A Personal Note to Mr. Alpha Konare: So, Whatever Happened to the AU?

Fully a month after the first massacres at Mercato, I sent the following letter to the editors of a well know Addis publication expressing my frustration at the deafening silence of the new AU which proclaims itself to be the guardian of good governance in Africa. I was first surprised when the publication thought the issue I raised not worthy of publication on its pages. That was before I learned that the once well connected pub, a darling of the diplomatic community in Addis, knew something better. Unknown to me, you and your staff were not just quiet but were actually busy drafting a most glowing commendation to the Ethiopian authorities for the manner they conducted themselves during and after the election of May 15.

Although, it has now been more than 6 months since I put these words to paper, I believe that they are worthy of sharing with you and posting in the most public of places if for no other reason that to shame you personally and the AU. After all the central tenet of the AU-NEPAD peer review system is the notion that political leaders would be too ashamed to engage in their usual ways if they knew the world was looking. As the saying goes, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. A little shame might nudge the AU to think more clearly next time another sycophant massacres his people.

So, Whatever Happened to the AU?

It was only three years ago that the heads of states and governments of Africa adopted the AU charter with much hoopla and fanfare. The leaders spoke eloquently about the birth of a new African supra-state organization which will be guided by the experiences of the past and the urgent needs of the future. The leaders said that experience has shown that the number one problem of Africa had been the absence of good governance and that the way forward requires that that problem be resolved first and foremost. So, the leaders pronounced a peer review system that will prevent political leaders from going on a rampage against their own people. They spoke of an of active AU which will closely monitor developments in every member state and step in with appropriate remedy before minor problems build up to be major ones.

You and your colleagues were caucusing in Sirte, Libya as those heart wrenching pictures from Addis that popped up all over the media were piling up. All the reports from the summit seem to suggest that you have yet to drop those noble pronouncements from the AU charter. So, we the people must ask you whether you ever heard of the little problem in Ethiopia. Now I can understand if the you did not realize that there was genocide going on in Darfur until after thousands had perished. After all Darfur is in the middle of the Sahara, away from all of the beach side or high mountain capitals you dudes like to hangout. But none of the Addis massacres was more than 5 kilo meters from your fine offices. Even those in Bahir Dar and Gondar, and Awassa and Ambo and Jimma and Dire Dawa are no more than a few hours away – by car. One of the flash points, the Technical College, was actually just a few hundred meters from your HQ. So, what happened to you? Why were you silent? Were all the declarations in Durban just talk?

I have read the call of your offices for the victim to be quiet and take it for peace's sake. I am sure if you were to respond to me in person, you will speak of working behind the scenes and of quiet diplomacy. More than anything else, what the African people would really like is to see is those governments who turn on their own people be publicly ridiculed by their peers. What is a peer review good for if the findings are not published for all the world to see and cheer the good guys and jeer the bad ones? Why do you need to wait for the five year cycle to come to conduct a review when a government is butchering its own people right in front your eyes? I know that if half as many people as died in Addis died in an interstate skirmish, you would be out there issuing declarations of restraints on all sides, because that is a safe statement to make. In Durban in 2002 you gave the impression that the AU was no longer interested in playing it safe and was determined to take the bull by the horn. The AU charter and the NEPAD protocols gave us so much hope only to be dashed at the Mercato in Addis.

Everything is Backward in Opposite Land

There is a witty cartoonist in San Francisco named Mark Fiore. A little over a year ago, he produced a short talky about political spin in Washington, DC called OppositeLand (http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/fiore/2004/10/10_201.html). A character bearing a striking resemblance to President George W. Bush welcomes the viewers to OppositeLand, proclaiming it to be a land where fiction is stronger than truth and where wrong is right, weak is strong, bad is good, dirty is clean and where down is up. The character frolics throughout this short clip which ends with an emphatic declaration that “things are really looking up in good old opposite land”.

And then there is a Filmation Associates animation called The Land of Backwards http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/detailed.cgi?film=27324&p=c. Here too, things work quite opposite from the norms we earthly critters are accustomed to. The film plot traces the experience of the Adventurers' Club in The Land of Backwards where everything is said and done the other way around. The young club members have to rescue the famous poet who's been kidnapped by a bad character. Problems arise when the good guys are arrested and thrown in jail for returning stolen jewels. The fate of the gang of adventurers goes from bad to worse until just before the end when the kids figured out how things work in the Land of Backwards.

Either of these satires could easily be depicting Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopia. In Ethiopia today, the winner of the peoples vote loses the election. The killer of peaceful protesters prosecutes the victims. In Ethiopia, a call for an investigation into the killings of protestors leads to a trial of those who demanded the investigation instead of the perpetrators. In the opposite land that is Ethiopia, he who violates the constitution he took an oath to uphold, he whose loyalty to country has always been in doubt, he who repeatedly flaunts the national interest in pursuit of his personal interest, he who undermines the nation’s security and territorial integrity charges with treason those who shout “the king has no cloths”.

And so, we learn that Mr. Meles has directed his courts to try 131 upstanding citizens made up of the leadership of the political party known as CUDP as well as more than a dozen journalists and other members of civil society.

The CUDP is of course the party which was winning the May 15, 2005 election by a large margin on the day the vote tally was stopped by order of Mr. Meles under a declaration of state of emergency. The leaders of the CUDP who today find themselves charged with all sorts of atrocities were the very ones the people elected to parliament, to the council of the City of Addis Ababa and for seats in regional councils. One of these leaders was elected mayor of Addis. Had the vote count been allowed to proceed without interference from Mr. Meles, one of the other CUDP leaders would now be seated at Mr. Meles’ desk.

The reporters, editors and publishers Mr. Meles charges with treason and genocide were members of the fragile private press which was making a valiant effort to provide the public with alternative source of news when Mr. Meles decided to deny the opposition access to the state owned media which he deemed worthy of serving only as his partisan propaganda outlet. Interestingly enough, some of the reporters charged with capital offenses work for foreign news outlets and may even be foreign nationals.

At least two anti-poverty campaigners are among those charged with treason and attempted genocide. These individuals crossed Mr. Meles by insisting that he should respect the law which provides for members of civil society to serve as election monitors. In the final weeks of the campaign, when the Meles government sensed danger from the mood of the electorate, it sought to reduce the number of registered election observers who could have access to polling stations and tallying centers. Not only did Mr. Meles’ election board decertify the three highly respected American election monitoring organizations that had been in the country for months setting up their networks, it also refused to certify any Ethiopian civil society organization as an election observer. The two key campaigners charged today with these crimes fought to the very last days of the campaign to get their legal right to serve as election monitors to be reinstated. Although their legal victory came too late for them to take advantage of it, their campaign raised Mr. Meles’ ire so much that they now find themselves in serious trouble.

In defining the nature of the actions of the accused which constitute genocide, Mr. Meles and his boys stated that "the accused … conspired with the intent to cause physical and mental harm to the people of Tigrai region and … to isolate members of the EPRDF from society". The falsehood of the charges notwithstanding, I find the charges themselves to constitute a curiosity. The harms caused are suggested to be mental, physical and isolation…begging for the question just what kind of harm comes from isolation if not mental or physical.

I am no lawyer but I am curious as to how Mr. Meles intends to show any one of the following points. (1) How does isolation from society, if achieved, lead to physical or mental harm? (2) How does an action targeting the EPRDF cause harm only to the people of Tigrai and not the Amara, the Oromo, the Sidama, the Guragie, etc. when the EPRDF supposedly draws the overwhelming majority of its members outside of Tigrai (as evidenced by its majorities in parliamentary delegations of all regions and all regional councils except Addis)? (3) How can anybody isolate the EPRDF from society when, if the election results are to be trusted, the EPRDF is supported by all segments of society? (4) What is it that the CUD, the media people and the civil society leaders did which constitutes an attempt to isolate the EPRDF from society? (5) Finally, if I were a juror in this case, I would like to know what specific action(s) taken by the accused threatened the physical and/or mental well being of the people of Tigrai or of any other group of Ethiopians?

The fact is, although much has happened over the last seven months, most of us recall incidents that hinted at the broad outlines of what was on Mr. Meles’ mind. We saw first Mr. Meles and then his spokesman, Mr. Bereket, liberally invoking the Interhawme code word when speaking of the CUD in particular. This is in spite of the fact that it was Mr. Meles and his gang which insisted on identifying people and organizations by their ethnicity, addressing the CUDP as the Amara Durgists and the Guragie chauvinists, the UDEF as the lapdogs of the Amara and the surrogates of the terrorist OLF, etc. We even recall how things got so bad that the EUEOM had to publicly plead with the PM to desist from hate speech. We also recall the papers which were circulated in Addis on the aftermath of the June killings directing citizens to keep their eyes on Tigrayan residents of Addis. We recall the energy expended by the CUD leadership denouncing those who were trying to incite inter community violence in its name and asking all of its supporters and other citizens to remember that above all else they are all Ethiopians. It is ironic that the very people who valiantly fought against intercommunity violence are now charged with attempted genocide while those who tried to set it off sit in judgment. Such Orwellian absurdity is the norm in the Land of Backwards, in Opposite Land.

Racketeering: The Political Philosophy of Tyranny

The first week of December was notable for the lack of news on the home front. Given the precarious situation the country finds itself in, the brevity of news can be disconcerting to say the least. The gag order issued by the Great Leader right after his second manic episode, prohibiting the publication of anything regarding the views and conditions of the leaders of the opposition and/or of the population together with the detention of nearly all independent minded editors, reporters and publishers of the private press, has left us looking for news in every nook and cranny for something anything on the conditions of our country and our people. The situation got so desperate, I even scanned the pages of WIC and ENA hoping to find bits of reporting I could decode to get a sense of what is really going on in the country.

In that state of semi-desperation, I stumbled on to the website of the once great Addis Fortune. It is there that I came upon an entry that gave me a clue that the dearth of news was beginning to un-nerve even those who were responsible for the situation in the first place. Apparently, the Great Leader and his adjutants are a bit worried that there has not been any good news about their fiefdom published by any organ other than those owned, operated or directly controlled by the ministry of disinformation. The December 4 issue of Fortune reports that the Great Leader and his boys had found the place so unbearably quiet that they embarked on the task of creating news, even if by trickery and racketeering.

This once great paper to which I once contributed several entries, run(http://www.addisfortune.com/web_issue/news/news_013.htm), an interesting story under the heading Ethiopian Returnees in Defense of Foreign Aid to Ethiopia – a story that bares the souls of the Great Leader and his minions. As expected, the author took great pains not to antagonize those who hold the power to harm his person, his employment condition and his family members. However, he could not succeed in completely sanitizing this amazing story.

It pertains to a meeting of three dozen or so Ethiopians who had returned from abroad to establish business interests. These are what the paper refers to as returnees, even though some among those named in the story are at best regular visitors to Ethiopia with residences abroad. But, that is not what this story is about.

The story was about the familiar con job of the Great Leader. These individuals had been hoodwinked into assembling at a hotel for the reported purpose of discussing with representatives of the Great Leader any problems they might be facing. However, just like the good old days at the wooyiyit kibeb, as the meeting began, the plants among them and the cadres of the Great One began talking about the worldwide movement of Ethiopian patriots.

Apparently, the meeting quickly moved into a formal discussion of the merits of the effort of Ethiopians abroad to bring the injustice transpiring in Ethiopia to the attention of the world. Then, quite suddenly, one of the plants among those gathered proposed a resolution condemning the call made by Ethiopians abroad for friendly nations to stop providing the tyrant with the material means for oppressing his subjects. Just like that, those who assembled to discuss the country’s economic policy framework, unanimously passed a resolution which condemns their fellow citizens for standing up for their country.

According to Fortune, the returnees passed a unanimous resolution which stating "we call on our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora to desist from such a negative and counterproductive campaign". Stunned at the turn of events, several of them spoke with the paper after the session was over, complaining that they were set-up to take part in a sting operation. A participant who told Fortune that “he thought the meeting was called to discuss the problems the returnee community is facing during this time of crises stated that "we were literally coaxed into agreeing on the resolution. If this is what they wanted, we were not in a position to go against it."”

In free societies, this is called racketeering: forcing individuals to engage in an activity against their freewill through bribery, fraud and intimidation. The story reported here is a perfect example of racketeering, exhibiting every aspect of this definition. True to form, the Great Leader is not beyond bribing even his own underlings if it serves a particular purpose. In this case, you have these individuals who took great risk packing up and returning home and exposing their resources to the whims of a most whimsical government. Such individuals are bound to be susceptible both to negative and positive enticements. Given the personal stakes for these individuals, bribery as well as intimidation can be effective tools. It is obvious some of the returnees were afforded one of these options and others the alternative. And of course, in true Meles form, most of the returnees were simply duped into taking part in something totally unanticipated. This is of course the gang which perfected the bait and switch tactic of negotiation. One only need to recall the numerous false offers of negotiation during the last 6 months to appreciate how effective this tactic can be when deployed against trusting subjects, a common attribute of our people.

Speaking of Fortune, it pains me to see that once pioneering publication, squeezed and reduced by the regime into a shadow of its former independent self. I find it distressing to read not only its editorials but even the news it purports to report. The December 4th edition of Fortune is a perfect example of a paper whose independent spirit is nearly extinguished by the heavy hands of the regime. It ran an editorial on the need for reconciliation between the government and the (http://www.addisfortune.com/web_issue/editor_note.htm) opposition – a timely and noble topic for the paper to address at this point in our history. Regrettably, the way the editors run roughshod with the constitution and the record of the last 6 months and tiptoe around issues trying to pick and chose “safe” language only serves to illustrate the cloud of fear and uncertainty under which they operate.

In one outburst that cries desperately for clarity, brevity and honesty, it states that “aside from what is possible for the ruling party to do legally, it (the EPRDF) has the not so attractive option of trying to encourage - even after all these upheavals - the resurgence of an opposition force that could unquestioningly accept the legitimacy and authority of the constitutionally based institutions, including parliament, the national electoral board and the judiciary.” Of course readers know that opposition forces and the people of Ethiopia need tolerance, not encouragement, to be a force to contend with. The editors of Fortune know this fact as well as the next guy. They also know that a government does not gain legitimate authority because it has the right to kill, incarcerate or deport those who resist it. A government earns its legitimacy when it is seconded or deputized by the people to act on their behalf. To be legitimate, a government has to be designated the Inderasae of the people.

During a moment of high risk candor, Fortune continued, “the EPRDF-led government appears to be in a better position now than at any previous time to push its political arch-rivals to accept this in exchange for them to be integrated back into the political system under a mutually understood formula.” I for one am not in a position to know whether the leaders of the opposition who have been incarcerated for 6 weeks and incessantly harassed for 5 months before that are so broken that they would accept an offer to be “integrated into the political system” in exchange of their recognition of the legitimacy of the EPRDF. Nor am I in a position to judge them should they decide to take this or any other extraordinary step to save their lives in these extraordinary times. I suspect the editors of Fortune are far better informed than I about what is contemplated by those in authority. I find it interesting that they consider this to be a credible scenario.

Perhaps as pay back for the candor, Fortune writes “this formula could make clear that the opposition camp and their sympathizers will stop their… demonising (sic) of the EPRDF, and will abandon their exaggerated rhetoric and highly destructive and often ill-informed campaigns.” If this is what it takes, then integration is overpriced. It also seems to me that Fortune is paying too high a price for candor.

Over the weekend, I stumbled into The Manitoban, a newspaper of the University of Manitoba, a Canadian university. The paper quoted Ato Tamrat Giorgis, the editor of Fortune in a story it ran on press freedom (http://umanitoba.ca/manitoban/2005-2006/1207/1621.ethiopia.information.shortage.php)

in Ethiopia. The Manitoban writes “he (Tamirat) said that, “technically and legally,” no newspapers have been shut down. Instead, many newspaper editors went into hiding as a result of the government’s published “Wanted List,” even though they were not identified on it.” The Manitoban further quotes Tamirat as stating that “the newspapers that have been indirectly shut down, he said, are: “completely confused, misinformed at large — shadow journalism.”

Speaking about his paper, Tamirat stated “we try to be as objective as possible, and therefore I don’t think the government has any reason to have any problem [with Fortune],” he noted. Some people even suggest that the publication has taken a stance that is ‘soft’ with the government on several issues — but Giorgis said that Fortune is not considered to be completely pro-government.”

I suppose Ato Tamirat believes that knowing that Fortune is not “completely pro-government” makes his readers feel more secure. Having lived in Ethiopia during Mengistu’s reign of terror, I cannot judge him because I do not walk in his shoes. But, it is a sad commentary on the conditions in Ethiopia for a “newsman” to feel that he has to earn his freedom by acting as though he is a paid cadre of the regime he fears so much.

What is on the Minds of Ethiopians – the Disputed Border or the Disputed Election?

There is an Amara proverb: One cannot awaken he who is determined to be asleep. The person who coined that proverb must have had a premonition of the fate of his countrymen in the first decade of the 21st century. For this has been a difficult and lonely time to be Ethiopian.

Our best hope for a free and democratic Ethiopia was rudely dashed by one who had repeatedly and consistently refused to entertain any notion that Ethiopia is anything but his private dominion. Our women are killed while trying to protect our children from beating and deportation to concentration camps. Snipers and machine gunners trained to engage organized enemy forces are set on our men and boys who peacefully march to express their grievances. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are held in open air concentration camps infested with all sorts of tropical maladies from malaria to poisonous snakes. The less fortunate among our leaders are summarily executed, with the more fortunate ones only rounded up, charged with treason or other similarly contrived charges and held in prison for years without trial, without definite dates for release. Members of the private media and leaders of civic society organizations who express dissenting opinions face similar fates. The state controlled media is reduced to serving as the private propaganda outlet of the hostage takers, inundating the captive population with a never ending barrage of carefully orchestrated program of misinformation, intimidation and character assassination. What little private press survived a 14 year reign of harassment and intimidation, was brought to an end when publishers, editors, reporters and newspaper vendors met the fate of our elected officials during the final campaign to rid the landscape of anyone and anything that smells like a threat.

It is in the face of this unprecedented and complete lockdown of the big prison that is Ethiopia that Ethiopians looked for help from the unified global community of which they believed to be a member in good standing. The people were confident that the world would stand with them. After all they had just performed marvelously in the democratic game played under the rules established by the new world order. Ethiopians believed that central to the new order is the notion of government of the people, by the people, and for the people – a government which the people set up and which the people can change peacefully, through the ballot, if they so choose. Having exhibited the kind of discipline, resiliency and single mindedness in the pursuit of the democratic alternative reminiscent of the performance of their Olympic heroes, the Ethiopian people believed that they are fully justified in demanding that the arbiters of the new world order step in and ensure that their victory is not appropriated by the slight of hand of their suppressors.

Words cannot describe the disappointment and dismay of the Ethiopian people. Those who so repeatedly and publicly pledged to stand with anyone anywhere in the world who fights for freedom, those who lead the very country which leads ‘the free world’ and those who “vetted” and “certified” the commander of the Ethiopian gulag to be “a new kind of African leader”, “a renaissance man”, and a man who can be trusted to be a strong ally, now anxiously look the other way when they face the anger and wrath of Ethiopians worldwide. In the early days, they even had the audacity to condemn the victim for inciting the killer into violence. Though they have given up on that that particular line, they are still unwilling to meet their obligations to Ethiopia and to the new global order.

Today, when Ethiopians in London, in Washington, in Ottawa, in Brussels, in Paris and elsewhere confront the world’s power brokers, they try to change the subject to something, anything. Their new found and preferred diversionary tactic is to point to the dark clouds of war hanging over Ethiopia. At every forum where Ethiopia merits a mention, they speak of the gravity of the crisis on the Eritrean border. They report on the count of the army divisions deployed by one or the other side. They discuss the length and depth of the trenches dug and of the deployment of tanks and field guns. They rehash the body count from the last bloody episode. Each of these is meant to scare the Ethiopian people into believing that they face something which is of greater danger to their immediate security than their domestic problem. It is also intended to show that they have not really forgotten Ethiopia and the plight of Ethiopians. This is meant to alert us that they are just working on something even more urgent which must be addressed right away, lest Armageddon be visited upon us.

Perhaps the end of the days is around the corner. How else can I explain agreeing with Isayas Afworki of all people—not once but twice? Of course, the border crisis was manufactured to divert attention from what is going on across Ethiopia, from Addis, Ambo and Awassa to Zege, Zuway and Zarema. Only one other time, when he called the AU the club of dictators, had I ever agreed with Mr. Afworki. Never mind that calling these two issues correctly would not exempt Mr. Afworki from a straight jacket; as one who likes to give the devil his due, I must admit he called each of these correctly.

Why don’t they ask us what matters to the average Joe in Abeshaland? If they did, we would tell them that Eritrea is Meles’ problem. Our number one problem today is Meles. If another war starts, it would cost us the lives of our children, but in the end it would not change anything. In the last war, more than 70,000 of our young men lost their lives and limb. And just what did we get out of it? Absolutely nothing!!. That war was not fought for us. It was like one of those children’s arguments over whose prick is longer. It was fought to protect the egos of the two contestants, and contestants we were not.

If we could select our fights, we would fight to be free from tyranny. We would fight to protect the dignity of the Ethiopian man who must cower in fear in front of his wife and his children not to displease the commissar lest he might be beaten up or taken away. If we could choose our fight, we would fight to protect our women from the indignity of rape and beatings by the cadres of our master and their friend.

The border conflict is a contrived story talked about to serve as a diversion from our real issues. When Mr. Yamamato travels to Addis and to Asmara to discuss the border issue, when the disgraceful Koffi Annan sends his special envoy to persuade Meles to stand down, the Ethiopian people know you are not doing it for us. If we could talk to them, if they had asked us, here is what we would tell these two gentlemen. If you really want to help, please, tell the hostage takers to release the political prisoners and to allow the winners of the last election to form a government. We will tell you to take some of the loot you are scheduled to send to Ethiopia and spend it on chartered flights to destination they prefer to go...Zimbabwe included. There would be no hard feelings.

When Javier Solana treks from the snow and cold of Brussels to Addis and Asmara, they would ask him why he and the rest of the European Commission would spend European taxpayers’ money on a large election monitoring team if they didn’t intend to act on their findings. They would ask him why, if the Commission cares about the other 77 million Ethiopians, it would continue to hold the bloody hands of the one tyrant. Finally, the Ethiopian people would advise him that if he cannot understand or appreciate their pain, he should expend his energy where it might be more fruitfully deployed.

As to the AU... The AU is an embarrassment to all Africans. It sits quietly right there in Addis, not a full block removed from where some of the killings took place. It allows its own compound to serve as a holding pen for those rounded up. The AU leader Konare rides to Berlin and to Abuja with the Butcher of Addis in a chartered jet paid for by the Ethiopian people while innocent Ethiopians were still being killed in his back yard. This goes on before the ink dries on the new peer review provisions of the AU charter. What a disgrace!! The only comfort I draw about the AU is in the knowledge that if we could hold a referendum, the people of Africa would vote overwhelmingly against it. The AU is neither created nor governed by the people of Africa. It is, as Mr. Afworki said, a club for tyrants, established by tyrants.