#5. EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSE- NATIONAL
CONFERENCE.
This discourse is a continuation of the Ethiopia "Respect the Vote"
nonviolent movement. "Respect
the Vote" is the overarching
and unifying slogan of the nonviolent movement.
What
can be
done?
Periodically
review and continue engaging in an educational discourse with
Ethiopians in the
Diaspora and in Ethiopia.
Having
murdered
most of the high command of the Ethiopian armed forces to avert a coup,
Mengistu had reshuffled his cabinet ministers in the waning days of his
reign. Then came the 1991
activities of the US government implemented by Assistant Secretary of
State
Herman Cohen, who pressured Mengistu to resign on 21 May 1991 and
arranged for
his exile in Zimbabwe.
Mr.
Cohn had
assembled a selected group of parties that he would chair in a
so-called London
conference that opened on 27 May 1991. The parties were the Derg
represented by
Tesfaye Dinka, the EPLF represented by Isaias Afwerki, the TPLF/EPRDF
represented by Meles Zenawi, and the OLF represented by Lencho Letta. Tesfaye Dinka subsequently withdrew
from Cohn's London conference; and on the night of May 27-28, the
EPLF-TPLF/EPRDF
forces marched into Addis Ababa and assumed control of the city and
national
government. The next day, reportedly Cohen met with leaders of the
EPLF, TPLF/
EPRDF, and OLF, as an adviser instead of the pretence of a mediator. [1] Cohn's
actions set the stage for the division of Ethiopia into two states. The
US
Government through Cohn provided the cover for legitimacy of the
EPLF-TPLF/EPRDF, and certain political and social scientist such as
Paul B
Henze obfuscated theoretical formulations of democracy and provided
misleading
accounts in an attempt to magnify the role taken by TPLF/EPRDF and
vilifies
Ethiopian aspirations for true and unfettered democracy - more on this
below. In short order, a farcical
national conference was held from July1 to July 5, 1991.
A
true national
conference
is held when
the representatives from different regions of a nation assemble at a
place and
hammer out agreements on how best to rule themselves.
Normally, such a national conference takes months for its
members to agree on issues after serious and frank discussions. In
contrast,
the five-day (July1-July 5, 1991) so-called national conference
summoned by the
EPLF-TPLF/EPRDF was a mockery of the idea of national conference and an
insult
to the people of Ethiopia. The EPLF-TPLF/EPRDF did not call for nor did
they engage
the representatives of the people from different regions. Rather, both
the
parties that attended the conference and the outcomes of the conference
were
tightly controlled by the EPLF-TPLF/EPRDF. The
holding of the conference had far reaching consequences,
some of which include the establishment of following principles and
acts. [1]
1)
A National
Charter was established.
2)
Transitional
Government of Ethiopia (TGE) was formulated.
3)
An
EPLF-TPLF/EPRDF agreement that converted Asab into a free port in
exchange for
a referendum on Eritrean self- determination to be held within two
years was
sanctioned.
4)
An 87 member
Council of Representatives was created, with the EPRDF occupying 32
seats, the
Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) 12 seats, the TPLF 10 seats, the Oromo
People's
Democratic Organization (OPDO) 10 seats, the Ethiopian People's
Democratic
Movement (EPDM) 10 seats, and other groups 27 seats.
5) The so-called principle of ethnicity
was enshrined in the national charter and it constituted the basis of
local and
regional government. The charter recognized the right of all of
Ethiopia's
nationalities to self-determination. Also, district and regional
councils were
to be created on the basis of nationality.
These are merely
some of the
outcomes of the five-day so-called national conference held in Addis
Ababa
under the aegis of the EPLF-TPLF/EPRDF. In essence that national
conference was
a ploy used by the EPPL-TPLF to translate their ideas into actions by
which
Ethiopia would be destabilized.
We now examine
briefly how
some political and social scientists write about Africa with a view of
helping
Africans understand their ways.
Emphasis here will focus on those views that appear to be quite
controversial. I will specifically refer to comments made by Richard
Joseph and John W. Harbeson on
the work of Paul B
Henze, and by Getatchew
Haile on a piece by Siegfried Pausewang. The reader is
encouraged to read the original comments of the critics.
Regarding
Paul B Henze's
controversial views.
The self
congratulating
Henze, who mentioned "energetic
effort by Europeans and Americans to
promote
democracy throughout the world," has the strange and elusive concept of
proposing different democracies for different geographies, and
different
priorities for the democratization of regions " where societies have
evolved in ways unfamiliar to the countries of the North Atlantic." [2]
Little does Henze seam to remember that according to classical history
democracy originated elsewhere and much before those in the North
Atlantic were
even colonized and made aware of civilized behavior.
At any rate, we may have an appreciation of Henzean
fallacies on the formulation of democracy in Ethiopia as indicated
below.
Formulation
A
It
appears that
Paul Henze has a special type of democracy for Ethiopia that may be
called the
Newspeak. [3] In the Newspeak democracy the division of Ethiopia into
language
groups (called ethnic groups) is the way to go. This Newspeak
formulation is
debatable as it is not a widely accepted theoretical formulation for
acquiring
democracy, and certainly will not work in Ethiopia where the people
have been
intermarried for centuries, and where there are over 80 different
language
groups. See propagation of
language.
Formulation
B.
Apparently,
Paul
Henze goes farther and supports a
Stalinist and ethnic-centered group to rule over Ethiopia, as he
showers the
TPLF/EPRDF with praises of how they brought democracy. In reality they
are
structurally unable to allow the majority participate effectively in a
democratic process beginning with the election process through the
legislative
process to the implementation process of otherwise legally permissible
activities.
It
appears then
that Paul Henze uses smoke and mirrors to arrive at his observations
and blurs
realities with his Formulation B, while brandishing Formulation A as
the only
alternative for democracy in Ethiopia. [3 and 5] One wonders why Henze
worked
so hard what appears to be against the interests of one of the
oldest independent countries on
earth.
Regrading the
controversial views of Siegfried Pausewang.
Siegfried
Pausewang is worried that if CUD were to come to power it would yet be
the
ascendancy of a minority party, though he offers no proof to
substantiate his
notion of CUD as a minority party. Reportedly [5] Pausewang wrote "
Should
they [the donors] intervene to make EPRDF step down and bring CUD in
power?
That would undoubtedly only bring another minority government into
power. For
if really an uncontested count could prove that CUD had won, CUD would
owe this
result to massive protest votes. There is no question that many
peasants (and
others) voted not for CUD but against OPDO or other local member
parties of
EPRDF."
Pausewang's
worries are hopefully allayed by the able response given him by
Professor
Getatchew Haile. [4] I only mention Pausewang's worries here to point to the illogical Pausewang's assumptions
that lead to Pausewang's fallacies, which include the following.
1)
If
intervention by donor countries results in the stepping down of a
tyrannical minority party (EPRDF) only
to be replaced by another (CUD) party, which Paueswang does not
proclaim as being a
majority party, then the intervention is not worth it. Amazing!
2)
If a choice
is made by Ethiopians and the bad one is rejected by them then the
election of the
good one is irrevocably tainted. Neither should the vote of the people
that
elected the CUD be respected, particularly when Pausewang could assume
that the
vote was merely a rejection of the EPRDF.
Amazing!
Notwithstanding
Pausewang's wrong assumptions, and Pausewang's fallacies, tyranny is
bad
because people's lives are wantonly destroyed by it. Tyranny is
therefore
unacceptable under whatever guise it might appear.
Donor countries that directly finance the budget of a
tyrannical regime indirectly perpetrate the wanton destruction of life,
limb,
and property of Ethiopians. However, they may put it, Meles
tyranical rule, treasonous surender of the maritime territories
and properties to a rebel group, and forcible division of Ethiopians
into homelands has no parallels in Ethiopian history except in
brief times of occupation by alien forces.
Summary
and conclusion
In
Educational
Discourse #1 through #4, we
examined the desirability of having a unified movement against the
tyranny by
the TPLF/EPRDF. We also examined
how western political and social scientists view the governments of
Africa, and
how they rationalize interacting with African regimes merely in the
form of the
so-called "enlightened self-interest." The
gist of the previous Educational Discourse was as
follows.
#1.
The
opposition to tyrannical governance must work under one Ethiopian
movement.
#2,
TPLF/EPRDF
was not the winner of elections made by the 27 million Ethiopians that
cast
their votes in May 2005. From the
547 seats sought by parties 299 were contested. Of
the uncontested votes, Hebret had received
54 seats. Meles had not contested at
least 109 seats won by Kinijit (CUD), though he denied immunity to
these MPs
and put them in jail on trumped-up charges. Thus, the tyrannical
TPLF/EPRDF
party had won only 85 (547-299-54-109 = 85) seats that were not
contested by the
opposition parties and the electorate.
#3.
European
political scientists had observed that African states maybe placed in
one of 5
types of dysfunctional or failed states. Ato Meles had agreed that
Ethiopia is
a failed state. Perhaps, Ato Meles was told that the case of Ethiopia
is
similar to the "captured " variety of which Rwanda was said to be a
typical example. This might
explain why Ato Meles was preaching his fear of a Rwandan-type massacre
happening in the period of the May 2005 elections.
#3B.
History of
foreign involvement in Ethiopian affairs from Ahmad Gragn to Meles
#4.
S. Ellis
(2005) hypothesis of dealing with dysfunctional states. According to
Ellis
"The West should adopt a new, enlightened form of self-interest and be
open to engaging in new sorts of involvement in Africa. .. What is
required ...
are international joint ventures ..[that]..would avoid the evils of
colonialism...and the errors of more recent peacekeeping and state
building". (p.148)
Since
Discourse
# 4 the EU Parliament has meaningfully condemned the atrocities
committed by
the Ethiopian regime, and the EU Commission has planned to withhold 375
million
that they directly donate to the budget of the TPLF/EPRDF party.
#5.
The current
piece describes briefly the so-called five-day national conference of
the
EPLF-TPLF/EPRDF in which they got their proposals sanctioned by
conference
participants.
Mention
also was
made on the history of US involvement in the enthroning of the EPLF and
TPLF/EPRDF over Ethiopia, and the division of Ethiopia into two states. Moreover controversial work by some
individual western political and social scientists was reacted to in
non-flattering terms.
References
1-
http://countrystudies.us/ethiopia/3.htm
2.
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/journal_of_democracy/v009/9.4henze.html
3-
http://www.andenet.com/art-dec17-2.htm
4-
http://www.andenet.com/art-dec16-1.htm
5-
http://www.andenet.com/art-dec31-1.htm
HG, 1/22006