(Aigaforum, Oct 23, 2006):-
The long waited report form the independent inquiry commission
appointed by the government of Ethiopia is now official. It has been submitted
to the Ethiopian parliament. The commission was empowered to investigate how
and why people died during the riots that followed election 2005. The current
government unlike its predecessors did not hide the fact people died. It
appointed a commission to learn from the incident. This should bode well for the democratization process underway.
Many argue once the commission report was finalized the government
should not have stalled the official release of it. In today’s world let alone
a formally established commission report even a highly regarded unclassified
report is leaked in no time. Anti democratic forces have used the slow release
of the report to their advantage. Case in point is the total number of those
killed.
The number of deaths through out the country reported by AP is 193.
Although one death is one too many, it is a fact, had the government had not
intervened to stop the mayhem the rioters would have caused many more deaths.
The commission was established to investigate the whole truth around
the incident. We hope it has done so nevertheless it is up to the government to
decide what to do with this report. In this case it is our firm believe the
government should take this report to heart and devise a mechanism to avoid a
repeat. Those unjustly injured by government forces should be compensated. If
there were flagrant violation committed by security and opposition forces
citied in this report the government should pay close attention. The law of the
land should apply to any one. And, above all, let the healing process start.
The report as informed source suggest is not at all that bad to the
government. As poor as Ethiopia is and as ill equipped, as the security forces
were to stop violent protestors it is even a miracle the country has survived.
The lesson to take from this report is opposition forces should understand
civil disobedience does not mean killing police officers, it does not mean
destroying public properties, it does not mean targeting certain ethnic groups
for harm. Civil disobedience entails playing by the rule of law. The government
should take a lesson that force is not always the best option. Force should be
the last option and in this case the government may have waited too long for
things to get out of control.And that can not be right.
The democratization process must continue and credit goes to the government
for establishing the commission. We know it is hard to practice democracy in a
country strangled with abject poverty but we Ethiopians are unique and we must strive to do the impossible!