Signs of a doomed dictator

[Jabhad]

A losing bet in Ethiopia

 

 

Saturday 24 December 2005.

 

 

By Mike Clough, the Los Angeles Times

 

 

Dec 18, 2005 — ETHIOPIA IS edging toward renewed conflict with Eritrea

that could result in tens of thousands of deaths and spark a civil war

that would claim many more lives. But the Bush administration, a strong

supporter of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, appears to have

neither the vision nor the will to avert catastrophe.

 

 

It would not be the first time Africans died because U.S. policymakers

failed to recognize the dangers of backing a ruthless, doomed regime.

 

 

In the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the U.S.

supported former President Mobutu Sese Seko’s tyrannical rule almost to

its bitter end - and more than 2 million people died in the internal

wars that followed. In Liberia, the U.S. looked the other way as Samuel

Doe, an illiterate thug without popular support, brutalized his

population and stole the 1985 election - and tens of thousands

subsequently died. And in Sudan, the U.S. continued to give economic and

military aid to then-President Gaafar Nimeiri as he fought a long civil

war in which more than 2 million eventually died.

 

 

In all these cases, U.S. policymakers, despite clear evidence to the

contrary, insisted that continued aid and support - and quiet diplomacy

- were the best ways to reform a troubled client. Then, when that lie

became untenable, the U.S. walked away, leaving Africans to pay the

consequences.

 

 

Ethiopia is not yet Zaire, Liberia or Sudan, but the situation is

dangerous because not only is unrest inside Ethiopia growing, military

tensions on Ethiopia’s border with Eritrea are increasing. The two

countries fought a war in the late 1990s.

 

 

Meles has been a U.S. client since 1991, when his rebel movement seized

power. He is good at talking the language of democracy and development -

and even more adept at manipulating Western fears of terrorism.

 

 

Parliamentary elections held in May were supposed to cement Meles’ claim

to be a democratic reformer. Instead, they revealed his lack of national

support. According to official tabulations, disputed by opposition

parties, Meles’ ruling party won a majority of seats. But as Human

Rights Watch reported on the eve of the May elections, Meles squashed

political dissent in Oromia, the country’s largest region, thus denying

voters there a real choice in the elections.

 

 

Most experts on Ethiopia believe that if the Oromo Liberation Front,

which was forced to leave the country in 1992, had participated, it

would have won a majority of votes in the region. That would have left

Meles and his party with only a minority of parliamentary seats. Since

the elections, there have been two waves of protest in the Ethiopian

capital. Both times government forces shot scores of protesters and

locked up opposition figures.

 

 

The government is now planning to put opposition leaders who have

refused to take their parliamentary seats on trial for treason. It has

also arrested many independent journalists. There are also reports of

growing restiveness in the countryside, especially in Oromia.

 

 

Meles will be unable to maintain his monopoly on political power. His

base, the Tigrean ethnic community, makes up less than 10% of the

population. As the demand for democratization grows, he will have to

either share power or increase repression. Given that most Ethiopian

soldiers are drawn from disaffected ethnic groups, Meles can’t count on

security forces to stifle opposition.

 

 

Eritrea’s intentions complicate the situation. It may decide the moment

is right to launch a war to take back disputed territory it lost in the

last war.

 

 

In the past, Meles has wagged the Eritrean dog to rally Ethiopians

behind him. But if war breaks out, his opponents might move against him,

perhaps causing the Ethiopian army to disintegrate.

 

 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s unwillingness to talk to the

Ethiopian opposition and pressure Meles to permit real democratization

has undercut opposition moderates and greatly increased the prospects of

war. After the elections, the Oromo Liberation Front abandoned its

sporadic and ineffective struggle against Meles and sought a peaceful

accommodation. In October, it asked Rice to support Norwegian efforts to

get the negotiations going. But the Bush administration rebuffed its

entreaties and instead dispatched a mid-level State Department official

to persuade Meles to avoid war with Eritrea and make some internal

conciliatory gestures.

 

 

Washington’s refusal to deal with the Oromo Liberation Front is

bewildering. The party is one of the few in the Horn of Africa to bridge

the Christian-Muslim divide, and there is a strong democratic tradition

in Oromo civil society. It has never adopted terrorism as a tactic.

 

 

If the Bush administration continues to bet on Meles, it shouldn’t

forget that the lives of millions of Africans were lost in the Congo,

Liberia and Sudan because of similar misjudgments.

 

 

/* Michael Clough has worked on U.S. Africa policy for nearly three

decades. Most recently, he was the Africa advocacy director for Human

Rights Watch./

[Jabhad]

Dec. 23, 2005, 7:09PM

U.S. about to awaken to a nightmare in Ethiopia

Rampant thuggery has ended hopes of democracy

 

 

By DULA ABDU

 

 

While the West celebrates the joys of Christmas, Africa's oldest independent nation, Ethiopia, is submerged in apocalyptic violence sponsored by the regime.

 

 

The Daily Telegraph of London recently described repression of the opposition and the media as exceeding anything in the recent history of the continent of Africa, including that of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and the apartheid era of South Africa.

 

 

According to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, paramilitary units continue to use random searches, beatings, mass arrests and lethal force against peaceful protesters. In Ethiopia, a crime against humanity is unfolding while the world either vacillates or lacks the will to stop it.

 

 

In the face of threats, escalating violence by government forces - and without the protection of coalition forces - 26 million Ethiopians voted for the candidates of their choice last May. Unfortunately, many if not most of these duly elected representatives are in jail charged with treason, primarily for running in opposition to the regime.

 

 

The charge is nothing more than an attempt to silence the opposition that won more than 80 percent of the popular vote in May.

 

 

The regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has launched what the Daily Telegeraph correspondent describes as "a systematic onslaught against the majority of the Ethiopian people," save his Tigrean minority tribe in the north, after the Ethiopian people overwhelmingly rejected his regime in the last election.

 

 

U.S. policy toward Africa is paradoxical. This country wants Africa's mineral resources and huge market potential, but ignores serious human rights abuses. It harbors dictators like Meles of Ethiopia to the detriment of its long-term interests. These interests include more than 100,000 U.S. jobs and an emerging market of 700 million consumers.

 

 

The Bush administration's rhetoric about democracy is confined to the sands of Iraq and to the mountains of Afghanistan. In Africa, even the rhetoric for democracy is subdued.

 

 

Like the Clinton administrations before it, the Bush administration has failed to see that lack of human rights and democracy endanger Africa's economic potential and world stability. Clinton tried to wine and dine Africa's dictators to nudge them to move toward democracy, but he was disappointed. The Bush approach is worse; there is a near-total disregard for human rights and crime against humanity in Africa. Washington's response is lukewarm compared to that in Europe.

 

 

The lack of a comprehensive global policy to fight terrorism and to foster democracy bedevils U.S. foreign policy, forcing it to turn a blind eye to tremendous crimes against humanity in Darfur, Ethiopia and other places in Africa and Asia.

 

 

Since the May election Ethiopia - once a stable U.S. ally - has been racked with violence and turmoil. According to European Union research and investigation, the ruling Ethiopian Revolutionary Democratic Front lost the May election but decided to cling to power at any cost. The resulting cost to the Ethiopian people has been tremendous suffering. As random killings, beatings, lootings and mass arrests continue, the country is gripped in fear. The joy of a 90 percent voter turnout last May is turning into a nightmare.

 

 

To add insult to injury, the independent media have been banned; state-owned television has shown pictures of journalists on the air as criminals wanted for treason for pieces they wrote against the regime's excess and oppressive conditions.

 

 

So far, 89 people have been shot at point blank range for participating in peaceful street demonstrations and close to 70,000 have been arrested as possible foes and put in remote prisons, where the death toll is mounting. According to the British newspaper The Observer, a number of people have died while in custody of government forces.

 

 

Ethiopia, with more than 70 million people, has become a prison camp while the world has turned a blind eye. Prior to the recent crackdown and election fraud, Meles was even touted as one of Africa's rising leaders. His nemesis, Isias Afeworki of Eritrea, has also been listed as one of them. The United States recently placed sanctions on Eritrea.

 

 

Both Isias of Eritrea and Meles were the one-time darlings of Jimmy Carter and other well-known Western leaders. This has given way to inertia in the West in stopping this crime against humanity from unfolding.

 

 

If left untended, Ethiopia will implode, and the result will be a nightmare for the United States in its efforts to fight terrorism in the region, as well as for U.S. economic interests across Africa.

 

 

The Bush administration needs to rein in Meles - not only for the sake of human rights, or democracy - but also to preserve its own strategic interest and to stop terrorism from spiraling out of control in the Middle East and in Africa.

 

 

Abdu, originally from Africa, is a Houston-based writer on foreign policy.