Get real for Ethiopia

This is an excerpt from the latest extended version of “Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong” a book by veteran Horn of Africa correspondent Rasmus Sonderris

Even in the event of peace, Ethiopia is not going to achieve a democratic political culture overnight. It may even get worse before it gets better. However, it is wrong and reckless to conclude that violence is now a last resort. During the darkest years of the TPLF/EPRDF, when armed resistance was in every way legitimate, I personally disagreed with that path, not out of pacifism, but from a strategic perspective. Because violence begets violence. Conversely, making the most of a small democratic space can expand democracy. There are plenty of political parties in Ethiopia that have taken this path. Some examples are the National Movement of Amhara (NaMA), Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice, EZEMA, the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), the Enat Party, and the Tigray Democratic Party (TDP). Some of them complain of all manners of harassment. In the name of national unity, others have joined the government and been awarded with places in the cabinet, but they too will be running against the ruling Prosperity Party in the next election in 2026.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has often promised a peaceful transition of power, if he loses at the polls. It is admittedly hard to find Ethiopians who envisage that, if push comes to shove, he and the powerful people around him will just admit defeat and gracefully swap places with the opposition. But this needs to be tested rather than dismissed out of hand in a call to arms by actors whose democratic credentials are actually more dubious than the government’s.

Many have accused me of “shilling for the regime”, even of being a paid mouthpiece and what not. Of course, I would never take money from a party to a conflict that I am covering as an independent. Apart from giving interviews to Ethiopian state media, I have never even met anyone from the Ethiopian government, which has committed and will undoubtedly continue to commit acts that I disagree with, even condemn. Most international classifications use the term “hybrid regime” about the current system, that is, a mix of authoritarianism and democracy. This is probably fair.

But it is the legitimate government. It may sometimes commit illegitimate acts, but none of the armed alternatives today has a shred of legitimacy, let alone any prospect of making things better. Even if the government sometimes categorizes fair criticism as “incitement” and misuses the judiciary as in the bad old days, constructive opposition is the only way to go. Ethiopians demand solutions to everyday problems like long lines for public transport, bribe-demanding traffic police, power cuts, red tape, pollution, unaffordable healthcare, homelessness, low-quality schools, etc. Fundamentally, ethnic rivalry is not the root cause of war, but ethnic rivalry is an effective mobilizer for war. Unresolved bread-and-butter problems can make people vote for the opposition, but do not usually make them pick up a gun. If the most urgent issue of security gets under control, peaceful political competition should be able to focus on the second- most urgent issues, like growing the economy and fighting corruption. Conversely, if security continues to be the overriding concern, democracy, human rights and even good governance will look increasingly like unaffordable luxuries.

When I first got involved in opining on war in Ethiopia around November 2021, I set myself the goal of getting through it without regret. Notwithstanding some quick- tempered tweets,390 the only thing I would change, if I could go back, would be the headline of my speech for the Danish Society of Engineers in March 2022, in which I characterized Ethiopia as “a fellow democracy”. This was overselling a point in the heat of the propaganda battles. Building an Ethiopian democracy, let alone a democratic culture, remains a daunting project with no guarantee of completion. As we have seen, it backslides under pressure and polarization. Tensions lurk and can erupt into the next big war, in which the security state takes over and rolls back the reforms.

And yet, there is hope. The vast majority of Ethiopians both preach and practice multiethnic cooperation. Although ethnically-exclusive rebel outfits brandishing genocide hashtags still have too much manpower and firepower, their popularity seems to be in decline.

Meanwhile, outside of Ethiopia, despite the endurance of a narrative about a “Tigray genocide”, the Pretoria Peace Agreement has become unanimously endorsed. The TPLF has not been properly disarmed or stopped being a threat, but nearly everyone agrees that it should. The TPLF is unlikely to get much international support for another round of aggression under the cover of resisting a genocide. A retired Western diplomat told me that one lesson had been learned after all: “We should have listened less to the media and more to the African Union.” Indeed, and the African Union issticking firmly to the Pretoria Agreement.

However, there has been no reckoning over the tragic cost of achieving the Pretoria Agreement. Those who got Ethiopia dead wrong are not wondering aloud why the TPLF sent young Tigrayans to kill and die for peace terms that could have been easily obtained without firing a shot. Having learned so little, the world is perfectly capable of getting Ethiopia and other countries dead wrong yet again.

With this in mind, the final word goes to Dr. Steven Were Omamo, the results-oriented humanitarian sabotaged by self-serving, glory-seeking cowboy humanitarians during the war ‘At the Centre of the World in Ethiopia’:

“I also lament how the politics of major powers was allowed to infiltrate and corrupt a fragile but promising science-based process, destroying hard-earned credibility, along with the trust that went with that. Nobody has admitted that ‘the people are dying of hunger in Tigray’ narrative was total fabrication. There were no consequences. There are never any consequences as the ‘international community’ recycles itself from crisis to crisis. Incompetent and unethical people who lie, distort, and mess up can just walk away and do the same thing somewhere else. To me, that is annoying. For the world, it should be unacceptable.”

“Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong” is now available on Amazon Kindle, paperback, or hardcover