Oromo community of Edmonton protests violence in Ethiopia

Oromo community of Edmonton protests violence in Ethiopia: Protesters gathered in Edmonton Saturday afternoon to draw attention to atrocities in Ethiopia.

OMN: Oduu Caam 16,2021

#FakeEllectionOfAbiyAhmed Ethiopia

Ethiopia postpones June 5 parliamentary elections

Reuters Ethiopia has postponed parliamentary elections due on June 5, the country's electoral body said on Saturday, adding it did not foresee a delay of more than three weeks.

The Horn of Africa country was originally scheduled to hold the vote in August 2020 but it was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, there has been conflict in the northern region of Tigray, which will not take part in voting, as well as in other areas.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his Prosperity Party face challenges from increasingly strident ethnically-based parties seeking more power for their regions.

Birtukan Mideksa, chairperson of The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), "indicated that delays in opening polling stations and voter registration have pushed the voting day," state news agency Fana reported.

Mideksa confirmed to Reuters the vote would not happen on June 5.

"We will let everybody (know) soon as to how many additional weeks/days to complete the delayed tasks ... Wouldn't be more than 3 weeks," she added.

#OromiaEthiopia

 

#FreeJawar

 “Waan hedduu ni bulfanna, gaafa dabarte dubbanna!”

JAWAAR M. Caamsaa 14, 2020!

-“Roorroo sirnoota dabranii ormatu raawwate jennee externalize godhuun obsaa turre. Kan har'aa garuu nama dhukkubsa.

-Warri kaleessa alagaa waliin ummata keenya dararaa ture, kan qabsoo saba kanaatiin ergamtummaa jalaa bilisa ba’ee aangootti olbaafame, as garagalee harka galataa san ciniine.

-Kan daran garaa nama gubu ammoo warri kaleessa mooraa qabsoo keessa turan, har'a bubutuu aangootif jecha yeroo madaa sabaa irratti soodda firfirsuu yaalan arguudha. Tanas inuma irra aanna. Waan heddu ni bulfanna. Gaafa dabarte dubbanna.”

-Jawaar Mohaammad May 14, 2020!-

Maddi : Yeroon Tol

#Free#JawarMohammed#Ethiopia

 Jawar, Hamza, Shemsuddin and countless other Oromo politicians and activists spent this year’s Eid behind bars. They are being held by the prosperity party regime because they posed a real electoral threat to the incumbent.

The glimmer of hope Ethiopia saw died on that day when the iconic Oromo artists Haacaaluu Hundeessaa was assassinated and leading figures within the Oromo opposition detained.

As I celebrated Eid today, I have been thinking of Jawar, Hamza, Shemsudin and many others who couldn’t celebrate because they are unjustly incarcerate by the state

#Ethiopia should reschedule the June election.

 

Ethiopia should reschedule the June election. Here is why.

The poll will bring neither peace in Ethiopia nor legitimacy for the Abiy regime. It is high time to return to the drawing board and salvage the stalled transition through comprehensive national dialogue.

Ethiopia is set to hold general elections on June 5, 2021. It would be the sixth election since the establishment of the current constitutional framework in 1995. None of the previous five polls met the constitutional standard of ‘free and fair,’ let alone international best practices. The upcoming vote won’t be different.

Far from ushering in a new era of peace, democracy, and stability, the poll will heighten rising tensions, contribute to the hardening of positions and deepen societal polarization. There is clear voter apathy, as evidenced by the dismal registration turnout, which last week forced authorities to extend the deadline. Voters have far more pressing concerns, including the spikes in COVID-19 infection and deaths, the rising cost of living, and the general sense of insecurity across the country. It is high time to postpone the vote and return to the drawing board with the view to salvaging the stalled transition through an all-inclusive national dialogue.

Despite its claim to a long history of statehood, Ethiopia never had a democratic election. For nearly three decades, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) pursued periodic elections that were neither free, fair, or competitive. The May 2005 election was relatively better in terms of pre-election campaigning and the outcome. The opposition operated in a relatively less challenging environment and won significant seats. But that meager progress was reversed in short order due to characteristically zero-sum Ethiopian politics. A combination of EPRDF paranoia and the opposition’s maximalist zeal brought about a violent post-election atmosphere. In the last two symbolic elections in 2010 and 2015, the ruling party did away with all pretensions and claimed 99 percent and 100 percent, respectively.

A defining transition

Fast forward, in 2018, barely three years after its “100 percent victory,” the EPRDF regime was removed from power by sustained popular protests led by Oromo youth and later joined by Amhara and pro-democracy activists in the South. Abiy Ahmed, a little-known intelligence officer, was selected to lead the country through a tumultuous yet defining transition period.

One of the obvious tasks of a transition leader is to facilitate and prepare the ground for holding a free, fair, and democratic election and usher in democratic consolidation. Abiy initially appeared to be on cue, pledging to ensure a democratic election and step aside if his party loses at the ballot box.

His lofty rhetoric and liberal promises generated hope that the sixth general elections, initially scheduled for August 2020, would be far better than all previous electoral exercises. But in March 2020, the Abiy administration indefinitely postponed the polls on constitutionally dubious grounds citing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Few people were convinced or confused by the official excuses or the theatre put on by the Council of Constitutional Inquiry. It was clear that politics, not the pandemic, was the real reason for the postponement.

The election deadline loomed as Abiy’s Prosperity Party (PP) was still being constituted. Abiy set up PP by hastily dissolving the much-despised EPRDF to boost his electoral prospects. The rushed merger of three of the four members of the EPRDF set off stiff resistance, primarily from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the dominant party in the hitherto ruling coalition.

Abiy needed a ‘breathing space’ to consolidate power, strengthen his new party, and concomitantly cut to size formidable opposition parties, especially in Oromia, before gambling on an uncertain electoral contest. Evidently, there were more legitimate and credible oppositions in Oromia that could knock out PP if free and fair elections were held by then. The list includes the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), the first pan-Oromo political organization established in 1976 to fight to realize the Oromo people’s right to national self-determination. The party commands near saint-like reverence and popularity among the Oromo mass.

“Despite its organizational flaws and divisions, many ordinary Oromos retain an almost messianic belief in the OLF as the major nationalist organization,” the International Crisis Group rightly noted in a 2009 report. “The first modern party to articulate national self-awareness and self-determination, it shaped Oromo political consciousness and, in collaboration with diaspora intellectuals, created a nationalist narrative that influences the discourse of all Oromo opposition parties.”

Similarly, the Oromo Federalist Congress or OFC enjoys popular support up and down in the Oromia state and would dwarf PP in a fair and free electoral contest. Notably, the joining of Jawar Mohammed, a prominent Oromo activist-turned-politician turbocharged OFC’s popularity and prospects. In fact, the two parties were in the process of aligning and harmonizing their electoral strategy.

In short, the PP, as an offshoot of the hated Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), was not in any shape to go up against the  OLF and  OFC.  Furthermore, Abiy’s acceptance and popularity among the Oromo was evaporating after his very public fallout with Lamma Magarsa, the former president of Oromia,   and Jawar Mohammed. Abiy rarely toured in Oromia or attended Oromo gatherings without Lamma by his side.

Lamma and Jawar enjoyed widespread popularity and public trust. So much so that people joked: We know Jawar, he knows Lamma, and Lamma knows Abiy.

As its electoral prospects slimmed, PP went on forum shopping to find an acceptable excuse to postpone the election and eliminate the opposition.  Using the tragic assassination in June 2020 of the legendary Oromo artist Haacaaluu Hundeessa as a convenient pretext, the Abiy regime embarked on a crackdown on the leadership of OLF, OFC, and Oromo youth activists (Qeerroo and Qarree). Tens of thousands of opposition leaders, members, and supporters were arbitrarily arrested across Oromia. PP violently suppressed statehood demands in the Wolaita zone and across the South region and ratcheted up pressure on the TPLF for defying Abiy’s order and holding regional elections in September. In November, Abiy enlisted Eritrea’s help and launched an all-out war on Tigray.

Even as Abiy sought to eliminate the TPLF, PP continued to arrest, intimidate, and co-opt opposition in Oromia and other parts of the country. Unsurprisingly, PP also began to beat the drums about elections. The state media continues to frame the June election as critical in laying a democratic foundation. But the poll could not come at a worse time. Ethiopia is facing a deadly COVID-19 wave. The economy is struggling under the weight of high inflation and forex shortage. Security is deteriorating, and petty crimes are rising even in urban areas, ethnic tension is on the rise, political repression and polarization have intensified.

Insecurity 

In a word, Ethiopia is literally on fire. Tigray is effectively in a quagmire amid intensifying civil war and growing violence and human rights abuses. Oromia, the largest regional state, is witnessing unprecedented Oromo Liberation Army ( OLA) resurgence and government counter-insurgency operations.

In the Benishangul Gumuz state, insurgency and communal fights have been on the rise resulting in tit-for-tat killings, displacement, and the burning and looting of private and public property. An armed group has recently taken complete control of a district home to 25,000 residents. It is worth noting that this region is home to the flagship hydroelectric project that is the subject of a protracted tussle between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan.

The Amhara region is engaged in an active hostility with three neighboring regional states and Sudan. In the north, Amhara militia and special forces are fighting in western Tigray alongside the Federal military and adjacent Eritrean troops. The U.S. government has accused Amhara forces of committing ethnic cleansing in western Tigray and called for their immediate withdrawal. In the west, Amhara militia and farmers have been fighting with Sudanese security forces on border flashpoints. In the southwest, Amhara forces are accused of crossing the border and raiding the Benishangul Gumuz region.

Lately, activists and residents in western Oromia report that Amhara special forces have crossed the border and are perpetrating crimes. This is on top of the ongoing conflict with Oromo farmers and pastoralists in the Oromo special zone and North Shawa.

The Afar and Somali regions have been intermittently fighting on the border areas. Afar activists and regional leaders have blamed neighboring Djibouti for involvement in the latest flare-up.

The Southern regional state has also witnessed multiple security crises emanating from statehood demands and communal conflict. The National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) has admitted that voter registration could not be held in some districts in the southern state due to security challenges. In short, the security atmosphere is not conducive to hold a free and fair election.

Repression 

The political opening witnessed during the early period of Abiy ascendence has been reversed, and the republic of fear has once more returned. Currently, dissenting voices and criticism of those in power are muzzled. In Oromia, only the word ‘hell’ could describe the unabating crackdown on real or perceived dissent and political opponents.

Extrajudicial killings have become a routine modus Operandi. Hundreds of innocent civilians have been executed by security forces. Mass arrests have also intensified so much that schools and storages have been turned into makeshift prisons to host political prisoners. The rank and files of the Oromo opposition are not spared. Potential candidates for election have been preeminently incarcerated across Oromia without having their day in court. Security forces have shuttered more than 100 OFC and OLF field offices. Hence, OFC and OLF were pushed out of the election through an unrelenting crackdown on their leaders and members and the closure of the political space.

Since peaceful space has progressively dwindled in Oromia, armed resistance is gaining unprecedented momentum. OLA’s ranks are swelling as youth fleeing security crackdowns join en masse. As per the ruling party’s account of the election security assessment leaked to social media, PP could not conduct party training in 51 districts in Oromia due to security problems. NEBE has also indicated that it could not hold an election in at least seven districts in Western Oromia.

The repression in Oromia is not an exception. It is the rule.

The Somali Regional State, which is often held up as the success story of the transition period, is not out of the woods. For example, voter registration did not commence until one week before the original deadline for registration. When voter registration started, it was marred by irregularity. Three opposition parties competing in the Somali state have suspended electoral activities, citing intimidation and massive fraud in voter registration.

Opposition parties have reported that their candidates have been killed in different parts of the country. Even the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (Ezema), a party often accused of being a PP-in-opposition due to personal and ideological proximity with the ruling party and its leader, has announced that two of its candidates in Bishoftu (Oromia) and Ataye (Amhara) were killed. Similarly, two National Movement of Amhara or NaMA candidates were killed in Gonder in the Amhara state and Asosa in Benishangul Gumuz. NEBE board chair Birtukan Mideksa has said that the detention of candidates has slowed down voter registration.

Meanwhile, protesters in the Amhara region and Amhara activists in the diaspora are agitating for the cancellation of the election. The Amhara opposition and elites have previously supported both the postponement of the August 2020 election and the rescheduled June 2021 date. Now in an apparent U-turn, they are calling for Abiy to face justice before the election for aiding and abetting the killings and displacement of the Amhara people. This is a significant blow to Abiy, who has been counting on Amhara’s support to crackdown on Oromo opposition and prosecute a deadly civil war in Tigray.

But Abiy Ahmed, on his part, vowed to crush the protests and instigators. So far, no major security crackdown has been reported partly due to the regional security apparatus’s sympathy with protesters even as they destroyed Oromo-owned businesses and carried banners denouncing Oromumma, the Oromo national identity. Whether Abiy forces regional security to turn against the protesters or send in federal forces to quell the protests is unclear. What is indisputably clear is that Abiy has lost his last social and political base.

Polarization 

In Ethiopia, now, as in the past, there is no agreement on the diagnosis and solution to the foundational political conundrums. While those who subscribe to the notion of centralized unitary state blame ‘ethnic federalism’ as the extension of identity politics, supporters of the current multinational constitutional settlement fault the deferred federal promises and failure to rectify past historical injustices. Unitarians wrongly blame TPLF as the mother of all evils and seek the repeal and replacement of the federal arrangement; federalists, on the other hand, seek the genuine implementation of federalism and a clean break from imperial legacy. Sadly, these ideological faultlines follow specific ethnic geography.

While the bulk of the ethnic communities in the Greater South, including Oromo, Somali, Sidama, and so forth, support a federalist path, Amhara and urban elites are nostalgic for the assimilationist and exclusionist unitary state model. Even competitive and democratic elections won’t resolve these sharp ideological divides, let alone the current sham exercise with a predetermined outcome. Only a difficult, painful, and good faith give and take dialogue would bring about an amicable solution.

Abiy Ahmed and his party have chosen a unitarian diagnosis and solution over other competing ideologies, thereby antagonizing a significant portion of the electorate. Over the last three decades, various nations, nationalities, and peoples have enjoyed cultural self-expression and partial political autonomy on local matters. They were demanding full autonomy and commensurate participation in national political and economic power arrangements. But the regressive approach of PP deals a significant blow to their aspiration and expectation.

The PP is not at peace even within its various regional chapters. It is an open secret that members of different regional branches do not see eye-to-eye on several issues.

Earlier this month, the Oromia and Amhara branch offices traded blame on the cause and course of the conflict in Ataye in the Amhara region. Similarly, the Benishangul Gumuz and Amhara branch offices exchanged a war of words over the territorial dispute in the Metekel zone.

Somali and Afar branches are also not getting along due to contentious border disputes. The Harari regional administration, run by the Harari branch of PP, has threatened to boycott the election if NEBE does not reverse a decision that curbed Harari’s unique voting system in an apparent objection to the policy position of some PP members and leadership. In a nutshell, no ideological or institutional glue holds the PP branches together. It is a house divided against itself, standing together only due to incumbency benefits and privileges.

This election will further deepen their differences and complicate the already polarized political ecology. Conducting the elections amidst these mounting and ever-complex challenges is much ado about nothing. It neither brings legitimacy for the Abiy administration nor restores peace and security.

The way forward

The Abiy regime needs this election not to secure popular mandate or legitimacy from the Ethiopian people but to regain lost international legitimacy and deflect blame and solicit much-needed foreign aid and loans. If the experience of the last three years is any guide, international legitimacy and resources will be used not to benefit people but build vanity projects, intimidate and co-opt critics. Even worse, there is a well-founded fear that PP, alongside like-minded loyal opposition parties, may embark on reversing the multinational federal arrangement and replace it with territorial federalism or a unitary system.

One thing is certain: Ethiopia won’t be different the morning after June 5. Instead, things will get worse. If Ethiopia is to hold together, the Abiy regime should be pressured to hit pause on the electoral rush and lay the ground for a viable and meaningful dialogue. Before heading to the polls, Ethiopia needs to fix security crises, end political repression, and manage ideological polarization through a comprehensive national dialogue that is nationally owned but facilitated by neutral third parties. The international community should play a positive and proactive role in this regard than rush to legitimize meaningless and conflictual electoral maneuvers.

The chance of mounting a unified domestic countervailing force that would bring Abiy to kneel and reconsider his disastrous move is slim. The international community should exert maximum diplomatic pressure to force him to change course and sit for dialogue. They must do much more than watch in indifference and indecisiveness. The U.S. and EU must speak in one voice and follow through with punitive actions. As a starting point, they should decline to send in observers and make it clear to Abiy that they won’t recognize the results.

Still, to have a meaningful dialogue, the guns must first be silenced. Political prisoners must be released unconditionally. And an illegal and unconstitutional military Command Post in Oromia should be lifted, and civilian security control should be restored. Ethiopia’s future depends on it.

ABIYMUSTGO

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/10/politics/blinken-tigray-ethnic-cleansing/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0LrVwMMzHnxtTTHJwrj4bXqMsTvyy0Xs7SSoONZYFM-AZlk8ZDagKzrrY

#AbiyMustGo#Ethiopia

 https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201214-civilians-in-ethiopia-s-tigray-speak-of-horror-as-blackout-lifts?fbclid=IwAR2d4VzJIh-9mcAeCbf9v6B4qyHi5zL0IbwJ_o1-RS4KIRIupPVPc0RsVR8&ref=fb

Ergaa Jawaar Mohaammaad : Mana Hidhaa Qaallittiirraa. Lola Mootummaa Iti...

Ethiopian Multinational Federalist Support Force condemns the war in Tig...

#FreeJawarMohammed#Ethiopia

 The war in Tigray is a result of Ethiopia’s mismanaged transition

[By Jawar Mohammed]

The myriad political problems facing Ethiopia cannot be resolved through a war. To prevent further mayhem, the international community and regional players should exert maximum pressure on all parties for an immediate ceasefire and all-inclusive national dialogue.

Ethiopia is back in the global spotlight once again with the outbreak of the war in Tigray. I am saddened but not surprised. For anyone with a cursory understanding of the fragility of Ethiopia’s transitional politics, the escalation of tensions between the federal government and the Tigray state into a full-blown military conflict does not come as a surprise. The tell-tale signs were there for everyone to see as the warring parties openly prepared their respective forces for the eventuality of an all-out armed confrontation.

While the specter of war had been hanging over our heads for at least two solid years, the weeks before the formal commencement of the war were particularly alarming. As antagonisms between the federal government and the Tigray state reached a climax, federal and Tigray state media outlets regularly showed military parades, highly drilled commando paratrooper units, and red-beret Special Forces performed in mock-operations in an apparent show of force. All indications were that clashes were in the offing in a not so distant future. Then came November 4, 2020: The country woke up to the news of yet another deadly war.

We, in the Oromo Protest movement, had precisely anticipated this danger long before the drums of war began to reverberate between Finfinne and Mekelle, and put a considerable amount of effort in a desperate attempt to avert the unfortunate bloodshed. Regrettably, all political actors and outside stakeholders -including us- failed to prevent the war despite having ample time and incentive to do so in what now appears to be a collective failure of imagination. But why did we fail?

Below I will highlight some of our efforts and reflection as to why we could not attain the desired outcome in the interests of setting the record straight and as a useful lesson as we continue to navigate the treacherous terrains of Ethiopia’s utterly mismanaged political transition. Note that since I don’t have access to my journal and other useful reference materials as I sit inside the four walls of a prison cell, I rely on retrieved recollections from memory to outline the sequence of events on the topic.

Long before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed emerged as chairman of the then ruling coalition and eventually took over the stewardship of the transitional process -in fact way before the Oromo Protests erupted- we knew that one of our main tasks was designing a strategy to dislodge the principal handlers of the authoritarian regime from power without plunging what was already a polarized country into a civil war, or even worse, without turning it into a failed state.

We believed that the process of inducing change into a minority-dominated authoritarian rule and its aftermath would have extremely dangerous consequences if not carefully handled. Our fear of a carelessly handled regime change possibly leading to a civil war and/or state collapse, was based on the following assessments of present and historical factors.

History of Ethiopian state formation

********

Ethiopia is a polity created via the conquest of various national groups, and the successive nation-building projects attempted through forced assimilationist policies aborted with the rise of the national question. The last attempt at nation and state-building through the formation of a multinational federation was also undermined by the authoritarian nature of the regime. Thus, the failure to build a state whose legitimacy is unquestioned by constituent national groups led to the birth of competing nationalisms.

In such a situation, the contest between the power holders and its challengers is highly likely to take an ethnic dimension as each side taps into those competing nationalist narratives, paving way for horizontal conflicts among various national groups. By the time we were designing the strategy against the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), these competing nationalisms were already robust and institutionalized. The risk for horizontal conflicts to arise and transform into a civil war was very high.

Nature of the regime

*****

EPRDF was dominated by the coalition’s senior partner, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), whose political base is a minority ethno-linguistic group representing merely six percent of Ethiopia’s population. When such minority political groups disproportionately dominate power, as much as holding power yields disproportionate material and sentimental dividend to members and affiliates of this group, the loss of this power or threat thereof, poses perceived or real existential threat both to their accumulated wealth and/or to their safety.

Although authoritarian rules of this type mostly enrich only a small clique of voracious sharks in the upper echelons of power, the fear of existential threat is usually shared by the rank and file within the party structure as well as by the entire population from which the dominant group hails.

The power holding political elite also tap into this fear to mobilize the mass and thereby insulate themselves from potential harm. Given this scenario, power contestations between those in power and their challengers could easily turn into a horizontal ethnic conflict. The fact that institutions of the federal government were dominated by elites of TPLF’s minority group meant that such a sense of existential threat and subsequent horizontal conflict could fracture those institutions, risking state collapse. I have written about this in 2010 on Tigrayan Nationalism. Our concern was exacerbated when we witnessed events in Syria and how a threatened power holding minority could wreak havoc, as I argued here in September 2012.

The above factors weighed heavy on our minds when designing a strategy to induce change towards a democratic transition in Ethiopia. The core principles of our strategic approach were as follows:

While demanding that the TPLF cede power by mounting pressure through popular protests that indicated that change was inevitable, we also advocated that they should be given assurances against a punitive redistribution of wealth, aggressive persecution, and prosecution for past crimes should they give up federal power without further bloodshed. The assurances would also include a guarantee of autonomy for the Tigray Regional State so it could continue to be protected by federal forces against external threats. It was agreed to clearly and repeatedly communicate this to them formally and informally.We were very much aware of the gross human rights violations and corruption the TPLF dominated EPRDF had been engaged in. After all, Oromos and Oromia were the primary victims of brutality and exploitation. Yet, as painful as it is, we felt that sacrificing justice would be necessary to avoid a catastrophic civil war and broaden the chance for the transition into a sustainable democratic system.

To reinforce this assurance and reduce uncertainty, it was believed that we should adopt a non-violent popular movement rather than an armed struggle. We believed civil disobedience posed less existential threat than armed confrontations. Furthermore, the transition should be through reform rather than overthrowing the regime entirely, and that is it should be led by reform-minded elements or factions within the ruling party who hold onto power rather than the opposition. We thought it would be simpler to assuage fears by the TPLF leadership of aggressive persecution, if they relinquished power to members of their ruling coalition than opposition groups that they considered more hostile.

During the resistance movement, civilian members of the minority group should be protected to reduce the development of a sense of collective insecurity among the Tigrayan people. This was effectively implemented during the four and half years of the Oromo Protest. No Tigrayan was harmed by protesters. Even senior political and security elites were spared from direct attack. These strategies worked better than we could hope for. The resistance movement overall cost us thousands of lives but the TPLF finally understood that it was no longer tenable to cling on to power in the face of mounting pressure. The leaders wisely accepted the golden parachute, agreeing to hand over power to then OPDO, and retreated to their home state.

It all went according to plan thus far but our scheme had a second phase. The first, as discussed above, was dislodging the TPLF from power without causing a civil war in the process. The second phase was reintegrating and reconciling TPLF members to be part of the new democratic multinational federation. We believed that reconciling and reintegrating them was as crucial for the success of the transition as carefully dislodging them from power was.

It was the failure to effectively implement this second phase that significantly contributed to the current crisis. There are many reasons and enough blame to go around on why this phase failed. From my perspective, the following are a few of them:

The plan to implement the second phase began to falter from the very beginning of the transition. On the eve of the transition, tension began to increase between TPLF hardliners and the incoming reformist team. At the ruling coalition council’s meeting convened to elect new leadership, the TPLF lodged a harsh and abusive criticism on the designated chairman and Prime Minister-elect, Abiy Ahmed, and went as far as refusing to cast even a single of their 45 votes for him. This created a bitter rift between the group that needed to be reconciled and the person responsible for presiding over the reintegration process.

Another reason is that those tasked with implementing the second phase had different understandings, motivations, and tactics from those who planned it. In other words, those who came to power to lead the transition and those at the forefront of the protest movement had a different understanding of the way forward. The freshly minted “reformist” leaders saw the TPLF as a mortal threat to consolidating power rather than an old regime that could be useful to facilitate the transition process if properly reconciled with and reintegrated into the plan.Part of the problem was that individuals who came to play a decisive role in government were not active participants in the negotiations that led to the transition – not only did they not share our concerns nor did they feel that they should abide by the terms of those agreements. Instead of actively reassuring TPLFites and the larger Tigrayan elite, they pursued aggressive purging, harsh criticisms of their track records, and persecution of many key members of the TPLF including army generals and businesses. This led the TPLF and majority Tigrayan elites to believe they were deceived into giving up power with false promises strengthening the position of hardliners and silencing moderates.

They immediately resorted to aggressive and combative rhetoric, having felt that they immediately became a target despite holding onto their end of the bargain to relinquish power. Their fear was exacerbated by how the peace deal with Eritrea was handled. Their exclusion from the peacemaking process with their archenemy made the TPLF feel the reproach was motivated by the desire to create an alliance against them rather than a sincere effort to end the decade’s long hostility between the two countries.

Those who ascended to federal power also had reasons to feel insecure and threatened by TPLF’s deep state. They suspected TPLF operatives to be behind several acts of violence, such as communal clashes and the attempted assassination of Abiy himself. For the new power holders, the TPLF was sabotaging the reform effort as a means of blackmailing and undermining the federal government. The TPLF did not do much to reassure them either. In fact, harsh criticisms forwarded by some of its senior officials against the Prime Minister further heightened the sense of insecurity by the central government.

The grenade attack at the rally organized in support of the new Prime Minister in June of 2018 was officially blamed on former chief of intelligence, Getachew Assefa, yet he was re-elected to the Executive Committee in a clear act of aggression. The fact that key elites in both camps had known each other for long has also resulted in personalized animosity. More importantly, leaders of the two sides grew up under an authoritarian culture where imposing one’s views and interests on the other with the use of force was a norm, and reaching compromises to bridge differences was regarded as a sign of weakness.

It was obvious that the ruling coalition needed to reform, or at least rebrand itself, to remain in power and remain relevant. In fact, the coalition partners had agreed to reform the party even before the transition had begun. It was also obvious that TPLF’s dominant role would be reduced to reflect the new power order. And such reduction of power would create sour feelings in various sectors, hence the need for careful negotiations, power bargains, and discussions. Yet no such negotiations and discussions were undertaken during the early period of the transition.

On the contrary, such possibilities were deliberately avoided in favor of false harmony. For instance, at the 11th EPRDF Congress in Hawassa, the TPLF gave 100% of its vote to PM Abiy to continue as chairman of the coalition; this was despite their increasing resentment and fear towards his actions such as the purging of Tigrayan security and military officials and his right-wing leaning political rhetoric that contradicted EPRDF’s core leftist ideology and the perceived threat Abiy’s rhetoric carried to their regional autonomy.

During the early months of the transition, at the time when deeper discussion and negotiations were needed, the coalition stopped its usual culture of holding regular meetings and debates guided by the coalition’s principles of ‘democratic centralism’ in which differences are supposed to be ironed out internally rather than exposed to the public.

The EPRDF’s Executive Committee of the 36 powerful individuals rarely met. Even the crucial issue of merging the party, which was agreed upon in Hawassa, was avoided until the last minute. There was no real and genuine discussion and negotiation about the matter. When the issue was finally tabled, it was presented as a take it or leave it to matter on both sides with no desire for finding a middle ground.

Instead of negotiations, power bargains, and persuasions, deceptions and threats were deployed in public from both sides. After such a badly managed merger affair, the bond that tied the Tigray region and the new power holders in the federal government was all but severed. In a polity where a single party rule from federal to village level was the norm, two parties with an ugly break up began ruling the federal and regional governments, making their relationship more cumbersome than that between two sovereign countries hostile to one another. After the merger fiasco, the enmity between the two sides became official and preparations to forcefully assert their respective interests began to be pursued publicly.

To say that the postponement of the regional and national elections due to the COVID-19 is the single most important factor that ignited the current conflict is to arrive at an erroneous conclusion.

The relationship between the two had been severely damaged way before the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I have argued in several interviews the two sides were already preparing for war long before election politics gripped public consciousness.

One could safely argue that the election postponement was a missed opportunity to reset the relationship and to negotiate an amicable political settlement but the two sides only used it as an opportunity to further de-legitimize each other as they prepared behind the scenes for today’s armed showdown. The postponement might have sped up the war, but for anyone closely observing Ethiopia, it was obvious that the two sides had made up their mind to settle their differences by the barrel of the gun rather than around the negotiating table. The writing was on the wall.

In the absence of mutually reassuring communication and negotiation, insecurity on both sides, that is TPLF’s fear of retribution for past misdeeds and Abiy’s concern of losing control due to acts of sabotage by TPLF’s deep state was worsening. Hence each side focused on taking defensive actions to neutralize perceived threats. Abiy by purging them from security and bureaucracy and TPLF by building its military capability and attempting to broaden its political and security alliance outside Tigray.

The securitization of the relationship facilitated for hardliners to dominate TPLF’s decision making while pushing Abiy and the federal government to rely on and come under increasing influence personalities and entities that advocated violent resolution of the TPLF issue. Sadly, international actors, perhaps underestimating the likelihood of a war breaking out, did little to diffuse the ever-growing tension. Even worse some foreign states and ambassadors took sides emboldening the quarreling forces to be more aggressive and combative.

Thus, the war in Tigray did not suddenly erupt due to the attacks on the Northern Command of the National Defense Forces. The Northern Command has been a hostage of the Finfinne – Mekele political gridlock for the last two years. The Tigray regional government had openly declared that no weapon could leave the region and the army’s movement had been severely restricted. As the tension increased, Tigray feared the federal government would use the Northern Command to forcefully take over the region from within the territory, while the federal authorities were worried that the heavy armament in possession of the Northern Command could be used by the TPLF to launch an attack not only within the regional state but even on the center.

In other words, the Northern Command was seen as a crucial element that could tip the balance of force in the power struggle between Finfinne and Mekelle. After squandering opportunities to negotiate a mutually reassuring deal during the early months of the transition and with external actors fanning the tension rather than pressing for resolution, the war was inevitable.

Finally, at the risk of self-praise, let me highlight some of those little efforts. As one of the people involved in designing the Oromo Protests strategies, I spent a considerable amount of time pondering, writing, and speaking to stakeholders about how to dislodge TPLF from power and safely reintegrate them. I played an active role in the first phase – in dislodging the TPLF – and tried to play a bit of an advisory (mediator) role in the second.

In the first phase, I had direct participation in the discussions and negotiations. In the second phase, I tried to urge the two sides charged with the matter to take reconciliation and reintegration as a priority. For instance, when PM Abiy and President Lamma came to the US, one of the main topics of our discussion was how to handle the TPLF conundrum.

Having had a positive reaction from them, I called President Debretsion while Abiy and Lemma were still in the U.S. and explained to him the urgency of this task. I also informed both Abiy and Debretsion that activists and public intellectuals would wage campaigns to shape public opinions in favor of reconciliation and reintegration. To work towards this end we would travel to Mekelle right after my return to Ethiopia. Both sides thought this was a good idea.

Upon my return, I communicated with both sides to arrange the trip to Mekelle. Those in Finfinne advised me to travel to Bahir Dar first to prevent possible suspicion and negative reactions from the Amhara side. Mekelle also agreed and I first traveled to Bahir Dar. However, my travel to Mekelle was repeatedly delayed and postponed primarily as the relationship between the two sides deteriorated. Those at the federal government were reluctant while Mekelle also grew suspicious of our true intentions. The plan was finally canceled when the former spy chief, Getachew Assefa, was elected to TPLF’s Executive Committee (EC) in defiance of the federal government’s arrest warrant against him.

Although the plan to travel to Mekelle to help with public opinion did not materialize, I did not give up lobbying for the two sides to solve their differences through negotiations. That tragic day the chief of armed forces and the president of the Amhara region were assassinated, I was extremely alarmed by how state media in Amhara and Tigray regional states were fanning the tension. I decided to reach out to veterans of the ANDM and TPLF in the respective regional states to plead with them to tone down the hostility and honor the martyrs of both sides.

This conversation developed into an idea of veteran politicians, drawn both from the EPRDF and opposition side, conducting back door negotiations between Mekelle and Finfinne to facilitate formal negotiations among the officials. Six individuals from both sides were selected. The plan was endorsed both by PM Abiy and president Debretsion. But for reasons I still don’t know it was abandoned before any face-to-face meeting was held. After the effort failed, I realized any effort to solve the problem amicably would prove futile. When we talked to them, officials of the two sides were more interested in soliciting our support for the inevitable confrontation.

Reconciliation and reintegration of TPLF was one of the primary focuses of my advocacy when meeting foreign diplomats as well. For instance, a few days after returning to Ethiopia I had meetings with ambassadors of some 20 countries including that of the U.S. and the European Union. In those meetings, I emphasized the crucial importance of resolving the TPLF/ Tigray issue for the success of the transition and emphasized that failure to reconcile would have serious ramifications for the country and regional stability. I urged these diplomats to put pressure on both sides to negotiate. In several meetings with foreign diplomats and officials in the last two and half years in the Horn Region, Europe, and the US, I have been pleading the same point, but I am not sure if it was taken seriously.

Conclusion

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We dreamed of and planned for a peaceful transition to democracy. Nonviolently dislodging and then reintegrating the power holders in TPLF’s base was the centerpiece of our plan. We strongly believed successfully dislodging followed by reconciliation would be an essential component of not only successfully transitioning Ethiopia to democracy but also building on the multinational federal state by avoiding falling back into a catastrophic civil war. It did not work as we hoped.

While our plans to weaken and dislodge the TPLF turned out to be more successful than we had anticipated, efforts to reintegrate them into the transitional set up proved inadequate, forcing us to confront our worst fear – a civil war. Ironically, we choose to let EPRDF, the party that tyrannically ruled, continue to lead the transition believing that opposition taking over through regime change carries more risk of war.

Yet it is the split within the ruling coalition that brought about what we hoped to avoid. This reminds me of what the chairman of Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), Professor Merera Gudina, said at the start of the transition that ‘Abiy’s main difficulty was managing the EPRDF rather than dealing with the opposition’ or something to that effect.

As I jot down this piece, the war is raging and the federal government has said it was marching to capture Mekelle. Regardless of which side wins in key battlefronts or the war itself, it’s obvious that Ethiopia loses on multiple fronts. Even before the war erupted the much-hoped-for transition was severely harmed by confrontations of the two sides and several other factors.

The main reason why we wanted to ease out TPLF with the offer of a golden parachute – assuring them that they would not be targets of vengeful persecutions and punitive redistribution of wealth, they would preserve their regional autonomy as well as receive protection from foreign adversaries – was to save the federation from eventual fragmentation.

We operated with a working assumption that any perception of an existential threat by the TPLF, which dominated the political and security apparatus of the Ethiopian state for almost three decades, could lead to the collapse of some of the federal institutions it built and held together. A look into the impact this war is having on the cohesion of the Ethiopian army provides a glimpse into the disastrous outcome of this fallout.

The war in Tigray is a direct result of a poorly managed transition into a democratic dispensation, which should not be viewed as an isolated problem. It is a tragic collective failure of the country’s political leadership – all of us, not just Abiy and the TPLF. There is enough blame to go around. One person or party could bear larger or lesser responsibilities but we all played a role. Through our acts of omission and commission, we squandered this great opportunity for a peaceful democratic transition and placed the country at a horrible civil war that could rip it apart.

From my prison cell, I cannot pretend to be up to speed with everyday developments on the war and the efforts of external actors to end it before it causes irreversible damage. It would therefore be presumptuous of me to try to offer concrete recommendations with limited information at hand. All I could do for the time being is plead with all sides to give peace a chance; remind various political groups to refrain from fanning the war and instead exert pressure to end the hostility.

Even if this war ends with the defeat of the TPLF leadership, genuine efforts must be made to reconcile and reintegrate the disenfranchised Tigrayan political, security, and economic elites into the country’s governance structures. The defeat of TPLF does not necessarily mean the end of the ‘Tigrayan problem’ for the Ethiopian state. The resurgence of wounded Tigrayan nationalism is inevitable unless extra care is given to avoid the victimization of Tigrayans. For instance, the disputed border between Amhara and Tigray states should be carefully handled not to leave cause for future conflict.

The unfinished issue of the Eritrean border also requires sensitive handling. In both border disputes, a ‘winner takes it all’ approach must be avoided.

The international community and regional players should exert maximum pressure to save this country from further mayhem by insisting on the immediate cessation of hostilities and encouraging Ethiopia’s political forces to resolve their differences through an all-inclusive national dialogue.

Finally, if any actor, be it state or non-state, believes they can achieve victory through a war in this country, they are mistaken. Certainly, one can defeat the other on the battlefield, but neither side would be victorious in building a peaceful and sustainable political order. We are poised to lose the country if we keep insisting on advancing our particular interest through the use of force. In our part, during the Oromo Protests, we consciously chose to wage nonviolent struggle because we believed it would give us a better chance of bringing about a transition to a multinational democratic federal system.

At the OFC, we firmly believe -as always-that nonviolent struggle and an all-inclusive dialogue remain Ethiopia’s best hope to successfully transition into a democratic order, ensure enduring stability and achieve sustainable development, and are committed to abiding by these principles. It has worked for us in the past. We hope it serves us better in the future as well.

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Jawar Mohammed

November 2020

Qaliti Federal Prison, Ethiopia

#Jawar_Mohammed is a politician and political analyst. He was arrested in July 2020 during the crackdown in the aftermath of the killing of Haacaaluu Hundeessa. He is currently on trial at the federal court in Ethiopia. This article, written on a paper and smuggled out of prison, was shared with the Awash Post by a member of his defense team.

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 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/30/tigray-forces-say-they-shot-down-ethiopian-plane-retook-axum?fbclid=IwAR1LGKdaASGx6nOr07WqsdMPVVfm9i9OIM1NBWtO1SfgKy7f8U4sysRaLi4