Ethiopia today is a “prison of nations and nationalities with the Oromo being one of the prisoners”, proclaimed the recently issued Declaration of the Congress of the Oromo Democratic Front (ODF).
This open-air prison is administered through a system of “bogus
federalism” in which “communities exercise neither self-rule nor
shared-rule but have been enduring the TPLF/EPRDF’s tyrannical rule for
more than two decades.” The jail keepers or the “ruling party directly
and centrally micro-manage all communities by pre-selecting its
surrogates that the people are then coerced to ‘elect’ at elections that
are neither free nor fair”. Ethiopians can escape from “prison nation”
and get on the “path to democracy, stability, peace, justice, and
sustainable development” when they are able to establish a democratic
process in which “all communities elect their representatives in fair
and free elections.”
The ODF is a “new movement” launched by “pioneers of the Oromo nationalist struggle” who “have mapped out a new path that embraces the struggle of all oppressed Ethiopians for
social justice and democracy.” Central to the collective struggle to
bust the walls and crash the gates of “prison nation” Ethiopia is a
commitment to constitutional democracy based on principles of “shared
and separate political institutions as the more promising and enduring
uniting factor” and robust protections for civil liberties and civil
rights. Shared governance and the rule of law provide the glue “that
will bind the diverse nations into a united political community” and
return to the people their government which has been privatized and
corporatized by the ruling regime “to advance and serve their partisan
and sectarian interests.”
The Declaration foresees genuine federalism as the basis for freedom,
justice and equality in Ethiopia. It argues that the ruling Tigriyan
Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) hijacked the federalism, which was
originally birthed by the “mounting pressures of the struggles for
self-determination by the Oromo and other oppressed nations”, and
subsequently corrupted it into a political scheme that serves the
“present ruling elite’s aspiration of emerging and permanently remaining
as a new dominant group by simply stepping into the shoes of those that
it replaced.” The ODF “aspire[s] to build on the positive aspects of
Ethiopia’s current federal set-up” by “remov[ing] the procedural and
substantive shortcomings that stand in the way of democracy and
federalism.”
The Declaration finds traditional notions of unity inadequate.
“Invoking a common history, culture or language has not guaranteed
unity. We similarly reject the present ruling party’s presumption that
it serves as the sole embodiment and defender of the so-called
‘revolutionary democratic unity.’” It also rejects “the ruling party’s
illusory expectation that the promotion of economic development would
serve as an alternative source of unity in the absence of democratic
participation.” The Declaration incorporates principles of
constitutional accountability, separation of powers and check balances
and enumerates “bundles” of participatory, social and cultural rights
secured in international human rights conventions. It proposes
“overhauling” the civil service system and restructuring of the military
and intelligence institutions to serve the society instead of
functioning as the private protective services of the ruling party and
elites. The Declaration broadly commits to economic and social justice
and condemns the mistreatment and “eviction from ancestral lands of
indigenous populations, and environmental degradation.”
Significance of the Declaration
The world is constantly changing and we must change with it. Henry
David Thoreau correctly observed, “Things do not change; we change.” We
change by discarding old and tired ideas and by embracing new and
energetic ones. The old ideas which demonize other ethnic groups as
mortal enemies are no longer tenable and are simply counterproductive.
In a poor country like Ethiopia, the vast majority of the people of all
ethnic groups get the shaft while the political and economic elites
create ethnic tensions and conflict to cling to power and line their
pockets. We change by casting away self-deception and facing the truth.
The truth is that “united we stand, divided we fall”. When the
Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, Benjamin Franklin said,
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
For the past 21 years, we have been falling like a pack of dominoes.
They have been hanging us separately on the hooks of “ethnic
federalism”.
We must be prepared to change our minds as objective conditions
change. As George Bernard Shaw said, “Those who cannot change their
minds cannot change anything.” We must change our ideas, beliefs,
attitudes and perspectives to keep up with the times. The alternative is
becoming irrelevant. No organization can achieve unanimity in making
change because change makes some in the organization uncomfortable,
uneasy and uncertain. However, change is necessary and unavoidable. In
line with George Ayittey’s metaphor, we can change and remain viable
and relevant like the Cheetahs or suffer the fate of the hopeless
Hippos.
It is refreshing and inspiring to see a transformative and
forward-looking declaration forged by some of the important founding
members and leaders of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) emphatically
affirming the common destiny of all Ethiopians and underscoring the
urgency for consolidating a common cause in waging a struggle for
freedom, democracy and human rights in Ethiopia. These leaders show
great courage and conviction of conscience in changing their minds with
the changing political realities. The reality today is that the
“economic and security interests of the Oromo people are intertwined
with that of other peoples in Ethiopia. In addition, their geographic
location, demography, democratic heritage and bond forged with all
peoples over the years make it incumbent upon the Oromo to play a
uniting and democratizing role.” It must have taken a staggering amount
of effort to overcome internal discord and issue such a bold and
positively affirmative Declaration signaling a fundamental change in
position. These leaders deserve commendation for an extraordinary
achievement.
I believe the Declaration is immensely important not only for the
principles it upholds and articulates but most importantly for the fact
that it represents a genuine paradigmatic shift in political strategy
and tactics by the founders of the OLF. The Declaration signals a
tectonic shift in long held views, ideology and political strategy. It
represents a profound change in the perception and understanding of
politics, change and society not only in Ethiopia but also in the
continent and globally. By emphasizing inclusiveness and common
struggle, the Declaration rejects the destructive politics of ethnicity
and identity (the bane of Africa) for politics based on issues of
social, political and economic justice. By embracing a common struggle
for freedom, democracy and human rights, the Declaration rejects
ethnocentrism (the arrogant philosophy of narrow-minded African
dictators) and fully accepts federalism as a basis for political power
and shared governance.
What are we to make of the Declaration? Is it merely an aspirational
statement, an invitation to dialogue, a call to action or all of the
above? It appears the Declaration is not merely a statement of
principles but also an invitation to dialogue and a call to action. It
affirms the universal truth that “injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere” and acknowledges that “struggling for justice for
oneself alone without advocating justice for all could ultimately prove
futile”. It urges Oromo groups to stop “trivial political wrangling”
and “join hands with us in strengthening our camp to intensify our
legitimate struggle and put an end to sufferings of our people.” It
counsels the “ruling regime to reconsider its ultimately
counterproductive policy of aspiring to indefinitely stay in power by
fanning inter communal and interreligious suspicion and tension.” It
proposes a “country-wide movement sharing” a common “vision, principles
and policies” to “propel Ethiopia forward and ending the current
political paralysis.” It pleads with the “international community to
stand with us in implementing our vision and proposal of transforming
the Ethiopian state to bring peace and sustainable stability in Ethiopia
and Horn of Africa.”
Dialoguing over “Federalism” or the futility of putting lipstick on “bogus federalism”
It is the privilege of the human rights advocate and defender to
speak his/her mind on all matters of human rights. I should like to
exercise that privilege by raising an important issue in the Declaration
and respectfully taking exception to it. The Declaration states:
We aspire to build on the positive aspects of Ethiopia’s current federal set-up. However, to make the simultaneous exercise of self-rule and shared-rule possible it is necessary to remove the procedural and substantive shortcomings that stand in the way of democracy and federalism… [which] can be accomplished by [allowing] subject nations, in due course, freely elect delegates to their respective state and central constitutional assemblies. When this process is completed, the present “holding together” type of bogus federalism will be transformed into a genuine ‘coming together’ variety.
I consider myself a hardcore federalist who believes in a clear
division of power between a national and sub-national (local, state)
governments. In fact, I consider the “Federalist Papers” written by
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting the
ratification of the United States Constitution as unsurpassed works of
political genius on the theory and practice of federalism. Having said
that, I do not believe there is an alchemy that can transmute “bogus
federalism” into “genuine federalism”. Just as there is no such thing as
being a “little bit pregnant”, there is also no such thing as building
upon “bogus federalism”. Either it is genuine federalism or it is bogus
federalism.
As I argued in my May 2010 commentary “Putting Lipstick on a Pig, Ethiopian Style”,
discussing the elections, “You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still
a pig. You can jazz up a bogus election in a one-man, one-party
dictatorship with a ‘Code of Conduct’, but to all the world it is still a
bogus election under a one-man, one-party dictatorship… They want us to
believe that a pig with lipstick is actually a swan floating on a
placid lake, or a butterfly fluttering in the rose garden or even a lamb
frolicking in the meadows. They think lipstick will make everything
look pretty.” You can put lipstick on “ethnic federalism” and call it
“federalism”, but it is still bogus federalism.
As I have often argued, the late Meles Zenawi, the chief architect of
“ethnic federalism” in Ethiopia was driven by a “vision of ethnic
division. His warped idea of ‘ethnic federalism’ is merely a kinder and
gentler reincarnation of Apartheid in Ethiopia. For nearly two decades,
Meles toiled ceaselessly to shred the very fabric of Ethiopian society,
and sculpt a landscape balkanized into tribal, ethnic, linguistic and
regional enclaves.” He crafted a constitution based entirely on ethnicity and tribal affiliation as
the basis for political organization. He wrote in Article 46 (2) of the
Constitution: “States shall be structured on the basis of settlement
patterns, language, identity and consent of the people.” In other words,
“states”, (and the people who live in them) shall be corralled like
cattle in tribal homelands in much the same way as the 10 Bantustans
(black homelands) of Apartheid South Africa. Ethiopia’s tribal
homelands are officially called “kilils” (enclaves or distinct enclosed
and effectively isolated geographic areas within a seemingly integrated
national territory). Like the Bantustans, Ethiopia’s 9 killilistans
ultimately aim to create homogeneous and autonomous ethnic states in
Ethiopia, effectively scrubbing out any meaningful notion of Ethiopian
national citizenship. You can put lipstick on bantustans and call them
“ethnic federalism” but at the end of the day a Killilistan with
lipstick is a Bantustan without lipstick.
Before committing to “build up on the positive aspects of Ethiopia’s
current federal set-up”, I urge the ODF and all others interested in
institutionalizing genuine federalism in Ethiopia to carefully study and
consider the long line of Apartheid laws creating and maintaining
bantustans in South Africa. I commend a couple of illustrative examples
of such laws to those interested. The Bantu Authorities Act, 1951(“Black Authorities Act, 1951”) created the legal basis for the deportation of blacks into designated homeland reserve areas and established tribal, regional and territorial authorities. This Act was subsequently augmented by the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act, 1970 (“Black
States Citizenship Act & National States Citizenship Act, 1970)
which sought to change the legal status of the inhabitants of the
bantustans by effectively denaturalizing them from enjoying citizenship
rights as South Africans. These laws imposed draconian restrictions on
the freedom of movement of black South Africans. These laws further
sought to ensure that white South Africans would represent the majority
of the de jure population of South Africa with the right to vote and
monopolize control of the state machinery. The Group Areas Act of 1950
(as re-enacted in the Group Areas Act of 1966), divided South Africa
into separate areas for whites and blacks and gave the government the power to forcibly remove people from areas not designated for their particular tribal and racial group.
Under this Act, anyone living in the “wrong” area was deported to
his/her tribal group homeland. The law also denied Africans the right to
own land anywhere in South Africa and stripped them of all political
rights. The lives of over 3.5 million people were destroyed by this law
as they were forcibly deported and corralled like cattle in their tribal
group bantustans.
Recently, Prof.
Yacob Hailemariam, a prominent Ethiopian opposition leader and a former
senior Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda commented
that the forceful eviction of members of the Amhara ethnic group from
Benishangul-Gumuz (one of the nine kililistans) was a de facto ethnic
cleansing. “The forceful deportation of people because they speak a
certain language could destabilize a region, and if reported with
tangible evidence, the UN Security Council could order the International
Criminal Court to begin to examine the crimes.” A year ago to the month Meles Zenawi justified the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of Amharas from
Southern Ethiopia stating, “… By coincidence of history, over the past
ten years numerous people — some 30,000 sefaris (squatters) from North
Gojam – have settled in Benji Maji (BM) zone [in Southern Ethiopia]. In
Gura Ferda, there are some 24,000 sefaris.” Meles approved the de facto
ethnic cleansing of Amharas from the “wrong” areas and repatriation back
to their kililistan Amhara homelands. Through “villagization” programs, indigenous populations have been forced of their ancestral lands in
Gambella, Benishangul and the Oromo River Valley and their land
auctioned off to voracious multinational agribusinesses. The
undeniable fact of the matter is that over the past two decades the
Meles regime has implemented a kinder and gentler version of
Bantustanism in Ethiopia.
The perils and untenability of Meles’ “bogus federalism” have been documented in the International Crises Group’s report “Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and Its Discontents”.
That report points out the glaring deficiencies and problems engendered
by “ethnic federalism” in “redefine[ing] citizenship, politics and
identity on ethnic grounds.” The study argues that “ethnic federalism”
has resulted in “an asymmetrical federation that combines populous
regional states like Oromiya and Amhara in the central highlands with
sparsely populated and underdeveloped ones like Gambella and Somali.”
Moreover, “ethnic federalism” has created “weak regional states”,
“empowered some groups” and failed to resolve the “national question”.
Aggravating the underlying situation has been the Meles dictatorship’s
failure to promote “dialogue and reconciliation” among groups in
Ethiopian society, further fueling “growing discontent with the EPRDF’s
ethnically defined state and rigid grip on power and fears of continued
inter-ethnic conflict.”
“Ethnic federalism” is indefensible in theory or practice. While
intrinsically nonsensical as public policy, “ethnic federalism” in the
hands of the Meles regime has become a dangerous weapon of divide and
rule, divide and control and divide and destroy. Those in power
entertain themselves watching the pitiful drama of kililistans compete
and fight with each other for crumbs and preoccupying themselves with
historical grievances. The ICG report makes it clear that in the long
term “ethnic federalism” could trigger an implosion and disintegration
of the Ethiopian nation.
Meles used to boast that his “ethnic federalism” policy had saved the
“country [which] was on the brink of total disintegration.” He argued
that “Every analyst worth his salt was suggesting that Ethiopia will go
the way of Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. What we have now is a
going-concern.”
The truth of the matter is that ethnic balkanization, fragmentation,
segregation and polarization are the tools of trade used by the Meles
regime to cling to power while lining their pockets. In a genuine
federalism, the national government is the creature of the subnational
governments. In Ethiopia, the “kilil” (regional) “governments” are
creatures and handmaidens of the national “government”. In a genuine
federalism, the national government is entrusted with limited and
enumerated powers for the purpose effectuating the common purposes of
the subnational “governments”. In Ethiopia, the powers of the national
“government” are vast and unlimited; and there are no barriers to its
usurpatory powers which it exercises at will. There are no safeguards
against encroachment on the rights and liberties of the people by the
national or subnational “governments”. Simply stated, “ethnic
federalism” as practiced in Ethiopia today is not only a recipe for
tyranny by the national “government” but also the creed for
secessionists in the name of self-determination. “Ethnic federalism” is
an idea whose time has passed and should be consigned to the dustbin of
history along with its author. “Well, back to the old drawing board!”
The Curse of Meles
According to those in the know, the late Meles Zenawi used to say
“Diaspora Ethiopians can start things but never manage to finish them.”
Regardless of the veracity of the attribution, there is a ring of truth
to the proposition. Since 2005, we have read lofty declarations and
heard announcements on the establishment of political and advocacy
groups and organizations. We have welcomed them with fanfare but they
have come and gone like the seasons.
I do not believe those who drafted the Declaration of the Congress of
the Oromo Democratic Front will be visited by the Curse of Meles. The
Declaration seems to be the product of an enormous amount of
organizational soul-searching, discussion, debate, introspection and
contemplation. The ODF has come up with an honest, practical, bold and
hopeful declaration. I have some questions as do others; but the fact
that questions are being raised is proof that the Declaration has
considerable appeal, credibility and traction. I ask questions to engage
in dialogue and discussion, not to undermine or cause doubt about the
worth or value of the Declaration. To be sure, I raise questions about
the Declaration in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King’s counsel:
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for
others?’” My questions originate from the question: “What does the
Declaration do for all of our people? With sustained effort and the
good will and cooperation of all stakeholders, there is no reason why
new alliances cannot be created and old ones reinvigorated to move
forward the struggle for freedom, democracy and human rights in
Ethiopia. I am inspired by the Declaration’s commitment to wage a united
struggle: “We will exert all efforts in order to pull together as
many advocates and promoters of the interests of diverse social sectors
as possible in order to popularize and refine the principles and
processes that would transform Ethiopia into a genuinely democratic
multinational federation.”
I understand “to pull together” means to stop pushing, shoving,
ripping, picking and tearing each other apart. That is why I have an
unshakeable faith in the proposition that “Ethiopians united — pulling
together — can never be defeated by the bloody hands of tyrants!”
Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California
State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.
Previous commentaries by the author are available at:
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