by Melaku Tegegne
In this article, I would like to compare the press freedom of Ethiopia with that of Russia, China, and North Korea.
Press Freedom in Russia
Time Magazine, in its special edition devoted to Vladimir Putin – Person of the Year 2007 – revealed the grim picture of press freedom in Russia “today, for example, the Russian government doesn’t just have supporters at the national television stations; it owns the stations outright. In a meeting at the Kremlin before I began my trip, Putin’s spokesman didn’t even try to deny that national news was slanted in the government’s favour. But he said the regional media were thriving and independent. ‘Study them,’ he said, and ‘you will understand that this is the freest country in the world.’”
The freest country in the world? Sarcastic at its best. On this point, the journalist who wrote the article went on to say that: “I met journalists throughout my travels and found the Kremlin’s assessment disingenuous at best. In America, you are free to criticize Bush, a television talk-show host told me in his kitchen in Novogorod, wrote the journalist and added ‘Me, too. I am also free to criticize Bush.’ He laughed. Then, not smiling, he said, ‘I am actually scared to be talking to you. Time Magazine is far away. But if I express my opinions, I will have to face the authorities – not Putin, but someone here on a local or provincial level. I will lose my job.’”
The writer states that the will of the central government is well understood by the officials at all levels of the government – how to silence dissenting views or opinions – and gave it the name “grass-roots autocracy”. Noting further, he says, “This is a new phenomenon in the post-Soviet era, but in the words of the talk-show host, Russians have “historical experience” of voluntarily and enthusiastically carrying out the perceived will of the supreme leader.
This heavy-handed action or a subtle method of restraint on the press freedom in Russia was given justification that in the 1990s there was much freedom of the press, and the purpose of the whole exercise now is to “systematize political discourse”. Again it is an ironical statement made against freedom of expression. Briefly stated, the press freedom or freedom of expression in Russia at present is meant only to serve the interests of the new ruling class. The majority people of Russia are deprived one of their basic rights.
The same applies to my homeland, Ethiopia. The principal of the governing law of the press, which is often not expressly stated, is the same as the Russian (unwritten) law. The unwritten law in both cases is “the will of the ruling elite”. The only difference between the two is that in Ethiopia, ideology is added. There is what they call “revolutionary democracy”, reminiscent of Marxism and Leninism. So freedom of expression falls under these two foul practices – ideology and hidden will of the ruling elite. Hence, any journalist who tries to counter both the expressed and unexpressed will of the ruling elite group is knocked out by legal or forced means. That is why many Ethiopian journalists of the private press have been incarcerated, thrown out of jobs, or forced to flee the country.
In Russia, in the past few years, many journalists have been killed in a mysterious way, as stated in Time Magazine, referred to above. But the question is that how can the deaths of journalists, who have respected places in society, be mysterious for a government like Russia which has a very strong security system, a sophisticated means of control?
The nefarious practice in the case of Ethiopia is that the few mass media are now largely controlled and staffed by kinsmen and women of the Prime Minister. Just to mention one example, when I left Ethiopia in 2001, Assefa Bekele, was head of Ethiopian Television. During the previous military regime, both of us were ordinary reporters; I was at Addis Zemen newspaper, and he was at Ethiopian TV. Assefa became head of Ethiopian TV during the time of the new government, not because of his exceptional talent or merit, but because of nepotism: he is a kinsman of the ruling elite.
This is naked tribalism or racism based upon nepotism or abuse of state power. This kind of nepotism was imitated by the Prime Minister and his cohorts from the late Somali dictator, Ziad Barre. He gave all the higher echelons of the government to his kinsmen and women from the Merihan clan. This nefarious practice by the present government of Ethiopia is practiced in all government ministries, commissions, agencies, military institutions, higher education institutions, etc. In all places, one can find “a guardian angel”, a watchdog of the ruling elite. It is very sad to see such a tribalistic situation in one of the ancient countries of the world in the 21st century,
Press Freedom in China
Under the title “Ruthless Media Manipulation”, the Economist Magazine in its special issue of December 22, 2007, (page 124), states how Mao, the founder of modern China, manipulated the media.
Chairman Mao had his “Little Red Book”, a guide to the ideology to be followed by the country. Meles Zenawi authored a voluminous draft work – 700 pages – called “Revolutionary Democracy”, an ideology book for the 21st century of Ethiopia. He wrote the book in 2001 during a crisis period that he faced from his closest friends, founders of his liberation movement. The draft was not published in a book form, which is in some ways good for circumventing the wider dissemination of the ideology throughout the country.
Let me add one more point.
Like Chairman Mao, PM Meles has established a system where he can only talk to a very select group of journalists. The former Ethiopian dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, had also a similar fashion. These select groups of journalists are either cadres or kinsmen and women of the government officials of the day.
Press Freedom in North Korea
I visited North Korea in 1989, during the International Festival of Youth and Students, representing young Ethiopian journalists. In my stay with the delegation of the Ethiopian youth and students, numbering 150 persons, I observed that in North Korea, there are no BBC, CNN, CBC, ABC, CBS, or any other international radio, TV, magazines, or newspapers. It is a closed system to the outside world. In the international news broadcasts on North Korean TV, one can listen to their version of international news, which is heavily biased in favour of the Communist state. Even our music cassettes and players were taken by the security at Pyongyang airport and returned to us when we went back home.
I saw very few books on shelves, and these books are nothing but portray the juche ideology ("man is the master of everything and decides everything") architected by the late Korean leader, Kim Il Sun. There are also some books written by the current leader, Kim Jong Il. He was praised as the guardian of journalism and the arts.
I mentioned the North Korean experience in press freedom to make a direct link with the current trends in Ethiopia. The government of Meles Zenawi is quickly moving towards the Korean style of suppressing news and information from the international media. Latest reports indicate that the regime blocked the two radio stations based in Washington, DC, and Cologne, Germany, broadcasting in three Ethiopian languages. It also blocked pro-democracy web sites. It has become also a public secret that the regime wiretaps telephone lines of persons who have dissenting views. This simply shows that the Meles regime wants to deny the 70 million people of Ethiopia of the right to information. Following such irresponsible anti-democratic practice, the regime can only drag the all-round development of the country. Without press freedom, free opinion, and ideas, it is inconceivable to envisage a better Ethiopia.
Spin Doctors
In Ethiopia, there are four main spin doctors who manipulate the dissemination of domestic and foreign information. At the forefront comes Bereket Simon, Public Relations Advisor of the Prime Minister. Well known by his notorious activities in the election in 2005, Bereket Simon has rigged the election by illegally knocking out his competitor from the main opposition party and has managed to give interviews to the main international media such as the BBC and CNN. Bereket speaks broken English and this made him a laughing stock among many Ethiopians in the diaspora. How can a person who is not versatile with foreign language, especially English, be a Public Relations Minister?
The second spin doctor is Dr Tekeda Alemu. He is the Deputy Foreign Minister and speechwriter of Meles Zenawi. He spins all the information relating to foreign relations of the country. Although a sophisticated scholar, he lacks integrity and is a well-known opportunist. He is responsible for tarnishing the image of the country, for he has always been providing unsound advice to his bosses, the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister, who lack professionalism, foresight, and wisdom as he does.
Berhan Hailu, the Minister of Information, is the third spin doctor. However, like his predecessor, Bereket Simon, he is also poor in English. It is indeed shameful to see such people in ministerial positions representing the people of Ethiopia in the 21st century.
The last person whom I would like to mention is Wahide Belay, my former colleague at the Ottawa Embassy. He is now the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I laughed when I heard him speaking about the Human Rights and Democracy Act of Ethiopia, a document which was unanimously passed by the US Congress advocating the protection of human rights, as a document which undermines the sovereignty of the country. He said the document considers Ethiopia as one of the 52 states of the USA. Ridiculous, indeed. A twisted argument, lacking any rationality.
In short, as I stated earlier, the current regime is heading fast towards the suppression of free opinion at the mainstream media and academic institutions. It is worrisome indeed to hear nowadays that professors and doctors in academia are signing their contractual agreements by entering oaths of allegiance not to criticize the political system of the country, which is naked tribalism; this does not augur well for the all round development and progress of the country.
About the Author:
Melaku Tegegne is a former Ethiopian journalist and diplomat, now a peace and democracy activist and can be reached at melaku_tegegne@hotmail.com. Please visit his blog, Issues in Focus, at http://issues-in-focus.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
How Press Freedom Is Muzzled in Ethiopia
by Melaku Tegegne
Freedom of Speech is probably the phrase with the longest tradition. Freedom of speech addresses the ability of individuals to communicate ideas and information without interference with the state. When we talk about interference by the state as a legal notion, we are referring to the imposition of prior restraint.
Freedom of speech has typically meant the freedom to publish – publish being used here in its widest possible meaning, as writing, speaking, printing, or broadcasting ideas and information – without prior restraint imposed by the state.
In 1832, McKenzie King, a former Primer Minister of Canada, wrote: “Remember that wherever the press is not free, the people are poor, abject, degraded, slaves, that the press is the life, the safeguard, the very heart’s blood of a free country.”
Article 29 of the Ethiopian Constitution provides:
1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without any interference.
2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression without interference. This right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing, or in print, in the form of art, or through other media of his choice.”
Unfortunately, this well-intentioned constitutional right has been muzzled and effectively gagged since the National Election for Parliament in 2005 and the turbulent period that followed as a result of the popular demonstration of the people of Addis Ababa against the regime. The muzzling of the Ethiopian press by the Meles regime has been well illustrated by the symbolic handcuffed presentation made by Kifle Mulat, my former colleague and president of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association. About Kifle Mulat’s has played a prominent role in the struggle for the restoration of press freedom in Ethiopia.
Twists and Turns in the Press Freedom
When I was a high school student in Addis Ababa, during the last years of Emperor Haile Selassie, there was a relative period of freedom of the press. Although there was a strict censorship by the government officials on the press, and sometimes rebuke and suspension of some vocal journalists against the government, there was not a single journalist who was imprisoned or killed as is a common phenomenon now. The late veteran journalist author, Berhanu Zerihun, the other veteran editor in chief and playwright Negash Gebre Mariam and the other prolific writer and head of the Press Department, Mulugeta Lule, had told the people of Ethiopia on several occasions that there was no severe repression by the government of the Emperor.
Also in that relative period of press freedom, many books, dime novels, some magazines, and private newspapers were published. The majority of the authors of these works were the journalists themselves. Berhanu Zerihun was one of them. The other rising star was journalist author Bealu Girma, who was later murdered by the security agents of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, because of his critical writing against both the officials of the regime and the totalitarian system prevalent in the country then. Bealu, in his last book “Oromai”, predicted the separation of Eritrea. This angered the dictator Mengistu and his spin doctors and led them to a paranoid decision to execute the beloved author.
In short, the period of Emperor Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia, can be characterized as a period of relative freedom of the press and people were much happier than now.
The Derg Era
I can write many pages, if readers don’t get bored, about the press freedom during the Derg (the military government) of 1974-1991. I worked in two departments, the Ethiopian Television and the Ethiopian Press, as an assistant cameraman and a journalist for 12 years. It is quite a long time. The veteran journalist, prolific writer, and Head of the Ethiopian Press Department, Mulugeta Lule; my roommate, the vibrant sports writer and editor, Abraha Belai, now the Ethiomedia.com webmaster, were among the journalists with whom I worked.
Coming to the main point, press freedom during the Derg military regime was not only highly controlled but was also framed along socialist ideology and politics. There was not an iota of freedom of conscience for the journalists. We had no right to freely express our opinion, sentiments, or ideas. When I used to write feature articles, most often I was told by the editor in chief or by one of the senior editors to include certain points in the article that would reflect the ideology and policy of the government. Hence, the press was guided and controlled so much so as not to open any conduit for contrary ideas.
On the other hand, the period of the military government was characterized as a favourable period for translation works and some original works. Many young translators and writers had cropped up in that period. In this regard, the censorship was loose. Even many works of Sydney Sheldon, a well known author for romantic books, were let loose and sold in tens of thousands in the capital city and in some major urban areas of the country.
Contrary to this happy development, however, all the rank and file journalists were not allowed to read international magazines and newspapers such as Time, Newsweek, International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. All these magazines were always meant for the “eyes” of the high officials of the regime and department heads at the Ministry of Information. It seems that they had a fear that bad news would leak out to the public if the magazines or newspapers were allowed to be read by ordinary journalists.
To sum up, the period during the military regime was not good for press freedom or the media (there were no private newspapers, radio, or TV stations) but was good for fictional and non-fictional works, mainly imported books. As it was also a war period, we journalists had a strong fear for our lives and for our daily livelihoods. I, for one, spent 12 years of my young adulthood as a journalist in that particular period. However, when I look back on that period, sometimes I tend to think that the job I had done was not only dangerous but thankless as well. There was no freedom of expression and the whole exercise was a futile one for it has not satisfied the interests of anybody and the writer himself.
The Last Seventeen Years
In the last 17 years (1991-2008), I was away from journalism. I joined the Foreign Ministry in May 1991, twenty days ahead of the overthrow of the military regime by the rebel forces. I wanted to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was considered to be a place of rare opportunity in a poor country like ours, mainly because I was a graduate of political science and international relations. Coupled with my journalistic training and work for a considerable number of years, my candidacy for a job at the Foreign Ministry received a quick response.
Hence, my first hand experience in journalism had shifted to foreign policy and diplomacy. I often focused on foreign policy matters, mainly the policy on neighbouring countries. The first years of the transition period were highly taxing. Everything had to start from scratch.
Coming back to the press issue, at the beginning of the transition period, the first years after 1991, the propaganda made by the journalists of the new regime was heavily laden with strong hatred against officials of the fallen regime and their cadres. This was not surprising. The surprising thing, however, was that the government controlled-press, radio, and TV stations often broadcast a hammered and systematized propaganda, tinged with race, against the Amharas. It was a subtle move by the leaders of the new regime, mainly crafted by the then President, now the Prime Minister. The catchwords were nefetegna, timkihitegna, that is to say “oppressors and chauvinists” – aimed at the Amharas, whose ancestors ruled the country for the previous 100 years.
The ideologists of this poisonous propaganda do not want to or cannot remember the 1000 year span of rule by the Sabeans and the Axumites, the ancestors of the PM and his ethnic group. Be that as it may, among some of the encouraging achievements made by the current regime before 2005, a heyday of the press freedom, was the annulment or the cancellation of censorship and permit for the establishment of private newspapers and magazines. After the transition period, newspapers and magazines mushroomed in the capital city due to the loose control by the government. However, practical problems cropped up regarding the functioning of the Ethiopian press.
When many of the private newspapers and magazines became highly critical of the current regime and its political system, which is revolutionary democracy in name and tribal politics in action, the officials, including the Prime Minister, effectively began to deny information to the private press. This was unconstitutional. However, they ignored the articles in the Constitution and continued to practice restraint in a subtle way. In effect, it was back to square one, like the period in the military regime. Like dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, the new dictator, Meles Zenawi, began giving press interviews to very few selected journalists to avoid controversial or tough questions. This is a common practice today.
In addition, the regime turned more focus on the government and the few party-controlled newspapers and their radio station, Radio Fana. The government had also established a parallel news agency of its own, namely Walta Information Centre, to compete with the Ethiopian news agency, the oldest agency which had a strong public trust.
Frustrated by such systematic blockade of information by the government officials of the regime, the private press journalists shifted their attention to focussing on stories based on hearsay, secondary sources of information, and the foreign media. They became more critical and the government came to loggerheads with the private press, and finally resorted to military solutions giving it a cover as legal measures. As is to be recalled, in the wake of the 2005 National Election and the public demonstration that followed, more than a dozen journalists were incarcerated along with the leaders of the main opposition party. Not only this, but also their computers, cameras and other equipment were illegally confiscated after their offices were broken into and ransacked.
Between 2005-2007, for nearly two years, no less than 20 journalists were incarcerated, many fled the country and still more lost their jobs thereby leading a hard life in the country. Kifle Mulat, my former colleague and President of the Ethiopian private press, is still outside the country leaving behind his family in Addis Ababa. This is a dark period for the press freedom in Ethiopia. As long as the current anti-press freedom, anti-democracy, racist regime stays in power with its outdated socialist political system, press freedom in Ethiopia won’t become a reality. Hence, the people of Ethiopia inside and outside the country should continue their peaceful struggle for the prevalence of press freedom which was nipped in the bud by Meles Zenawi and his “revolutionary democrats”, anti-press freedom thugs.
About the Author:
Melaku Tegegne is a former Ethiopian journalist and diplomat, now a peace and democracy activist and can be reached at melaku_tegegne@hotmail.com. Please visit his blog, Issues in Focus, at http://issues-in-focus.blogspot.com/
Freedom of Speech is probably the phrase with the longest tradition. Freedom of speech addresses the ability of individuals to communicate ideas and information without interference with the state. When we talk about interference by the state as a legal notion, we are referring to the imposition of prior restraint.
Freedom of speech has typically meant the freedom to publish – publish being used here in its widest possible meaning, as writing, speaking, printing, or broadcasting ideas and information – without prior restraint imposed by the state.
In 1832, McKenzie King, a former Primer Minister of Canada, wrote: “Remember that wherever the press is not free, the people are poor, abject, degraded, slaves, that the press is the life, the safeguard, the very heart’s blood of a free country.”
Article 29 of the Ethiopian Constitution provides:
1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without any interference.
2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression without interference. This right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing, or in print, in the form of art, or through other media of his choice.”
Unfortunately, this well-intentioned constitutional right has been muzzled and effectively gagged since the National Election for Parliament in 2005 and the turbulent period that followed as a result of the popular demonstration of the people of Addis Ababa against the regime. The muzzling of the Ethiopian press by the Meles regime has been well illustrated by the symbolic handcuffed presentation made by Kifle Mulat, my former colleague and president of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association. About Kifle Mulat’s has played a prominent role in the struggle for the restoration of press freedom in Ethiopia.Twists and Turns in the Press Freedom
When I was a high school student in Addis Ababa, during the last years of Emperor Haile Selassie, there was a relative period of freedom of the press. Although there was a strict censorship by the government officials on the press, and sometimes rebuke and suspension of some vocal journalists against the government, there was not a single journalist who was imprisoned or killed as is a common phenomenon now. The late veteran journalist author, Berhanu Zerihun, the other veteran editor in chief and playwright Negash Gebre Mariam and the other prolific writer and head of the Press Department, Mulugeta Lule, had told the people of Ethiopia on several occasions that there was no severe repression by the government of the Emperor.
Also in that relative period of press freedom, many books, dime novels, some magazines, and private newspapers were published. The majority of the authors of these works were the journalists themselves. Berhanu Zerihun was one of them. The other rising star was journalist author Bealu Girma, who was later murdered by the security agents of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, because of his critical writing against both the officials of the regime and the totalitarian system prevalent in the country then. Bealu, in his last book “Oromai”, predicted the separation of Eritrea. This angered the dictator Mengistu and his spin doctors and led them to a paranoid decision to execute the beloved author.
In short, the period of Emperor Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia, can be characterized as a period of relative freedom of the press and people were much happier than now.
The Derg Era
I can write many pages, if readers don’t get bored, about the press freedom during the Derg (the military government) of 1974-1991. I worked in two departments, the Ethiopian Television and the Ethiopian Press, as an assistant cameraman and a journalist for 12 years. It is quite a long time. The veteran journalist, prolific writer, and Head of the Ethiopian Press Department, Mulugeta Lule; my roommate, the vibrant sports writer and editor, Abraha Belai, now the Ethiomedia.com webmaster, were among the journalists with whom I worked.
Coming to the main point, press freedom during the Derg military regime was not only highly controlled but was also framed along socialist ideology and politics. There was not an iota of freedom of conscience for the journalists. We had no right to freely express our opinion, sentiments, or ideas. When I used to write feature articles, most often I was told by the editor in chief or by one of the senior editors to include certain points in the article that would reflect the ideology and policy of the government. Hence, the press was guided and controlled so much so as not to open any conduit for contrary ideas.
On the other hand, the period of the military government was characterized as a favourable period for translation works and some original works. Many young translators and writers had cropped up in that period. In this regard, the censorship was loose. Even many works of Sydney Sheldon, a well known author for romantic books, were let loose and sold in tens of thousands in the capital city and in some major urban areas of the country.
Contrary to this happy development, however, all the rank and file journalists were not allowed to read international magazines and newspapers such as Time, Newsweek, International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. All these magazines were always meant for the “eyes” of the high officials of the regime and department heads at the Ministry of Information. It seems that they had a fear that bad news would leak out to the public if the magazines or newspapers were allowed to be read by ordinary journalists.
To sum up, the period during the military regime was not good for press freedom or the media (there were no private newspapers, radio, or TV stations) but was good for fictional and non-fictional works, mainly imported books. As it was also a war period, we journalists had a strong fear for our lives and for our daily livelihoods. I, for one, spent 12 years of my young adulthood as a journalist in that particular period. However, when I look back on that period, sometimes I tend to think that the job I had done was not only dangerous but thankless as well. There was no freedom of expression and the whole exercise was a futile one for it has not satisfied the interests of anybody and the writer himself.
The Last Seventeen Years
In the last 17 years (1991-2008), I was away from journalism. I joined the Foreign Ministry in May 1991, twenty days ahead of the overthrow of the military regime by the rebel forces. I wanted to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was considered to be a place of rare opportunity in a poor country like ours, mainly because I was a graduate of political science and international relations. Coupled with my journalistic training and work for a considerable number of years, my candidacy for a job at the Foreign Ministry received a quick response.
Hence, my first hand experience in journalism had shifted to foreign policy and diplomacy. I often focused on foreign policy matters, mainly the policy on neighbouring countries. The first years of the transition period were highly taxing. Everything had to start from scratch.
Coming back to the press issue, at the beginning of the transition period, the first years after 1991, the propaganda made by the journalists of the new regime was heavily laden with strong hatred against officials of the fallen regime and their cadres. This was not surprising. The surprising thing, however, was that the government controlled-press, radio, and TV stations often broadcast a hammered and systematized propaganda, tinged with race, against the Amharas. It was a subtle move by the leaders of the new regime, mainly crafted by the then President, now the Prime Minister. The catchwords were nefetegna, timkihitegna, that is to say “oppressors and chauvinists” – aimed at the Amharas, whose ancestors ruled the country for the previous 100 years.
The ideologists of this poisonous propaganda do not want to or cannot remember the 1000 year span of rule by the Sabeans and the Axumites, the ancestors of the PM and his ethnic group. Be that as it may, among some of the encouraging achievements made by the current regime before 2005, a heyday of the press freedom, was the annulment or the cancellation of censorship and permit for the establishment of private newspapers and magazines. After the transition period, newspapers and magazines mushroomed in the capital city due to the loose control by the government. However, practical problems cropped up regarding the functioning of the Ethiopian press.
When many of the private newspapers and magazines became highly critical of the current regime and its political system, which is revolutionary democracy in name and tribal politics in action, the officials, including the Prime Minister, effectively began to deny information to the private press. This was unconstitutional. However, they ignored the articles in the Constitution and continued to practice restraint in a subtle way. In effect, it was back to square one, like the period in the military regime. Like dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, the new dictator, Meles Zenawi, began giving press interviews to very few selected journalists to avoid controversial or tough questions. This is a common practice today.In addition, the regime turned more focus on the government and the few party-controlled newspapers and their radio station, Radio Fana. The government had also established a parallel news agency of its own, namely Walta Information Centre, to compete with the Ethiopian news agency, the oldest agency which had a strong public trust.
Frustrated by such systematic blockade of information by the government officials of the regime, the private press journalists shifted their attention to focussing on stories based on hearsay, secondary sources of information, and the foreign media. They became more critical and the government came to loggerheads with the private press, and finally resorted to military solutions giving it a cover as legal measures. As is to be recalled, in the wake of the 2005 National Election and the public demonstration that followed, more than a dozen journalists were incarcerated along with the leaders of the main opposition party. Not only this, but also their computers, cameras and other equipment were illegally confiscated after their offices were broken into and ransacked.
Between 2005-2007, for nearly two years, no less than 20 journalists were incarcerated, many fled the country and still more lost their jobs thereby leading a hard life in the country. Kifle Mulat, my former colleague and President of the Ethiopian private press, is still outside the country leaving behind his family in Addis Ababa. This is a dark period for the press freedom in Ethiopia. As long as the current anti-press freedom, anti-democracy, racist regime stays in power with its outdated socialist political system, press freedom in Ethiopia won’t become a reality. Hence, the people of Ethiopia inside and outside the country should continue their peaceful struggle for the prevalence of press freedom which was nipped in the bud by Meles Zenawi and his “revolutionary democrats”, anti-press freedom thugs.
About the Author:
Melaku Tegegne is a former Ethiopian journalist and diplomat, now a peace and democracy activist and can be reached at melaku_tegegne@hotmail.com. Please visit his blog, Issues in Focus, at http://issues-in-focus.blogspot.com/
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Naked Agression Against a Neighbouring Country
My Position on the Involvement of Ethiopia in Somalia
by Melaku Tegegne
Meles Zenawi could have made a Rambo-style, quick and decisive victory in Somalia and got the job done. Instead, he decided that the Ethiopian soldiers continue for one year as an occupation force. As a result of this, thousands of innocent Somalis have been killed and a million Somalis have been displaced, causing untold suffering and the greatest human tragedy in the Horn of Africa. In this article, I strongly argue that the involvement of Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia is a naked aggression against a neighbouring stateless country.
As a high school student, I have witnessed the 1977-78 Ethio-Somalia war, the major regional war in the Horn of Africa then. I observed, for more than 3 hours, the military parade of 300,000 peasant militia trained in 3 month’s time and deployed to the eastern part of Ethiopia which was under the occupation of the forces of the Said Barre regime. The huge military parade took place in the capital city, Addis Ababa. That force had successfully dislodged and repulsed the aggression of Somalia. In that historic war of liberation, Russians, Cubans, and Yemeni troops had also participated. My second encounter with the Ethio-Somali affair was when I went as an assistant cameraman to the eastern part of the country in 1979. I helped the seasoned cameraman from Ethiopian TV to shoot films on the mock exercise of the dissident Somali group which finally ousted Said Barre from his power and liberated Somalia after a protracted decade-long war which lasted until 1991.
I never visited Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, when I was working as a desk officer in the Neighbouring Countries Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia in the early 1990s. However, I had the opportunity to share knowledge about Somalia in those days with a former colleague who was Somalia’s desk officer. Virtually, I had known the daily political, economic, social, and cultural situations in that poor country, which was torn apart by warlords.
Whenever I heard the daily clash between the various clans of Somalia (Darod, Isaac, Dulbahante,…), I was sympathetic to their plight, and the senseless fighting among themselves. Though they are intact in terms of ethnic group, one nation, same language, same religion, unlike Ethiopia, which is a multi-national country differing in religion and race, the Somalis, however, instead of forging national unity and establishing a central government, continued to fight each other for the last 16 years, dividing the country at least into three enclaves. One can recall the case of Puntland, the Mogadishu area, and the south divided and led by warlords. The warlords created havoc among their own different ethnic groups, fanning the glaring clan politics.
The Ethiopian officials, mainly led by the incumbent foreign minister and professor Kinfe Abraham, the president of the so-called Ethiopian International Institute of Peace and Development, encouraged and abetted the division of Somalia into North, South, East, and West enclaves with a sinister design to weaken the national unity of Somalia and impose an ethnic form of federalism as has been done in Ethiopia. Abdulahi Yusuf comes into the picture here. For the record, when I was in Addis Ababa, working at the Foreign Ministry 8 years ago, Abdulahi Yusuf made frequent visits, three times in less than six months. The reception given to him was very warm and he had cordial conversations with the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister. Abdulahi Yusuf was a favourite among the other warlords whose allegiance has been divided between Kenya, Eritrea, Yemen, Libya, and Saudi Arabia.
As if that were not enough, the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments interfered in Somalian internal affairs thereby opening up a proxy war which was initiated as result of the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Meles supported the group led by Abdullahi Yusuf, and Issais Afeworki (Eritrean president) supported the so-called Islamic Courts, a group of fanatics who wanted to establish an Islamic state rather than a secular state. Therefore Somalia became a showdown of Ethiopian and Eritrean forces. The proxy war was made just only for two weeks culminating in a decisive and stunning victory by the Ethiopian troops against the Islamist forces and their Eritrean backers. The defeated army was disarrayed; some of the Eritrean high-ranking military officials were forced to flee Somalia through Kenya.
As I stated in the beginning of my article, the war, rather the proxy war, and the showdown of the Ethio-Eritrean forces should have culminated a year ago. But unfortunately, on the part of Ethiopia, the defeating party, it has dragged on until such time now that it has resulted in an unnecessary human tragedy which would have a long-lasting effect between the relations of the two neighbouring countries.
The latest figures indicate that about a million Somalis have been displaced as a result of the war. It is a very sad event in the political history of not only Ethio-Somalia but the Horn of Africa in general. Who is to blame? Abdullahi Yusuf, the Islamic Courts, Meles or Issais? I believe the responsibility should be shared equally by all four parties. It is a mix of pretexts, proxy war, fanaticism and a policy of appeasement. However, the main reasons, to my understanding, are the proxy war and the manoeuvres taken by the Meles regime to turn the attention of the Ethiopian people from his domestic problems to the war in Somalia.
Meles Zenawi’s rationale behind sending about 15,000 soldiers to Somalia in early 2007, was due mainly to a “threat” against the sovereignty of Ethiopia by the so-called Islamic Courts which are believed to have a connection to Al-Qaeda. Though the Islamic Courts might have a hostile attitude to Ethiopia as a historical enemy, in reality, this small fanatic group with a small number of soldiers cannot pose a major threat to a big country like Ethiopia, which has a strong defence force, and more than 70 million people. Therefore, Meles’ rhetoric, both at the rubber stamp Parliament of Ethiopia and with the international media, was simply a pretext for turning the attention of the people of Ethiopia away from the popular struggle for a radical change for democracy towards the war.
Therefore the objective of the invasion of Somalia was simply made for political expediency, i.e., to save the government of Meles Zenawi from the strong movement for democracy by the people of Ethiopia, who have shown strong support for the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party, commonly known as CUDP. After arresting the leaders and more than 50,000 supporters of the opposition party, the regime turned its attention to Somalia, an underdog in the Horn of Africa.
So now the CUDP is in disarray and the other smaller opposition parties are not faring well. The CUDP has shown a fractious situation by falling apart from each other because of one factor or another. This situation creates happiness on the part of the ruling party.
Turning back to the question under discussion, why doesn’t Meles pull out his forces from Somalia especially at this time when Somalia’s affairs have become an international tragedy? He has already shown his power, and achieved his goal, deterring a perceived enemy. So then why doesn’t he order his forces to pack and return to Addis Ababa? I am of the opinion that it would be unwise to stay in Somalia in such a miserable situation and under international outcry.
On the other hand, I would like to state that I am against terrorist activity in the Horn of Africa, in particular, the Middle East, and South Asia in general. I am a strong supporter of the war against terrorism. However, Meles could have attacked the Islamic Courts with a raid or two, making a surgical operation or a limited strike, and pull back.
The destruction of the Twin Towers in New York in 2001 has amply demonstrated that terrorism is a threat to world civilization. The bombings of the American embassies in Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi and the American naval ship at the Yemeni calling station have also demonstrated that the intention of the terrorists is to destroy, not construct.
To come to my final point, the case of Somalia versus Ethiopia: Meles Zenawi could have shown his strong support to the USA and NATO member countries by deploying a considerable number of forces to Iraq and Afghanistan, of course under the sanction of the United Nations. Ethiopia’s historic alliance with the USA and the west in general is a public secret. The international community knows very well the role played by the Ethiopian soldiers in both Korea and Congo in the 1960s. Their indefatigable spirit, enthusiasm, patriotism had been remarkably appreciated by the UN agencies and the western world.
About the Author:
Melaku Tegegne is a former Ethiopian journalist and diplomat, now a peace and democracy activist and can be reached at melaku_tegegne@hotmail.com. Please visit his blog, Issues in Focus, at http://issues-in-focus.blogspot.com/
Sidebar
“… The global communications greed now necessitates policy decisions, actions, and communications on an almost equal instantaneous basis. If a world leader, a leader of a country, delays in responding to a widely known crisis situation, perhaps made visible through television, as image of prisoner of war camps did in Bosnia in 1992, he or she will likely look indecisive, weak, or worse in the international media and court of public opinion. Moreover, lack of rapid policy making or public diplomacy in this hyper-information environment can have significant economic implication.”
source: New Media Technology: Cultural and Commercial Perspectives, page 355, by John V. Pavlik.
by Melaku Tegegne
Meles Zenawi could have made a Rambo-style, quick and decisive victory in Somalia and got the job done. Instead, he decided that the Ethiopian soldiers continue for one year as an occupation force. As a result of this, thousands of innocent Somalis have been killed and a million Somalis have been displaced, causing untold suffering and the greatest human tragedy in the Horn of Africa. In this article, I strongly argue that the involvement of Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia is a naked aggression against a neighbouring stateless country.
As a high school student, I have witnessed the 1977-78 Ethio-Somalia war, the major regional war in the Horn of Africa then. I observed, for more than 3 hours, the military parade of 300,000 peasant militia trained in 3 month’s time and deployed to the eastern part of Ethiopia which was under the occupation of the forces of the Said Barre regime. The huge military parade took place in the capital city, Addis Ababa. That force had successfully dislodged and repulsed the aggression of Somalia. In that historic war of liberation, Russians, Cubans, and Yemeni troops had also participated. My second encounter with the Ethio-Somali affair was when I went as an assistant cameraman to the eastern part of the country in 1979. I helped the seasoned cameraman from Ethiopian TV to shoot films on the mock exercise of the dissident Somali group which finally ousted Said Barre from his power and liberated Somalia after a protracted decade-long war which lasted until 1991.
I never visited Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, when I was working as a desk officer in the Neighbouring Countries Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia in the early 1990s. However, I had the opportunity to share knowledge about Somalia in those days with a former colleague who was Somalia’s desk officer. Virtually, I had known the daily political, economic, social, and cultural situations in that poor country, which was torn apart by warlords.
Whenever I heard the daily clash between the various clans of Somalia (Darod, Isaac, Dulbahante,…), I was sympathetic to their plight, and the senseless fighting among themselves. Though they are intact in terms of ethnic group, one nation, same language, same religion, unlike Ethiopia, which is a multi-national country differing in religion and race, the Somalis, however, instead of forging national unity and establishing a central government, continued to fight each other for the last 16 years, dividing the country at least into three enclaves. One can recall the case of Puntland, the Mogadishu area, and the south divided and led by warlords. The warlords created havoc among their own different ethnic groups, fanning the glaring clan politics.
The Ethiopian officials, mainly led by the incumbent foreign minister and professor Kinfe Abraham, the president of the so-called Ethiopian International Institute of Peace and Development, encouraged and abetted the division of Somalia into North, South, East, and West enclaves with a sinister design to weaken the national unity of Somalia and impose an ethnic form of federalism as has been done in Ethiopia. Abdulahi Yusuf comes into the picture here. For the record, when I was in Addis Ababa, working at the Foreign Ministry 8 years ago, Abdulahi Yusuf made frequent visits, three times in less than six months. The reception given to him was very warm and he had cordial conversations with the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister. Abdulahi Yusuf was a favourite among the other warlords whose allegiance has been divided between Kenya, Eritrea, Yemen, Libya, and Saudi Arabia.
As if that were not enough, the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments interfered in Somalian internal affairs thereby opening up a proxy war which was initiated as result of the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Meles supported the group led by Abdullahi Yusuf, and Issais Afeworki (Eritrean president) supported the so-called Islamic Courts, a group of fanatics who wanted to establish an Islamic state rather than a secular state. Therefore Somalia became a showdown of Ethiopian and Eritrean forces. The proxy war was made just only for two weeks culminating in a decisive and stunning victory by the Ethiopian troops against the Islamist forces and their Eritrean backers. The defeated army was disarrayed; some of the Eritrean high-ranking military officials were forced to flee Somalia through Kenya.
As I stated in the beginning of my article, the war, rather the proxy war, and the showdown of the Ethio-Eritrean forces should have culminated a year ago. But unfortunately, on the part of Ethiopia, the defeating party, it has dragged on until such time now that it has resulted in an unnecessary human tragedy which would have a long-lasting effect between the relations of the two neighbouring countries.
The latest figures indicate that about a million Somalis have been displaced as a result of the war. It is a very sad event in the political history of not only Ethio-Somalia but the Horn of Africa in general. Who is to blame? Abdullahi Yusuf, the Islamic Courts, Meles or Issais? I believe the responsibility should be shared equally by all four parties. It is a mix of pretexts, proxy war, fanaticism and a policy of appeasement. However, the main reasons, to my understanding, are the proxy war and the manoeuvres taken by the Meles regime to turn the attention of the Ethiopian people from his domestic problems to the war in Somalia.
Meles Zenawi’s rationale behind sending about 15,000 soldiers to Somalia in early 2007, was due mainly to a “threat” against the sovereignty of Ethiopia by the so-called Islamic Courts which are believed to have a connection to Al-Qaeda. Though the Islamic Courts might have a hostile attitude to Ethiopia as a historical enemy, in reality, this small fanatic group with a small number of soldiers cannot pose a major threat to a big country like Ethiopia, which has a strong defence force, and more than 70 million people. Therefore, Meles’ rhetoric, both at the rubber stamp Parliament of Ethiopia and with the international media, was simply a pretext for turning the attention of the people of Ethiopia away from the popular struggle for a radical change for democracy towards the war.
Therefore the objective of the invasion of Somalia was simply made for political expediency, i.e., to save the government of Meles Zenawi from the strong movement for democracy by the people of Ethiopia, who have shown strong support for the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party, commonly known as CUDP. After arresting the leaders and more than 50,000 supporters of the opposition party, the regime turned its attention to Somalia, an underdog in the Horn of Africa.
So now the CUDP is in disarray and the other smaller opposition parties are not faring well. The CUDP has shown a fractious situation by falling apart from each other because of one factor or another. This situation creates happiness on the part of the ruling party.
Turning back to the question under discussion, why doesn’t Meles pull out his forces from Somalia especially at this time when Somalia’s affairs have become an international tragedy? He has already shown his power, and achieved his goal, deterring a perceived enemy. So then why doesn’t he order his forces to pack and return to Addis Ababa? I am of the opinion that it would be unwise to stay in Somalia in such a miserable situation and under international outcry.
On the other hand, I would like to state that I am against terrorist activity in the Horn of Africa, in particular, the Middle East, and South Asia in general. I am a strong supporter of the war against terrorism. However, Meles could have attacked the Islamic Courts with a raid or two, making a surgical operation or a limited strike, and pull back.
The destruction of the Twin Towers in New York in 2001 has amply demonstrated that terrorism is a threat to world civilization. The bombings of the American embassies in Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi and the American naval ship at the Yemeni calling station have also demonstrated that the intention of the terrorists is to destroy, not construct.
To come to my final point, the case of Somalia versus Ethiopia: Meles Zenawi could have shown his strong support to the USA and NATO member countries by deploying a considerable number of forces to Iraq and Afghanistan, of course under the sanction of the United Nations. Ethiopia’s historic alliance with the USA and the west in general is a public secret. The international community knows very well the role played by the Ethiopian soldiers in both Korea and Congo in the 1960s. Their indefatigable spirit, enthusiasm, patriotism had been remarkably appreciated by the UN agencies and the western world.
About the Author:
Melaku Tegegne is a former Ethiopian journalist and diplomat, now a peace and democracy activist and can be reached at melaku_tegegne@hotmail.com. Please visit his blog, Issues in Focus, at http://issues-in-focus.blogspot.com/
Sidebar
“… The global communications greed now necessitates policy decisions, actions, and communications on an almost equal instantaneous basis. If a world leader, a leader of a country, delays in responding to a widely known crisis situation, perhaps made visible through television, as image of prisoner of war camps did in Bosnia in 1992, he or she will likely look indecisive, weak, or worse in the international media and court of public opinion. Moreover, lack of rapid policy making or public diplomacy in this hyper-information environment can have significant economic implication.”
source: New Media Technology: Cultural and Commercial Perspectives, page 355, by John V. Pavlik.
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