Ethiopia simmers

How authentic are the democratic credentials of Ethiopia's present Government? M. S. Prabhakara says there are no easy answers.

ETHIOPIA IS unique among African countries in that it is the only one which, though briefly under Italian occupation, was never colonised. Hence, it has no formal `independence day', though it has three `national days'. The first, March 2, commemorates Ethiopia's victory at Adwa over the invading Italian armed forces in 1896 - the only fullscale war, leaving aside individual battles, won by an African country against a European power. The second, April 5, called Liberation Day, commemorates the return of Emperor Haile Selaisse to Addis Ababa in 1941, marking the end of Italian occupation during the second world war. The third, May 28, commemorates the end to the Derg regime on that day in 1991.

The three days, which along with May Day constitute the only four national holidays, mark connections and continuities whose relevance is all too contemporary, though one of the days commemorates an event over a century ago. The days also constitute defining moments in the modern history of this ancient land. The victory at Adwa under Emperor Menelik II marked the beginning of a process of unification and modernisation, ``laying the economic foundations of the modern Ethiopian state''. The process was carried forward with greater vigour under Haile Selaisse who succeeded Menelik II after a prolonged and astutely conducted internal dynastic struggle. The process of unification of the Ethiopian state had a new element of expansionism, the true mark of a self-proclaimed imperial regime, culminating in the annexation of Eritrea.

However, the very forces released during this process of expansionism and consolidation, which Haile Selaisse sought to control and direct, ultimately consumed the Emperor and his imperial pretensions in July 1974.

The policies of the Derg (`Committee') regime under Haile Mariam Mengistu, though opposed to the imperial regime in every way, were marked by important elements of continuity, in particular the further consolidation of the state including the annexed Eritrea. Eritrea had been `integrated' into Ethiopia as a `federated province', with a measure of autonomy, after the Second World War through an arrangement between Haile Selaisse and the victorious allied powers. Its enforced `integration' into Ethiopia in November 1962 was the spark, as it were, that led to the Eritrean armed struggle for independence which ended nearly 30 years later in victory, coinciding with the fall of the Derg regime, in May 1991.

How has the country fared especially in the area of national consolidation, always problematic in complex and ethnically highly diverse societies such as Ethiopia where historically there have always been rivalries between the three largest ethnic groups, the Oromo, the Amhara and the Tigray? More crucially, how authentic are the democratic credentials of the present Government which came to power at the culmination of a struggle against `feudalism and dictatorship'? Or has Tigrayan dominance replaced Amhara dominance?

There are no easy answers. The integration of Eritrea into Ethiopia has been reversed, denying once again the long cherished desire of Ethiopians for an access to the sea. The `socialist experiment' under Derg which overthrew the Selaisse regime, despite its admitted excesses, released forces whose causal and even ideological links to the armed struggle against the Derg itself are all too obvious. That struggle culminated in the victory of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), comprising several ethnically organised regional opposition groups whose dominant component was and continues to be the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), in alliance with the older insurgency in Eritrea led by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). The two insurgencies were based in areas whose people shared ethnic identities, for the nuances of differences between the people of Tigray and Eritrea are difficult to comprehend even for many Ethiopians; and whose leadership shared a common ideology.

Hence, the incomprehension in much of the outside world when less than four years later, the two countries went to war over a border where, to quote from a different context in a different continent, `not a blade of grass grows'. As the issues have become unravelled since the agreement on cessation of hostilities (June 2000) and the signing of a `comprehensive peace accord' (December 2000), the deeper differences that had existed between the TPLF and the EPLF, united under a common cause, are becoming clear.

Apart from the conflict with Eritrea which, of its nature, admits no easy solution, the Government is faced with the perennial challenge of consolidation of the Ethiopian state. An even more crucial challenge is the consolidation of the democratic order, only which can ensure the consolidation of the state. However, for a system and a people long accustomed to autocratic order from above, this simple truth is difficult to comprehend. Thus, the harshness of the Government in handling even the most legitimate kind of protests, as was the case with the student protests last month in which over 40 people were killed. Hence, too, the utter negativity of the criticism of the Government by the fragmented and (in Parliament) numerically insignificant Opposition.

One of the more serious charges made by the Opposition is that the EPRDF is pursuing a policy of `ethnic federalism' which will lead, inescapably, to the disintegration of Ethiopia. Underlying this criticism is the assumption that Ethiopia had achieved national integration under the imperial regime, that there had been a consolidation of an Ethiopian identity shared by all its diverse people.

The fact, however, is that the centralised state of the imperial regime was challenged even in its heyday by organised or unorganised revolts, as indeed is the case with the present Government, be it by banditry or insurgencies.

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Section  : Opinion
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