To the victor goes the spoils

Mulu G.(Nov 16,2006)

Yesterday I was in attendance of a presentation about the US electoral system and the results of recent election in one of the colleges here in the US . It is summed up in the title of this article-to the victor goes the spoils. Do you know what it means? I will come back to it later. First, let me start with a couple of things about the Ethiopian politics that caught my attention in the last week or so: the stories about the investigation report, the defection of judges and the report on the death of an air force officer. All have one thing in common: authors who fled away from their public duty or runaway from legal prosecution for embezzling public money. I will start from the most important of all these- the investigation report.

First off, I cannot deny that the leak of the unofficial report has some how helped the expedited release of the official report, but it is also my belief that the judge who did this had acted irresponsibly and should be held accountable for this. This judge had all the opportunity to be wiser in handling his public responsibility through different means- note that he went through law school, he is an old man, and his experience as a judge. But, to the dismay of many Ethiopians he acted irresponsibly to satisfy his ego and appease the very few loud opposition and "modern colonizers" such as the sponsors of HR5680. I am sure he won¢t sleep peacefully with this level of treason and abuse of power.

The little contribution by the judge may be the hype reporting of the leaked report by the western media. This will of course help his asylum case, but I do not think it would liberate him from the irresponsible treason act he committed. More than anything, if he is guilt conscious, I believe this will haunt him for so long. Anyway, by design or pressure it did not take long for the official report to see daylight. Nevertheless, when the 8 of the 10 members of the commission took the moment to present their findings to the Ethiopian parliament, the reaction of some of the opposition leaders was not any different from the judge in exile. It is natural and civic duty for the house representatives to challenge the commission and its report on the methodology they used, about any missed evidences or about the coherence of the report that could change the scope and magnitude of the findings. But what happened is the usual sentimental outright opposition to the report mainly because a certain judge who was a member of the commission leaked the report and made his own conclusion about the findings.

More troubling is, the same people who regarded Mr. Meshesha as a friend of the government have now trust in his report. Thus, the criterion to get trust from the opposition and some of the Diaspora Ethiopians is to become one of them. Bizarre!!  In fact two of the 8 members are PhDs and are faculty at AAU and the other are religious and business personalities. If you carefully listen to the comments of Dr. Gudina, who is the colleague of the two highly educated men (Drs. Dissasa  and Megerssa), he never showed any different behavior from any uneducated man. He was not challenging the methodology or the facts, but rather he was just sentimental and referring to what Mr. Meshesha said. The commission has presented a full documentation of the report including the minutes, and I believe it would have been wise and helpful to critic the report more than the people involved.

Frankly, I cannot trust the judge for one main reason. To make a living in the west, which has become a dream of professionals from every corner of the world, either you should have a qualification to be able to work or you have got to get some reason to seek asylum. The former is not easy. In most cases requires obtaining a degree from western institutions. So, the short cut is asylum and for asylum the requirement is clear-to allege that you were tortured and victimized by your government. So for me, most things alleged by an asylum seeker is nothing more than a fiction story. Go to the Ethiopian origin attorneys in Washington DC and ask for help to file for asylum, they will give you to study a fiction story or ask you to do the same thing as the judge did or others like Workiye Birye did. So, that is the truth!! I would not question the integrity of 8 members of a commission who by most standards are better than this one judge who could not scarify for a huge cause.  For that matter when I saw Andrew Heaven¢s of Meskel square bragging about becoming the New York Times of Ethiopia, that was just the end of my judgment. It is really telling why and on what ground Mr. Meshesha compromised his integrity and failed the responsibility he shouldered from the Ethiopian people. The take home message is- success is a dream with out some sacrifice, of course it would never happen through defection.

In closing, I would like to reflect on some of the current developments of Ethiopian Diaspora politics. First goes my advise- whether the Diaspora opposition gets unfretted access to the VOA or the DW, or whether they write zillions of letters to the President of America, they cannot make loud enough noise to be able to be heard from Ethiopia and thus should rethink their futile course. In fact as long as they are not ready to make some sacrifice there is no way to the gates of the palace. Of course, they have news manufacturers (Ethiomedia, Ethiopian review, etc) who would say anything to defame and discredit the current government without the slightest concern for the consequences on the country that they allege they love. Some times they accuse the government for killing an air force officer who died from car accident, they even accuse the government for the religious tension in Jimma and they defend EU staff who transgressed the sovereignty of their beloved country (read Prof. Al¢s letter). And worst of all, they create alliance with Shabia and the courts of Somalia that are the archenemies of Ethiopia . These clearly show the shallowness of their political agenda. Actually, these politicians are mostly opportunists who do not want to work like the ordinary Ethiopian in parking garages or labor-intensive jobs but rather who would like to enjoy their life at the expense the hard working Ethiopian. I am not ignoring the very few PhDs, MDs and Professors who waste their time writing mumbo jumbos instead of investing in the causes of the poor-mitigating the flood vulnerability of DireDawa, tackling the AIDS epidemic, reconstruction of the flood victim towns, etc.

The peak of all this fiasco is the recent letter to the EU with respect to denying Meles the opportunity to give a lecture on development. They do not think he is earning it. It is his ability to intellectually engage with civil people and his economic and business engineering skills that is getting him the respect and the exceptional role he is playing. The big time losers in all these are Hanna Gomes and the sponsors of HR5680. I can imagine her anguishing for her powerlessness!! The irony of it is, while the KIL and its cronies were destroying each other for a few thousand bucks, Meles was leading a strategic conference between Africa and China . I am sure these people did not probably hear about it-they are not tuned to good stuff as their mouthpiece VOA would not necessarily highlight this achievement. Expect more to come to this enlightened Prime Minister, as it is said well in the US -to the victor goes the spoils.