Borkena
Meskerem Abera (Kaliti Prison, Ethiopia)
Early 20thC typified world politics by the increased importance of non-state actors. International, continental, regional and sub-regional organizations are among the major non-state actors. The formation of the League of Nations witnessed a remarkable breakthrough to attenuate the long-aged state centric political trend. The coming into existence of international economic and policy regulatory organizations such as International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank further zoomed the decisive role of non-state actors in the domestic politics of “sovereign” but poor states of the world. Conversely, the situation curtailed the power of state actors in the mentioned countries while it enabled the world super-powers usually named as “the diplomatic community” to downplay their interest through the non-state actors. This mechanism to some extent checked the brutality of undemocratic governments of the third world countries; in which Ethiopia is the leading figure, and put the diplomatic community at the center of these poor countries’ domestic politics.
Anyone with fair knowledge of such high-handedness of the diplomatic community needs to contemplate the right move to gain the hearts and minds of the world superpowers that operate through non-state actors, which are increasingly becoming paragons of diplomatic relations. The United Nations, United States, European Union and African Union are the major diplomatic paragons that any ongoing struggle for freedom should secure their attention and create the proper understanding of its just cause. In our case, the Fano struggle that turned the Amhara peoples’ position from a dormant to a dominant political force of change deserves the understanding of the importance of solidarity of the international diplomatic community. In fact, Fanos are conducting their struggle with death ignoring courage and miraculous audacity. Indeed, it was unimaginable before. To achieve the ultimate political victory, this courageous struggle needs to be supplemented by proactive and innovative diplomatic efforts. Amhara scholars abroad need to take the lead in realizing this pivotal and timely task as Amhara scholars at home are in great danger of imprisonment and death.
Amhara cause; which is least known by the diplomatic community, ought to be properly analyzed, pronounced and delivered in foreign languages for the multitude of international communities. In reality, however, the diplomatic aspects of the struggle either got very scanty regard or left hollow. The anti-Amhara incumbent government, therefore, used this gap to project Amhara Fanos as war mongers and have antipathy to peace and fight for the sake of war. The ramification of this one-sided hyperbolic propaganda of the government against Fano freedom fighters adversely affects the struggle’s just cause in the face of the diplomatic community. Ervin J. Massinga; US ambassador to Ethiopia in his recently delivered policy speech, addressed his worries about Fano’s “complete rejection of peace”. This hastily labeling should bother any politically conscious Amhara elite and. synergistic diplomatic efforts should be rendered to properly and adequately expound the reasons behind Fano’s decline to join the alleged “peace deal” propelled by the anti-Amhara government and establishment.
My recent commentary under the title” The Fate of Ethiopia; Negotiated or Brokered Peace?” was written with the major intention of making the Amhara cause vivid and approachable to the diplomatic community. I feel that it is deemed necessary to elaborate my intentions of writing the commentary. Thus, I have presented my written and unwritten intentions of the commentary as summarized into three major points.
Firstly, I want to capitalize the mere peace broker role of the dialogue commission and the subsequent powerlessness of the commission in realizing durable peace. This is mainly because I have observed the wrong at worst hope of the international community on the dialogue commission that manifested by either funding or endorsing it. This unrealistic optimism should be debased by sober diplomatic efforts from the Amhara camp.
Secondly, my intention emanated from my zeal to tarnish the wrong image portrayed to Amhara Fano as eternal fighters who fight for the sake of war. As to me, such wrong labelling of Fano by the diplomatic community should be speedily rectified. In fact Amhara Fanos are demanding for a new political configuration in Ethiopia as the prevailing political establishment, due to its anti-Amhara conception, cannot stand Amhara questions. In contrary, the government is planning to further its anti-Amhara establishment for the coming three thousand years now. It is this unrealistic power hunger of the government that becomes the major roadblock of peace in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, the government diverts the blame and projects Fano as an anti-peace entity. In doing so, the government equalizes political demand for government change with blanket rejection of peace. Therefore, the Amhara camp is supposed to clarify the difference with a sense of urgency.
Thirdly, I have attempted to herald the promulgation of a government for peace is not unconditional. Even worse, the condition posed by the government that the impossibility of regime change through transitional government directly collides with the very ardent political question of the Amhara Fano. In other words, the government is using the dialogue commission to safeguard its power hunger, and peace as euphemism to the furtherance of the anti-Amhara establishment. Fano’s rejection of such brokered peace, thus, attributed to their pre-knowledge of interconnectedness of the government and the dialogue commission. Finally, Fano’s astute understanding of this political trap by the name of peace shouldn’t be perceived as eternal antipathy to peace. Rejecting political traps by no means is tantamount to rejecting durable peace.
The above stipulated three main points were my assertions in writing the commentary to address to the diplomatic community. Negotiation with the anti-Amhara insidious government cannot be (will not be) my intention. I am not that lenient and insane to dissipate the hard earned Amhara nationalism to which I personally strived a lot and paid a huge price.
I know my previous commentary with severe oddity perplexed many readers. I learned that lately and I apologize! It is all about the inconvenience I am in. The writing piece, except its title, was all wrong. Pore of critics and feedback from my readers helped me to figure out the seriously wrong thing with the commentary. The right commentary version, with the same title will appear on Borkena website after two or three days. Pardon for the confusion!
Meskerem Abera is a well-known Prisoner of Conscience Journalist, Writer, and Political analyst. She is currently at Kaliti prison, Ethiopia.
