From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri May 21 2010 - 16:07:00 EDT
Ethiopia's Democratic Sham
A government clampdown has rendered the outcome of Sunday's parliamentary
elections a foregone conclusion. Washington doesn't seem to mind that its
ally, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, is assured a win.
BY NATHANIEL MYERS | MAY 21, 2010
I first glimpsed the depth of suppressed urban anger toward the Ethiopian
government a few hundred paces into the annual 10-kilometer Great Ethiopian
Run in Addis Ababa in November 2008. An immensely popular fun-run organized
by Ethiopia's most famous marathoner, it is one of the very few occasions
when the government still allows citizens to gather en masse. And the
runners took advantage; as we surged through the city's main artery in
matching red race T-shirts, anti-government slogans began to rumble across
the crowd around us. The chants rose in volume and intensity whenever we
passed a bastion of federal power -- the Justice Ministry, the Supreme
Court, the presidential compound. One recurring refrain combined a demand
for the release of a popular political prisoner with a rhythmic, insistent,
"O-bam-a!" It had been just a few weeks since Barack Obama's election, an
event that had inspired many in Addis to hope that change would come not
just to the White House, but to its approach toward their country and
eventually to their own government.
On Sunday, May 23, Ethiopians will be out politicking again -- this time
heading to the polls to vote in parliamentary elections. But few will harbor
any illusions about the likelihood of voting in a change. In the 18 months
since that race, there has been no meaningful revision in U.S. policy toward
Ethiopia, and there is today even less reason to anticipate change in the
country's leadership. As one opposition leader has put it, the question is
not whether the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front
(EPRDF) will defeat its intimidated and harassed opponents, but whether this
will turn out to be the election in which Ethiopia takes the last step
toward becoming a truly
<http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2009-05-06-voa51-68644547.html>
one-party state.
This is what passes for democracy in Ethiopia today. As the election has
drawn closer, the government has done everything it can to push the result
in its favor, waging what
<http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/24/ethiopia-repression-rising-ahead-may-
elections> Human Rights Watch called in March a "coordinated and sustained
attack on political opponents, journalists, and rights activists." That was
the same month that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi took aim at one of the few
independent sources of news still available, comparing the Amharic-language
Voice of America programming to the genocidal Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda
and ordering its broadcasts jammed. Journalists have fled into exile at an
escalating pace over the last year, while civil society has been effectively
neutered by a deeply oppressive NGO law. Political activists on both sides
have been killed in recent weeks, and the government has publicly accused
the opposition of planning violence, raising fears that it might be laying
out a pretext for a crackdown.
All this has revealed a deep-seated unwillingness on the government's part
to even contemplate sharing political power -- an instinct that emerged out
of the last set of parliamentary elections in 2005, when Meles was
dangerously close to forfeiting his majority. That proximity to losing --
and the subsequent crackdown that ensured he didn't -- has hung like a cloud
over Ethiopia ever since. Indeed, as this year's election approaches,
memories of that vote are pronounced. On election night, Meles banned public
demonstrations. Then, as the vote count proceeded and protests grew, he
assumed direct control over the security services, which, in separate
incidents over several months, killed nearly 200 demonstrators. At least
30,000 people were detained, and much of the opposition's leadership was
arrested on charges including treason and "
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR200707160
1840.html> attempted genocide." When the official results were finally
released nearly five months later, the opposition had been awarded just a
third of the country's parliamentary seats -- while the EPRDF won with a
comfortable majority.
The ruling party has spent much of the subsequent five years ensuring that
this year's vote would not be nearly so close. Proffering theories to
account for the government's iron grasp of power is a popular parlor game in
Addis's diplomatic circles; they range from the cynical (the leadership
enjoys the financial benefits of power) to the strategic (Meles's circle, as
members of a minority ethnic group, doesn't believe it could win a fair
election) to the psychological (Meles and his team believe that by defeating
the Soviet-backed military dictatorship in 1991 they won the right to rule).
Whatever its motivations, one might expect such unapologetic repression to
trigger policy reassessments in Washington and the capitals of Europe. If
recent history is anything to go by, however, this is unlikely. The 2005
violence did initially cast a pall over what had until then been an
internationally popular administration, poisoning Addis's relations with
eager foreign donors. But the dollars continued to flow; even the $375
million that the World Bank and its donors withdrew from direct budget
support was soon routed through a newly designed program. In total, foreign
assistance actually increased slightly in 2006 -- from $1.91 million to
nearly $1.95 million -- and by 2007, the U.S. assistant secretary of state
for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, was
<http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2008/FrazerTestimony080311a.pdf>
congratulating the Ethiopian government on its improved political climate.
Today, Ethiopia receives the largest amount of aid of any country in
sub-Saharan Africa. And while the diplomatic atmosphere in Addis remains
suspicious and often tense, Meles is again a partner foreign capitals can
and do work with. Depressingly enough, Meles's Ethiopia, autocracy or not,
is a near paragon of responsibility in an unstable and strategically
important region that otherwise includes the roguish likes of Somalia,
Eritrea, and Sudan. The United States and its European counterparts
appreciate Ethiopia's contributions to the fight against extremists in the
region. George W. Bush's administration provided considerable support to
Ethiopia's costly invasion and occupation of neighboring Somalia. And the
U.S. Defense Department today continues to maintain close ties with the
Ethiopian military, despite widely reported abuses in its campaign against
insurgents in the eastern part of the country.
But politicians are only half the problem. The development community also
seems willing to hold its nose, determined to prioritize Ethiopia's
development gains (and the prevention of future food crises) over democratic
qualms. Those development gains are real and impressive: In Meles, the
donors have also found a capable and effective administrator. Ethiopian GDP
grew annually at double-digit rates from 2005 to 2008, making it one of the
best performers on the continent, though millions of Ethiopians are still at
risk of starvation every year.
Wary of alienating Meles, the Obama administration has publicly criticized
only the Ethiopian leader's most blatant assaults on democracy. And indeed,
with the failure to permanently reduce aid budgets following the 2005
violence, the West lost its trump card. At the end of the day, Meles knows
that the United States and his other foreign friends can't afford to back
out.
All signs suggest that little about this will change with Sunday's
preordained election, barring any unexpected violence. Indeed, at least one
country is already looking beyond the vote: Canada announced on May 8 that
it had invited Meles to be one of two non member African representatives to
the G-20 summit in Toronto next month. When runners next take to the streets
of Addis this November, they'll have even more to be angry about.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/zenawi1.jpg
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