Ethiopian Politics: No happy Ending

Ethiopian Politics: No happy ending

(Tariku Abas Etenesh)

“There are no happy ending in history, only crisis points that pass,” says the famed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. History furnishes ample evidence to support his statement especially in the Ethiopian political sphere. This national crisis regurgitation is attributed to not learning from history: much like a fool that does the same thing expecting different results. One such example of a crisis attributed to lessons not heeded from history is currently unfolding in Ethiopian politics: the Ethiopia government’s handling of democracy as synonymous to repression. Conflating state power with the right to stifle people’s rights and expecting people to not react and strengthening the repression. In a country whose leading party controls 100% of parliament seats meeting the demands of the very people with military deployment that morphed into martial law to protect the ruling party from its own people is just a perfect example of a crisis. 

   

Unending State of Emergency

As a country Ethiopia has never been a real democracy. State of Emergency has been the default position for more than half a century of its modern history: emergency begetting another and one not learning from the previous. As a result, the country was forced to recycle crisis heralded as ‘new eras’ to only grow into yet another crisis point. 

The first of these crisis points involve the fall of the Solomonic Dynasty in 1979 and the second the fall of the military dictatorship in 1991. In both crisis points, however, the ‘newness’ heralded not only failed far short of their promises but also left strong precedents for upcoming nightmares. When the military junta, aka Derg, (1979-1991) proclaimed a ‘new’ communist Ethiopia; ‘new’ was equated with waking up from the feudal nightmare. Yet, Derg quickly failed on its promises by turning the revolution that ushered it to power bloody through extrajudicial killings, massacres, repressions and civil war. In 1991, the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) led ethnic coalition that declared the country politically ‘new’ again: ‘new’ supposedly meaning a departure from the nightmare of communism and repression. However, they too failed terribly and very swiftly through their repetition of extrajudicial killings, mass jailing, torture, massacres, curtailing of freedom of speech, hatemongering, corruption and ethnic profiling and bigotry.

Ethiopia, in terms of its politics, is a country that wakes up from a nightmare every generation only to realize that it was in a historical act of dreaming in a dream and thus the supposed waking up was a continuation of the dream where the same nightmare recurs. And currently, the country is awake from 25 years of mishandled ethnic federalism nightmare. However, the hope that after 25 years of failed policies and rampant corruption and fake federal government, the government would start to listen to the woes of the people was proved to be unrealistic as the ruling TPLF led government has preferred to turn to a martial law. The hope that the country would finally awake was dashed by the ruling party choosing to protect itself through every means possible and declare war against its own people.

Fueling the Cycle of Crisis:

There is a popular saying in Ethiopia that reads: the hammer thinks everything is nail as the military governments that led Ethiopia – both the past and present - saw the Ethiopian people as their enemy that should be faced by guns and conquered. Their worship of guns and military solutions clouded their judgement sawing the seed for more crises.   

Both so called new political experiments (-communism and ethnic federalism) share one major calamitous flaws reflected in the manner they were implemented and the behavior of the key personalities in the two governments Mengistu and Meles. This flaw is the deep seated worship of foreign solutions and foreign political whims to remain in power and the corollary attitude of deep disrespect for their own people. Both Meles and Mengistu were dictators who fought to secure power in the name of the people not out of the legitimacy from people but while sounding to be after ideals such as Marxism and Communism to legitimize their despotic anti-democratic ways.       

Mangistu of Derg was willing to turn the country into a satellite communist state for Russia for the military and financial support. Meles of TPLF was servant of the Western interest especially as America’s hit man in the region while securing in return aid and blind eye on the atrocities his regime launched on his people. Derg was in power as far as it was financed by Russia but the day Russian support was withdrawn it faltered. The current TPLF led government too relies on the total support of the western powers and condoning impunity for its atrocities while shrouding its brutality through construction boom financed by China.

Like Derg like TPLF

Both the former military Derg and the current regimes came to power surfing the tides of revolutions that sprang out of the frustration and desperation of the masses and by appealing to people’s questions and interests at their heart. However, after holding state power both the past and present dictatorships have resorted to defining the people into enemy groups and establishing their will as uncontested truth to be accepted by all without opposition. Any one or group opposing them was sure to be labeled as anti-people, antirevolutionary, anti-peace elements. Dictating state of affairs where only celebrating them and the ruling party would be the safest way to survive. Both the past and the present tyrants prided of millions of members whose membership is nothing but attributed to lack of hope and prevailing systemic violence and intimidation that shunned those who are not members.

Violence begets violence

The current TPLF led government’s reliance on lethal force on unarmed citizens for the ‘crime of exercising their inalienable rights’ is pushing political forces who used to follow nonviolent path to reconciliation as away change to opt on military options. This curse of recycling military regimes by military regimes should have been avoided by the current government doing its job as a government not as a tool for a party.   

As far as regimes do not learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, we are cursed to go from crisis to crisis punctuated by a lull of preparing for more.

Decadence in TPLF:

The problems of TPLF are the very things it calls my strength: the military and economic might it has achieved and the support it claimed to have among TPLF supporters.   

There is a deep-seated arrogance and lack of respect to people by TPLF because the party has helped form a collision that defeated one of the biggest armies in Africa. As they have often been heard saying if they have crashed Derg they could crash any one and anything. This calculation is a lie that was first initiated to self-aggrandizement to create an invincibility aura to recruit fighters for as rebels has now for 25 years been exercised to paint a different image of TPLF as the only solution to the country.

This is flawed for two reasons: first the victory over Derg was never a victory of TPLF alone as portrayed by the late Meles and other TPLF leaders to energize their base. The Derg regime was long defeated because it had lost the support of much of the people who were opposed to its repressive dictatorship. Without the peoples’ support, and the support of other rebel forces that weakened the repressive system from within, the fall would have taken longer and different form. This invincibility myth of TPLF recently debunked by one of the chief architect of the TPLF army- former Chief of Staff of the army -General Tsadkan Gebretinsay. Who said: we are no braver than any ethnic group but we won because he had the support of the general public who were fed up with Derg.

The second calculation of TPLF is to assume that only force could solve all problems of good governance. To this calculation is attributed the control of all major key posts in the military, intelligence, police and the special forces by former rebels from the Tigrayan ethnicity. This dangerous assumption has two major flaws.

First, it relies on a wrong assumption that all Tigrayans support exploiting the death and sacrifice of thousands of Tigryan youth during the fight against Derg for a corrupt end of legitimizing the domination over the rest of Ethiopia. This is not and never true as the chief beneficiaries of the corruption and the domination if these institutions have been the connected few elites who are exploiting the name of Tigray as cover for their indefensible decadence. The signs and evidences are all out there for everyone to witness that former members of TPLF are opposing the repressive direction of the party. TPLF is a decadent party that is festering conflicts between the people of Tigray and other people of Ethiopia as a guarantee to remain in power. The generals who are now billionaires through corruption are no more interested in defending the constitution or -as the say-representing the Tigrayan people; they are interested in defending their wealth as the expense of the people of Ethiopia.

The second mistake of TPLF in the assumption is that the military because it is dominated former TPLF rebels will not revolt against itself. But this is to be seen in short  time too low to assume that TPLF members of the army are not able to see the way the repressive regime is taking the country and that their leaders have exploited them and revolt against them.

No happy endings

The currently declared state of emergency reminds Ethiopians of those decrees by the Derg regime as a prelude to the infamous Red Terror by which thousands of civilians were killed, persecuted, jailed and banished because the military, the police and the intelligence forces were above the law. The regime seems to think everything will go business as usual after killings and mass imprisonment as in the past to its own detriment.

It is worrying to see the current declaration of making the military, police and intelligence forces above the law by decree. These institutions were and are -for 25 years- run by revenge seeking former rebels from one political orientation and who are determined to protect the criminal empire and their business interests they built through corruption at the expense of the people and the country.

The regime is no more hiding behind the false theme of building 'revolutionary democracy' as they are nakedly terrorizing the whole nation into submission after a year of fearlessness the people exhibited.

The Ashanti have a wise saying ‘do not call the forest that shelters you a jungle,’ The TPLF regime should take a great lesson by halting the killing of the very people it claims to represent. Repression is the slippery lane of fall that tyrants chose throughout history, and the current Ethiopian regime is no exception.

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