My intention here is neither to make a comparative analysis between the current Ethiopian constitution and those of the past promulgated under the monarchy or the military dictatorship. Nor is it an attempt at legal interpretations of articles in the constitution. But, I find it necessary, in light of the gross human rights violations going on in that country, to pin point, first and foremost the real intentions behind the constitution, as well as warn against the dangers behind such an apparently progressive and western type modern but deceptive constitution.
Before coming to the main subject, however, to show the egregious human rights violations in Ethiopia, I will briefly touch up on the human rights conditions under the two previous regimes of Ethiopian Empire. Different Ethiopian regimes had, on paper, different constitutions, mainly for the consumption of the outside world. Those documents didn’t really contain any substantive differences when it comes to their practical implementations. The Derg constitution of 1987 was theoretically somewhat different from Haile Selassie’s constitutions of 1955. ‘The constitution of Derg curbed the role of religion in politics and law, whereas Haile Selassie’s constitution had intertwined the three together.’
In Ethiopia, so far, in all cases the constitutions were given from the top down to the people. The people were not makers of their own laws but receivers who must obey the laws made based on the interests of the ruling groups. The ruling groups were not obliged to abide by their own constitutions and the laws that emanate from them. They always remained above the constitutions they made. However much theoretically different, in practical terms, human rights abuses and denials of the peoples’ freedoms and democratic rights under all Ethiopian constitutions remain the same. Both under the autocratic rule of Emperor Haile Selassie and the quasi-fascist self-declared Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam, we witnessed flagrant human rights abuses and denials of peoples’ freedom and democratic rights. The human rights abuses might have differed in scope and intensity under the two regimes. But the end results were the same.
Under Haile Selassie’s rule human rights abuse was subtle and difficult for the eyes of the international community to detect. The relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed had been taken as natural phenomena handed down through decades of feudal rule. The abuse was selective, in the sense that it targeted mainly the oppressed nations and nationalities. The human rights abuses were carried out by the feudal land lords, the ‘Indaraasees’ (representatives of the Emperor), etc., who were fully authorised to do everything they deemed necessary on behalf of the Emperor to impose his authority and keep the security of the nation and the unity of the Empire.
Under the Derg, in spite of all the talk about the rights of the masses, neither the constitution nor the laws that emanated from it had given protection to the people from gross human rights abuses. Dissenting opinion was intolerable. Violations of human rights and the brutality of the state were open and flagrant. The abuses were indiscriminate in as much as they were directed against men, women, the old as well as the young; it was massive in scale, wider in scope and too intense to hide from the international community. It came across as shocking and most disturbing to the human conscience both locally and at the international level - and all in the name of reinforcing the constitutions, keeping the security of the nation and the unity and sovereignty of the Ethiopian state.
In terms of human rights protection, the constitution of the TPLF/EPRDF regime, the current ruling mono-ethnic clique in Ethiopia, appears more progressive than its two predecessors. Judging at face value, one can say that it is a great breakthrough in the history of Ethiopian constitutional history. Many elements of human and democratic rights are enshrined in the current constitution. Many of these democratic rights were what the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) had put forward during its partnership with the TPLF in the Transitional Government of Ethiopia between 1991 and 1992. The TPLF/EPRDF has adopted some of the proposals of the OLF in its constitution although for reasons totally different than envisaged by the OLF. Subsequent events have clearly shown that provisions of the TPLF constitution were merely devised to mask the massive human rights violations committed against particularly the Oromo people. No doubt it was also meant as a dilatory tactic against the struggle of the Oromo people for their natural rights for self-determination.
Had the intention of the TPLF been to genuinely implement those democratic rights as enshrined in its constitution, the general political trend in the Horn of Africa would have been different from what we see today. Many liberation fronts like the OLF and others who have been forced to continue with the armed struggle for the fundamental rights of their peoples would have, in most likelihood, adopted different policies to achieve their political objectives. The huge political gaps and the growing mistrusts among different political organisations and peoples would have been mitigated. But the intentions of the TPLF was different form what most of the people in the Horn of Africa, particularly the oppressed nations and nationalities had first perceived.
So it is obvious now that a lot of people failed to see the true intentions of the TPLF when they put their trust in its promise to abide by and implement its constitution. They thought, with all its shortcomings, the constitution would bring some positive changes if the human and democratic elements enshrined in it were practically interpreted into action. To their dismay, however, the intention of the TPLF was not to let the people to exercise those rights. It had a different agenda.
By crafting its constitution, the TPLF was actually preparing itself various political options. Article 39 of the constitution, the provision for the self-determination for the colonized nations and nationalities, would be a convenient legal framework to declare Tigray an independent state in the event that its central monopoly of power is threatened through a popular force down the road.
Using Tigray as an independent state, the TPLF may try to play different political games, such as preserving the full autonomy of its home country to make an unfettered political tie with the central government of Ethiopia, or to join its historical ally and cousins across the Mereb (Eritrea), or to form an independent government, although total independence does not seem, for the time being, economically viable. The second factor was, of course, to woo the peoples in the Horn, particularly the oppressed nations and nationalities, and other democratic minded forces in the empire by recognizing the rights of nations and nationalities to self- determination up to secession, along with a sprinkling of other universally recognized democratic rights in its constitutions. Assuming that the constitution would in the long run be practically implemented many people considered this step as positive and progressive. But for those accustomed to the political intrigues of the TPLF, there was nothing new in it. The constitution was simply made like all the previous Ethiopian constitutions, “to gather dust on the shelf.” If at all the need arises for its use, it would be to cite articles which can be used against the accused when it deemed necessary to do so in the interest of the TPLF. The rest will remain just a document for the archives.
And then the TPLF needed to show the international community that its version of the Ethiopian government was the most progressive and democratic in the Horn of Africa that stood for the fundamental peoples’ and democratic rights and therefore deserved the financial and political support of the international community for democratisation purposes. As it was correctly calculated by the TPLF leadership, the international community took the step as positive at the beginning. Through time however, the regime, through its flagrant human rights abuses, has proved to everybody that cares to see that it was no different from the most oppressive regimes of Africa. The prime minister, Mr. Meles Zenawi, has proved to the international community, through his own deeds, that the purpose of the constitution was to impose its uncontested authority ‘by force’. Practically putting himself above the constitution, he has taken his position among the most notorious African dictators who would never be bound by their own constitutions.
Beyond violating its own constitution, the Ethiopian regime has invaded neighbouring country, Somalia, in violation of the UN’s charter (article 2, sub-article 4). It is extending its state terrorism beyond the border of Ethiopia under the pretext of fighting international terrorism. The truth, however is that the Ethiopian government has sent its forces to Somalia partly to massacre the Oromo refugees who have been living there for more than two generations and other refugees from the Ethiopian Empire who escaped from the brutal repression of the regime.
Another reason for the adoption of the constitution was to put the traditional ruling group, the Amhara political parties, in a very awkward political position by including in the constitution some elements of peoples’ rights, like article 39, which they have never recognized even on a conceptual level. Actually this false democratic posture of the TPLF/EPRDF has sent a shock wave down the spines of those who vehemently deny the existence of different nations and nationalities in the Empire state of Ethiopia. They think the very recognition of this policy of the TPRF/EPRDF, even theoretically, would lead to the disintegration of Ethiopia.
One of the major problems with the oppressor mentality is to fail to understand that recognition of the fundamental human rights is not necessarily a cause for disintegration and disunity. Abyssinian chauvinists have failed to grasp the fact that self-determination is an inherent component of respect for human rights. Recognising the rights of nations and nationalities up to secession is nothing but recognition of those rights. To let the people decide their future destiny can heel the wounds of the past and may even create a solid and lasting unity based on the free will of the peoples concerned. If unity is not the best viable solution to the existing problems, good neighbourliness would of course be the next viable option. By the brutal actions the Abyssinians are perpetrating on the Oromo people, they are actually promoting the second option.
We can see here that the constitution is reinforcing TPLF’s plan of divide and rule among the major national groups in Ethiopia. On the one hand the TPLF/EPRDF has used the political stands of some right wing political parties, CUD for instance, against the oppressed nations and nationalities as scare-crow. On the other hand, by adopting this constitution which it will never practically implement, it has pushed the Amhara intellectuals and politicians alike further to the right thus further deepening the divisions between the old oppressor and the oppressed. It has in this manner managed to expose their anti-self-determination stand and their major plan to bring back Emperor Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia which they consider as the golden era but which the colonised nations and nationalities consider as the darkest and most dehumanising in their history.
The TPLF has forced the old ruling elites to stick to the empty slogans, “Ethiopian unity,” and “Democracy.” The advocates of unity and democracy are, however, unable to show how these objectives could be achieved. The only clear message from one of the major opposition political parties, the CUD, was that it would change the current constitution in a way favourable to those who want unity and re-divide Ethiopia based on administrative efficiency with no regard for the political interests of the Oromo people and other oppressed nations and nationalities. By implication this means curbing the rights of those who want self-determination and reinstating the old provincial division of Ethiopia. Another clear indication is that the traditional ruling elites have remerged as the only viable alternative to the TPLF with all their trappings and false pretences as promoters of “Freedom” and “Democracy” and saviours of the Empire. But the truth remains that Oromos, as much as they want to get rid of the TPLF, they do not wish the return of Amhara domination. Oromos want to fashion their own future and they do not need any patronage to do so. They are convinced that freedom and democracy lie in their own hands and in the constitution they themselves shall craft.
Merely taking the constitution at its face value, without realising the trap lying behind it, many political organisations have abandoned the classical underground struggle. Covert political activists came to the open. Through its constitution, the government encouraged political oppositions to come forward and operate legally with their demands, which of course helped the government to easily identify who is who. It also saved the government millions of dollars which otherwise it should spend to dispatch thousands of security agents to track down underground political activists.
Assuming that they could exercise their constitutional rights Oromo students at universities and high schools, Self Help Associations like Maccaa and Tulama and Oromo nationalists tried, within the frame work of the constitution, to forward demands pertaining to the fundamental human and democratic rights of the Oromo people. They tried to press the government to practically implement its own constitution. Unfortunately some of the democratic rights enshrined in the constitutions were not to let the people to exercise those rights. It was a trap to expose those who were working undercover to promote the political, economic and social rights of their people.
After knowing who is who, the government started taking harsh measures on those it considered threats to its political and economic policies. The leadership of the Maccaa and Tuulama and its active members together with thousands of Oromo nationalists, who peacefully demanded justice and freedom for their people, were put in prisons and concentration camps. Leaders of Oromo students’ movements have been detained or killed. Those who escaped the detentions and killings were forced to take refuge in neighbouring countries. They are not safe even in the countries where they have taken refuge. Their safety is threatened by the cross-boarder operations of the Ethiopian security forces and by the forced repatriations carried out by some of the host countries.
Today intimidations, detentions, torture, killings and disappearances are common everywhere across Oromia. No Oromo has constitutional or legal protection from the killing machinery of the Ethiopian State. Therefore, the TPLF/EPRDF constitution, as all Ethiopian constitutions had always been under the previous Ethiopian regimes, is made not to give legal protections to the people, but to be used against them.
Above all the TPLT/EPRDF constitution is a great dismay to those peoples of the Empire as well as the international community who naively assumed that it would be implemented in the interests of the citizens. To those who thought that it was safe to exercise their human and democratic rights as enshrined in the constitution, it was a sorry state which endangered their lives and the lives of their families. For those who abandoned the classical under ground political activities, thinking that they would further the cause of their people openly within the TPLF/EPRDF constitutional frame work, it ended in exposing them and making them preys to the murderous agents of the regime and thereby weakening the struggle of their people for freedom and democracy.
For those who still daydream of bringing freedom and democracy with in the existing Ethiopian political infrastructure through constitutional change, it is like promising the people a big ship where there is no water at all to sail on. Human and democratic rights are not achievable through piecemeal reforms provided in a constitution which the ruling group that made it does not respect.
Even according to the current constitution of TPLF/EPRDF, theoretically, the intimidations, the detentions, the torture, the extra-judicial killings and disappearances carried on the Oromo nationals and members and supporters of other oppositions are unconstitutional. However, since those who carry these atrocities against the people consider themselves above the law they made there is no court for their prosecution. The people did not make the constitution. It is given from top to down. Therefore, it does not serve the people.
December 2007
