Ethiopia: Justice delayed is justice denied

It is about to be almost two years since the leaders of the AEUP/CUD party have been put in prison following the 2005 elections. While most of the other opposition parties joined the Ethiopian parliament, AEUP/CUD has been mostly incarcerated. And the latest court adjournment, last Friday, would puzzle even the most devout ruling party (EPRDF) supporters who blindly trust the neutrality of the court system for the sake of breaking the status quo of historical & chronic mistrust against successive Ethiopian governments & their institutions. Most of all, having some of the most respected civil society leaders sharing a common prison cell with former Derg officials like Hailu Shawel and some criminals who have been directly involved in the election riots, is like adding insult to the government’s injury.

Accordingly, it is despite the CUD (Kinijit) party’s resemblance to the pre-1991 backward & genocidal Ethiopian governments that some pro-EPRDF Ethiopians would still sympathize with CUD for the delayed justice. For those majority Ethiopians who suffered under the dictatorship of the Marxist Mengistu’s Derg military government & under the emperors, the CUD trial is more personal than it appears. For them, the trial is both about charging the election riot masterminds and about denying power to the CUD party that has, more or less, similar policies as the Derg 1980’s regime that murdered thousands and systematically tortured & killed in impoverishment – millions of Ethiopians. It is a fight against the brutal Neftenga re-colonization and a fight against the re-emergence of cultural hegemony. It is a fight against CUD's fake “privatization” policy that would benefit the mostly wealthy few Shewa Amharas to keep their economic dominance and it is basically a fight against the return of Amharization of Ethiopia. Finally It is a fight to keep Ethiopia united in diversity, instead of allowing Ethiopia to collapse because of a one-ethnic cultural, political, economic and linguistic dominance.

And for some Oromo Ethiopians who support the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), the CUD trial is actually a win-win situation since the delayed trial and the post-election violence can give OLF a much needed evidence to discredit the ruling party and also the privilege to say “I told you so!” to outside observers. Yet at the same time, that violence and thus the CUD trial, also gives OLF pleasure since it protects or safeguards the current pro-OLF policy of ethnic federalism from being wrecked by the resurrection of the old centralist Neftenga policy that could have taken power in Finfinne in 2005 – dressed in a different uniform. OLF’s nightmare of the Neftenga system, mostly Shewa Amhara & Urban, re-emerging after successfully changing its old costume of that of a gun bearer to a new costune with well-dressed bunch in suits and tie was reversed with the AEUP/CUD incarceration. Yet all peace-loving Ethiopian groups from every corner of the world will still demand more transparency from the court that has already been perceived as a government puppet. The Ethiopian government should avoid imitating George Bush’s administration tactic of handpicking pro-White House Supreme Court judges and avoid angering CUD supporters with fraud – for the sake of political harmony in Addis Ababa – which is a capital city that has already been equally angered at Hailu Shawel’s imprisonment as it was of Mengistu’s departure.

The current ruling party showing and demanding transparency will help not only itself, but also help future governments that will be created by the current opposition parties. Yet to be fair, the opposition has not played its role. Usually if a certain group of opposition political leaders show chronic distrust for a government & its institutions, the chances are their millions of followers will show or mirror that dangerous level of distrust as well. In most cases, perpetuating this cycle of political and ethnic mistrust can only harm opposition groups that are in the running to take power in the near future. Nothing can dispute the fact that hate and historical bitterness, not performance, have been the major sources of this distrust. Equally evident is that all forms of propaganda and exaggeration have been utilized by some unwise and short-sighted opposition groups to publicize their distrust and perpetuate historical ethnic mistrust. Usually the one who uses such violent propaganda to get power will also face such propaganda to violently lose its power. This has been proven time and time again in Ethiopia. And this will happen again unless current Ethiopian opposition politicians are willing to break this cycle of distrust that produces bad governance. Negligently, they might think that they are being asked to do favors for the ruling party, but in reality, what goes around comes around since current opposition bitterness expressed in violent propaganda would be replicated back against them once those same opposition parties become ruling parties one day. The importance of breaking ethnic, political & historical cycles of distrust, bitterness & hate in Ethiopia has never been so clear.

Despite these necessary roles the opposition should play and has so far failed to play; the ruling party and current institutions must also DESERVE such trust by showing the willingness to bring judicial transparency and independence. Eventough "once trust is granted, trust will be returned" might be true of CUD vis-a-vis EPRDF; still, when outsiders look at the situation of this trial separately, the AEUP/CUD party is not in the position to grant anything. With the exception of the disastrous Kinijit International Leadership (KIL) who is daily killing CUD’s image in Ethiopia; the CUD defendants in Ethiopia are actually helpless this time – unable to make any moves. Various credible sources have already showed the real identity of CUD’s dictator Hailu Shawel, who often had intolerant qualities expressed even inside his own party, who seems more dedicated to revenging for his former companion Mengistu Haile Mariam’s dethronement than to bringing progress to Ethiopia and who has been spotted calling for an insurrection more often than calling for a compromise. Also the killing of several police officers, the injury of more than 70 security officers by the rioters and also CUD’s violation of the ban on demonstration which could have brought stability in those tense post-election moments are basic facts that the most devoted CUD supporter can’t ignore. Even the journalist Olivia Rousset, a well-known SBS journalist who saw almost everything about the CUD riots in 2005, already reported in her accounts that “Demonstrators burned cars and threw stones at police and the police brought in to quell the riots were met by stone-throwing rioters who attempted to overcome them and take their guns.” How hard is it to prosecute such violent & backward acts that have ruined the biggest multiparty election which would have been the foundation of future “peaceful transfers of power” for the first time in Ethiopian history? The only excuse might be that the Prime Minister is trying to give pardon to the defendants like Derg official Hailu Shawel, after all they have done. The judicial process, more or a less a major indicator of EPRDF’s governance improvement, is on an international spotlight. Truly a demanding spotlight which the system has miserably failed to shine on. So far, justice seems to be as denied as it has been delayed.