Personal reflection on the letter¹ by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School

Mulu GS²

^(12/14/06)

It is courageous for the famous law school of the earth to consider a human rights issue on a very neglected society in my beloved country Ethiopia . At the same time it is very naïve and politically illmotivated to ignore the bigger political picture in Ethiopia which is wholeheartedly designed to protect and benefit such minorities.

We have been hearing about the unfortunate killings of Anuaks by their fellow tribes men in a very unfortunate one time incident three years ago. For any sane mind this is unacceptable and the perpetuators have to be brought before the court of law. And this is what exactly the Ethiopian government did, if my recollection of events is correct. Does the government need to do more, of course it should make sure that this does not happen again. But, it is not genuine and helpful to Ethiopia and Ethiopian minorities to accuse the government for something it is the least capable of doing. The nature of the government can not allow it to do this- its makeover is all against this kind of perpetuation.

For the Harvard Law School to put out this statement “Life in Gambella has become unbearable for civilians—regardless of the color of their skin,” and accuse the government for this level of crime is for me ingenious and un-academic. There are many parties that would try to benefit from this uproar accusing the government of anything and everything. On the one hand they accuse the government for ethnic strife and on the other hand they accuse it for allowing unlimited freedom to ethnic groups to exercise their rights and identity. I am sure, you very well know that the Ethiopian constitution is very unique in the sense that it recognizes minorities and it gives them the highest level of freedom-self determination upto secession. Ethnic groups are administering themselves, developing their culture and languages and fairly represented at every level of the federal government. Affirmative action is in place in all sectors to benefit the very minorities the Harvard Law School is trying to advocate for. So, on the one hand the government is demonized for constituting these fundamental rights to minorities and on the other hand it accused of abusing the rights of these minorities. It can not be both.

Frankly, for someone who knows the leadership of the party in power, the simple answer is that they are politically and spiritually incapable of allowing this to happen. I believe, this is one of the revered territories that they bleed for and would never cross.

To the dismay of many of us, this report comes after a day when nations, nationalities including the Anuak and Nuer celebrated the nationality day with their Ethiopian brothers in a national stage for the first time. If the authors of the report were genuine they should have tried to look into this more carefully than just jotting down this report. So, I urge the Law School community to look into this issue with a sober mind, outside of the influence of very few outspoken Ethiopian Diaspora elements. Fanning this would never help Ethiopian minorites. It would rather escalate the tension and break the centuries old harmonious life style of my people.

1 http://www.ethrev.com/2006/dec/12132006_intl_human_rights_clinic.html

Email: mijones@law.harvard.edu

Email: rgoodman@law.harvard.edu

2 the author has closely worked in the late 90s with one of the senior officials allegedly implicated in this tragedy (Dr. Barnabas) on issues related to his PhD work. He is the most humble man and incapable of giving a blind eye to such atrocities to happen under his watch let alone to participate in it.