Opposition politics and ethnicity in Ethiopia: We will all go down together

Journal of Modern African Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 387-407

  Joireman, Sandra Fullerton ^a  

^a ST BONAVENTURE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0005961772     PISSN: 0022278X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0022278x97002437     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. The term was coined by Samuel Huntington in The Third Wave: democratization in the late twentieth century (Norman, OK, 1991).
2. The word abertura is Spanish in origin and was used to described the openings that occurred before the consolidation of democracy in Latin American countries.
3. Andargachew Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution, 1974-1987 : a transformation from an aristocratic to a totalitarian autocracy (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 29-30.
4. Wallelign Makonnen, On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia', in Struggle (Addis Ababa), 2, 17 November 1969.
5. Tiruneh, op. cit. pp. 75 and 143-55
6. See Edmond J. Keller, Revolutionary Ethiopia : from empire to people's republic (Bloomington, IN, 1988), ch. 7, and Tiruneh, op. cit. ch. 4, 'The Socio-Economic Reforms of 1975'.
7. See Edmond J. Keller, Revolutionary Ethiopia : from empire to people's republic (Bloomington, IN, 1988), ch. 7, and Tiruneh, op. cit. ch. 4, 'The Socio-Economic Reforms of 1975'.
8. Africa Confidential (London), 22, 25, 1981, p. 6. Although defeated by the TPLF in the Tigrayan countryside the EPRP managed to stagger on for several more years, merging in 1981 with the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), an unlikely alliance between the self-proclaimed 'vanguard party of the revolution' and feudal elements from the Imperial era.
9. The EDU supported a platform of democracy, individual ownership of land, and a federalist structure to cope with the 'nationalities issue'. Originally constructed overseas, and including technocrats from Haile Selassie's administration, the EDU never generated a lot of support in the countryside, but managed to continue its organisational structure as the Ethiopian People's Democratic Alliance (EPDA).
10. Economist Intelligence Unit, The Quarterly Review of Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti (London), 1, 1986.
11. Economist Intelligence Unit, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti: country profile, 1991-1992 (London, 1992), p. 9.
12. For more details, see John Young, 'The Tigray and Eritrean Peoples Liberation Fronts: a history of tensions and pragmatism', in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 34, 1, March 1996, pp. 105-20.
13. John Markakis, National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa (Cambridge, 1987), p. 252.
14. Africa Watch, Evil Days: 30 years of war and famine in Ethiopia (London, 1991).
15. 'Ethiopia: the death stakes', in Africa Confidential, 26, 1, 3 January 1985.
16. 'Ethiopia: a battle lost and a war in stalemate', in ibid. 29, 9, 29 April 1988.
17. See Young, loc. cit. pp. 106-12, for 'Tigray's Military Relations with the Eritrean Fronts'.
18. Christopher Clapham, Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia (Cambridge, 1988), p. 209.
19. Markakis, op. cit. p. 254.
20. 'Ethiopia: from rebels to rulers', in Africa Confidential, 32, 1, 31 May 1991.
21. The villagisation attempts that began in the later years of the Derg were particulary offensive to the Oromo, and resulted in many new recruits for the OLF.
22. This is a mild assertion of Oromo sentiment. One of the early pamphlets emerging from the student movement, 'The Voice of the Oromo People Against Tyranny', is quoted by John Markakis, in op. cit. p. 260: 'No Oromo can rely on his ability, qualifications, or even hypocrisy to attain material wealth and self-aggrandisement, because the racist regime considers him as a dangerous enemy exactly for these reasons'.
23. See Edmond J. Keller, 'The Ethnogenesis of the Oromo and its Implications for Politics in Ethiopia', in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 33, 4, December 1995, pp. 621-34, for a detailed discussion of the development of the concept of an independent Oromia and the prospects for Oromo national aspirations.
24. The Political Parties Registration Proclamation, No. 46 of 1993, in Negarit Gazeta (Addis Ababa), 15 April 1993.
25. 'AAPO Says Constitutional Process Undemocratic', in Ethiopian Herald (Addis Ababa), 16 February 1994.
26. 'AAPO Becomes Party to Withstand Systematic Attacks: Prof. Asrat', in ibid. 26 April 1994.
27. For instance, major upheavals or changes in the platform of the Afar political parties are far less likely to be reported, whereas terrorist acts by irredentist groups in Addis Ababa and the Somali region have dominated the editorials and front pages of the national papers in the past year.
28. Transitional Period Charter of Ethiopia, Part 4, Article 12, in Negaril Gazeta, 22 July 1991, p. 4.
29. John Markakis, 'The Somali in the New Political Order of Ethiopia', in Review of African Political Economy (Abingdon), 21, 59, March 1994, p. 71.
30. Interviews conducted by the author in the Southern People's Administrative Region indicated that the bureaucrats there were confused as regards the rôle that ethnicity should play in decisions being made about, for example, land allocation, agricultural investment, and the operation of the legal system.
31. The Political Parties Registration Proclamation, 1993.
32. Given that it is possible, for example, to purchase newspapers and magazines in both English and Amharic in Addis Ababa that are anti-government, the press in Ethiopia is much more free than it has been in the past century. That said, many journalists have been imprisoned for violations of a vaguely worded press law. See US Department of State, 'Ethiopia Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1996', released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Washington, DC, and 'Journalists Under Fire: 27 died, a record 183 jailed in "96"', in The Washington Post, 15 March 1997.
33. Given that it is possible, for example, to purchase newspapers and magazines in both English and Amharic in Addis Ababa that are anti-government, the press in Ethiopia is much more free than it has been in the past century. That said, many journalists have been imprisoned for violations of a vaguely worded press law. See US Department of State, 'Ethiopia Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1996', released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Washington, DC, and 'Journalists Under Fire: 27 died, a record 183 jailed in "96"', in The Washington Post, 15 March 1997.
34. National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the African-American Institute, An Evaluation of the June 21, 1992 Elections in Ethiopia (Washington, DC, 1992).
35. Ibid. p. 31.
36. Ethiopian Herald, 17, 19, and 23 December 1993.
37. One party political leader, when asked in early 1994 for some sort of proof or corroboration of his complaint about harassment, claimed that the only explanation why no one in a certain town had come to an announced public meeting was that government threats had been made against those who might have attended.
38. Opposition Groups Spell Out Stand', in The Monitor (Addis Ababa), 6 June 1994.
39. See Terrence Lyons, 'Closing the Transition: the May 1995 elections in Ethiopia', in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 34, 1, March 1996, pp. 121-42, which also provides information about the 1992 and 1994 elections.
40. For example, when the predominantly Oromo Protestant Church of Mekane Yesus was singled out by the Derg for special persecution because of alleged support for the OLF.
41. Gebru Tareke, Ethiopia : power and protest (New York, 1991), documents the violent response of both Imperial governments and the Derg to dissent, whether expressed by peasants or politicians.
42. According to Michael Bratton, 'Deciphering Africa's Divergent Transitions', in Political Science Quartlery (New York), 112, 1, Spring 1997, pp. 67-93, of the 29 African countries engaged in democratic transition between 1989 and 1994, all but one of the 16 with a cohesive opposition movement had held elections.
43. Richard Joseph, 'Zambia: a model for democratic change', in Current History (Philadelphia), 91, 565, May 1992, p. 199.
44. Keller, loc. cit.