After 46 days, the Ethiopian National Dialogue Conference closed this Saturday, August 22. It has been, by any estimation, a historic one — to be remembered and to become a point of reference for many years to come. The sheer scale of it is quite impressive: 4,000 delegates from 1,234 districts (woredas) out of approximately 1,330. A representation, we are told, of 93 percent. Sixteen venues were chosen to accommodate all the delegates and table all their discussions. The logistics of conducting the Dialogue and coming up with some 400 recommendations have not been a small feat!
If all this had taken place after the country had secured negotiated and durable peace among its various warring factions, and no other major conflict was looming on the horizon, this Ethiopian National Dialogue Conference would have gone down in history as a defining event and a crowning achievement for PM Abiy and his administration. As it is, its incongruity is too obvious for anyone not to notice. It is, for lack of a better expression, a clear example of “putting the cart before the horse”!
What Ethiopia needs at this very moment in her history is not a dialogue primarily intended to provide the current PM and his administration with recommendations presumably geared toward good governance, but a dialogue aimed at national reconciliation. As things stand, it is doubtful that any of the recommendations offered in the Conference will have the occasion to be implemented while the country is slipping further into chaos.
The foremost reason PM Abiy Ahmed gained enormous public endorsement and even won the Nobel Peace Prize is because he appeared to have come to bring peace to Ethiopia and end the profound divisions that were instigated and cultivated by his former party, the EPRDF. The TPLF, which had until then run the EPRDF as its own subsidiary and ruled Ethiopia for nearly 27 years without being seriously opposed by any armed party, had perfected to the highest degree the politics of “divide and rule,” pitting one ethnic group against another and instituting a intricate system of surveillance.
Since the end of the war against the TPLF, the Prime Minister appears to have embraced the way of antagonism and war instead of peace and reconciliation. It may not be fair to blame him for the war against the TPLF since, from all evidence, it had been initiated by the top cadre of this armed party. The TPLF never planned to become a junior partner in the EPRDF once it lost control of it. If it had its way, and had not the invaluable cunning head of Meles Zenawi departed, it is not unlikely that we would still be under the TPLF’s sway.
I grant that the war against the TPLF and its army, and PM Abiy’s alliance with Isayas Afewerki, were prompted by necessity rather than by deliberate choice. There was a real possibility that the TPLF could have returned to power with the help of the US and other interested parties. Credit is due to the PM that he has forever buried the ambitions of the TPLF to return to rule Ethiopia — at least not in our lifetime! Nevertheless, the many decisions that PM Abiy has taken since, both for the country, with regard to our neighboring countries, and internationally in general, have been, to say the least, haphazard, ill-conceived, and poorly implemented.
The PM, perhaps for lack of good advice or perhaps because he is possessed with an unwavering belief in his own strategic abilities, political acumen, and economic intuitions, has been continuously waging one unnecessary war after another, making one damaging political and economic decision after another at a rapid clip. We do not need technical metrics to gauge how badly the country is doing. One need only consider how life has become intolerably expensive both in the capital and around the country, while government employees — a substantial part of the workforce — are maintained on starving wages. Security is so broken that venturing outside the capital poses enormous risk. In fact, interregional travel can only be safely done by air. Internal displacement of people is so pervasive that it has become a normal way of life. The country is effectively in a civil war without admitting it. If we are honest about it, we are in no different a situation from the one we experienced before the fall of the Derg.
What Ethiopia needs now is not a roadmap to good governance as intended by the National Dialogue Conference. There will be time for that once the guns are silenced and the warring parties come together to determine the terms of coexistence of all the peoples of Ethiopia. The 400 or so recommendations offered do not in and of themselves resolve or terminate the conflicts now raging in the country. I have no doubt there are many good and worthy recommendations made in this Conference. But what good are they for if all the larger regions (Killils), which together constitute three-fourths of the country, are virtually in a state of constant war?
What this administration needs to realize is that none of the Conference’s recommendations will be implemented if the current situation continues to deteriorate and all the warring parties expand their hold over the country. What PM Abiy and his administration need to organize instead is a Conference of National Reconciliation and Refoundation that will not only bring a peaceful termination of all the conflicts ravaging the country today, but will provide all Ethiopians the terms of their peaceful and productive coexistence for decades to come.
It would be a sign of great maturity and national pride if such a Conference were to be held in our own capital, just like the National Dialogue Conference. However, it is also fine that it be held in one of our neighborly countries, like Kenya or another country capable and willing to host it.
A conference of reconciliation and refoundation has, as its words themselves indicate, two parts. The first is ending all the conflicts in Ethiopia peacefully through dialogue with the leaders of the various factions — agreeing to disagree without recourse to armed struggle, and instead creating and returning to political participation as recognized, legitimized, and protected political parties in the country. This means that however conflicting and antithetical their demands may be to the ideology and practice of the current ruling party, they should never be silenced or subjected to persecution and violence. In other words, the democratic principle must prevail without restrictions and preconditions so that any political party can function in the state. It is high time for the country to move in this direction!
Reconciliation is not only the laying down of arms and returning to the fold. It means regaining the rights that have been suppressed and returning to open political debate. I do believe that if the armed parties are provided inviolable protection under the law to operate in the political arena unmolested, they would rather lay down their arms without hesitation than continue to fight indefinitely. Thus, the first act of a National Reconciliation and Refoundation dialogue is to provide such guarantees under the law not only for the duration of the dialogue but in perpetuity.
If all warring factions come to an agreement that it is good and beneficial for Ethiopia to remain one and undivided, the second part of the Conference can address the Refoundation of Ethiopia. What this entails is drafting the terms of our coexistence as a multi-ethnic country: whether to re-adopt the current constitution, overhaul it, or draft a new one; whether to call a new election immediately or wait for the next one already scheduled; determining once and for all the status of our capital city, Addis Ababa; finalizing peacefully with Eritrea Ethiopia’s access to the Red Sea; whether the current federal system should remain or a new one be devised; and similar issues deemed important enough to be considered.
It should go without saying that an amended or new constitution will have to revisit, re-deliberate, and codify in the most precise terms the current recommendations made by the National Dialogue Conference. The idea here is not that these recommendations be repudiated, but rather that the more fundamental and pressing questions of reconciliation and refoundation be addressed before they receive the attention they deserve.
Editor’s Note: Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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