#FreeOurHeros#BekkeleGarba

#OromoRevolution

QeerrooOromoo

Qeerroo oromoo kan Oromiyaa

Kan jiraattus biyya alaa

Harmeen siyaamti howwaadhume jalaa

Walitti qabamii bakka jirtumara irraa

Walittigurmaa`I Ulaa hundarraa

Dhaamsa siif qaba mi`oftu akka dammaa

Maaf didda howwaachu harmee jalaa

Yaadaan wal-dhabdanii, maalumaaf faffachatu

Balbalaan wal-qooddani maaliif harcaatu

Ganddummaan Wal-gurmeessitanii, kankolfaa maa nagootu

Dalagaa badii, bittinnaa`uuf ulaa mijatu

Dalagaa badii, bittinnaa`uf ulaa mijatu.

Nuun jetti harmeen haati keenya Oromiyaa

Isin Ilmaan  haadhaa fi abbaan takkaa

Wal-qabadhaa yaa`aa akka kanniisaa

Haagubattu  Diinni alagaan

Silaa hinfedhanu ,ni gubatu yoo taatan  takka

Wal- jabeessaa bakka hunda irraa

Waliin wal-hutubaa akka gaaddisaa.

Ani isin qaba, darggaggoo ciccimaa

Nuun jetti harmeen Oromiyaan

kan baratee balaliisu, samii irra akka xiyyaaraa

kan hojjetee hinquufne ,halkanii fi guyyaa

kan lolee hin galle,moo`u malee akka leencaa

hirribni kan  hin qabne, dhaga`yaa iyya harmee isaa

kan hunda dursee yaadatu saba oromoo  isaa.

 bakka deeme chufatti kan lallabu aadaaf seenaa isaa.

mee naaf himaa darggaggotni ammaa

eessa jirra nuti Maal gochaa jirraa

gara fulduraatti maal gochuu qabna?.

Maaliif callifne wal-ilaalla akka gowwaa

ituu dandeenyu hojjechuu hunda caalaa

hin dhageenyee nuti jecha oromtichaa

Yoo waliif galan alaa galu jechaa

Yoo waliif galan alaa galu jechaa.

ka`aa waliin hakaanu harka walqabannee

gufuu nudura deemu ufjalaa kuffifnee

ni dandeeyna bilisoomuu yoo waliif gallee

niqabna human chimaa kan addaan hin citnne

ofiifisgammadneeoromoo chufa boonsinee.

Sammuun keenya hayaadu fulduratti

Haxiinxxallu baa`ifnee akka hammayyaatti

Tarkaanfiin keenya hata`u akka baranaatti

mee ofirraa  hadhiifnu bashannanuu seenaa qofatti

Seenaa qofa lallabuun  nudadhabse hanga ammaatti.

nuti darggaggoonni  oromoo hakaanu hatattamatti.

Haa-mullisnu eenyummaa keeyna addunyaatti.

Alaabaaa keenya haabalaliifnu, ija diinaa duratti

haa-fayyadamnu darggaggummaa kanatti

haa-fayyadamnu darggaggummaa kanatti.

Yaa  biyya  abbaakoo oromiyaa bareedduu

Yaa biyya haadhakoo Oromiyaa bareedduu

Nama siif dhimmu dhabdee kan akkanatti rakkattu

Nan qaaneffadhe yaamuu maquma kee qofaatu

Dalagaa tokko malee akkanumatti siin boonuu.

Oromiyaan midhagduu dachee laliftuu

damma hin jettu aannan kan uf keessaa qabdu

Mee maal dhabde Oromiyaan naaf himaa isin hundu

Isee dhumaan guddannee asiin baane nu martuu

Yaa Oromiyaa biyyakoo bareedduu

Waadaa siif gala hanga dhumaattu

Hirribni nan fudhatu hanga yoomiittu

Sibilisoomsu malee hanga dhumaattu

Sibilisoomsu malee hanga dhumaattu

#OromoRevolution

This is how TPLF Growing our country Ethiopia

https://www.soderetube.com/2018/01/5-and-7-million-ethiopians-need-relief-assistance-requiring-around-895-million-2018/

“If Egypt wage war on Ethiopia, do not support the current gov’t” says Tigist, daughter former president Mengistu Hailemariam

Fear of State Collapse and Prospect of Democratic Transition in Ethiopia

#OromoRevolution

OPINION/POLITICS   

Ethiopia's decision on 'political prisoners' in context

Awol K Allo  by Awol K Allo  

4 hours ago

Demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromia region, Ethiopia [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]

On January 3, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn made two major announcements: his government will release political prisoners and close down a notorious detention centre at the heart of Ethiopia's capital,widely known as a torture chamber for dissidents and government opponents. Desalegn announced the decision as part of a wider package of reforms aimed at fostering national reconciliation and widening the democratic space.

Rights groups welcomed the announcement as "an important step toward ending long-standing political repression and human rights abuse in the country" while others saw the move as a significant concession to the relentless protests of the last two years by the Oromos and Amharas - the two largest ethnic groups in the country.

As local and international media began to scrutinise the rationale, implications and consequences of the announcement, most of the commentary focused on Ethiopia's perceived admission that there are political prisoners in the country. US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce even issued a statement praising Ethiopia for "finally acknowledg[ing] that it holds political prisoners."

Shortly after the announcement, however, the government distanced itself from this interpretation by emphasising the fact that the prime minister never used the term "political prisoners" in his initial statement.

Indeed, Desalegn only referred to "political leaders and individuals whose crimes have resulted in court convictions or have resulted in their ongoing prosecution under the country's law," in his statement and never gave a clear indication as to which prisoners will be eligible for release. 

Ethiopia's political prisoners

The Ethiopian government has always denied consistent and widespread reports by human rights groups that it holds political prisoners. Like his predecessor, the late Meles Zenawi, who adamantly denied politicising the legal system to stifle dissent and opposition, Desalegn has also repeatedly dismissed the suggestion that Ethiopia is holding political prisoners.

Shortly after he took power in 2012, Al Jazeera's Jane Dutton asked Desalegn if he intends to "confront" the legacy of political repression he inherited from Zenawi and take steps to release the "thousands of [political opposition] languishing in jail". Desalegn said, "There are no political opposition that are languishing in prison."

In May 2015, shortly before the country's national election in which the ruling party won 100 percent of seats both at the national and regional levels, Al Jazeera's Martine Dennisasked Desalegn about the imprisonment of "record number of journalists" to which he replied "these are not journalists …The moment you join a terrorist group, you become a blogger".

There can be no justification to hold some political prisoners or journalists, bloggers and scholars while releasing high-profile leaders of political parties.

No sitting government would publicly admit to holding political prisoners, and - even after last week's announcement - Ethiopian government still appears to be refusing to do so. But evidence suggests that very few governments in the world today hold more political prisoners than Ethiopia.

Since assuming power, the government frequently used the legal system to lock up members and leaders of the opposition. Indeed, the courts served as potent instruments of repression and power consolidation second only to the military-security apparatus.

Since the early days of the regime and particularly following the adoption of the country's notorious anti-terrorism law in 2009, there has been a frightening politicisation of the legal system and the administration of justice. With or without disguise, Ethiopia used its courts and other institutions of justice to harass, intimidate, and eliminate political opposition from the political space.

In the early days of the regime, several members of opposition parties have been held in detention centres throughout the country without charges, particularly in the Oromia regional state. Actual or suspected members of the Oromo Liberation Front have been arrested in mass and detained without charges. More than two decades later, the whereabouts of several individuals including prominent Oromo politicians such as Nadhi Gamada and Bekele Dawano are still unknown.

Following the contested election in 2005, the government rounded up leaders of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) who made significant electoral gains that denied the incumbent its majority. Since the government adopted its notorious anti-terror legislation, more than 1,000 people including opposition political leaders, journalists, bloggers, activists, scholars, and religious figures, have been charged with terror-related crimes. It is estimated that tens of thousands of individuals are currently in jail because of the government's intolerance to dissenting views.

What makes these individuals political prisoners is not their innocence or guilt but the fact that their arrest, prosecution, and conviction were purely motivated by political ambitions as opposed to normative concerns with the rule of law and justice. In other words, the legal process is set in motion not for the determination of guilt and innocence but for political expedience, to pursue the dual goal of delegitimising political foes and physically eliminating them from the political space.

While the Ethiopian government still appears to be refusing the mere existence of thousands of political prisoners in the country, last week's announcement, however incomplete, is a step in the right direction.

The closure of the infamous torture chamber commonly known as Maikalawi is another welcome development that signals a departure from the repressive practices of the past. But it needs to be noted that the prime minister did not admit that his government used the prison as a torture centre. He instead noted that the prison will be closed and turned in to a museum as result of its role in past atrocities. 

Yet there are many credible reports (pdf) showing that opposition politicians, protest organisers, journalists, suspected dissenters and other voices critical of the government are taken to Maikalawi and subjected to torture or other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment under the rule of the current regime. 

The real reasons behind the announcement

The decision to release political prisoners and close down the detention centre is a compromise between the four political parties that make up the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition. But understanding the political considerations behind the announcement requires a proper understanding and appreciation of the two central issues: the constitutive and operational logic of the EPRDF and the nature of the crisis destabilising the country for well over two years.

EPRDF is the brainchild of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a Marxist-Leninist movement that fought to liberate the Tigray ethnic group, which comprise six percent of Ethiopia's more than 100 million people. In the final days of Ethiopia's civil war, the TPLF orchestrated the creation of three satellite parties - Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO), the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), and the Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement (SEPDM) - that ostensibly represent their respective ethnic groups.

The TPLF assembled these puppet organisations to consolidate its grip on power. They helped broaden TPLF's appeal beyond Tigray and bolster its political legitimacy while also enabling it to smother real opposition from autonomous parties such as the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the All Amhara Peoples Organization (AAPO).

For 26 years, TPLF used this vassal configuration to dominate all aspects of the country's political life, while mercilessly muzzling dissenting voices both from within and outside the party. The discontent and suffering that have been simmering underground for decades exploded into the open in November of 2015 when Oromos, the largest ethnic group in the country, took to the streets in protest.

In July of 2016, the Amharas, the second-largest ethnic group in the country, joined the protest, creating a nationwide protest movement that reconfigured the political landscape and brought the government to its knees.

The protests not only exposed the structural anomalies at the heart of Ethiopia's political system, but also brought about a significant reconfiguration of the asymmetric relationship between the four parties that make up the EPRDF. TPLF lost its absolute power within the coalition as its junior partners began to reinvent themselves and side with their respective people.

This is particularly evident in Oromia, where the new leadership of the region refused to play second fiddle. OPDO began to flex its muscles, knowing full well that as the party with the most seats in parliament, and the largest population, it can cripple the government. In a major break, the new leaders of OPDO began protesting the disproportionate and indiscriminate policing, harassment, imprisonment, and torture of Oromos by security forces.

In a joint press statement of the four parties that make up the ruling coalition, Lemma Megersa, the leader of OPDO and the president of Oromia regional state, characterised Maikalawi as "a site in which our citizens have been castrated for years". Megersa, a transformational figure with a distinct ability to appeal to people across competing nationalist narratives and fault lines that divide Ethiopian politics, went on to argue that "while it is one thing to close it down, it is important that we look at the justice sector more broadly, from investigation to prosecution, trial, and sentencing."

While the proposed package of reforms are in the interests of the OPDO and ANDM, it is not clear to what extent the other parties, particularly the TPLF, which still controls the intelligence, the military and the federal police, is genuinely committed to enforcing measures, which, if fully implemented, would ultimately reduce its influence within the coalition, the government and the state more generally.

TPLF's hegemonic status depends on fostering hostility and division, not national reconciliation and democratisation. Indeed, just three days after the announcement, the Federal Police announced a "deep investigation" into "Qeerroo Oromo" (Oromo youth) movement, a decision which collides head-on with the party's stated goals of national reconciliation and democratisation. 

The government acknowledges the unprecedented nature of the crisis facing the country and rightly identifies national reconciliation and widening the democratic space as two of the most significant policy objectives necessary to save the country from plunging into the abyss. However, the government cannot pursue these goals while at the same time proposing measures in conflict with these imperatives.

The government must come to terms with the transformations of the last two years and open up the political process for all voices that seek a hearing and bodies that seek visibility. This means adopting the broadest possible definition of political prisoners and releasing all those whose arrest, detention, prosecution, and conviction have been driven by political considerations.

There can be no justification to hold some political prisoners or journalists, bloggers and scholars while releasing high-profile leaders of political parties. If there is any lesson the government can learn from the protests of the last two years, it is that more repression will only escalate the crisis, not contain or avert it.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Awol K Allo Awol K Allo

Awol K Allo is Lecturer in Law at Keele University, UK.

Ethiopia ፌደራል ፓሊስ በቄሮ ላይ እርምጃ እወስዳለሁ ካለ ህገወጥ ነው ሲል የኦሮሚያ ክልል አስታወቀ

Tafari Makonen - Jecha Koo Dhagahii - New Oromo Music 2018

#OromoRevolution

http://www.ethiopiandj.com/2018/01/09/ethiopia-federal-police-accuses-oromiakero/

#OromoRevolution

OPINION – THE LEMMA MEGERSSA MOMENT AND THE OROMO DILEMMA: BETWEEN RESISTANCE AND GOVERNING

Add caption

Team Lemma. From Right: Shimelis Abdissa, Addisu Arega, Lemma Megerssa and Abiy Ahmed


Addis Abeba, Janurary 10/2018 – One of the most emphatic achievements of the #OromoProtests is Lemma Megerssa himself. The Lemma Megerssa moment is produced by the resurgent Oromo resistance that was rekindled in 2014 and persisted to date.  Having produced the Lemma Megerssa moment as its overall effect, the Oromo protest has since evolved into a full blown revolution that is increasingly forcing a fundamental change upon the TPLF-EPRDF system of rule. For the first time in its history, the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has been rendered so incoherent that it is almost dismembered as a coalition of ethno-national fronts of the four major highland regions of the Federation, namely the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) of Oromia, the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) of Amhara, Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Movement (SEPDM) of Southern Nations Nationalities, and Peoples (SNNPRS), and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of Tigray.

As a consequence of the Oromo Revolution, the TPLF, the hitherto dominant core of the ruling EPRDF, has been so fractured that it had to sit for an extra-ordinarily long meeting of over thirty-five days in October-November 2017, just so it can divine some coherence in a party that was completely in disarray. Earlier, the three other parties have been sitting for similar, if shorter, meetings at the end of which they all vowed that they have achieved what they insisted was a “deep reform.” In late December, the 36-member Executive Committee of EPRDF sat for a similarly long meeting of about seventeen days at the end of which they came out clearly divided (in spite of the fact that the written press releaseissued before the leaders gave a presser claimed to have achieved a unity of ideas and a consensus of a sort). What they were saying implicitly (also noted in the veiled comments of the TPLF chief, Debre-Tsion Gebremichael) was that they have averted a shootout among the leaders.

The combined effect of this complex and intricate dynamics is the emergence of a faction of the OPDO (now known as ‘Team Lemma,’ tellingly named after the OPDO Leader and the Oromia President, Lemma Megerssa) offering an alternative future for EPRDF and for Ethiopia. This was preceded by a heartening gesture of alliance between OPDO and ANDM, an event that unsettled the TPLF and signaled the increasing isolation of TPLF within the coalition. Lemma’s statement that although they “didn’t enter the Executive Committee’s meeting hall with a sense of competition among ourselves, there is a clear winner at the end,” already indicates that his team – or in his words, the country – has come out most favored. No doubt, following the long presser given by the four representatives of the parties (i.e., Lemma Megerssa, Demeke Mekonnen, Hailemariam Desalegn, and Debretsion Gebremicheal), Lemma has, as an individual, come out the most popular leader in the eyes of the Ethiopian public. This in turn has created what can be called the ‘Lemma moment’ in Ethiopia. The Lemma moment, as generative as it is in many respects, seems to be having its own irresolution and ambivalence. This piece reflects on the dilemma of this extra-ordinary moment highlighting the tension between ‘the logic of resistance’ that gave popular legitimacy to his efforts and the challenge of ‘occupying’ the seat of leadership that demands not just protesting but also governing.

Playing Politics into the Center: the Logic of Resistance

‘Team Lemma’ and the moment of political hope it created is the product of the Oromo Revolution. The team is a group that came to realign OPDO with the resistance movement of the Oromo youth, known in Afaan Oromoo as Qeerro, to whose pressure the old OPDO establishment buckled. As soon as the team took over the helm of power in the OPDO and in Oromia, it sought to vie for the minds and hearts of the Oromo youth by promising a massive employment scheme through what they awkwardly called ‘economic revolution’.

The team picked up some of the demands of the youth and amplified them as part of their desire to implement ‘deep reform’ within their party (OPDO), their region (Oromia), their front (EPRDF), and the wider country (Ethiopia). In so doing, the team started to sound like the voice of protest in government. It used the language of freedom from oppression, (human) rights, and people’s suffering. More often than not, the team followed tack of the protesters’ motto in insisting, among others, on the adherence to the rules of the constitution, observance of the rule of law, respect for the federalist principles of self-rule and shared rule, a better enforcement of constitutional human rights clauses, a more equitable distribution of wealth, a more democratic share of powers, implementation of the constitutional “special interest” of Oromia over Finfinnee (Addis Abeba), recognition of Afaan Oromoo as one of the working languages of the Federal Government, etc. Operating as a government but identifying more with the suffering public, it appropriated the language of the Oromo Revolution and functioned essentially on the logic of resistance, albeit from the top.

To all close observers of Ethiopian politics, it soon became apparent that the team is in resistance to the dominance of the TPLF and the latter’s authoritarian modus operandi both in EPRDF and in the entire country. This in turn revealed the emergence of consequential tensions between TPLF on the one hand and its hitherto junior partners, particularly OPDO and ANDM, on the other. The tension started to rock the entire federal government. Knowing the numerical advantage OPDO and ANDM have in Parliament, the TPLF started to evade or bypass formal democratic institutions of decision-making such as the Federal Parliament (formally known as the House of Peoples’ Representatives [HPR]), especially after the resignation of its Speaker Abba Duulaa Gammadaa (also from the OPDO). Tensions also started to show up within the Federal Government (e.g. between the Communications Minister and the Director of the Press Board) as well as between the Federal and State Governments (Federal Ministry of Communication and Oromia and Somali Regional Communication Bureaux; Federal Prime Minister and Oromia President).

These tensions put the OPDO at the center of the unfolding drama of Ethiopian politics of these latter days. Increasingly, the protesting public seemed to have found an ally in Team Lemma. Having appropriated all the languages of the protest and its logic of resistance, the team (especially its key figures, Lemma Megerssa, Abiy Ahmed, Addisu Arega, and Shimelis Abdissa) increasingly sounded virtually like, and became, political activists speaking for the people. However, beyond speech, in reality, little changed on the ground. People are still being killed arbitrarily by the military. Many are being arrested. The army and federal police roam around the states and their localities uninvited and illegally-unconstitutionally. TPLF-orchestrated “border wars” are still raging, especially between Oromia and Somali regions. Regiments of federal government soldiers are encamped in university campuses all over the country. The close to 700, 000 persons displaced from the Somali region and the adjacent border areas are yet to be resettled in proper homes. The promise of ‘economic revolution’ and the jobs and benefits thereof are yet to be delivered.  Provision of utilities and public services are not making any improvement. Economic activities are still stalled. In short, governance is conspicuously absent. And the team has yet to stop activism (which the TPLF casts negatively as a populist gesture) and start governing.

At times, the team seems to be trying to do two things at one and the same time: resisting TPLF’s hegemony in order to transform EPRDF from within and to govern Oromia legitimately and serve the regional public (the domain of the Oromo demos) properly. The first task propels the team to scale up its ambitions and act on behalf of the wider country as it also seeks to edge out TPLF, sustaining its alliance with ANDM, taking other political groupings on board, and gradually steering the country to the democratic transformation long hoped for. The second pulls it in the direction of remaining grounded in its Oromo constituency as it seeks to address all the demands of the revolution, pacify the region, secure its autonomy (or self-rule), restore displaced people, release detainees and political prisoners, make wrong-doers (officials included) accountable, and heal social wounds caused by tragedies of mass killings and other atrocities. The first pulls them in the direction of assuming new national (country-wide) responsibilities including re-configuring the Ethiopian state and its identity for the better. The second pulls them in the direction of discharging the responsibilities they are already encumbered with in the Oromia region. The first demands the envisioning of a new Ethiopia, the creation of a distinctly Oromo project for Ethiopia, as part of the Oromo contribution to the ‘nation-building’ process, if only redemptively. The second demands a nationalist self-assertion as Oromos vis-à-vis the hitherto oppressive Ethiopia.

Owing to the complex politico-moral responsibilities they shoulder as Oromos in contemporary Ethiopia, members of Team Lemma are inescapably forced to live with a tenuous irresolution, walking every day with a degree of ambivalence about which call to emphasize (and which to postpone in pro tem)—the call of the wider Ethiopia or that of Oromia?–at a particular point in time. Perhaps more than any other political groupings in Ethiopia, Team Lemma will be the most afflicted with ambivalence, the ambivalence about which call to respond to first, the call to reform, redeem and “save Ethiopia from itself” (the call to become more than oneself and to do more than resisting TPLF and traditional Ethiopian hegemony), or the call to empower its own constituency regardless of what becomes of its Ethiopian other (the call to first pursue Oromo justice vis-à-vis Ethiopia and think of Ethiopia only afterwards). The team is thus required to live under the imperative of reflexive (and agonistic) thinking. Consequently, the team is forced to play politics into the Ethiopian center. (What this center is a debatable point in itself. But that should be left for another day.)

Oromia is home to people from all the other States of the Ethiopian federation. It is also a region sharing borders with all the regions save for Tigray. Oromia also hosts the Federal Government in its capital city, Finfinne, which, as a result, draws people from all corners of the country. More than any of the States in Ethiopia today, Oromia is conscious of the presence of other peoples in its midst. This consciousness forces the leadership to practice an entirely other-regarding political ethics. This same consciousness makes the leaders mindful of the need to appeal to the political sensibilities of peoples other than the ones in their own constituency in order to bring the latter on board as they endeavor to bring about country-wide change. (Perhaps this explains Lemma Megerssa’s extravagant, if only vacuous, rhetoric in Bahir Dar about being “addicted to Ethiopianism!” Note: this is not to underestimate the symbolic significance of the speech as a gesture. But the gesture of alliance between the parties must be encouraged and given a more substantive content in order for it to be politically consequential, especially in creating new terms of relationship between the two peoples.)

Addressing all the demands of the Oromo Revolution AND leading the effort to reform the TPLF-EPRDF regime with a view to transforming the wider polity, all at the same time, is a herculean task. That is the challenge confronting Team Lemma at the moment, a challenge they seem to have taken up, with an enormous amount of care and caution not to rock the boat too much to their own peril. Perhaps this explains why the team is not pulling out of the EPRDF coalition. Or why, for example, it is so far hesitant to use the Parliamentary platform to form a new government in collaboration with ANDM, thereby automatically ending the TPLF hegemony in the Front and in Ethiopia.

Beyond vindicating the Oromo Protests: the challenge of governing of behalf of the oppressed forces, North and South

Given this is the situation, what can Team Lemma do? What can they do beyond vindicating and validating the claims and demands of the #Oromoprotests? And more particularly, what can they do to rise up to the challenge of governing on behalf of the oppressed peoples of Ethiopia, north and south? The following is a tentative list of (obvious) suggestions. I offer these suggestions fully mindful of the difference in the strategies, tactics, and positioning deployed for the different tasks of Resistance and Governing. The ‘logic of resistance’ based on which the team operates is more like the logic of oppositional politics run by groups running campaigns for democratic elections. Just as campaign strategies are different from strategies for governing in healthy democracies, so are the strategies of ‘Resistance’ and of ‘Governance’ in Ethiopia for Team Lemma. Accordingly, the team ought to learn to live with its dilemma, the Oromo dilemma in its best (with all its irresolution), and manage its priorities prudently. In so doing, it should find a happy synthesis of the work of resistance and governing, the work of critiquing and holding power at the same time, in order for them to effectuate a preferred change both for themselves, for the country, and for posterity.

The most outstanding task awaiting them now is how to bring the discussions (and negotiations) in EPRDF (and the platforms of the parties forming the Front) to the formal public decision-making institutions of the country such as the Parliament, aka, the HPR. Accordingly, they ought to:

1. Make an increasing use of parliamentary platforms for public decision-making in the country. After all, the parliament is “the highest authority of the Federal Government” (See Art 50(3) of the FDRE Constitution). Similarly, they should use the State Parliament, Caffee Oromia, and State Constitutional institutions for every public issues pertaining to state matters. In order to help facilitate a free deliberation in the legislative bodies, they should begin to relax the rules of parliamentary procedures both at the Federal level and at the State level. This should be easy in the light of the fact that theirs are all single-party parliaments.
2. Activate and exercise the parliamentary power to scrutinize the Executive at all levels, Federal and State. For far too long, the parliament’s decisional powers (legislative, financial/budgetary, and taxing) have been bypassed by the Executive which used the parliament as a window dressing. It is important to remember that the parliament’s scrutiny and monitory powers have hardly been utilized especially where it matters most, i.e., on the military, police, and intelligence authorities. The parliament’s responsibility to monitor the executive is key to the increasing (political and administrative) accountability of the latter in its duty to respect, protect, and enforce human rights at all levels of government (Art 13(2) of the FDRE Constitution). This will pave the way for, among others, making Abdi Ille, his so called ‘Special Police,’ and the complicit Federal Security authorities accountable politically (through removal), administratively (through demotion, disciplining, and dismissal), and judicially (through trials for their atrocities including mass killings, torture, gang rape, mutilations, and genocide). This will also give the Parliament an opportunity to disarm, disband, and outlaw the ‘Special Forces’ and all similar repressive security apparatuses in the country. Likewise, it will create the occasion for the Parliament to go beyond the symbolic (partisan political party) gestures to publicly resolve to release all political prisoners and to close down and outlaw all institutions of torture such as Ma’ekelawi and nameless detention centers in the military training camps. Most pressingly, this will help the Parliament to bring the country as a whole to come together and act in unison to resettle and/or restore the over 700, 000 displaced persons.
3. (In the interest of opening up the political space and freeing the country for a more open, transparent, inclusive and, hopefully, deliberative democracy, the team ought to) use its parliamentary platform for repealing all repressive laws such as the counter-terrorism law (Proc no 652/2009), Charities and Societies law (Proclamation no. 621/2009), political party registration law (Proclamation no. 573/2008), media law (proclamation no. 590/2008), and the law on freedom of assembly (Proclamation no. 3/1991).
4. Prepare the regime for a broad-based negotiation with other political parties with a view to pacifying the country, restoring political hope, especially among the youth, and creating a working consensus among a wide variety of political, social-communal, and economic actors. In order for such negotiations to happen, the regime should remove political parties from its list of ‘terrorist’ organizations.
5. Now that the TPLF anxiety over potential loss of power to the OPDO-ANDM alliance has subsided (ensuring this seems to be the deal from the long Executive Committee meeting!), Team Lemma (in collaboration with Team Geddu Andargachew of ANDM) must push for a reconfiguration of the membership and voting power and procedure of the Executive Committee in the EPRDF. This is absolutely necessary if there is to come a transition to democracy keeping TPLF-EPRDF as part of transition to come. Sooner or later, and sooner than later, TPLF-EPRDF must realize that democracy, internally and externally, is the only happy way out of the quagmire they have put themselves and the country in. Team Lemma also should know that if they can’t push for change in the Executive Committee membership and transform their own party into a democratic one, there is no way they can take the wider country into the democracy to come.

Conclusion: Any Reason to Hope for Transformation?

The foregoing must have made it clear that the transition to democracy to come from within, particularly the one that may come about through the agency of Team Lemma, is going to be an extremely controlled transition. At best, being a result of internal contestation and negotiation within EPRDF, it is only going to be a managed transition. As such, it is bound to be slow (relative to the Revolution), measured, and incremental. Team Lemma, as a protest team that is also in government, can only push for a reform that may (or may not) pave the way for a full-fledged transformation. There is a limit to a revolution sought to be accomplished through well-placed elite. (And this is precisely the reason the Oromo Revolution continues unabated to put pressure on Team Lemma or any place holder until the peoples’ demands are fully met.)  Nevertheless, quite understandably, there is a limit to what the Team can do because there is bound to be an inertia born out of the irreducible contradiction in engaging (as they do) in protest WHILE ALSO exercising leadership, in doing resistance WHILE ALSO governing, in maximizing one’s current position WHILE ALSO seeking to occupy a more powerful position (in the name of effecting the change the generation sought to see).  Here in lies the dilemma of Team Lemma, whose dilemma can also be seen as the quintessential Oromo dilemma, the dilemma of the people whose historic mission it is to critique and interrogate Ethiopia (and all that it stands for) WHILE ALSO wanting to transform, redeem, and save it from itself at the same time.

The question remains, though. Is this Lemma Moment going to last? Will it overcome its dilemma and deliver what it silently promises? Does it still offer a moment of political hopefulness? Or is it a moment of anticlimax already? These are questions for another day. AS

---

The writer, Tsegaye R Ararssa, can be reached at tsegayenz@gmail.com

#OromoRevolution

Why are tensions rising in the 

Red Sea region?

14 hours ago

The recent visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was the first by a 

Turkish head of state 

since 

1956 when Sudan gained independence

 [RE

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWSTensions in the Red Sea region have been brewing 

'Sudan in Turkish hands'

Military reinforcements

Ethiopian Dam project

Eritrean-Ethiopian tensions

for months but came to the fore when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Sudan last month.

The visit, hailed as historic, was the first by a Turkish head of state since 1956 when Sudan gained independence.Sudan's official state news agency said the two countries agreed to set up a strategic planning group to discuss international affairs, and that theyintended to conclude amilitary deal.Among more than a dozen agreements signed by Erdogan and Sudanese President

 Omar al-Bashir was a deal to temporarily hand over 

the Red Sea island of Suakin to Turkey.

Ankara and Khartoum said Turkey would rebuild the ruined,

 sparsely populated Ottoman

 island to increase tourism and create a transit point for pilgrims 

crossing the Red Sea to Islam's holiest city of Mecca.

Egyptian and Saudi media have harshly criticised the agreement, and 

alleged Turkey would build a military base on Suakin.

Turkey and Egypt, an ally of Saudi Arabia, have had frosty

 relations for some time. 

Ankara strongly condemned Egypt's military coup in 2013, which

 overthrew the first

 democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim

 Brotherhood.

Saudi newspaper al-Okaz ran a headline that read: "Khartoum hands

 over Suakin to Ankara … Sudan in Turkish hands."

"Turkey's greed on the African continent seems to have no limits,

" the report noted, 

referring to Turkey's recent move to set up its biggest overseas

 military base in Somalia.

The Sudanese embassy in Saudi Arabia responded by saying that 

"Suakin belongs to Sudan,

 no one else", and promising that the deal with Ankara would not

 harm the security of Arab countries.

The ripples, however, were immediately felt across the African

 continent.

In what may have been a response to fears that Turkey was

 expanding its influence in the 

region, Egypt sent hundreds of its troops to a UAE base in Eritrea, 

on the border with Sudan.

Khartoum responded by recalling its ambassador to Cairo, hours 

after the

 head of the

 Sudanese Border Technical Committee, Abdullah al-Sadiq, accused

 Egypt of trying to "drag Sudan into a direct [military] confrontation".

Days later, Sudan shut its border with Eritrea and deployed 

thousands of troops there.

The Suakin island deal with Turkey has merely

 heightened an already tense political 

situation in the region. For months, Sudan and Egypt 

have exchangedaccusations,

 with Cairo claiming that Khartoum had been supporting

 Muslim Brotherhood members

 and Khartoum alleging Cairo was supporting Sudanese

 dissidents.Also straining relations between the African

 nations is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance

 Dam (GERD) project, the largest hydroelectric dam project 

in Africa.Unhappy with Khartoum, Egypt last week reportedly 

proposed to Ethiopia to exclude Sudan

 from contentious negotiations over the future of the dam.

Egypt has been at odds with its neighbours over the $4.8bn 

megaproject, with Cairo

 fearing that its position downstream may affect its access to

water from theNile River basin, which will feed the dam.

The Egyptian proposal, sent by Egyptian President

 Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to 

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, suggested

 that talks proceed with Ethiopia alone,

 according to the Addis Fortune newspaper. Egypt was

 quick to deny the claims.

On Monday, Hailemariam received Sudanese army 

chief Emad al-Din M Adawi and 

discussed how to further strengthen their "strategic partnership".

Adawi said the two neighbours would continue in their 

collaborative efforts to contain problems in the region.

The deployment of Egyptian troops to Eritrea has sent longtime foe Ethiopia 

into a frenzy.

 Aware of the poor relations between Egypt and Ethiopia over Nile water use, 

Eritrea eagerly welcomed the Egyptian troops.

Ethiopia, which has the third-largest army on the continent, responded by 

sending more

 troops to the border with its regional rival, Eritrea. Asmara and Addis Ababa have

 had two bloody wars over border disputes.

Ethiopia is also uneasy that the United Arab Emirates, which has cosy relations

 with Cairo, 

has been stepping up its presence in the region. It recently acquired military 

and naval basesin countries that

 have borders with Ethiopia, Somalia to the east and Eritrea to the north,

 as well as Yemen. This has led

 Ethiopia to steam ahead with construction of the dam, saying that more than 

60 percent has

 already been completed.

"Construction has never stopped and will never stop until the project is completed. 

We are

 not concerned with what Egypt thinks. Ethiopia is committed to benefit 

from its water resources without causing

 harm to anyone," Seleshi Bekele, Ethiopia's minister for irrigation, water and

 electricity, said in November.

As Egypt, Turkey and the UAE make efforts to expand their influence and

 secure allies in

 the region, it is unclear whether relations between African states will

 continue to sour. Further twists and

 turns could be ahead as African heads of state prepare to meet in Addis 

Ababa later this month for the African Union summit.