The Ethnic Oromo Protest and its Achievement
The discussion on the master plan held at Adama town was partially reported on Oromia regional state owned TV. Footage of part of a participant’s argument questioning the moral and intent of the master plan was circulated on social media defining a kick-start of an ethnic Oromo students’ protest against the plan. Ethnic Oromo’s already damaged confidence on TPLF governance (and its partner OPDO), its lack of development project transparency and given an exiled Oromo-centric [Oromo secessionists] campaign prompted ethnic Oromo students abrupt protest against the master plan.
In the beginning, the student protest set out siding ‘the constitutionalist perspectives’ was quite peaceful until it was unfortunately ambushed and misused for radical ethnic showcases; sparked deadly protest and gave the federal government reasons to attach internal critical personalities to ‘outlawed’ militant group in exile further hurdling efforts of change within OPDO (Oromo People Democratic Organization), an implementing partner of TPLF. The protest implicated TPLF for its institutionalization of ethnic politics and absence development ethics in Ethiopia. However, over time it took unnecessary course as unclear leadership and institutional failure, ambiguous and armchair strategy and target, devastating hate and ethnic resentment, and failure of giving issues national dimension were witnessed in the process. The ambiguity of the protest instead failed ethnic Oromo students’ sacrifice win neither the sympathy of decisive fellow Ethiopians nor critical and institutional support of foreign entity.
Non-violent demand against the Master Plan, though it is bitter and uneasy to exercise, was thus not exhausted. The eventual ethnic Oromo students’ abrupt reaction which is dependent, lack open leadership and inconsistent against the master plan failed to contextualize a dynamic understanding of Addis Ababa, development and confused with a tenets of ‘constitutional’ demand. Ultimately, the circumstance which was infiltrated and sabotaged by the secessionists’ irrelevant political gimmick at the expense of young uninformed Oromo students earned the protest unnecessary and regrettable loss of life, property, ethnic strife and quite good number of Oromo students’ removal from various University educations.
However, the ethnic Oromo student protest imperatively implied important lessons to be noted. It had clearly indicated the need for ethnic Oromos to tailoring their issues and concerns and reimaging their demand in Ethiopia context. It showed huge gap of institutional and knowledge-based demand against misdeed of the regime in Ethiopia. It is a repeated experiment where Oromo-centric activists’ strategically failed to show better attitude, behavior, action, orientation, and statesmen(women)ship, and generally better framework of governance alternate to ethno-centric regime in Ethiopia. The protest cautioned authorities in Ethiopia on planning process of the master plan (further on issues of development ethics), sensitivity of resource governance and delicacy of ethnic federalism.
Ethnic Oromo farmers in a superb of Addis Ababa are not the only minority groups of Ethiopia’s centralized Land Policy, irrelevant ethnic federalism and immoral planning process in various development projects and land related investments across the country; Omo valley communities threat in southern part of the country, unheard voices on land investments in Gambella, continued unlawful eviction of ethnic Amhars from southern, central and western part of the country, and land and water grab’s negative impact on pastoral communities to mention some.
Aggressive Development
There is no conclusive definition of development. However, there is conventional understanding that development is a holistic process and thus as a practice need multifaceted approach. Therefore, people’s critical participation is a hallmark of development planning process. Robert D. Lambin in his book; Rethinking Legitimacy and Illegitimacy which insightfully observed “Decision makers often need to understand how much support or opposition an organization, operation, or policy might face. Legitimacy… is something that induces voluntary support, lowers operating costs, and improves stability and sustainability”. On significance of association between democracy and peoples’ freedom, Amartya Sen winner of Nobel Peace Prize in economics in his book; The Idea of Justice argued poverty as ‘capability of deprivation’, and democratic practice as necessary ground and integral of development process.
However, the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia an ideologue of EPRDF (the ruling coalition party) and main author of Ethiopia’s ambitious GTP (Growth and Transformation Plan) do not subscribe to these arguments. Reprehensibly, he assumed that there is utterly no direct link between democracy and economic growth at 2012 G8 submits held in USA. Good Growth and Governance in Africa (p.170), a book where Meles Zenawi contributed a chapter further defined development as ‘a political process first and economic and social process second’. Meles conceptualized development as pair-wise disjoint event in contrast to conventional understanding of development as a holistic process.
Further he exclusively theorized state intervention as decisive and necessary mechanism in adopting ‘developmental state’ approach where coercive state action and authoritative democracy are integral elements in a development process. His argument pretentiously assigned minor role to a mutual contract between people and government. People who presumably mandate government should be at center of development process. However, Zenawi deliberately stash away peoples’ power only to establish legitimizing corridor to his version of ‘Revolutionary Democracy’ and force his will on people of Ethiopia. Zenawi’s regime wrongly assumed custodian of people’s development, a stance against his own making – Ethiopia’s Constitution of 1995 article 43 (2) (3) and (4), relegating the poverty-stricken people as ignorant and less important in his own development process. Development which does not respect the will of the people is an aggressive development at best. (please continue on page 4)