Yet another Party?

By Ephrem Madebo

The recent immoral race of Lidetu and company to create yet another opposition party reminds me the famous American saying, “Too many chiefs, not enough Indians”. From EPRP of the late 1970s to the ESDFP (Ethiopian Social Democratic Federalist Party) of February 2006, the political stage of Ethiopia has entertained numerous parties and political organizations. It is surprising that today one needs to carry a large registry to correctly pronounce the ubiquitous political parties of Ethiopia. To be honest, if the number of political parties was directly proportional to economic and social development of a country, the recent imaginary economic forecast would have put Ato Sufian Ahmed on the Guinness Book of Records. Today, our country Ethiopia finds itself in a deep hole; we all are responsible for either shoving our country in to the hole or watching it in the hole. Our immediate task should be to stand together and pull our country out of poverty; dividing and subdividing in to smaller units like amoeba will only aggravate our problem.

The recent plot to disgracefully transfer the administration of Addis Ababa to a yet to be established party is nothing, but the customary dirty political game that TPLF has been playing for the last fifteen years. According to the news release (http://www.aigaforum.com/new_party.pdf), the new name less party was needed to formally transfer the administrative power of Addis Ababa to elected officials. As far as the people of Addis Ababa are concerned, they have voted for CUD, and as far as CUD is concerned, the mayor of Addis Ababa is Dr. Berhanu Nega. The only way of ensuring a new administration to Addis Ababa is to free its Mayor and the rest of the CUD leaders. According to the constitution of Ethiopia, large cities like Addis Ababa are administered by elected people, not by political appointees. In May 2005, the people of Addis spoke unequivocally and made it clear that EPRDF has no place in the Ethiopian capital. The recent behind the scene political dance of Ayele Chamisso and Ledetu ayalew should never be allowed to materialize no matter how fine-tuned and choreographed it is. For all practical purposes, CUD has won every single seat in Addis Ababa; therefore, Addis Ababa should be administered by the original CUD, not by an imaginary “CUD” that sounds like OPDO or ANDM. To all traitors who traded their public trust for personal gain here is what Benjamin Franklin said three centuries ago: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”

During the decades long struggle of Black South Africans, many ANC leaders including the distinguished Mandela were jailed and many others were brutally murdered; but neither the atrocious killing nor the torture of the Apartheid regime were able to break the will of ANC, and divide the South African people. From 1964, the year Mandela was thrown to jail, until 1991, the year he was freed; black South Africans waged a double edged struggle for twenty seven years. Many black South Africans stood on the footpath of Mandela and fought for his release in the diplomatic field, and shook the foundation of the apartheid system in the battle field.
In our country, opposition party leaders were jailed just six months ago, but we have already forgotten our leaders to fade away in jail and started talking about another party. Forging political parties is not an end by itself, it is a means to a goal, therefore, when party leaders are jailed, we should not flinch an inch from our objective, we should pool our resources together and fight to free them. We should keep in mind that what frightens our jailed leaders is not TPLF’s groundless treason or genocide charge, it is our inexplicable stillness.

Obviously, the TPLF gang is using its entire ammunition to extend its borrowed life for another five years. We Ethiopians should not be a perfectly misguided “Samaritans” to lend extra days to this harebrained brand of rulers who are in the business of compromising our territorial integrity. We have a ruthless enemy that brutally kills and jails people, our resolve to stand for the cause of democracy and justice should manifest it self in a variety of ways to stop the killing of innocent people. TPLF is so determined to shrivel the size of Ethiopia and pass a smaller and weaker Ethiopia to the next generation. If we don’t act now and save our country from disintegrating, we will be no different from TPLF. Remember, when a generation is remembered for its moral liability, its place in history is failure.