remain largely the same.
That, however, does not mean the absence of Meles will not be felt.
He is, by far, the most creative member of the ruling regime. The
TPLF/EPRDF will miss him, particularly in the international arena, where
he skillfully managed to accentuate his development credentials and
cloud his despotic practices with plausible falsehoods. He is not always
convincing but benefited from the willful credulity of a West
preoccupied with other agendas in the Horn; a west, which needed his
lies to advance its interests. But the EPRDF has many eloquent
demagogues and it will find a serviceable alter-ego for Meles.
The new leaders of the regime will also benefit from the lessons
Meles bequeathed to them. Every time its rule faced a threat in the last
two decades, the EPRDF survived through brute brawl (force) and not
through brains. It will continue to quell any future insurrections the
same way. It does not need Meles to do that. It needs someone who can
order the army and the police to kill and arrest civilians and there are
plenty of men in the ranks of the TPLF who would instruct a brutal
crackdown. For instance, this week, the Ethiopian government is using
force to crush a pesky Muslim uprising, and it did not wait for Meles to
recover to get into the demolition job. The men-in-charge know Meles’s
methods. The Ethiopian opposition needs to do better than seeking succor
from inexorable death to succeed.
Getting the ONLF struggle out of the “peace” limbo
The ONLF has been doing remarkably well in the last six months,
without actually doing much. Much of its muscle came from an impending,
certainly not inevitable, peace talks with Ethiopia. The wave of
expectation has been surging and the consensus is that the ONLF
leadership is handling this matter rather well.
Firstly, they have shown remarkable ingenuity in not foreclosing
alternatives and options ahead of the talks. No one, can anymore, accuse
them of not exploring options other than armed resistance. They have
enough witnesses and alibi’s to prove that they were ready for peace.
That will be a huge political capital, and it is already winning the
organization hearts and accolades among its support base. The argument
is simple. If the Ethiopians are not ready for a genuine peace, why
should the ONLF be? After all, they represent the oppressed and peace
becomes a metaphor for the perpetuation of slavery if the oppressor
doesn’t give in. Secondly, they have kept the matter to their bosom and
did not run ahead of themselves by consulting the wider community, whose
engagement at this stage is not necessary. There is nothing to consult
on now when what the Ethiopians are offering is not known.
But ‘peace talks’ has been the lonely political signifier of the ONLF
for the last six months. The front needs to do contingencies, and the
events of this week, i.e., the health situation of Meles, are a good
example why ONLF should have a plan B. It is not secret that Meles is
the man who wanted a peace deal. If he goes, it is not clear if the new
leaders of Ethiopia would be ready for the compromises Meles could have
offered. In the ensuing shock after Meles leaves, the political
priorities of the regime might change as well. Another scenario is that
the political influence of the hardliners, represented by the army and
the security apparatus - which benefitted from the war in the Somali
region, can grow.
That is why the struggle should get out of this “peace” limbo.
Parallel plans must be devised, while the end-result of the expected
peace talks with the Ethiopian government is awaited. The wheels of the
struggle must move fast and must not wait for the unknown outcome of a
prospective peace-deal. The ONLF must engage the Ethiopian opposition
and must compromise if that is a price to pay to forge a common front.
If we can accept peace from the TPLF who killed tens of thousands of our
sons and raped hundreds of our sisters, why can’t we sit with the
Amharas who in reality has not inflicted as much pain on us? The idea
that we can get a better deal from the Tigres than the one Amharas could
offer - simply because the Tigre’s pay lip-service to ‘federalism’ and
‘rights of nationalities- is hopelessly worn-out, lewd in fact. The
truth is, any deal you get is always proportionate to the strength of
the political biceps you own and can flex.
There is a real problem when you cannot function outside your preset
political predilections or phobias, even when exigencies and realities
demand an adjustment. There is a real problem when you become a prisoner
to the timetables and agendas of your enemy, both conceptually and
functionally. The ONLF needs to reclaim the agenda-setting, and it can
do so if it can produce ideas different to the stolid but isolated armed
struggle that it has been waging for over two decades. Not by
abandoning the armed struggle but by augmenting it with imaginative
political formulas. It can set the agenda if it can do a political
facelift and embrace new inclusive and broader political identity and
policies.
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