BROKEN windows, fraying nets, chairs with missing legs; the Yidnekachew Tessema Stadium in Addis Ababa has seen better days. Rehabilitated by Emperor Haile Selassie after his return from exile in 1941, it was once a proud monument to Ethiopia’s restored independence following five years of Italian occupation. In 1962 it hosted the African Cup of Nations (Afcon); the national football team, known as the “Walias”, won. But the Walias, like their stadium, have struggled since. In 2012 they ended a 31-year stretch in the wilderness by qualifying for Afcon. In 2013 they duly crashed out in the first round.

Enough is enough, says the government. Ethiopians are proud of their sporting heritage: the country’s long-distance runners are among the best in the world. “We were the founders of African football,” says Juneydi Basha, head of the Ethiopian Football Federation. Addis Ababa hosts the African Union; the government wants it to host Afcon again.

In every big town, new football stands are going up. The federal government, which is paying, says eight “world-class” stadiums—each with a capacity of at least 30,000—are being built. Six smaller ones are also under way in the capital. The flagship is a 60,000-seater (as big as Arsenal’s Emirates stadium in London) in the centre of Addis Ababa, being built by the Chinese State Construction and Engineering Corporation at a projected cost of at least $110m.

Ordinary Ethiopians scent folly. The ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), has a solid reputation for managing the country’s infrastructure, but the stadium programme has people talking. The claim that it is simply responding to popular demand seems doubtful. “It makes no sense,” says Leoul Tadesse, a local sports journalist. “Building stadiums won’t solve our problems.” Football enthusiasts cramming into bars underneath the old stadium to watch European football matches point out that state-of-the-art infrastructure is no substitute for skills. Just look at England, which has a rich, fabled league but a poor national team.

Is the EPRDF, which has governed Ethiopia since winning power in 1991 after a decade of armed struggle, scoring an own goal? The country’s revered former prime minister of 17 years, Meles Zenawi, would probably not have let the programme kick off. The stern veteran of the EPRDF’s bush war, who died in 2012, is said to have remarked once that Ethiopia needs fertilisers, not stadiums. With the country only just starting to recover from drought—and this week wracked by widespread anti-government protests, in some of which security forces are accused of having fired into crowds—those words now seem prescient.

Ethiopia’s ‘Robel the Whale’ booed back home

Addis Ababa (AFP) – Ethiopian swimmer Robel Kiros Habte has won hearts in Rio but faced a vitriolic reaction at home Thursday due to accusations that nepotism is the only reason he is at the Olympics.

The 24-year-old son of the country’s swimming boss ranked 59th out of 59 competitors in the men’s 100m freestyle heats on Tuesday, posting a time of 1:04.95 — half a lap behind anyone else.

Between the rippling abs of the world’s finest swimmers, 24-year-old Habte’s generously rounded stomach quite literally stuck out, soon earning him the affectionate nickname of “Robel the Whale” on social media.

But internet users in Ethopia — which regularly produces first-class athletics champions — were apoplectic with rage that Robel had been selected.

“Robel? is symbol of racism, favouritism, incompetence that we’re currently fighting,” tweeted Addis Ababa resident Liya Teferia (@LiyanaTefferi), referring to a wave of anti-government protests currently engulfing the country.

Habte even took the honour of carrying the flag during the Olympic opening ceremony on August 5, a symbol of patriotic pride that Ethiopians were outraged was not given to the world-class runners walking alongside him.

“It’s OK to come last in any competition, somebody has to right? It’s NOT OK to embarrass a nation by entering a competition with no competence whatsoever,” Seble T posted on Facebook.

The Rio heats were Habte’s first competitive international tournament. Ethiopia is landlocked and has no Olympic-sized swimming pool, meaning swimming is not a traditionally strong sport there.

“Sad that we have so many Robels in the system and it’s about time to realise that is why people are so angry and frustrated,” Seble T added.

Habte had struck a defiant tone following his failed bid for Olympic glory, potentially adding to the internet firestorm.

“I don’t know why I was slower today but it didn’t matter where I finished,” he told journalists in Rio.

His father Kiros Habte also defended his son when contacted on state-owned radio station Fana, saying: “We didn’t want results. We just wanted to participate. That’s all.”

Users soon called for the swimming chief to be sacked following his comments.

“If I were the authorities, I would fire the father, NOW. Even before he gets back to Addis. They need to make a statement on this,” Facebook user Naby B posted.

The Ethiopian athletics federation, which produces the country’s strongest Olympic contingent, has also faced accusations of incompetence.

Triple Olympic gold medallist and five-time world champion Kenenisa Bekele was told to stay at home in favour of younger and less experienced runners.

• SIMON ALLISON [.dailymaverick.co.za]

Dark clouds have long loomed over Ethiopia’s stunning development story. Now, in the face of unprecedented protests, and the government’s typically brutal response, those clouds threaten to turn into a perfect storm – with chilling consequences.

By SIMON ALLISON.

Unprecedented Ethiopia protests far from over: analysts

Regional protests that began last year in Ethiopia have spread across the country, and despite successive crackdowns analysts say dissatisfaction with the authoritarian government is driving ever greater unrest.

Demonstrations began popping up in November 2015 in the Oromia region, which surrounds the capital, due to a government plan to expand the boundaries of Addis Ababa.

The region’s Oromo people feared their farmland would be seized, and though the authorities soon dropped the urban enlargement project and brutally suppressed the protests, they badly misjudged the anger it triggered.

Protests have since swept other parts of Oromia, and more recently to the northern Amhara region, causing disquiet in the corridors of power of a key US ally and crucial partner in east Africa’s fight against terrorism.

“Since it came to power in 1991, the regime has never witnessed such a bad stretch… Ethiopia resembles a plane going through a zone of extreme turbulence,” independent Horn of Africa researcher Rene Lafort told AFP.

Despite what he described as the “state of siege” imposed on the Oromia region in recent weeks, the protests have refused to die down, and demonstrators have been challenging government more and more openly.

– Minority rule –

One rally was even held in Addis Ababa on Saturday, a rare event for the seat of power of a nation ruled by a regime considered among the most repressive in Africa.

More than 140 people were killed when security forces put down the original Oromia land protests, shot or tortured to death, according to rights groups.

A fresh crackdown over the weekend led to the deaths of almost 100 more, according to an Amnesty International toll, with live fire used on the crowds.

“This crisis is systemic because it shakes the foundations of the model of government put into place 25 years ago, which is authoritarian and centralised,” Lafort explained.

The protesters have different grievances but are united by their disaffection with the country’s leaders, who largely hail from the northern Tigray region and represent less than 10 percent of the population.

Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn heads the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which won all the seats in parliament in elections last year.

Although he comes from the minority Wolayta people, he is surrounded in government by Tigreans, who also dominate the security forces and positions of economic power.

Getachew Metaferia, professor of political science at Morgan State University in the United States, described the state as “controlled by an ethnic minority imposing its will on the majority,” a crucial factor in understanding the protests.

More than 60 percent of the country’s almost 100 million people are either Amhara or Oromo.

“There is no fundamental discussion with the people, no dialogue… the level of frustration is increasing. I don’t think there will be a return back to normal,” the professor added.

The country’s rulers have cultivated the skyrocketing growth and rapidly improving health outcomes that have changed the face of a nation whose famines weighed on the world’s conscience in 1980s.

But their grip on civil liberties has tightened: Ethiopia ranked 142 of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index this year, and social media used to organise rallies is regularly blocked by the authorities.

The use of anti-terror laws to jail opposition critics has also provoked ire, combined with more local issues such as the targeting of Amharan politicians campaigning for a referendum on a district absorbed into Tigrean territory.

– Reclaiming freedoms –

The West has largely avoided direct criticism of the country’s rights record because Ethiopia is credited with beating back Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shabaab militants in Somalia, but the protests put its allies in an awkward spot.

“Ethiopia’s leaders have lost the vision of Meles. They are showing signs of nervousness and don’t place trust in their own people,” said one European diplomat on condition of anonymity.

After toppling dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991, Meles Zenawi ruled with an iron fist until he died in 2012, and Hailemariam took over.

More used to its image as an oasis of calm in a troubled region, the government is swift to blame foreign “terrorist groups” for the unrest, usually pointing the finger at neighbouring Eritrea.

Hailemariam last Friday announced a ban on demonstrations which “threaten national unity” and called on police to use all means at their disposal to prevent them.

Merera Gudina, leader of the opposition Oromo People’s Congress, said the nebulous movements were not affiliated with traditional political parties and were focused above all on claiming back freedoms the government has long denied.

“We are nine months into this protest. I don’t think it will stop,” he told AFP. “This is an intifada,” he said, using a term which means uprising.

Violence Wracks Ethiopia — But Don’t Expect Anything to Change

Political divides are deeply entrenched
by PETER DOERRIE

Violent protests have shaken Ethiopia in the last month. More than 50 people have died, most of them shot dead by security forces. In contrast to an earlier wave of demonstrations that claimed the lives of more than 400 protestors and security agents early this year, this time the protests weren’t limited to the Oromo federal state, but instead originated in the Amhara region.
The spread of the protests — and the accompanying violence — points to increasing dissatisfaction with the government among large segments of the population. Together, the Oromo and Amhara people, whose presence largely correlates with the eponymous federal states, account for more than 60 percent of Ethiopia’s population.

Ethiopia is a key ally of the United States in the Horn of Africa region. It’s landlocked but occupies a strategically important position bordering Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia, all of which have hosted or supported terrorist groups hostile to U.S. interests. Parts of the massive U.S. targeted killing and intelligence program rely on drones based in Ethiopia and neighboring Djibouti.

The protests’ exact origins are murky, but the demonstrations seem to have originated in what security forces claim to be an anti-terror operation in the city of Gondar, north of the capital Addis Ababa. Officials rounded up several men accused of murder, robbery and hostage-taking, sparking protests by supporters who claimed the men were targeted for their involvement in an Amhara identity movement and their association with a contentious land-rights issues involving Ethiopia’s third ethnic group, the Tigray.

Contrast this with the protests of the Oromo people, which erupted in November 2015 around the issue of the expansion of Addis Ababa, for which a government master plan required the resettlement of thousands of Oromo farmers.

So while some observers have described the recent protests as an historic alliance between the the country’s two largest ethnic groups, which in the past have often been at odds, in reality it’s not so much a shared vision, but shared grievances, that have led representatives of both groups to protest against the government.
These grievances are well-founded. While Ethiopia in theory has a federalist constitution that guarantees wide-ranging autonomy for the ethnic-based federal states and equal participation in national politics, in practice political, economic and military power is concentrated in the hands of a Trigray-dominated elite.

These power structures can be traced back to Ethiopia’s civil war that lasted from 1974 to 1991 and which was eventually won by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which later transformed itself into the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front.

The EPRDF, like many resistance movements that have ascended to power, has displayed authoritarian tendencies. But these tendencies worsened in the later years of resistance leader and later prime minister Meles Zenawi, as well as under his successor Hailemariam Desalegn.

Zenawi, influenced by the example of China, organized Ethiopia around the principle of a developmental state, prioritizing economic growth above all else.

These efforts have had a certain measure of success. Ethiopia’s GDP per capita more than doubled between 1991 and 2015, rising from $270 to $619. And while some commentators have attributed the protests to rising inequality, by most measures Ethiopia is not suffering from high inequality — at least not in the typical sense of the word.

Instead, an U.N. report has warned of an increasing gap between rural and urban growth, something that is reflected in the Oromo protests. But these rising discrepancies shouldn’t hide the fact that most Ethiopians, Oromo and Amhara included, are economically better off today than they were 20 years ago — and that this is a feather in the cap of the government.

The protests are therefore unlikely to reflect frustration with the country’s economic development, but rather the lack of political space, for young people in particular, to influence this development. And in contrast to the current narrative of inter-ethnic solidarity between Oromo and Amhara youth, it should be read as a continuation and evolution of Ethiopia’s long-standing problems with ethnic competition, this time pitting Oromo and Amhara against Tigray.

The ethnic dimension shouldn’t come as a surprise, least of all to the ruling elite. Tigray dominance of the armed forces has long been accepted as a given in Ethiopia, as has the political dominance of the Tigray elite. And while not every member of Ethiopia’s military-political complex is of Tigray origin — Prime Minister Desalegn for example hails from the minority Wolayta ethnic group — the narrative is by now accepted as fact by most Ethiopians.
Proponents of the developmental state defend the required authoritarianism with promises of rapid economic growth. In their minds, pluralistic democracies and effective poverty reduction are incompatible.

Unfortunately, Ethiopia is currently on track to become exhibit A for the counter theory. Any gains made by rapid economic growth are nullified if insufficient political participation leads to widespread social conflict and violence.

The Ethiopian government has so far shown a complete unwillingness to address the concerns of the protesters. While the Addis Ababa master plan, the original source of the Oromo protests, was cancelled, a general dialogue about the relationship between the state and its citizens and Ethiopia’s political trajectory in recent years has never been proposed.

Instead, the government has chosen to treat the protests as an existential threat to the state, using anti-terrorism legislation and rhetoric to justify the extreme brutality of its actions against the protesters.

Ironically, this reliance on overwhelming force and in the eyes of most observers unjustified delegitimization of the protests only proves the protestors’ point. And even if the government should decide to enter negotiations at some point, this is easier said than done. Thanks to the repression of all organized political opposition over the last few years, there are essentially no individuals or organizations that would be able to speak credibly on behalf of the protesters.

For the United States and other Western governments this situation is becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Ethiopia has been not only a close ally in the war on terror, in some way rendering the United States guilty in the misappropriation of the term to largely peaceful protesters, the government is also a major recipient of development aid, which it has used to legitimize its increasingly authoritarian tendencies.

In a world where foreign policy was value-based, the United States and other Western democracies would use their economic, diplomatic and military influence to pressure the Ethiopian elite to reduce the violence and address the grievances voiced by the opposition.

But the reality is fundamentally different. Both the United States and European countries are focused primarily on “stability” in their foreign relations, defined as the perpetuation of the status quo wherever possible. This is especially true for countries like Ethiopia, which are perceived as beacons of stability in otherwise chaotic and threatening regions.

For Ethiopia’s protest movements, this means that there is little hope for outside pressure on the Ethiopian government. Given the coherence of Ethiopia’s elite and its control over the very capable and well-equipped security forces, forcing the government to address their grievances will be an uphill battle, to say the least.

The West, meanwhile, will waste another opportunity to mitigate the very real long term risk of a destabilization of a major regional power, because it prioritizes short-term stability.

Ethiopia Grapples With The Aftermath Of A Deadly Weekend [NPR]

GREGORY WARNER

The videos trickled out slowly on social media — slowly, because those posting them had to use special software to get around what seemed to be a government-imposed internet block.

This video showed thousands of people in the streets of the northern Ethiopian town of Gondar. The size of the crowd was significant in a country where civil protests are usually banned.

Even more significant? The location o f this anti-government protest.

For the last nine months, protests have erupted further south, in Oromiya, home to Ethiopia’s largest but historically marginalized ethnic group, the Oromo. But now the protests have spread north to a second region, the Amhara.

The different protesters have different grievances, but they share a growing frustration with the rule of a third, minority ethnic group — the Tigrayans. They say the Tigrayan elite has a cartel-like grip on the government, military and the fast-growing economy.

The response by the Ethiopian military to the protesters was swift and brutal. Amnesty International says that nearly 100 people were killed over the weekend when soldiers fired directly on demonstrators.

The U.N. human rights chief has “urge[d] the government to allow access for international observers” to investigate what happened.

Even after those weekend confrontations, witness reports were still filtering back to Addis Ababa, the capital. “We’re hearing who’s been wounded, who’s in hospital, who’s been killed, not to mention those who’ve disappeared without a trace,” said Tsedale Lemma, editor in chief of Addis Standard, one of the few Ethiopian magazines that risks open critiques of the government.

She described an Orwellian spectacle on state-run television, with “ferocious PR work” to discredit the protests. “People are being paraded in the TV, being made to denounce the protests. People denouncing even the use of Facebook.”

For years, Ethiopia’s government has warned against a social media-fueled uprising like the one that happened just north, in Egypt, in 2011.

If you watch Ethiopia’s state TV broadcasts, what you’ll be told is that the country’s protests are fueled by ethnic separatists — or even ethnic terrorists.

Tsedale disputes this explanation, saying the protesters’ beef is with the government, not with any particular ethnic group. “I don’t see that people are deliberately orchestrating ethnic violence in the country,” she says. “Of course, the government is eager to identify it as such.”

In Ethiopia, politics is ethnicity, and ethnicity is geography. The country is formally divided into autonomous ethnic states, each with its own ethnic government. It’s a controversial system called “ethnic federalism” that was instituted by the current regime. Political parties are organized along ethnic lines. Thus any critique of the central government will automatically take on ethnic dimensions.

The protesters impugn the Tigrayan elite — the government officials and army generals — who, they say, have a choke-hold on the country. The government accuses the protesters of fomenting ethnic war on all Tigrayans, rich and poor. And in the fragile ethnic balance that is Ethiopia, the battle to claim the narrative is just as important as the battle in the streets.

‘A Generation Is Protesting’ in Ethiopia, Long a U.S. Ally [ The New York Times ]
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
AUGUST 12, 2016
Is Ethiopia about to crack?

For the last decade, it has been one Africa’s most stable nations, a solid Western ally with a fast-growing economy. But in recent months, antigovernment protests have convulsed the country, spreading into more and more areas. In the last week alone, thousands of people stormed into the streets, demanding fundamental political change.

The government response, according to human rights groups, was ruthless. Witnesses said that police officers shot and killed scores of unarmed demonstrators. Videos circulating from protests thought to be from late last year or earlier this year show security officers whipping young people with sticks as they were forced to perform handstands against a wall. The top United Nations human rights official is now calling for a thorough investigation.

“It was always difficult holding this country together, and moving forward, it will be even harder,” said Rashid Abdi, the Horn of Africa project director for the International Crisis Group, a research group.

Ethiopia is the second most populous nation in Africa, after Nigeria, and its stability is cherished by the West. American military and intelligence services work closely with the Ethiopians to combat terrorist threats across the region, especially in Somalia, and few if any countries in Africa receive as much Western aid.

Ethiopia’s economy has been expanding at an impressive clip. Its infrastructure has improved drastically — there is even a new commuter train in the capital, Addis Ababa. And its streets are typically quiet, safe and clean. Though Ethiopia has hardly been a paragon of democracy — human rights groups have constantly cited the government’s repressiveness — opposition within the country had been limited, with dissidents effectively silenced. Many have been exiled, jailed, killed or driven to the far reaches of the desert.
But that may be changing.

“If you suffocate people and they don’t have any other options but to protest, it breaks out,” said Seyoum Teshome, a university lecturer in central Ethiopia. “The whole youth is protesting. A generation is protesting.”

The complaints are many, covering everything from land use to the governing coalition’s stranglehold on power. After a widely criticized election last year, the governing party and its allies got the last seat the opposition had held and now control 100 percent of the Parliament. At the same time, tensions are rising along the border with Eritrea; a battle along that jagged, disputed line claimed hundreds of lives in June.

Analysts fear that separatist groups that had been more or less vanquished in recent years, like the Oromo Liberation Front or the Ogaden National Liberation Front, may try to exploit the turbulence and rearm.

Several factors explain why bitter feelings, after years of simmering beneath the surface, are exploding now.

The first is seemingly innocuous: smartphones.

Only in the last couple of years have large numbers of Ethiopians been able to communicate using social media as cheaper smartphones became common and internet service improved. Even when the government shuts down access to Facebook and Twitter, as it frequently does, especially during protests, many people are still able to communicate via internet proxies that mask where they are. Several young Ethiopians said this was how they gathered for protests.

Second, there is more solidarity between Oromos and Amharas, Ethiopia’s two largest ethnic groups. Oromos and Amharas are not natural allies. For eons, Amharas from Ethiopia’s predominantly Christian highlands flourished in politics and business, exploiting the Oromos, many of whom are Muslim and live in lowland areas.

But that is changing as well.

“We are on the way to coordinate under one umbrella,” said Mulatu Gemechu, an Oromo leader.

The biggest protests have been in Amhara and Oromo areas. Many Amharas and Oromos feel Ethiopia is unfairly dominated by members of the Tigrayan ethnic group, which makes up about 6 percent of the population and dominates the military, the intelligence services, commerce and politics.

The third reason behind the unrest is the loss of Meles Zenawi.

Mr. Meles, a former rebel leader, was Ethiopia’s prime minister for 17 years, until his death from an undisclosed illness in 2012. He was considered a tactical genius, a man who could see around corners. Analysts say he was especially adept at detecting early signals of discontent and using emissaries to massage and defang opponents.

“The current regime lacks that ground savvy,” Mr. Abdi, the conflict analyst, said.

Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, was plucked from relative obscurity to fill Mr. Meles’s shoes. Unlike Mr. Meles, who came from the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, Mr. Hailemariam is a southerner. Analysts say he does not have the trust of the Tigrayan-controlled security services.

The result, many fear, is more bloodshed. The last time Ethiopia experienced such turmoil was in 2005, after thousands protested over what analysts have said appeared to be an election the government bungled and then stole. In the ensuing crackdown, many protesters were killed, though fewer than in recent months, and that period of unrest passed relatively quickly.

Development experts have praised Ethiopia’s leaders for visionary infrastructure planning, such as the new commuter train, and measurable strides in fighting poverty. But clearly that has not stopped the internal resentment of Ethiopia’s government from intensifying. And it is taking a dangerous ethnic shape.
Last month, protesters in Gondar, an Amhara town, attacked businesses owned by Tigrayans, and anti-Tigrayan hatred is becoming more common in social media.

Analysts say the protests are putting the United States and other Western allies in an awkward position. The American government has used Ethiopia as a base for drone flights over neighboring Somalia, though it recently said it closed that base.

While the West clearly wants to support democracy, it also does not want its ally in an already volatile region to crumble.

“That,” Mr. Abdi said, “is a very tight rope to walk.”

Breaking News: A Breakthrough agreement between ODF and Patriotic G7

Posted by: ecadforum August 12, 2016

Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
Oromo Democratic Front (ODF) and Patriotic Ginbot 7 (PG7)

August 11, 2016

After several candid discussions and careful considerations of the current political, social, economic and humanitarian situations in Ethiopia, and all the damages caused by successive regimes and the TPLF/EPRDF regime in particular on the welfare and national interests of the peoples of Ethiopia and the security and sovereignty of our country, the ODF and PG7 have made important observations and conclusions. The longer the current regime is allowed to stay in power, the harsher will be the pain, suffering and humiliation endured by the peoples of Ethiopia. Therefore, both parties are fully convinced that a transition from the current TPLF regime towards a new and genuinely federal and democratic state is of utmost urgency.

Both organizations take note of the fact that millions of people in Oromia for the last nine months, and now in the Amhara regions, as well as in the south, coming out and protesting in massive show of defiance, just a few months after the regime claimed a 100 percent victory in the sham elections it conducted in May 2015, and the manner of its reaction to the legitimate popular protests, demonstrate beyond doubt that the regime has lost any semblance of legitimacy. We believe that the mass killings, brutality, and inhuman treatment perpetrated by the TPLF regime against the peaceful protesters are enough indications that the Woyyane clique is determined to control all spheres of life in Ethiopia by sheer use of force and cling to power at all costs. The regime’s unwillingness to function in a multi-party political environment, provided for in its own tailor made constitution, and unabated repression and brutal killings in all parts of Ethiopia, harassment and persecution of the legal opposition, civil society and journalists, as well as gross abuse of power, looting of public and state resources demonstrate that the regime has closed all political space and avenues for reform. Therefore, ODF and PG7 firmly believe that the people have no other choice to end this tyranny and humiliation, but to engage in a concerted and coordinated mass democratic movement, popular uprisings, and rebellion to bring an end to repression, economic exploitation, national humiliation, tyranny, and dictatorship.

ODF and PG7 are mindful of the long standing call of the Ethiopian peoples for unity of all opposition political organizations and their strong desire to see that the different political and civic organizations coordinate their efforts and resources to bring an end to the illegitimate and tyrannical regime. Towards this end, the two organizations pledge to work jointly to bring all credible opposition political groups together into a broad democratic coalition.

Therefore, believing that a coalition of the Ethiopian democratic and liberation forces is the only alternative to get rid of the dictatorial regime and to create a truly united and genuinely democratic federation in Ethiopia, where justice, peace, equality, freedom, and economic prosperity prevail, ODF and PG7 have agreed on this day, August 11, 2016, to form an alliance on the basis of the following three cardinal principles.

1. Ethiopia being a multinational, multilingual and multi religious country, the state should respect and equitably reflect all its identities. The two organizations shall strive to build a truly democratic federal state, which promotes and guarantees the equality and unity of its peoples on the basis of social justice, equality, citizenship, economic prosperity, and protects and safeguards the sovereignty of the country.

2. Bring an end to tyranny, dictatorship, and exclusive monopoly of political and economic power in Ethiopia, and lay the foundation for a democratic system where political power at all levels of government is subject to the free will of the people. All member organizations of the alliance and future coalition shall agree that genuinely free and fair elections are the only path to power. The primary objective of the alliance shall be bringing an end to tyranny and paving the way and laying the ground work for a democratic transition of power.

3. The paramount purpose of the alliance is to achieve the prevalence of freedom, justice, equality and democracy in Ethiopia, and the empowerment of the people. Hence alliance and future coalition members shall not use minor policy differences to hinder these noble goals. Once they are empowered, the people shall be the ones who decide on alternative political, economic and social policies. The alliance and coalition members shall promote a culture of tolerance and dialogue and resolution of differences through frank and open discussions.

Both organizations, ODF and PG7, have agreed to form a joint working group, composed of representatives from each organization, to undertake all duties of coordinating different tasks as assigned by the agreements between the leaderships of the two organizations.

Justice and Freedom for all!

Signed:

Leenco Lataa, President
Oromo Democratic Front (ODF)

Birhanu Nega, Chairman
Patriotic Ginbot 7 (PG7)

Washington Post

Regarding the Aug. 10 editorial “Ethiopia’s violent silencing”:

It is true that, as the editorial board put it, “the United States has long relied on Ethiopia as a partner in the fight against al-Shabab’s terrorism in Somalia and sends the country tens of millions of dollars in development assistance.” But this characterization, which substantially underestimates the amount of aid we devote to propping up this tyranny, implies that we’re at least getting something in return for turning a blind eye to its crimes against humanity.

In fact, when one considers that the regime’s leaders are faking their claims of economic success, covering up the extent of the biggest famine in the country’s history, secretly trading with al-Shabab, embezzling $2 billion every year, enforcing policies that have killed millions of their citizens through neglect and malfeasance, and have perpetrated outright genocide, it becomes clear that we’ve gained nothing that could justify our shameful complicity in this holocaust. Our policy is a strategic failure and a moral stain that history will judge harshly.

David Steinman, New York

The writer is an adviser to
Ethiopia’s democracy movement.