Within the past ten months, Ethiopia has witnessed a dramatic transformation after decades of authoritarian rule. The new leadership has pushed through an impressive array of reforms. Yet, the nature of the transition process and the direction of the reform have become difficult to predict. A roundtable discussion on the reform’s possibilities, challenges and pitfalls was broadcast at the Addis Ababa based-Arts TV World on January 25. Suggestions were made, criticism voiced, plans drawn up to advance democratic reforms while navigating this delicate transition period. Birhanemeskel Abebe Segni, a former diplomat and a legal and policy advisor, Dagnachew Assefa, Professor of Philosophy at the Addis Ababa University, and Abebaw Ayalew, historian at Addis Ababa University were participants at the discussion.

Birhanemeskel, who spoke first, described the phase of the “transformative regime change” taking place in the country as one that is closely mirrored after the demise of the odious apartheid state in South Africa to democratic ANC led by Nelson Mandela. “For the last 27 years, TPLF has used an apartheid like divide and rule strategy,” he explained. “There are several similarities between the two regimes and transitions. The core objectives of TPLF’s divide and rule policy were containing the Oromo and Amhara politics by pitting the two against each other, just to keep TPLF in power. The repression model used by TPLF was the same as was in South Africa, to maintain the privileges of a few whites. The police forces, security, intelligence and armed forces structure put in place bears a resemblance to the apartheid doctrine which TPLF used to maintain it hegemony. Lastly, the TPLF divide and rule policy collapsed because of anger, uprisings from the country’s two largest ethnic groups, the Oromo and the Amhara, which the TPLF removed from power, and from Addis by the coalition of Oromo and Amhara progressive leaders.

According to Birhanemeskel, the regime change was not a result of military coup nor outright revolution, civil war per se. Having marshalled so much public support and building up base, the progressive leaders have started to abolish the tool of control TPLF introduced to facilitate direct and indirect rule, the oppressive structure in the security, the intelligence and the federal police. The process to make the defence and police forces responsible to the public has started, even though the friction between progressive and reactionary group continues, he observed.

Dagnachew Assefa opposed the analogy with apartheid, describing it as an exaggeration to make a political point. He pointed out that the differences between the two regimes were greater than the similarities, as apartheid was an appalling system that put two species of people, as ruler and ruled. To this end, the aforementioned was quickly followed by the rider that the authoritarian character of the old regime and its effort to establish a complete totalitarian monopoly could not denied. He echoes how the changes has come from the public fed up with autocratic ideologues and yearned for freedom. The system was at the edge of the abyss and the promised deep transformation was not enough, it needed complete overhaul.

New political order in battle with old one

He describes the Abiy administration as fundamentally different from the previous one, citing the ongoing work to reform justice and election board. However, the power struggle within the EPRDF was far from over, which unfortunately he said is causing violence and instability in parts of the country. “There is a contest between the new political order held by Dr. Abiy and the old political order. Even among the so-called political parties, there are those who are playing by the old book. That is not going to work because the realities have changed, the Ethiopian people transformed so much, especially in the past ten years. The battle is with a group that has amassed millions in the past twenty-seven years and it may not be won easily, he said. We are in a transitional period whose new distinguishing marks are not yet clearly defined. The old order is not gone totally, the new one is not yet on firm ground, he said.  

Another panel participant, Abebaw, said the dispute about the nature of the reform emanates from the expectation of revolutionary change come about through a violent overthrow of those in power. Some assumed that the new administration would purge everyone from guards to ministers and replace them with new ones, he said. For him, he noted, one apparent sign of change was the overthrowing of a system in which TPLF as a political party exploited ethnic loyalty to political ends. It has created and used the other parties with a patchwork coalition to gain political dominance. The fact that this political force has been marginalized was change by itself, he said. New actors have entered onto the political stage.

The relevance of nationalist liberation movements

While arguing the change is on solid ground, Birhanemeskel talked about the threat the democratic process could face from the parties still organized on the idea of liberation movement. “We should take a look at it from two angles. Because of the failure to solve real problems and inadequacies since the 1970s, one thing we are confronted with was liberation movement struggle, striving to detach their regions from the Ethiopian state. The concept sounded good at some point but the reality on the ground is such movements operate on sizing-up of friend or foe, and acting upon it. When they take up power, they rationalize an exaggerated sense of entitlement based on the sacrifices that they have made. Liberation movements couldn’t be the bases for democracy. There are not many instances of that. Maybe that worked in the United States when George Washington liberated America from the superior forces the British Empire and then resigned after presiding not more than two terms. But if we look at certain African countries, liberated from the shackles of colonialisms by liberation movements, their record did not  bode well. In some cases, other liberation movements were formed to chase them out of power. Some of them are still in power.”

According to Birhanemeskel, TPLF since taking power in 1991, used the demand and question of the rights of national minorities as a convenient tool to advance its divide and rule policy and maintain its hegemony. “TPLF has squandered the opportunity of addressing those issues, rather exacerbating them. The regime’s failure to honor the sacrifices of many who sacrificed their life to create a federal and democratic multi-lingual and multi-cultural country by making Afaan Oromo the official language of Ethiopia on the same footing as Amharic has also accelerated its demise”, he said. Birhanemeskel says the large-scale horizontal violence that the country is witnessing is the making of TPLF, citing the example of the displacement of one million people between the Somali and Oromia regions, which he said was caused by the Somali Janjaweed militias that was formed and funded by TPLF.

For the question on the causes of rounds of ethnic violence in the country, Dagnachew Assefa responded by saying that some of it is the result of elite manipulation, others eruption of old resentment that has been supressed for years. This could occur when people act in state of euphoric after such opening up, he said. He said he feels everything will take form and shape at some point.

As Dagnachew says, the tribal polity would in the long term fade away and leave the place for the citizenship-based politics. “But for that to happen, conditions and possibilities have to be put in place, democracy, rule of law. It will be a long journey but we are on the way.”

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