RESPONSIBLE
Context, Challenges,
and Opportunities
of a Strategically
Vital Relationship
Testimony before the
Committee on Foreign
Affairs
Subcommittee on International
Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight
and
Subcommittee on
May 10, 2007
By Dr. J. Peter Pham
Director
The Nelson Institute
for International and Public Affairs
Chairman Delahunt, Chairman Payne, Congressman
Rohrabacher, Congressman Smith, and Distinguished Members of Congress:
I am honored and
pleased to have received the invitation opportunity to appear before you today
to discuss, as the title of this hearing has it, whether there is “a human
rights double standard” with respect to
For
the record, I would preface my remarks with the understanding that while some
of my points will certainly have their application to the case of Equatorial
Guinea, my observations will focus on U.S. policy towards Ethiopia where I have
done research and field work, including the privilege of observing the historic
parliamentary elections in 2005, and which is more directly related to my
security studies of the Horn of Africa subregion, concerning which I have
previously had the privilege of briefing the predecessor of the present
subcommittees (as well as the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and
Nonproliferation) during the 109th Congress.
I am also humbled to
be called upon to follow-up upon the remarks made by Dr. Sulayman Nyang, whose
work on Islam in Africa I have great respect for, and Ms. Lynn Fredriksson,
whose organization has done a tremendous amount of good in many of the conflict
zones of
Context
Before
entering into a discussion of the rough-and-tumble of contemporary Ethiopian
politics, a word might be said about the unique constitutional framework for
multiethnic governance that the country has constructed in recent years and for
which, in my view, it gets too little credit.
Following the flight of Mengistu Hailemariam
and the collapse of the Derg in 1991 after a protracted civil war, the Eritrean
People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) emerged victorious in
A
547-member constituent assembly was elected in early June 1994 and, after
extensive debate and a number of amendments, approved the “Constitution of the
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia” on December 8, 1994.
Perhaps
the most salient feature of the constitution is its privileging of the ethnic
issue from the very beginning. The document’s preamble opens with “We, the
Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia” rather than the
now-conventional “We the People.” Nor is this a mere rhetorical device as is
made clear by Chapter 2 of the charter, “Fundamental Principles of the
Constitution,” which declares “all sovereign power resides in the Nations,
Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia” for whom the constitution “is an expression
of their sovereignty” (Art. 8). Interestingly the definition for a distinct
status under the constitution is not that different from the sociological
definition of a “nation”:
A “Nation, Nationality
or People” for the purpose of this Constitution is a group of people who have
or share a large measure of a common culture or similar customs, mutual
intelligibility of language, belief in a common or related identities, a common
psychological make-up, and who inhabit an identifiable, predominantly
contiguous territory. (Art. 39, para. 5)
The constitution goes
on to specify that the federal structure thus brought into being shall comprise
of states “delimited on the basis of settlement patterns, language, identity
and consent of the people concerned” (Art 46). As a starting point (Art 47),
nine ethnically-based federal states (kililoch)—Tigray,
Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, Benishangul/Gumuz, “Southern Nations,
Nationalities and People,” “Gambella Peoples,” and “Harari People”—as well two
self-governing administrations (astedaderoch)—
Short of secession,
the constitution affirms that “every Nation, Nationality and People in
To
say that the introduction of this model aroused misgivings considerably
understates the reaction to this novel approach to challenges of ethnicity. But
it has to be conceded that, whatever the subsequent shortcomings of the
government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the reorganization of the
centralized Ethiopian state into a federal arrangement occurred with relatively
little economic or political disruption, even as large numbers of civil
servants were transferred from Addis Ababa to regional centers to staff the new
state governments. While it is too early to declare the success (or failure) of
the ethnic federal system in Ethiopia, it is not far-fetched to propose, as one
Ethiopian scholar does, that “recognition of the rights, obligations and
respect for the language, culture and identity of nations is the first
difficult but unavoidable step toward non-ethnic politicization and a
multiparty system.”
The
elections of May 15, 2005, delivered on this promise, marking the first real
multiparty poll in
While
I do not wish to minimize in any way the serious charges of irregularities
which the CUD as well as the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) and the
Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) brought following the publication
of election results—much less the subsequent turmoil and violence and the
government’s at times ham-fisted response—these have to set within a context.
The 2005 elections, for all their flaws, were a vast improvement over those of
2000. And, again without excusing many unfortunate incidents, those same
elections were much better than those in other African countries whose
electoral exercises I have observed—whatever intimidation or fraud may have
occurred in Ethiopia, it certainly did equal what I saw in Nigeria just over
two weeks ago—much less those in other parts of the world.
Challenges
Without
taking away from any of the concerns raised by Amnesty International and other
nongovernmental organizations as well as by our own State Department and partner
governments regarding mass arrests, the use of lethal force against civilian
protesters, and other serious charges leveled against the government of Prime
Minister Meles, it would perhaps serve us well to take note of the serious existential challenges faced by the
government in Addis Ababa, both internal and external.
Internally,
the Ethiopian government faces armed opposition from the Oromo Liberation Front
(OLF) and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), both of whom claim to be
engaged in “national liberation struggles” to free their respective peoples
from what they perceive to be “occupation.” Whatever the merits of these
claims, it in incontestable that both groups have carried out numerous attacks
not only on government military forces, but also civilian officials and even
ethnic groups supposed to have pro-government affinities. In one instance, just
one month before the 2005 election, some 400 members of the Gebera, an ethnic
group in Oromia with strong ties to the government, were slain.
If
there was any question of the ongoing seriousness of the challenge posed by
these armed internal opposition forces, late last month the ONLF launched an
attack on an oilfield being developed by a Chinese firm in
Externally,
the Ethiopian government has become embroiled in the crises affecting
neighboring
No less than expert
than Dr. Ted Dagne of the Congressional Research Service affirmed that
“Al-Itihaad has carried out a number of terrorist attacks against Ethiopian
targets.” In fact, from its base in Luuq, the Islamists of al-Itihaad
encouraged subversive activities among ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden region of
After that defeat a
decade ago, al-Itihaad changed tack and, as the longtime scholar of Somali
affairs, Professor Iqbal Jhazbhay of the University of South Africa, noted in a
recent paper, “rather than prioritize a strategy of developing an independent
military base, decided instead on what could be termed a more ‘hegemonic’
approach whereby it would be working within Somali political and clan
structures such as the Islamist Courts.” While the courts—aided by external
financial resources in addition to internal organizational capacity—have
credited with marked improvements in security in many areas of
An example of the
success of this approach is found in the career of the chairman of the ICU,
Sheikh Hassan Dahir ‘Aweys. After his defeat at the hands of the Ethiopians in
1996, ‘Aweys, the vice-chairman and military commander of al-Itihaad (and,
prior to that, a colonel in the prison service of the Siyad Barre regime, an
occupation for which it would fair to read “torturer”), settled in Merka where
he established the first Islamic court in the lower Shabelle region. He then
moved to
In the light of this
history, is it at all surprising that
And, without
stretching my brief too far, permit me to simply mention the rather unfortunate
role that Ethiopia’s regional rival, Eritrea, and its rather nasty government
have played in the ongoing situation in Somalia, arming the Islamist insurgency
as a way to stoke the fires of its own conflict with its larger neighbor. In
fact,
This is a reality we
have come to realize and which, I would imagine, has informed much of
While I have made no
secret of my view of the “Transitional Federal Government” (TFG) of
In addition, I would
mention just in passing the contributions that Ethiopia has made to
peacekeeping operations which we have supported in places like Liberia—where
two Ethiopian battalions were committed to the largely successful United
Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) led by Ambassador Jacques-Paul Klein which
paved the way for the elections which brought President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
to office—as well as various trouble spots across the African continent.
Opportunities
With
all the challenges in mind, I would encourage us to return to the glimmer of
hope the 2005 elections offered. Clearly there were flaws. But there are also
opportunities. If anything, the former point to the need to build capacity and
encourage reform. The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) did a rather
outstanding job registering voters and candidates and preparing for the poll;
its post-election performance was perhaps less impressive. This capacity needs
to be strengthened through international exchanges and other mechanisms. The
same things could be said for other political and civil society institutions in
I
know that our Embassy in
The
point which I want to underscore is that, unlike the two other countries
mentioned here today—Equatorial
Conclusion
Messrs. Chairmen, Distinguished Members:
During
the latter stages of the Cold War, one school of ethical analysis, ultimately
labeled that of “moral equivalence” by the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, measured
Western liberal democracies against utopian standards in a radical
critique—often buttressed by what is now known to have been disinformation from
the Eastern bloc—which redefined the political discourse, erasing distinctions
between the Soviet Union and its satellites on the one hand and the United
States and its allies on the other. In short, the world was divided into two
“morally equivalent” spheres, each led by a superpower which perpetrated
equally reprehensible deeds—although somehow those of the
One would have assumed
that the collapse of the Iron Curtain had consigned this doctrine to history’s
dustbin, but it has enjoyed something of a revival in the 21st
century, albeit this time among those whose sympathies lie perhaps less with
the fantasies of scientific Marxism incarnate—at least in theory—in the
U.S.S.R. and more with the romantic notions of Third Worldism as represented by
any regime which has attracted the critical scrutiny of the West. This is the
approach which the Robert Mugabes of the world and their defenders take.
But
there is another variant of moral equivalence that is just as pernicious. It is
the one which, in the name of avoiding “double standards” and for the sake of
avoiding “inconsistencies,” refuses to distinguish between what Dr. Nyang has
appropriately termed the “historical distinctiveness” of the nations under
examination and their relationships with our own country.
The
In some cases, no
matter how morally self-satisfying it may be, outside advocacy—to say nothing
of external intervention—may even lead to a worsening of conditions for those
on whose behalf action was undertaken in the first place. In other cases, the
reality is that civil society—perhaps through no fault of its own—has yet to
mature and a viable political opposition has yet to materialize. And in still
other cases, we can do a great deal to empower the forces seeking peaceful
democratic transformation through direct engagement with both those forces and
the regimes they face off against, regimes which our relationships with might
allow us considerable leverage. I would suggest that perhaps
In the end, the
reality which must be recognized is that progress in human rights will be made
not so much because outsiders, whether governmental or civil society actors,
push it, but because individuals, cultures, and nations appropriate it for
themselves, ultimately embracing it as something worth fighting for. The 2006
version of the National Security Strategy
of the United States of America acknowledges as much when it states:
In the case of