Ethiopia : Development or War?
Muluberhan Lolia, Toronto, Canada December, 2006
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The horn of Africa is one of the hot spots of the world for renewed war, flood and starvation. As many of us are aware, it is much common to hear about so many disastrous events from time to time. At times it looks like that we have to disagree and fight in order to survive, even though this is also common in many African countries, the horn of Africa's problem seems much worse. The crisis is also spilling to neighboring countries of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc, and it is affecting our social, political and economic well being.
When the current regime of Eritrea is doing all it can to destabilize Ethiopia and when the United Nations secretary Kofi Annan said, "the recent development constitutes a major breach of the ceasefire and the integrity of the temporary security zone." guess what our Prime Minister said, "I don' t thing it changes things fundamentally. We are not going to respond to minor provocations militarily", he also emphasized that breaching the peace agreement has been the normal behavior of the Eritrean government. Why is the current government of Ethiopia treating Shaebia’s behavior with a kid glove, when Shaebia is doing all it can to destabilize our country? To many Ethiopians this is a mystery, while many Ethiopians have different opinions why the government of Ethiopia is doing this. The people who are opponents of the current regime see this as the Prime minister being an Eritrean agent, while other Ethiopians see it as this being the government’s strategy to kneel down Eritrea peacefully by gaining international support and putting pressure on economic and diplomatic avenues, as some put it as this being, “the slow chronic suffering of Shaebia to its final death”, but so far there are no clear indications that can justify this rational.
To your information Shaebia is holding our citizens in Eritrea as human shields and due to this reason Ethiopians are not allowed to leave Eritrea no matter what, nor are allowed to work. The only tiny window they have is for their children to leave Eritrea if they finished high school and the process takes up to three years. Ethiopians in Eritrea are not allowed to work and live a normal life. Shaebia’s officials and the public also subject them to day-to-day harassment and they are not allowed to use cell phones, unlike Eritreans who are living freely in Ethiopia. I am not saying that we have to treat Eritrean residents in Ethiopia, the same way as our Ethiopian brothers and sisters in Eritrea are treated, but the government of Ethiopia should do all it can to protect the rights and privileges of Ethiopians in Eritrea. Many of us specially, Canadian Ethiopians know how the government of Canada reacted when the Iranian government imprisoned Canadian Iranian journalist Karzay who died in the prisons of Iran. To your information the government of Canada called its ambassador from Iran and demanded a full investigation about the death of the journalist and it gained enormous coverage on Canadian as well as western media. Eritreans should also live in Ethiopia only as foreign nationals and I don't see any rational why we shouldn’t treat any Eritrean as any foreign national. To your information, Eritreans who have been deported from Ethiopia and who are living abroad, they are collecting monthly rents from Ethiopian Kebele houses, while many Ethiopians families are homeless.
As we all know poverty, disease and illiteracy are our main enemies, although with impressive economic growth primary care and illiteracy could be improved. Many Ethiopians including the government of Ethiopia and the United Nations mostly agree these reasons. The report posted on the web by The Daily Monitor on November 12, 2006 indicates that, the UN 2006 Human Development Ranking (HDR) placed Ethiopia at the eight least position out of the 177 countries, i.e. Ethiopia stood at 170 place. According to the UN, the index is a standard measure of well being, as well as the impact of economic policies on quality of life. As many of us would agree we should do all we can to avert war, as war is the enemy of our primary goal that is poverty. How about when the recent development of war that is looming between our country and the Islamic court of Somalia? Well, whether we like it or not it going to increase the suffering of our people, no matter what the outcome of this war is. The government of Ethiopia seems furious, rushing its military advisors and troops to the government of Baidoa. The government of Ethiopia gave few reasons why it is doing this. Let’s examine the main reasons,
First of all it is not only the Islamic Court that is claiming Ethiopian territory. The entire world knows that the Eritrean government is claiming a large part of Ethiopian territory but because someone claims, it doesn't mean we have to send our troops and fight. Claiming part of our territory doesn’t only last with Somalia and it is also a matter of time, to be raised by other Ethiopian neighbors too. For this reason, it is only through dialogue and peaceful negotiations we should solve our differences and we should really come out of this prolonged fear of war that is looming on our people, that could have enormous impact in the activities and daily life of the people. It was the right choice that there were negotiations in Addis Ababa between the current regime of Asmera and the Ethiopian government that sadly didn't last much and was curtailed due to Shaebia's forceful occupation of Ethiopian territory.
Before we see the case of our country and Somalia let us examine what Terrorism and Fundamentalism is from different perspectives, Bruce Lawrence, defines fundamentalism as, “the affirmation of religious authority as holistic and absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction”. On the other hand the BBC reported on Sep 20, 2001 the following regarding terrorism,
“Only a few EU countries have defined terrorism in law. One is Britain - the Terrorism Act 2000 is the largest piece of terrorist legislation in any member state. The Act says terrorism means the use or threat of action to influence a government or intimidate the public for a political, religious or ideological cause.”
While the above being the definition given by the British government, the armed struggle for TAMIL defines terrorism as follows, “There is no clear, coherent, globally acceptable definition of the concept of terrorism. As such, just and reasonable political struggles fought for righteous causes are also branded as terrorism. Even authentic liberation movements struggling against racist oppression are denounced as terrorist outfits. In the current global campaign against terror, state terrorism always finds its escape route and those who fight against state terror are condemned as terrorists. Our liberation organization is also facing a similar plight..." Velupillai Pirabaharan - Maaveerar Naal Address, 27 November 2005
Considering the definition given by the Tamils, it also fits to our country, when the Derg regime was labeling the TPLF as a terrorist organization and now in return the EPRDF lead government is labeling the Islamic Court, as well as organizations in Ethiopia as being terrorist organizations. Given the magnitude of the circumstance that are happening in the world today different governments and political group will give different definitions to terrorism that fits to their agenda, however, on globally accepted terms is there a real terror treat to Ethiopia’s sovereignty and its people right now from the current organizations in Somalia? The answer is no. Then are we sending our troops to satisfy the interest of other countries so that to show them that Ethiopia can be an important ally in fighting terrorism, or are we sending our troops to divert the attention of the people from the recent dissatisfaction of the election?
Generally, even though Ethiopian officials express it theoretically, let’s be practical and fight our primary enemy i.e., starvation, disease and illiteracy. Let’s not rush to mass troops and propagate, instead let’s waste our time to solve things peacefully and to narrow our differences. The inhabitants of the East of Africa have enough of war. Let’s stop the war drums and avoid innocent civilian and military catastrophes. Lets spread peace and love, instead of war and hat rate so that our primary enemy is gradually peeled off and the standard of living of Ethiopians from all works of life is elevated.