A PROUD COUNTRY BELITTLED

Teshome Abebe

April 26, 2007

Ethiopia is a big country. Its population is almost 80 million people, and its landmass though not as big as the Sudan or even the Congo, is considerable. It has a historical legacy that is both magnificent as well as riddled with conflict, natural disasters as well as mismanagement. None of these factors become significant in and of themselves except that Ethiopia is in the middle of a very tough and unsavory neighborhood.

No country has the option of choosing who its neighbors ought to be. As a major country in the part of the world know as the Horn, Ethiopia is surrounded by countries  who seem to have interminable problems of governance, stability, and both natural as well as man made problems. The overwhelming majority of the populations of the countries in the entire Horn region are uneducated. As a consequence, economic development is either retarded or non-existent. Social and political development is at best spotty, and there remains an enormous vacuum of social order and unity emanating mostly from the existence of so many nationalities and peoples with differing aspirations. This situation is further exacerbated when external powers and interests manipulate events so as to make an already tense and complicated situation even more troublesome.

One of the most important political and social developments in Ethiopia beginning in 1991 is the emergence of a country with a governance arrangement based on a federal system. Perhaps the result of a sinister design or perhaps just a coincidence, this arrangement is viewed by the overwhelming majority of Ethiopians as a division of its people based on ethnic lines with all the attendant consequences that this entails. While the federal arrangement has produced a form of democratic self expression as well as self-governance, it has also weekend the strong federal government, and in many ways, has made it seem like a lumbering giant unable to defend and guarantee the security and safety of its own citizens. I am not suggesting that the federal government, having devolved power to the “ethnic states”, reclaim or re-engineer its power at the expense of the states. What I am suggesting is that the devolution of certain functions of the federal government to the weak, inexperienced, corrupt and incompetent local officials has not only undermined the security of individual  citizens, but has also led to the repeated and gratuitous humiliation of the country by those who wish to embarrass and harm it in any way they can.

Incident after incident points to the fact that local officials are either incapable of securing the safety of citizens or that they do not wish to do so. What happened in Bedeno, Deder, Gambella, Western Oromia, Southern Oromia, near Jimma and not too long ago, in Afar, and now in the Ogaden, have been instances of failures to provide security to local citizens and in the later case, to those involved in activities geared toward economic development. Most incidents in the past have been  brushed off as the work of local, disaffected individuals, extremists, and/or liberation fighters. In all cases, however, the damage done both to the suffering people as well as the country in general is immense. It is not at all certain at this point as to who was responsible for the security of the oil exploration team that perished in the wastelands of the Ogaden. Presumably, the victims were engineers, surveyors, geologists and other highly skilled workers. Regardless of who was responsible (federal troops or local militias), the warning that the attack would take place was clear: it was delivered in the international media, in clear day light, with clear and unequivocal language, and with a hellish conviction only a murderous outfit could muster.

Nowhere is this humiliation and belittling of Ethiopia more apparent than the actions of a certain dictator who resides in Asmara. Through repeated instances of provocation, he has tried to bloody Ethiopia. Once again, he has been accused of involvement in the massacre of innocent civilians as well as security personnel in the Ogaden.

Over the past several months, many—including this writer-- have raised concern that the level of violence to which the dictator in Asmara has been linked to must be stopped or at least be mitigated in some way. No government in the world can totally prevent unfortunate incidents taking place within its borders whether it is terrorist attacks or other natural disasters. By the same token, all governments should be held responsible for guaranteeing the safety and security of their citizens. At the very minimum, there should be attempts at detection, prevention, apprehension and prosecution of those individuals and groups that cause harm and havoc in any society. What is so bothersome about the recent oil-field-massacres is the apparent failure, either at the federal or state levels, of the security functions of detection and prevention. What went wrong? Who missed the clues, and why does the warning appear to have been ignored?  Was the security of the workers at the oil-filed delegated to the state government? And if the security of the field workers was the responsibility of the federal government, was adequate protection provided, or was the federal government security apparatus distracted by the war in Somalia and the security situation at the border with Eritrea? These are important questions that everyone –including the Ethiopian parliament--needs to ask. We owe it to those that have sacrificed everything so that the development of the country can move forward!

It would be very easy to condemn and rant about everything that we might all find unacceptable and unsatisfactory. The responsibility of securing the safety of ones citizens, however, is a solemn duty that every government must take very seriously. What else can governments provide for their citizens if not, at the very least, a sense of security and safety as they pursue their daily lives?

The prime minister of Ethiopia has said repeatedly that his country will not go to war with any one for acts that do not hamper his country’s economic development. Granted that war is an ugly and a very costly affair, but foreclosing what the specific response might be to acts of provocation would only encourage those that wish to tweak your nose to keep pushing the envelope and raising the stakes with each act of provocation. The spectacular attack and massacre of the oil field workers at Abole   might signify not only the escalation of the sequence of provocative acts but also of the spectacular failure of the security forces and others to detect and prevent such horrific acts.

Like all Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia all over the world, I am extremely saddened and horrified that innocent civilians have been massacred by those who have absolutely no value for the human life. Needless to say, no amount of savagery will accomplish their goal, no brutality, no matter its degree, will further their aim, and no government worthy of its name should ever allow this sort of thing to happen again!

The author, a resident of the United States, may be reached at: fekade12003@yahoo.com