The Underlying question

A.Tesfaye

June 26,2007

The hottest media issue regarding Ethiopia at the moment seems to be whether the 38 individuals recently convicted in Ethiopian Courts, will be pardoned or not. I would argue that this is beside the point. Mercy is a noble act by the one that have the authority to pardon to those who have admitted wrongdoing. But that is only a small part of the bigger picture when it comes to Ethiopian reality.

To many who have been closely following developments taking place in the country, the entire process of litigation has hardly been about the number of people in custody or who they were in the eyes of on-lookers. The question was how the conflict that was created between the Ethiopian Government and those it has taken to custody will be handled. Need less to say, there were two ways of resolving the problem:-

1) Taking our history in perspective where no opposition to an incumbent ever survived or ever had a chance for a fair trial, opting same to those in custody would have probably been understood as natural. But this would have proven Ethiopia to be on the wrong track of the democratisation process.

2) The second very civil option and yet not a culture in Ethiopia is giving those under custody a fair chance to defend themselves in a court that has more and more proven to have developed impartiality and independence.

The Ethiopian Government's decision to take the second option would be wrongly understood if taken as only a means to dealing with this specific issue. While due process is in and by itself immensely important, even more importantly the decision should be understood as an act and a desire to change the whole spectrum of political culture where opposition to an incumbent had always been dealt with ruthlessly and without due process.

However, much of the 'free world' has yearned to micro manage the situation steadfastly holding on to an objective of freeing those under custody mocking on the entire justice system. Most respected institutions, congress members, human rights activists, etc have openly spoken in favour of aborting the judicial process and freeing the prisoners. Those who have firmly argued that those under custody have to be freed unconditionally have knowingly or naively attempted to jeopardize the ongoing efforts to effect the necessary change in the Ethiopian political culture and have missed the fact that justice on the matter can only be served in Ethiopian courts of law and not in the streets, Capitols and in inter governmental Parliaments.

 None should fail to commit to memory that the process already under way would only be a futile exercise if it doesn't leave a precedent and a beginning in the process of changing the Ethiopian political culture. This process has to show the world that it is an Ethiopian one and that foreign hands will not dictate it. We should all make the necessary sacrifice to insure that Ethiopians will only be ruled by law and not by the will of others. Let the world that still doubts the will power and capacity of Ethiopia to build its institutions of Good Governance see that not only can we build our own institutions but we also have the political determination not to undermine their role.

Let the underlying question be clear to all those with a clear conscious that this due process is not about 38 people on whose case the world is fixated, but about the very quintessence of which way Ethiopia is going.