Will the protests of Gondar and Oromia help EPRDF quickly transform itself?

July 14, 2016 in Articles, Ethiopia, Oromia

By Birhanemeskel Abebe Segni

(Horn Affairs) — Except for the willful blindness and deafness of the EPRDF, the causes of the growing discontent in Gondar, Amhara Region, and the now over eight months oldOromo Protests (#OromoProtests) are mere signs of long unaddressed and deeply seated major political and economic grievances.

Any close and keen observer of Ethiopian politics could tell off-the-cuff that the EPRDF government has failed itself and the Ethiopian people by abandoning and nullifying all of its governing theories that brought it to power 25 years ago, and now survives on the vigilante power of its security and military apparatus.

In the absence of governing theories that set the expectation of citizens from their government, as the Oromo Protests and the developing situation in Gondar indicates, there are limits to the government’s use of force against grieved civilian population by breaching the social contract of trust with the people which might force citizens to resort to collective self-defense, defense of their family members, and their property by taking the laws into their hands. That is very dangerous and puts the country on slippery slope risking serious instability and maybe even descending into conflict.

It is no less than political tragedy to see the EPRDF government waste all of its political capital and benefits of the doubt it got from the Ethiopian people 25 years ago, even from those on the fence. The demands of Oromo Protests and the larger Oromo self-administration questions as well as the identity question being raised by the Amhara ethnic group could have been easily addressed within the Ethiopian constitutional framework winning over important and lasting political allies for the EPRDF. Unfortunately, the EPRDF exchanged its political fortune with the proverbial thirty dinar in the hope of enriching few and appeasing shortsighted political power mongers.

Photo – Ethiopian PM Hailemariam Desalegn [Credit: Addis Standard, Oct. 2015]

Now, 25 years later, the governing theories introduced during the 1990s are all in disarray because of the EPRDF’s own making. The EPRDF government has abandoned answering the questions of nations and nationalism through genuine federalism. The talk of building democratic and representative governance under the rule of law are just that: talk. Instead, the EPRDF opted to merely give lips services to these critical questions by establishing satellite “ethnic organizations” whose real power emanates not from the people they claim to represent but from the TPLF led EPRDF Executive Committee.

The EPRDF government also abolished the “land to the tiller” policy of the Derg era by replacing it with “development by dispossession theory” where Ethiopian farmers and urban poor’s lands will be given to party officials, local affiliates and rent seekers, and its international financers– all in the name of “development.”

As the June 7, 2016 interview the Ethiopian Prime Minister gave to Greg Mills of Daily Maverick made it bare, the EPRDF economic policies, in spite of the empty rhetoric, are all geared toward enriching and serving the greedy global multinationals and the interests of local rent seekers instead of the Ethiopian people.

In this context, the EPRDF’s economic policies raises serious legitimacy questions. The primary purpose and objectives of any government is to pursue and serve its citizens’ economic welfare. The EPRDF government blinded by internal greed and the economic and political agendas that comes from Washington DC, New York, Brussels, and maybe Beijing, appears to have forgotten that there are 100 million Ethiopian citizens at home waiting on it. Add to that ethnic favoritism, nepotism, and ethnic disparity in economic and political power sharing: Ethiopia is waiting for grand firework.

The situation gets even direr when one looks at the EPRDF’s ability to handle popular discontent and grievances. It looks like all that the EPRDF government got in its tool boxes to address popular grievances and policy reform demands are only guns and more guns.

Over the last 25 years, the EPRDF government failed to establish institutions of governance and rule of law. Instead, it replaced the concept of “the rule of law” by “administrative discretions” empowering individual EPRDF cadres and the security apparatus which now operates with complete impunity. The EPRDF is harvesting what it sowed.

In the absence of the rule of law and the court of law, the life, liberty and property of Ethiopian citizens are at the mercy of the “vigilante justice” of the EPRDF military and security apparatus which acts with complete and absolute impunity. No one was held accountable for the cold bloodied killings of over 400 Oromo peaceful protesters over the last seven months of Oromo Protests according to Human Rights Watch. The Gondar protests are opening entirely new chapter.

Although the Ethiopian public are at the receiving end of the brunt of brutality now, the ultimate victims will be the victimizers. The EPRDF government’s repeated use of its security and military forces to contain political and policies grievances of the population across the country have largely discredited the country’s military and security institutions in the sight of the Ethiopian public.

It is unfathomable why the EPRDF political leadership ventured to take such major strategic risks which will have lasting implication on the future of these two institutions. Just 25 short years ago, the EPRDF abolished at least close to a century old Ethiopian security and military institutions the same ground that it found itself now. [On the issue of who is in charge on the security and military apparatus, I relied on the United States State Department’s assumption that the security and military institutions of the country are still under the civilian administration’s political control, whatever that means.]

Furthermore, in the hope of imposing its total and complete control on the Ethiopian people, the EPRDF government eliminated the Ethiopian society’s bridge builders, opinion makers, critical academics and journalists who could have facilitated vertical communication between the government and the people; and horizontal communications among the people and various sectors of the society.

By eliminating and dismantling the middle, the EPRDF denied the country alternative federalist and pluralistic voices while resurrecting, nurturing and feeding the dead politics of the past with all its poisonous rhetorical flourishes.

The EPRDF government also undermined institutions of knowledge production that traditionally used to enhance the Ethiopian societies social capital, however primitive and nascent they might have been. Now, one barely finds, if any, domestically produced researches and knowledges on current Ethiopian political, economic, social, and even religious issues.

On national, regional and global political and economic issues, Ethiopians literally have zero options to enlarge their understanding and knowledge of Ethiopia’s political, legal and policy choices; and continued to window-shop for ideas from the West through the tightly controlled and limited internet accessibility in Ethiopia. Even on religious matters, Ethiopian Muslims import their literatures from the Middle East while the Christians do the same from the West irrespective of all the cultural and other value discrepancies and other implications.

The Ethiopian security vigilantes, who always are prone to blocking websites and social media pages, considers Ethiopians access to internet and social media not as tools of expanding knowledge, understanding, facilitating trade and commerce in marketplace of ideas, services and building social capitals among citizens but as security threat to the government’s very existence. This is nothing less than an absolute paranoia.

The EPRDF government should also acknowledge that its failure of not nurturing and advancing the Ethiopian society’s values and virtues for truth telling, trust, respect for each other, honoring hard work, patriotism, and appreciation for people with unique talents have substantially contributed to the ongoing predicaments. The EPRDF, instead of appreciating and honoring people with knowledge, understanding and wisdom, favored and glorified thieves, killers, lairs, deceivers, and those who cut corners to get enriched by manipulating or corrupting the system thereby destroying our societies irreplaceable values.

That being said, the EPRDF government has still some viable choices and options if it has the political will to not evolutionarily reform but immediately transform itself, and address the economic, political and social demands of various sectors of the Ethiopian societies.

Let me offer some unsolicited advises of my own to the EPRDF government:

1st, the EPRDF, instead of lying to itself and the Ethiopian people, should immediately democratize itself among its member parties. The viability and credibility of the EPRDF depends upon the viability and the credibility of the OPDO and the ANDM among the Oromo and the Amhara people, respectively. Unless the TPLF political hospital that delivered these two organizations left them with incurable birth defect, the OPDO and the ANDM must act and operate independently to serve the best interests of the Oromo and Amhara peoples be it within or without the EPRDF. The TPLF has no better ally than these two organizations that itself created. Undemocratic EPRDF will neither brings democracy to Ethiopia nor builds democratic Ethiopia.

2nd, free all political prisoners and open up the political space for opposition parties by allowing the constitutionally guaranteed citizens’ rights of freedom of assembly, association and expression so that genuine and true multiparty system will take foothold in Ethiopia within the bound of the rule of law by replacing the current rotten system of administrative discretion of the vigilante security apparatus and swarms of political cadres that acts with complete and total impunity.

3rd, make Afaan Oromo additional federal working language alongside with Amharic to end, at least partially, the economic, political and social exclusion of the Oromo people in Ethiopia. I cannot over emphasis the necessity of making Afaan Oromo federal working language among the Oromo people, particularly the youth who constitutes about 74% of the Oromo population who are completely shut out of the Ethiopian political, economic and social structure mainly because of Ethiopia’s monolingual language policy.

4th, implement genuine federalism where the identity questions of the various nations and nationalities could be answered and respected; and federal economic and political powers are apportioned and shared equitably. The current economic and political power distribution, as the EPRDF leaders themselves privately acknowledge, is a recipe for disaster.

5th, end the ongoing land grab policies and introduce people centered economic policies that will empower the Ethiopian farmers and urban poor instead of political benefactors, rent seekers and greedy global multinationals with no social or moral causes.

Let’s hope that the EPRDF will do the nation and itself good by using the protests in Gondar and the ongoing Oromo Protests to help itself not evolutionarily reform but immediately transform itself into organization that is responsive to the demands of the people.

Oromoota Anniyyaa shanyii duguugaa irrati raawatamaa jira

July 11, 2016 in Oromia

‪#‎OromoProtests‬ Oromota Anniyyaa shanyii duguugaa irrati raawatamaa jira. Akkuma hundi keenya hubanuttii Oromofii saba biraa walitti buusuf wayyaneen mukin isin hin koree gaari isin hin baane hin jiru. Karaa Mi’asoo, nannoo Afaar, Baalen akkasumas karaa gaara mulataa nannoo Anniiyyaa yeroo heduu ilimaan jinnii Wayyaneen Oromofii Saba biraa walitti buusuf yaali godhaa jirtti. Kun maalif yoon jennee Oromofii saba biraa wal afaan keese, Qabsoo Oromoon gageessaa jiru achitti jaliftee ifii nagayan Araarii Qaboo taate jiraachu barbaadi.

Kan amma nannoo Anniyyyaa kun haalan badaadha. Nannoo kun akkuma isiin hubatan duubee daandiin konkkoolaata hin jiree dachii Oromon heduun qubattu kan duubee Qabsoo hidhannoo Oromo turee. Amma Wayyanee waraana somaali kan liyyu police ja’amu hidhanno guuutu itti hiitee Oromoota nannoo kanaa balnaan dachii irra buqaasa, nama hiduu ajeessaa, ganda gubaa, qabeenya saamaa jirtti.

Oromoon nannoo kana akka ifirra hin ittifnnee dursitee qawwee waan irra hiikameef waraani Somaalii kan liyyu police ja’an kan wayyaanen deeggaramu akkuma fedhe seene ummata keenya lafaraa fixaa jiraa. Kanaafu Oromon bakka jirutti akkata ummata kana itti gargaaru wal mari’achuu dadafaan barbachisaadha.

1. Oromon keenya kan Biyyaa alaa ummata kana akkata itti gargaaramuu dandayamuu irrati daddafiin walitti dhufanii mar’achuun bareedadhaa.
2. Oromon biyyaa akasuma qindomaan haala kana mootummaa akka dhaabu dhiiba irrati godhuu fii ummata kanaas akkata ittin bira dhaabatan mijeesun haalan gariidha.
3. Ilmaan Oromo sabboontoni mootumaaf keessa hoojatan, polisiin, militarii hunduu Oromota kana gargaarudha dirqama akkasumas toofta wayyaanen ummata keenyaafi saba biraa walitti buusuf xaxxaa jirtuu kana akkataa ittin fashaleesan wal mar’achuun ummata keenya kan dhumaa jiru kana waliin dhaabachuu dirqama lammumaatii hubadhaa.
4. Oromon Biyyaa alaa wa’e kana balinatti social media irrati baasunii haasahun information walii dabarsuu adunyaa akka dhageesu gochuun bareedadha.
5. Wayyaanen akka Oromoof sabin biraa walitti bu’aniif kana waan gochaa jirtuus xaxxama isaani kana keessa oso hin galee, saba sab-lammoottii olaa keenya waliin oso walitti hin buune akkataa rakko kana itti hiikkanu irratti hoojachuudha.
6. Oromon Biyya alaa sabaaf Sab -lammootti olaa keenya kan akka Ogaaden, Afaar fii kan biraa waliin waan kana mar’achuu sadarkaa Komonittiiti waliin mar’achuu, rakkoo jiru kana akka hubatan gochuu, labsa walii galaa (Joint Statement) waliin baasuu yoon danda’amee hirriraa waliin bahudha. Oromoon Biyya keessas akkasumas nannoo keenya olaa saba biraa waliin nagayan irrati hojachuudha.
7. Kanaraa kan hafee rakkoolllen dubannu tun hundi mallatoo gabrummaati furman isii kan hundee bilisoomudhaa. Waan kana tahee Oromon dhamaquu, jaaramuu, hooganaa cimaa ifi keesssa baasu, dhaaba cimaa tolfachuu, waraana cimaa jaarachuun furmaata dhumaati.

Qabsoon itti fufa!!! Via  Daraaraa Sabaa

---

OMN: Harargee Bahaa Aanaa Qumbiitti namoonni 16 ajjeefaman

‪#‎oromoprotests‬ OMN:Oduu Adol. 11, 2016 Godina Harargee bahaa aanaa Qumbiitti, poolisoonni Liyyuu Hayil weerara daangaa Oromiyaa irratti raawwataniin namoonni kudha jaha yoo ajjeefaman namoonni jaha ammoo madaayuun himame.

Qabeenyi hedduun kan saamame yoo ta’u, namoonni hafanis qe’ee isaanii irraa baqachuu jiraattoonni dubbatan.

Waggoota shanan darban irraa jalqabee poolisoonni Liyyuu Hayil kan mootummaa Itiyoophiyaatiin deeggaraman jiraattota godina Harargee bahaa aanaalee gara garaa irratti weerara geggeessaa akka turan beekkamaadha.

Poolisoonni Liyyuu Hayil kun wayta adda addaattii daangaa Oromiyaa seenuun tarkaanfii ajjeechaa raawwataa kan turan yoo ta’u, ammas haala hamaa ta’een namoota nagaa ajjeesaa jiran.

Guyyaa dheengaddaa irraa jaqlabee wal waraansa polisoota liyyuu Hayilii fi jiraattota godina Harargee bahaa aanaa Qumbii jiddutti geggeeffamaa jiruun, namoonni kudha jaha yoo ajjeefaman, qabeenyi hedduun poolisoota kanaan saamamee jira.
Lola geggeeffamaa jiru kana jalaa jiraattoonni hundi qe’ee isaanii gadi dhiisanii baqatanii jiru.

Lolli jiraattota aanaa Qumbii irratti baname kun guyyoota sadii dura kan jalqabe yoo ta’u, haga ammaatti akkuma itti fufetti jiraachuullee jiraattoonni dubbatan.

Wal waraansa achitti geggeeffamaa jiru kana keessaa mootummaan Itiyoophiyaa harka qabaachuu isaatis himame.

Lola ta’e kanaan namoonni kudha jaha poolisoota liyyuu Hayiliin kan ajjeefaman yoo ta’u, haga ammaatti reeffi namoota kudha shanii awwaalamee jira.

Reeffi nama tokkoo ammoo danqaraa keessatti waraabessaan yoo nyaattamu, namoonni jaha madaayuu isaanii namni kun mararfatanii dubbatanii jiru.

Akka isaan jedhanitti, gochaa mootummaan Ityoophiyaa nurratti raawwateen reeffa nama keennaa awwalachuu dadhabnee jirra.

Qabeenyi hedduun nu jalaa samaamee jira. Qe’ee dhaloota keennaa dhiifnee lubbuu keennaan baqachuuf ammoo dirqamnee jirra jedhan.

Wayta lolli hamaan poolisoota Liyyuu Hayiliin nurratti raawwatamaa jiru kanatti qaama nuuf birmatu dhabnee ajjeefamaa jirra jechuun dubbatan.

Sababaan lolli kun jiraattota aanaa Qumbii irratti banameef maalii gaaffii jedhuuf namni kun yoo deebisan.

Bakki lillo kun ammaan kana haalaan jabaatee itti geggeeffamaa jiru aanaa Qumbii naannawa magaalaa Minoo akka ta’es namni kun himanii jiru.

Haalli ammaan kana muldhataa jiru hedduu yaaddessaa ta’uu kan nuuf himan namni kun, keessumattuu wayta poolisoonni naannoo shanii duula hamaa nurratti geggeessaa jiranitti, poolisoonni Federaalaa daanagaa lamaan jidduu jiran ammoo qaamota mootummaan nutti bobbaasee kanaaf tumsa ta’anii jiru jedhan.

Itti dabaluun akka namni kun jedhanitti, lafaa fi qabeenya isaaniirratti ajjeefamuu qofa osoo hin taane, daangaan Oromiyaa poolisoota kanaan weeraramee jira.

Lola guyyoota sadiif geggeeffamaa jiru kanaan poolisoonni kun lafa baldhinni isaa kiilo meetira 40 ta’u daangaa Oromiyaa ufi jalatti dhuunfatanii jiru.

Bulchiinsi mootummaa Oromiyaa ufiin jedhus haga ammaatti furmaata kenneef tokkos akka hin jirre himan.

Poolisoonni kun mootummaa Itiyoophiyaatiin leenjifamanii meeshaa waraanaa gurguddaa hidhachuudhaan kan jiraattoota irratti tarkaanfii ajjeechaa raawwaataa turan. Ammas akkasuma.

Maqaa babaldhifannaa lafaa jedhuun loltoonni Liyyuu hayil kun, daangaa Oromiyaa humnaan weeraruun qabeenya hedduu saamaa jiru.

Lola geggeeffamaa jiruun ammoo namoonni hedduun qe’ee isaanii irraa baqatanii jiran.
Rakkoo kana furuuf qaamni birmateef tokkos akka hin jirre jiraattoonni dubbatan.

Wayta gara garaatti milishoonni mootummaa Itiyyophiyaatiin gargaaraman kun daangaa godina Harargee bahaa seenuun duula jabaa geggeessaa kan turan yoo ta’u, inni ammaa kun haalaan yaadessaa ta’uullee jiraattonni himanii jiru.

Usmaan Ukkumeetu gabaase.

The Saga of Addis Ababa, the Master Plan & the Revolt of Oromos in EPRDF’s Ethiopia

July 6, 2016 in Ethiopia

By Mikael Wossen (PhD)

Keep going, don’t ever stop. Keep going, don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
– Harriet Tubman

The quotation above is worth keeping in mind, when trying to make sense of the following interdisciplinary examination of the so called Addis Ababa Master Plan and its main effects i.e. the protracted and simmering mass protests that it ignited across Oromia, Ethiopia. Our inquiry primarily asks, what are the defining social and economic forces and relations that ignited the confrontations that led to this protracted conflict? Moreover, in our pedagogical practice we strive for a national self-consciousness. The focus is on how we can all struggle in unity, as individuals and compatriots, against supremacist domination, injustice and neo-colonial exploitation in all their varieties. An attack on any Ethiopian, regardless of ethnicity, is thus considered as an attack on all of us and the fundamental rights and dignity that define us as Ethiopians.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital is growing at a furious pace and urban architectural/infrastructural developments are running apace as steel, glass and concrete buildings seem to enmesh and emerge from the ground up. Traffic is clogging up the narrow streets. A new skyline is forming as material and social forces are bubbling up from below. Addis Ababa is growing upwards and outwards. Everybody marvels at the pace of change. Have you seen the underpass and the new Chinese made ‘light rail’ public transport train that crosses the city? Have you seen this or that intersection or building. These are popular subjects of conversation. The distance between Addis Ababa and the surrounding regions, seems to be closing, helped by more rapid and efficient transportation grids.  You might say the city is undergoing an urban sprawl of sorts, and experiencing a rising population density as well. New buildings are emerging everywhere. The old city of our childhood is changing fast.  Addis Ababa now is a city with an estimated population of around 4 million. While the city grows, most poor Addis Ababans have still no access to a hygienic modern toilet system that befits a city, and lack access to clean water. Both are in short supply in this naturally rich land. Still some form of rapid urbanization and demographic growth is visible to the naked eye. Electricity is also scant in Addis. Ferequais a power sharing method introduced by the TPLF. Recently, the lights failed in a hotel inhabited by visiting foreign dignitaries. As usual, some rural folks (over 80% of the Ethiopian population) tend to migrate into the city, in search of wage employment. With few exceptions, providing employment is still the privilege of the state in Ethiopia. And as the old saying goes, in a country where the sole employer tends to be the state, political opposition implies death by starvation.  Anyway, in this migratory trend, a few succeed in gaining some kind of employment, others become beggars or somehow homeless, and still some others move on to Middle Eastern destinations of domestic servitude; a great many become ensnared in a life of local penury and other gross social ills spreading across the breadth and depth of the wider urban landscape, also known as Finfine.

Ethiopia is a tough place to be born in, particularly if you are from the poorer and less powerful sector of society. Ethiopians have always been deprived of civic/political rights and landownership. Food insecurity is endemic in a society where all land is owned by the state or rather the party. Society is run by tired nineteenth and 20th Century ideologies and myopic policies. Peripheral capitalism grinds on in its extractive form. In the name of developmentalism and fighting poverty, the TPLF-led regime is promoting floriculture within 200 km radius of Addis Ababa and giving away 3 million hectares of virgin lowland areas and water to foreign capitalists, while the Ethiopian small holder’s plot is shrinking from about half a hectare (during Mengistu’s era) to only a quarter of a hectare now. In essence, Ethiopia is producing flowers and food for others, while its citizens go hungry or starve. One of the authorities thinks we are ‘taking off.’ Food availability for millions literally depends on the kindness of foreigners. Meanwhile, sanitation coverage in the country remains low even by Africa’s depressed standard; only 11% of the population was found to have access to adequate sanitation. Along with rapid urbanization, diseases associated with poor nutrition and scarcityof clean water are expanding. People in the capital can go for days without seeing water or electricity. Yet, the place is endowed with tremendous water resources and hopes to export hydroelectric power to neighbors. When GERD is finally constructed it will be the largest hydroelectric power facility in Africa.

As archaic and regressive as it is, ethnicity has become a fundamental organizing principle of social and political life. Every Ethiopian holds an ethnic ID. Moreover, Ethiopia is divided into nine major killils, or ethnic enclaves (Bantustans). In the TPLF’s architecture of domination known as ethnic federalism, an ethnic hierarchy prevails and the dominant Tigrean party-state is intrusive in every sphere of social life and sector of production. The political agenda of the ruling ethnic party, as the supreme law of the land, has subordinated the historic national interests of the Ethiopian state. Thinking freely and opposing the regime is criminalized.  The ethnic party commands and polices everything, from its subject’s schooling, to their feeding and employment opportunities. All land is state-owned as is distributorship of seed and fertilizers. The TPLF occupies all the seats in parliament, except for one. Subjects are routinely infantilized. Let us recall Dowden’s description of the minority regime’s arrogant and tyrannical modus operandi ‘If you do what the party/government says,’ you get credit and assistance- land, water, seed and fertilizer services, ‘if you don’t you get nothing.’  Still, a certain process of urbanization and demographic multiculturalism is continuing; in the city, people of different ethnic groups tend to be working and living more tightly together, rather than apart. Everyone, regardless of ethnicity, will be required to somehow communicate with their neighbors. Generally speaking, the city tends to unify what the ethnic killils divide and segregate. By 2050, it is estimated that 70% of the world’s population will live in urban centers.

Ethnic segregation/isolation is more palpable in the less-urbanized and rural regions of Ethiopia. The TPLF-led EPRDF regime claims its support among the 80%, barely literate, rural folk it controls tightly through ownership of land and a formidable 5-1espionage apparatus.  The regime is formally structured along ethnic federalist lines, or what was more appropriately and honestly termed as apartheid (aparthood) in South Africa. The federal designation is strictly formal, as separate ethnic based ‘homelands,’ sectarian privileges and inequalities are enforced at gunpoint in TPLF’s Democratic Republic of ethnic groups. The ideological attachment to democracy and the ‘people,’ is equally phony, as land robbery, demonization and persecution of other non-Tigrean ’peoples’ and ‘nationalities’ actually prevails, with Tigrai killil and its people (about 6%of the entire population) being the most advantaged. This minority group appropriates the lion’s share of the nation’s  export-oriented political economy (land, offices, gold, airline and military. According to a recent World Bank report on public expenditure review, the TPLF or the federal authorities have never transferred more than 6% of the cash revenue to the regional states. In other words, 94% of federal budget is used wholly at the discretion of the ‘vanguardist’ TPLF. This is revolutionary democracy indeed. This all-powerful and sectarian ruling group drives the expansion of the city in its own particularistic interests.

At the root of the extended revolt throughout Oromia is the so called Master Plan. According to this contested plan, the expanding multiethnic city of Addis Ababa is set to absorb the surrounding villages and districts, including some 36 potential towns in what is known now as the Oromo Regional State. The city’s “Master Plan” is a huge municipal expansion scheme, officially predicated on the need to include and provide services to the impoverished rural areas surrounding the ever-expanding/urbanizing Addis Ababa metropolis. One wonders why not first provide basic services and sustenance to the urban poor already living within Addis Ababa proper? This would require a people-centered development agenda, rather than the rentier state-led one advocated by Meles’ cadres.  Anyway, the city has some 29 rural Kebeles that provide gateways of expansion that bleed into the boundaries of Oromia.

That being as such, the growth of the city is as relentless as the ruling caste’s tyrannical craving for absolute domination and quick profits. During the Italian fascist invasion of 1936-41, the idea of Ethiopia represented atabula rasa or a blank slate took root in the mind of the colonialists. This false but yet seductive assumption became pronounced in the writings of fascist ideologues, architects and urban planners. It did not matter that the capital has existed at least since 1889. Between1936-1941, the Italians declared that Addis Ababa should emerge anew from this ‘virgin fantasy.’ This fixed idea of a brand new colonial and fascist urbanism had a modernist appeal and was experimented on Addis Ababa. The idea was to rebuild the existing city ‘from the ground up’, so as to make it acceptable to the fascist’s modern tastes and aesthetic sensibilities. In the colonial scheme of things, Italian overpopulation in Italy was to find a safety pin in the colonies of the empire.  Thus, the round houses (tukuls) of Ethiopians were declared unhygienic and irrational. Their primitive architecture was considered hazardous to health and offensive to Italians. They needed to be removed.  This makeover of the imperial city into a modernist capital was to be achieved by adhering to Mussolini’s wishes of numerous sventramenti or demolitions within the city’s fabric. The rebuilding process was going to involve ruthless planning along rigid lines, with severe segregation between the races. The realization and extension of this city-wide modernization process, with few modifications, is currently known as the Master Plan.

Towards the end of April of 2014, Oromo higher education students began demonstrations against this type of TPLF-led demolition, confiscation of land and expansion of Addis Ababa into a mega metropolitan region, as outlined in the current “Integrated Master Plan for Addis Ababa.” In other words, the population wanted to have a say in what matters to their land and to them. At the time, the Tigrean chief (Abay Tsehaye) said boastfully that he would put the protesters/ demonstrators in their place, as ‘we will show them’.  Ultimately, however, it was the protestors who showed their power to the authorities. The protests, at the time, began around the universities in the Oromo region of Ethiopia. Students alleged that the “Master Plan” was merely an excuse for land grab, or for robbing the Oromo people blind, and enriching the usual suspects of the ruling caste and their foreign partners. In other words, it is more of the same policy of scramble for prime property/resources that has already enriched a few well connected functionaries/operatives and TPLF’s top military brass now living in Addis Ababa. These set of preferential policies include granting privileged rights to land use and other properties by the regime to its supporters, foreign investors, assorted sycophants and relaxed credits to  members of their own tightly knit Tigrean families. The battle cry of those in the streets was something along the lines that the Hagoses cannot enrich themselves with Dibaba’s ancestral lands.

Once the outrage exploded across Oromia, the TPLF-EPRDF regime responded by mass slaughter of the students. Soldiers simply shot at them. Some students died and others were injured. The ethnic surrogates were confused and their representativeness begun to be questioned; as with ANDM, so with OPDO now. Who do these parties really represent?  Aba Dula called this state-sponsored mass murder a “Sihtet,” or a mistake. This savage policy of executing legitimate protesters was clearly a well-practiced criminal attitude, clearly not a mere and sudden mistake. Shooting at citizens peacefully demanding justice was normalized. It is now totally unacceptable to all decent Ethiopians and the progressive international community. In our view, the legitimate demands of the Oromo students and all Ethiopians for justice and equality, and the government’s blood thirsty response, should be examined more sanely and carefully. After all, Ethiopia is a member of the UN’s Human Rights Council. Was it not Mill who called democracy ‘a government by discussion’, rather than force/repression. It is time to bring forth important policy decisions concerning land ownership and use/abuse to public discussions. Here is a respected Ethiopian scholar’s opinion (Aklog Birrara, p. 129) on the elemental nature of this conflict. “The massive transfer of fertile farmlands from Ethiopian families, communities and the entire society to foreign investors is the last ominous indicator of a regime that is determined to rob the country and its people of their most critical natural resource assets, their honor, dignity and sovereignty – all done in the name of development and transformation”. In other words, the TPLF’ fights poverty’ by expropriating or usurping (grabbing) the land of Ethiopian families and disenfranchising its ancestral owners.

Our humble proposal is that the cluster of political and jurisdictional issues in question should be reasoned out in the seminar halls of the rebellious universities. What exactly is being transformed and what is the meaning of development in Ethiopia? Is this about people or is it simply a question of encouraging maximum resource extraction and export? Where do citizens belong in this transformative process? How do these illicit land grab/exchange policies benefit the masses who, in the process, are forced to give up their most crucial resource i.e, land, and livelihood. In any case, murder of peaceful demonstrators is not what is expected from a government allegedly run by reason and claiming a democratic sensibility. What happened to the much vaunted Ethiopian renaissance movement? Should not thought/discussion oust brute force in the practice of the TPLF’s statecraft now? The TPLF has been in power for a quarter century.

This time around, unlike 2014, the parents and communities of the students have also joined the new protests that were re-ignited at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016. These protests against land robbery and related injustices range from Korem to Gambella. The subjugation and land theft ritual of the TPLF supremacists against the orginal populations of the land is severe and pervasive. The people are impoverished and angered. The current violent reaction of the people of Lafto, a sub-division of Addis, is instructive.  The frustrations/outcries against the regime could not be contained in the institutions of higher education any longer. Conservatively, since November alone, over 400 citizens have been killed by special US trained and Tigrean-led  paramilitary forces. In some areas, the protests have reached insurrectionary proportions. Roads leading into Addis Ababa have been blocked by debris . The demonstrators of Ginde Beret have burnt and destroyed paraphernalia of what was to be a park and foundation site dedicated to Meles Zenawi, the TPLF’s anointed ‘man of vision’ or visionary. The demonstrators have torched his picture/poster as well. To be sure, this was a nationally popular gesture. Meles is regarded as a neo-colonial puppet by the majority of Ethiopians. In effect, these are resistances against the ideology of Melesism, and his notion of the intrusive developmental state of land expropriation/grab schemes, and against the export-oriented macro-economic priorities of the regime. A European owned company had leased and fenced off some 100 hectares of prime communal grazing land, where families’ live Similar injustices prevail in Gambella, Omo region and North-Western Amara district, where ownership of land and water is at stake. People from resource-depleted and overpopulated parts of Ethiopia are invading, leasing out and despoiling and violating the resource rich sections of Ethiopia.

Clearly, there is a gross deficit in both federalism and democracy in Ethiopia. The notion of the centralized dictatorship of the developmental state contradicts the claims to federalism. Equality and freedom of expression are supposed to be at the heart of democracy. These are non-existent in TPLF’s Ethiopia. Those demonstrating and protesting are of the new generation, products of the separatist and neo-colonial politics of “ethnic apartheid” that is struggling to take root in Ethiopia. This is a generation raised under the Meles doctrine of Killilism, economic developmentalism and Tigrai first ideology. They do not oppose the ethnic dispensation of power per se, they merely want their rightful share in this new ethnic calculus of wealth and power. They are angered at not being adequately represented in the ethnic equation,  and thus unable to fully share in the spoils of power and privilege.  They are particularly worried and concerned about the Addis Ababa administration’s expansion into what are, by FDRE’s Constitution, Oromo farms and villages surrounding the capital and belonging exclusively to the Oromo people. This implies illegal commoditization and transfer of Oromo land by high members of the ruling Tigrean party and the federal administration. What is going to happen to these rural folk evicted from their land for next to nothing? When Addis Ababa expands twenty-fold as projected in the Master Plan, will former land owners be merely expropriated and kicked off their land? Will they be, in the end, living as landless paupers in Oromia or Addis Ababa? The vexing problem had been officially described as being one of “jurisdictional overlap” between the administrations in Addis Ababa and the authorities of the Oromia state (headquartered in Addis Abeba).  In the face of stubborn protests, it was announced that the whole idea of a ‘Master Plan’ has been shelved.

It was Marx who prophesized that each sociopolitical structure carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Obviously the state-led urbanization, expropriation and commercialization of land envisioned for the emerging “special zone” has run up against the ethnic demarcation of territories (Killils) institutionalized by the TPLF-EPRDF. When you start reading specific populations into territories, you are not far from fascism; anyway this regime of ethnic segregation is indeed a product of the Italian fascist occupation period of 1936-41. Today, over 10 million Amaras are said to live without guaranteed rights in Oromia. They live under the threat of ethnic cleansing in other parts of the country as well. Since similar problems of urbanization and transmigration of people, land alienation and transfer of ownership are said to exist around the growing urban regions, realistic negotiations need to begin with an eye to maintaining the long-term national cohesion and integrity of Ethiopia. This is a question over who will exercise ownership over land in the future, and determine land usage and exchange in the newly urbanized special spaces. As such, this is a political problem and should be resolved by a political engagement with the people directly concerned.

The process of regime atonement must begin, not by offering what amounts to blood money to victims, but by holding the people responsible for the shootings of the demonstrators to the high standards of the country’s laws. The responsible authorities must at least face the law before paying any form of reparations to the victims. Discussants must be cognizant that what is at stake is what it means to be an Ethiopian citizen in the 21st Century. The crucial economic question now concerns how much reward does the government intend to grant the population that agrees to be resettled. Resettlement must be voluntary. A half-hearted request for forgiveness by the puppet PM for the mayhem, massacre, torture and rape committed by his cadres and soldiers will not suffice. A regime that does not account for its atrocious and violent crimes against its own people(s) is one that has lost its ethical compass and right to rule