Negotiation # 2

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December 16, 2005

In May 2005, when turmoil from inside and international pressure from outside forced a contested democratic election, EPRDF lost, but used the only means it knows to stay in power, FORCE! Election inspectors from both the US and Europe reported voting irregularities in many places, but non of these so called fathers of democracy were willing to publicly denounce Meles and company for all tribulations they committed during and after the election. Between May and September 2005 the Ethiopian opposition was in a shoe that it had never been before. The two main opposition groups, CUD and UEDF showed some rudimentary signs of collaboration in the hot button issues of the country. Though the two groups jointly and individually made some mistakes, their collaboration was wowed by many Ethiopians inside and outside. The group effort of CUD and UEDF has earned the opposition respect, and as a result obdurate Meles was forced to bow to the opposition’s demand of negotiation, however, during the short lived negotiation; Meles played a strategic game while the opposition played a negligible tactical game. Meles, who in advance knew the consequences of the stay home strikes and the demonstration, did not want to see both before the opening of the parliament. He managed to win his strategic game by banning the planned demonstration and by begging western diplomats to pressure the opposition to call off the strikes. Meles was blessed by the naive opposition to cool off the people’s wrath, the only power that could have brought his totalitarian regime to an end. The opposition failed to use its only power, the people’s power. Instead of listening to its constituency, the opposition listened to the Western diplomats who despite acknowledging serious election irregularities hard-pressed the opposition to join the parliament.

Today, most of the leaders of CUDP are in jail accused of treason, and more than twenty thousand people are languishing in the prisons of ‘Shewa Robbit’ and ‘Dedessa valley’, the present day “Devil’s Islands”! In the diplomatic arena, diplomats of the Western donor countries are making yet another attempt to bring EPRDF and the opposition to the negotiation table. Obviously, negotiation is a civilized way of resolving differences, but in reality, when the stake of compromising is too high for the negotiating parties; the party that has a relatively stronger barging power will impose its will on the other party. Definitely, EPRDF might not have the people at its side, but it sure has political power and a monstrous force that can take immediate and drastic measures. In this situation, the opposition should extremely be cautious in the give and take game of negotiation. To begin with, the opposition should never accept the call for negotiation as long as the CUDP’s leadership is in custody. In fact, the opposition should be wise enough to use the muscle of the Western donor countries to force EPRDF release innocent CUDP leaders in precisely the same way EPRDF used the western diplomats to pressure the opposition to abort the stay home strikes. EPRDF has already seen the will of the Ethiopian people, and what people can do under the leadership of CUDP and other opposition parties. One thing is certain, EPRDF can time and again kill demonstrators, but such killings will not continue indefinitely; peaceful people may be rounded up and jailed in mass, but there is no jail that can hold all freedom seekers. The mass imprisonment and the street killing will vanish like a winter cloud that vanishes in to September clear sunny sky, but all this is possible if the opposition plays the right game that attracts the participation of the Ethiopian people.

The true anatomy of TPLF should not be an epiphany to the opposition or to the Ethiopian people at large, in the last fifteen years, TPLF has exposed it self by all things acted and not acted. No matter how beautifully it paints itself, Ethiopians have perceived the true nature of TPLF long before its recent cosmetic surgery. The political maturity of the opposition will be put to test again. Have they become aware of the seemingly fair but potentially overwhelming game EPRDF plays? If the opposition selects the right strategy that can energize the Ethiopian people, and brings the downfall of EPRDF, it passes the test. All in all, to protect the popular struggle and abridge the inevitable transition to victory, the opposition needs to smartly forecast EPRDF’s game strategy and at the mean time design its own wining strategy. Any strategy that satisfies Meles and company to any degree can not be a winning strategy. The game between EPRDF and the true sons and daughters of Ethiopia is not a win-win game; it is a win-loose game. We should win, and we will WIN!

Parliament, Meles and the opposition

By Ephrem Madebo
December 9, 2005

In Ethiopia where the parliament is dominated by the executive branch, the entire legislative programme of the Parliament is determined by the government, and government bills virtually always pass the House of Representatives due to the nature of the governing party's majority. Constitutionally, in Ethiopia, sovereignty resides in parliament i.e., parliament is the ultimate legislative body in the country, and may remove power from or abolish local or regional government, and in theory pass any law it wishes. The governing party, from which the executive is formed, uses the speaker of the house to ensure that enough of its members of parliament vote in its favor when voting for government bills. During the recent parliament meeting (opening day) the former president of Ethiopia [Negaso Gidada] was begging the speaker of the house to give him time to talk by constantly waving his hand, but since the Honorable Dr. Gidada was in a hostile environment, Teshome Toga was not interested to listen to his talk. On the other hand, Seyoum Mesfin who waved his hand just once was given the opportunity to give his opinion.
On paper PM Meles’s rule is relative, restricted by law, constitution, or other social and political factors within the state. But Meles doesn’t care for the constitution, the legislative or judicial branches of the government because members of the judicial body are appointed by the executive branch [Meles] and there is no judicial independence. As to the parliament, members of the House of Representative are absolutely loyal to Meles, not to the people whom they represent. When the last parliament voted on the issue of Bademe, the ignorant representative of the Bademe area voted to hand over Bademe to Eritrea (Why in the hell was this man in the parliament?). Mind you, this is the level of loyalty the parliament has to Meles! The handful of opposition members who joined the parliament are not different from the Bademe Representative, though they view their presence in the parliament as an alternative venue of struggle; in reality they are loyal opponents of Meles! As a Southerner, I urge them for an immediate withdrawal from the parliament; as an Ethiopian I tell them that they are stones on the democratic path of the Southern people.

In May 2005, the whole world noticed PM Meles performing some legislative duties. He issued an emergency condition decree and killed 36 innocent people (God knows the actual number). The relationship between Meles and his rubber stamp parliament is vertical, Meles sends a bill to the parliament and 99.99% of the time the parliament sends the approved bill back to Melses. We just saw bill # 1 of the new parliament, MPs were asked rather told to strip the parliamentary immunity of those who boycotted the parliament, and they were happy to do so without even looking at its consequences. The other face of Meles is that he is unaccountable for what he does. He killed students [36 in May, 40 in November] in a broad day light, he got away with it, he fought unnecessary border war that consumed the life of more than 50k Ethiopians, he made Ethiopia a landlocked country, he changed the decision of the Ethiopian people and he used force to put himself on power….he got away with all this! Why worry when he has a parliament that doesn’t know what accountability is!


Ethiopia has an enemy that shoots at mothers, students and children, alters the law to serve its interest, and denies justice for all those who oppose it. How do we fight this enemy? The opposition parties know all the above facts, what they don’t know is how to fight such an enemy. Meles, the parliament, and the heavy weight western powers are all against the opposition, but yet the opposition listened to the western powers and dropped its ball to negotiate with Meles. What Meles wanted is not the negotiation it self, he wanted the ball to be dropped and he got what he wanted! Now some members of the opposition are in the parliament and some others have boycotted the parliament, and their parliamentary immunity is stripped (most of them are in jail). Who is going to call for the next demonstration and labor strike? All in all, who will ignite the match that devours Meles? For sure the loyal opposition in the parliament can’t ignite the match because their match box is empty, the boycotting opposition might not be willing to ignite the match because Meles knows how many match sticks are left in the box, therefore, the interest of the boycotting opposition is to keep the match box intact. Who? Who then ……….?

Who stands for the Ethiopian people who are ignored by western powers, undignified and left for misery by Meles and company, and betrayed by the loyal opposition? Here comes the failure of the opposition, despite the unwavering support of the people, the opposition reduced the power and will of the people. The opposition listened to external enemies (western diplomats) to negotiate with internal enemy (EPRDF). The net output of such a useless negotiation was that Meles successfully defused the grenade that would have destroyed him.
This is by no means an attempt to block or understate the value of negotiation, we need negotiation, but we should never go to the negotiation table laying aside our weapon. Mind you, the negotiation is not between CUDP and UEDF, it is between the people and enemy of the people! The opposition needs to know that Meles is shaking, all he needs is a push and he is gone. But the push is not an ordinary push, it needs the backing of the people and unity of the opposition. The force that Mels has is nothing when compared to the force of the people. Opposition parties please listen to the people, mobilize them and push Meles! Let me say the following in Amharic: Meles is like yemigenefil dist…..”YEMIGENEFIL DIST YEMIYABELASHEW ERASUN NEW”

A Day with Democracy

By Ephrem Madebo
December 8, 2005


Democracy is a form of government in which policy is decided by the preference of the majority in a decision-making process, usually elections or referenda, open to all or most citizens. Since there are other forms of government, the preference for the democratic form is itself an ideology, and a source of conflict. Many supporters of democracy consider it to be the only ethically legitimate form of government, and believe it should replace all other forms of government. Democratization is the replacement of the non-democratic forms by a democracy, and the historical impact of modern democracy has taken the form of successive democratizations of nation-states.

The essence of this article is to show how the preference to the democratic form of government leads in to a conflict. Democracy is a resource that belongs to the people, just like any other material resources, it could be controlled and abused by totalitarians, aristocrats, and dictators. Since democracy is the key to the other tangible and intangible resources, it is often snatched and manipulated by the few; when democracy is manipulated it looses its taste and becomes another form of government (oppressive). Democracy or democratic rights can be forcefully taken away from people, but they are never given to people. The oppressed multitudes have the responsibility to fight for it and earn it.

A much deeper understanding of democracy signifies that democracy is not a conflict free government system, yet it is not a government system where conflicts culminate in to a violent form of conflict resolution. Conflicts exist in any democratic system, but they are resolved within the democratic structures of the system. Just like any other society, crime is committed in a democracy, but in a democratic system all criminals are accountable for their criminal act and punished to the full extent of the law if found guilty. Many people think rationally and act rationally, some don’t. Many people are law abiding citizens, some aren’t. Many people have respect to the person next door, some don’t. Over all, in a democracy, most people would have no reason to behave differently if the choices they have are similar to that of others; this is a condition what people lack in a non-democratic government system. For example, if I am allowed to worship the SUN in exactly the same way the other person worships God, in the long run religion and everything associated with it will be a personal affair. But if there is some kind of institutional favor for a certain religion, people whose religion is disrespected will tend to form a group and a stand off emerges which will never get away until equilibrium between the two is restored.

In 1775, Patrick Hennery said “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”, in Ethiopia there is a saying that says: “A day of freedom is better than a lifelong slavery”. It really doesn’t matter where, when, and who, people always prefer to die than live in constant fear, poverty, and injustice. For most part, the history of the world is dominated by People who die for freedom and by those who kill freedom seekers. The following is an excerpt from the Magna Carta: “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or diseased or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land”. King John, a monarch of the 13th century was intellectually and socially ready to declare such a ground breaking declaration at a time where there were no complementary constitutions or democratic institutions. As a result of the Magana Carta today the Western society enjoys freedom of speech, justice, and advanced economic life.

Today, the Ethiopian society finds itself amidst a conflict. In May 2005, poor people, oppressed people, forgotten people, people who were denied justice, and people who are reduced to poverty stood together and voted for the representatives they trusted, but the EPRDF bandits, to whom political power always comes out of the barrel of the gun, resorted to the most primitive means of power transfer. Seven hundred ninety years after the declaration of the Magna Carta [No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or diseased or exiled or in any way destroyed], Meles and company are busy of killing, arresting, and persecuting Ethiopians. How do we resolve this conflict? EPRDF, the amorphous agglomeration of gluttony bandits, keeps on telling us to negotiate within the framework of the constitution and resolve our differences. Let us reflect back to the first two days of the election. When EPRDF knew it lost Addis Ababa, it run to places where there were no election observers and stole the people’s vote. When it knew that people would demand their stolen votes, EPRDF by-passed the constitution and issued an emergency condition decree, in other words it paved the way to justify future killings. Before the month of May was over, EPRDF changed the administration structure of Addis Ababa. Currently, EPRDF is punishing regions and localities who voted for the opposition by blocking or phasing out planned development projects. Basically, EPRDF is asking us to play soccer in its own turf, with its own referees and with a precondition of playing the game with EPRDF supplied goal keepers for both teams! Can we win such a game, no matter how hard or smart we play, it is impossible to win this kind of game. What should we do? Either change the rule of the game to make it an even game or use the power of the people to get rid of EPRDF.

The tactic of solving the conflict should not spring us back around the issue of boycotting or joining the parliament. The unwavering demand of the people should be for the unconditional step down of EPRDF and the formation of a coalition government by the winning parties. The Ethiopian people need freedom; they shouldn’t beg for it, they should rather demolish anything on their way to freedom. EPRDF is not willing to accept defeat, the Ethiopian people are not willing to acknowledge a voted out government. There are two alternatives and one right answer. What should the choice be? Just a day with democracy? Or days with Meles? If the Ethiopian opposition prepares the people for just a day with democracy, Ethiopia will be the ABC of democracy in Africa.

We & They

By Ephrem Madebo
Dcember 8, 2005


Everyone is part of many groups at once; of course one can be a woman, a parent, member of the Republican Party, an American citizen, a Christian, and an Ethiopian National at the same time. So, how do we decide which identities matter? Why do they matter so much? What makes people willing to die or kill for race, religion, or caste? In 1994, a Hutu nun in Sovu, Rwanda, called in Hutu militia and hundreds of the Tutsi were shot, hacked, or burned to death. Sister Gertrude was a Christian and a nun at the same time, but this didn’t matter because to her the Tutsi were cockroaches……”they”! Today in Ethiopia the statistically insignificant Tigryan elites control the lion’s share of the country’s wealth while multitudes struggle to have just a meal a day because to the ethno-biased elites others are not part of what they call “we”!

The “we’ and “they” issue is a very divisive issue whose meaning varies depending on who says “we” and why he/she says it. For example, “we” in a sentence like “We Ethiopians had a successful election in 2005” is different from the “we” in “We Ethiopians number about 70 million”. The first “we” is exclusive; the second “we” unquestionably is inclusive. It will always be possible to find differences between this ethnic group and that one, this nation and those, between Catholics and Protestants, but the baffling concern is that not one of these facts will tell why we divide people in to the human kinds we choose to analyze. When the Ethiopian economic growth of the last 15 years is told, citizens from Bale, Sidamo, or Wellega complain about the economic deterioration of their respective region where as their counterparts in Tigray enjoy the benefits of massive economic development. What is the root cause of such a disparity in the same country? Why do “they” in Tigray enjoy the fruits of unprecedented infrastructure build up and why does the “we” in the rest of the country suffers as a result of total neglect and resource transfer?

When society is characterized by Classification, Symbolization, Dehumanization, Polarization, and Denial; democide (fatalities caused by government) and/or genocide are inevitable phenomenon. When a certain group (they) controls economic resources and political power, the disenfranchised group (we) fights back until both power and resources are shared by all people. When EPRDF controlled Addis Ababa and allowed the proliferation of ethnic organizations, Ethiopia was crammed with a large number of ethnic-centered liberation fronts. The concept of liberation was confused for a while where no one knew whom to liberate from whom, but carried the slogan anyhow. By ethnicizing Ethiopian politics, EPRDF created a problem, a problem that was non existent in Ethiopia. It is true that EPRDF was pointing to the nature of ethnic oppression in many parts of the country, the predicament is, TPLF’s only way of ‘lancing the pain’ was to address its roots directly, and meet the demands for ethnic emancipation by means of self-determination up-to-succession.

TPLF’s ethnic federalism was designed to divide Ethiopians and force them to concentrate on matters of less significance. Ethnic politics was conspicuously used as a tool to diffuse conflict between groups while deflecting it away from EPRDF. When people are fostered to organize on ethnic lines, they tend to focus on issues that idiosyncratically define them giving a blind eye and a deaf ear to numerous common factors that put them together in the same basket as a human being. Today, the TPLF bandits classify the Amharas as “Neftegna” who if they are allowed to take the leadership role will pull Ethiopia back to Colonel Mengistu’s dictatorial regime (domestic message). According to Meles and company, if the Oromos control power in Ethiopia, Ethiopia will no more be a nation that checks the expansion of the Al-Qaeda ideology in the Horn of Africa because the Oromos are sympathetic to radical Islam (International message). According to this bunch of lunatics, “they” are the only proper mix of democracy and Christianity destined to govern Ethiopia indefinitely.

According to TPLF, its brand of ethnic federalism represents an improvement on the discriminatory situation of the past because the ethnic classification is now unconcealed and democratic, backed by justiciable rights, and effective constitutional safeguard. The truth is, TPLF’s arrangement of ethnic federalism is not egalitarian and inclusive as alleged, but in practice it institutionalizes a new and highly discriminatory assemblage favoring EPRDF, primarily Tigrayan elite. Hence, in the last fifteen years, ethnic federalism has ethnified the Ethiopia politics, i.e., federalism has made the ethnic group a prominent solution for the mediation of access to resources and decision making.

Unlike what the TPLF elites attempt to tell us, the essence of the struggle between “we” and “they” is not for a mere control of power, it is far beyond that. It is about restoring hope, building trust, curbing the poverty gap and most importantly empowering people. The concern is not why EPRDF is in power in Ethiopia, but what EPRDF is in the mind of Ethiopians --- not how they tell the Amharas or the Oromos from their fellow human beings, but why they want to! The future is not about “they” versus “we” ……it’s about us! Our future depends upon what we do today. The Western democracies have showed us how much they care for us. In his last State of the union address, President George Bush made a call for the oppressed people of the world to fight for democracy; he promised America would always be by the side of people who fight for democracy. Today the heroes who responded to his call are languishing in jail; they are accused of treason for apparently no reason! The claim of the West is no different from the Washington Red Skins fan who says, “We have a good chance of getting in to the playoffs”, but he will have no effect on the matches, because he isn’t on the team.