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Abstract
One of the core principles instituted by the post-1991 government in Ethiopia that took power after a successful armed struggle was ethnic-based federalism, informed by a neo-Leninist political model called revolutionary democracy. In this model, devised by the reigning Tigray People's Liberation Front (later EPRDF), ethnic identity was to be the basis of politics. Identities of previously non-dominant groups were constitutionally recognized and the idea of pan-Ethiopian identity de-emphasized. This article examines the general features and effects of this new political model, often dubbed an “experiment”, with regard to ideas of federal democracy, socio-economic inclusiveness, and ethno-cultural and political rights. After 20 years of TPLF/EPRDF rule, the dominant rhetorical figure in Ethiopian politics is that of ethnicity, which has permeated daily life and overtaken democratic decision-making and shared issue-politics. The federal state, despite according nominal decentralized power to regional and local authorities, is stronger than any previous Ethiopian state and has developed structures of central control and top-down rule that preclude local initiative and autonomy. Ethnic and cultural rights were indeed accorded, and a new economic dynamics is visible. Political liberties, respect for human rights and economic equality are however neglected, and ethnic divisions are on the increase, although repressed. Ethiopia's recent political record thus shows mixed results, with positive elements but also an increasingly authoritarian governance model recalling the features of the country's traditional hierarchical and autocratic political culture. This may produce more debate on the need for “adjusting the experiment”.
Notes
1. CitationVaughan, Addis Ababa Transitional Conference; Abbink, “Breaking and Making the State”; CitationMicheau, “The 1991 Transitional Charter.”
2. This paper offers a tentative assessment of such “benchmarks”. A first sketch of this text was presented at the symposium “Twenty Years since the Change of Government in Ethiopia – Twenty Years since Operation Solomon,” at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, May 17, 2011. I am grateful to various members of the audience, including Ethiopian Ambassador to Israel, H.E. Ato Helawe Yosef, for their questions and comments.
3. Asked in 1995 whether he thought the new federal system would work, he answered: “I don't know, but we have tried everything else, and that didn't work,” cited in CitationClapham, “Nationalism, Nationality and Regionalism.”
4. See CitationMaimire, “Federalism, Ethnicity, and the Transition to Democracy”; CitationAlem, “Ethnic Pluralism as an Organizing Principle”; Aalen, “Ethnic Federalism and Self-determination”; Aalen, “Institutionalising the Politics of Ethnicity”; Abbink, “Ethnicity and Conflict Generation in Ethiopia”; CitationAsebe, “Ethnicity and Inter-Ethnic Relations”; CitationEmebet, “Federalism and the Accommodation of Ethnic Diversity”; CitationHagmann and Mulugeta, “Pastoral Conflicts and State-Building”; CitationICG, Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and its Discontents; CitationKalkidan, “Nonfederal Features”; CitationAsnake, “Federal Restructuring in Ethiopia”; Tronvoll, “Interpreting Human Rights Violations,” Tronvoll, “Briefing: The Ethiopian 2010 Federal and Regional Elections.”
5. See PM Meles Zenawi's ideological party texts Perspectives on Bonapartism and Again on Bonapartism, and the EPRDF, The Development Lines. For the 2001 crisis, see CitationPaulos, ‘The Great Purge’.
6. In this phase, a notable increase of accusations of ‘narrow nationalism’ or ‘tribalism’ was seen in the government's public statements and in the official media.
7. CitationMoFED, Growth and Transformation.
8. Cf. Messay, “From Marxism-Leninism to Ethnicity.”
9. Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Party, All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement, Oromo Liberation Front, Tigray People's Liberation Front, Sidama Liiberation Front.
10. See Tronvoll, “Interpreting Human Rights Violations.”
11. See Negarit Gazeta “A Proclamation,” 7–8.
12. Aalen, “Institutionalising the Politics of Ethnicity”; CitationICG, Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and its Discontents; Merera, “Ethnicity, Democratisation and Decentralization”; CitationTeshome, “Conflict of Ethnic Identity and the Language of Education Policy”; Tronvoll, “Interpreting Human Rights Violations.”
13. See Tronvoll, “Interpreting Human Rights Violations.”
14. The HoF and its role are described in the Ethiopian Constitution, articles 61–8.
15. In Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State, in Bench-Maji Zone, in South Omo Zone, in Somali–Oromo border areas, a.o.
16. FDRE, Cultural Policy.
17. There is even a semi-official list of 138 of such practices: see the curious book by the CitationNational Committee on Traditional Harmful Practices of Ethiopia, Old beyond Imaginings, 285–90, a work co-financed by Norway's NORAD.
18. See CitationKalkidan, “Nonfederal Features,” 11.
19. See CitationBassi, “Ethnic federalism and minority rights”; CitationBach, “Abyotawi Democracy,” and Merera, “Elections and Democratization” in this issue.
20. For some important programmatic documents, see: Anon., “TPLF/EPRDF's Strategies”; Anon., “EPRDF's Organizational Structure,” 16–19; Anon., “EPRDF's Organizational Structure and Operation,” 18–22; Anon., “EPRDF's Organizational Structure and Operation: Lessons for the Opposition (III)” 18–21; Anon., “EPRDF's Organizational Structure and Operation: Lessons for the Opposition (IV),” 22–7; Anon., “EPRDF's Organizational Structure and Operation: Lessons for the Opposition (V),” 20–24. See also the more recent CitationEPRDF, The Development Lines.
21. CitationEPRDF, “Decentralization to the Household” (this issue).
22. Cp. CitationVaughan and Tronvoll, Culture of Power; Abbink, “The Ethiopian Second Republic”; CitationBassi, “Ethnic Federalism and Minority Rights.”
23. Article 8.1 of the Constitution states that the sovereignty of the (Ethiopian) people lies not in the individuals/citizens (as in a liberal democracy) but in the “nations, nationalities and peoples,” i.e. in collectivities. (FDRE, “The Constitution,” 79).
24. EU, Ethiopia Legislative Elections 2005.
25. See CitationArriola, “Ethnicity, Economic Conditions, and Opposition Support.”
26. Previously instituted under the Derg regime.
27. This is reflected in the policies towards pastoralists, usually seen as backward, uncivilized and in need of change.
28. See CitationEthiopian Human Rights Council, Serious Destructions Resulting from Ethnic Governance, 34th Special Report, Addis Ababa, September 21, 2000.
29. Which is rarely the case, except when boundaries are made and territories are marked off or enclosed.
30. See CitationHagmann and Mulugeta, “Pastoral Conflicts and State-Building,” 29–30; CitationSchlee and Shongolo, “Local War and its Impact,” 11–12.
31. Cf. CitationGetachew Assefa, “Human and Group Rights Issues.” He wrote: “there is no way for ethnically- or racially-motivated violations to occur, especially for them to be perpetrated by the federal government. In all cases, the day-to-day administrations in the individual states are run by the institutions and personnel of the states themselves” (ibid., 251) – a puzzling and incorrect observation. See Tronvoll's excellent reply, “Interpreting Human Rights Violations.”
32. CitationData, “Enduring Issues in State–Society Relations.”
33. Cf. Dereje, “The Experience of Gambella Regional State”; Dereje, “Conflict and Identity Politics.”
34. CitationHRW, Targeting the Anuak – this report, however, should be read with caution because the casualty figures cited were not independently verified.
35. CitationAsnake, “Federal Restructuring in Ethiopia,” 626.
36. CitationAsnake, “Federal Restructuring in Ethiopia,” 617.
37. See also Fekadu, “Overlapping Nationalist Projects.”
38. Cf. Abbink, “Ethnicity and Conflict Generation in Ethiopia.”
39. People can only vote for ethnic parties that are allowed in their region, not for others present in other states or in urban areas; e.g., an “Oromo party” cannot campaign in Tigray or Afar Region. A more nationally orientated party, the Coaliton for Unity and Democracy (CUD), contested the 2005 elections.
40. Cf. CitationICG, Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and its Discontents, 15f.
41. See CitationHagmann, “Beyond Clannishness and Colonialism”; CitationHagmann and Korf, “Agamben in the Ogaden.”
42. FDRE, “The Constitution”; CitationOakland Institute, Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa, 44; CitationLavers, The Role of Foreign Investment, 16.
43. Cf. Hunt, “Ethiopia's Endangered Democracy.”
44. See also CitationBassi, “Ethnic Federalism and Minority Rights.”
45. Cf. “Ethiopia's Controversial Dam Project,” in The Guardian, March 7, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/mar/07/ethiopia-controversial-dam-criticism-communities (accessed May 2, 2011). See also CitationTohme, “Turkana under Threat Due to Damming of Omo River in Ethiopia.”
46. In 2007–2010 some 2.9 million acres (=1.17 mln. ha.) of land was given out, mostly to foreign investors, and in 2013 the total lease area will be 7.4 million acres by 2013 (=31,000 km2). CitationMcConnell and Overdorff, “New Scramble for Africa's Land.” One of the largest concessions is that of Indian firm Karuturi, with 100,000 ha. and with an option of 200,000 ha. more (in Gambela).
47. Most large-scale land acquisitions have so far been in the Gambela, Southern Region, Oromiya and Amhara areas.
48. There are also forms of “contract farming” and “outsourcing,” whereby local farmers cultivate part of their land for agrarian investor firms.
49. Some adverse effects of this process are shown in the documentary “Food Crisis and the Global Land Grab”; see especially after 30.00 m., on the farmers in the Bako area.
50. This is uncertain, as the firms can export their harvest to their countries of origin (Saudi Arabia, Korea, India, Malaysia, China, etc.) rather than bring it to the Ethiopian market.
51. Scott, Seeing Like a State.
52. Cf. CitationBassi, “Ethnic Federalism and Minority Rights.”
53. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 247–53.
54. For a fuller elaboration of the details of the Gibe III project, see CitationAnderson and Turton, “After the Flood.”
55. This change was promulgated by the EPRDF in a 2003 document (FDRE, Rural Development Policies, 58), and in a BBC news report of 15 December 2010, quoting Ethiopian government official Abera Deressa as saying that rural life in the areas [of land acquisition] must change, and that: “Pastoralists have enough land for their cattle, but at the end of the day we are not really appreciating pastoralist remaining as they are … Pastoralism, as it is, is not sustainable. We want to change the environment,” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11991926 (accessed February 7, 2011). See also similar words in Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi's speech in Jinka in December 2010, http://www.mursi.org/pdf/Meles%20Jinka%20speech.pdf (accessed April 21, 2011).
56. See CitationEpstein, “Cruel Ethiopia.” For the MPI, see CitationOxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Country Briefing: Ethiopia.
57. See “Ethiopia to Mark Flag Day Colorfully,” Walta news message, 28 August 2010.
58. CitationFinkielkraut, L'Humanité Perdue.
59. Cf. Levine, “Ethiopia's Missed Chances, I”; “Ethiopia's Missed Chances, II.”
60. Cf. Tronvoll, “Interpreting Human Rights Violations,” and “Briefing: The Ethiopian 2010 Federal and Regional Elections.”
61. It is unlikely that the Ethiopian public would welcome an “Orwellian” form of (revolutionary) democracy, as presented in the “Bonapartism” papers of 2001 (see cited works in note 5 above).
62. This does not imply that the economic record of the government is universally positive; there is still food insecurity, poor service delivery in some areas, high inflation, and ecological-environmental problems.
