AFD is doomed to failure unless...

By Anonymous
June 4, 2006

- “It is historic.”
- “AFD is that cool, refreshing wind of cchange blowing over Ethiopia, from the west to the east, from the north to the south”
- “AFD is God’s manna from heaven”, etc.

Let me start by quickly reiterating the universally accepted truism that AFD has the POTENTIAL to bring a new, just, and democratic Ethiopia. However, it’ll relegated to just that – a potential – unless the AFD starts tackling head on the type of Ethiopia it intends to fight for. A united democratic Ethiopia built on the twin pillars of respect for individual rights and the collective rights of nationalities or a fragmented Ethiopia that will forever cease to be?

Furthermore, AFD is doomed to failure unless the participants go back to the drawing board and address the following important issues.

1. Do the parties unconditionally and irrevocably bind themselves to a new, just and united Ethiopia? If so, the alliance needs to officially proclaim the ultimate goal – the formation of a new, just, and democratic united Ethiopia!
2. Do all the parties commit to distancing themselves from the mother of all enemies of Ethiopia - the Shabia led by Isayaas? Otherwise we have a trojan horse in the wings which will perpetually breed fear and mistrust amongst the participants. Try selling that to Ethiopians within Ethiopia and especially to the peopole of Tigrai and you'll quickly be laughed out of town.
3. An Alliance for Freedom and Democracy of what? The name ought to place Ethiopia as the center piece and should be renamed Ethiopian Alliance for Freedom and Democracy(EAFD). Incidentally, CUD was purposely named Coalition for Unity and Democracy. Inside AFD, Democracy is pushed to a 2nd level priority and Unity is left out all together. This needs rectification.
4. Going in there were two distinct positions held by the participants: Unity (CUD's position) and the right to self determination even onto disintegration (the ONLF, SLF and OLF positions).

Chapter 6, Article 3 says that the governing council is the highest organ of the Alliance. From chapter 6, Article 4, the governing council shall consist of representatives of each member delegated by its organization from among its leadership. Each member organization shall be entitled to three representatives on the Governing Council, and each representative shall be entitled to one vote.

Since there are five parties, the Governing Council will have 15 members out of which only three will represent the voices of unity. On May 15, 2005, the Ethiopian voted overwhelmingly for unity by espousing Kinijit's position. How come the voice of unity will be trumped by the voice of disintegration represented by ONLF, ONLF, SLF? This is unacceptable. The document is technically ignoring the historic May 15th election.

This may be why UEDF walked out of this agreement. UEDF with 14 parties in it, each of them as strong as the other parties in the Alliance (except of course Kinijit), would have gotten only 3 delegates when they could have gotten 32 (14x3) delegates.

Going down to Chapter 11, Article 1. The Statutes may be amended. However, it can be amended by a two-third majority of the Governing Council. All of the members of the Alliance are based in Asmara except Kinijit. Therefore, these Asmara-based groups shall have a 4:1 majority in the Governing Council. Three of them are separatist and ethnic groups. Therefore those ethnic groups have a 3:1 majority. There is no way for Kinijit to play a big role in this arrangement. Wouldn't this be an insult to the millions of people who voted for unity through Kinijit? So far as I know separatists like OLF have no mandate as they did not participate in the elections.

The structure of decision making within AFD need to be designed in such a way that ethnic partners do not retain perpetual majority; Otherwise, what is the purpose of CUD but to legitimize the goal of the separatists?

4) Which flag does the alliance rally around; that of ONLF, SDLF, OLF or the Ethiopian tri-color? This fact needs to be explicitly made clear and the other flags need to be retired.

By not addressing these issues head on, the alliance is positioning itself for future conflict.

What is the purpose of an alliance if all it does is to buy time to eventually go to war against one another to chop up Ethiopia after EPRDF?

Artful secessionist politicians like Olaana Abboma will try to dismiss these genuine concerns as the opinions of a few. Others will try to railroad you with the oft repeated argument. Don’t be too inquisitive, give it a chance… after all it’s the first time that diametrically opposite forces have come together. The essence of AFD and the concept underlying needs time to be captured and expounded.

However, I believe that the majority of Ethiopians will flat out reject such self-serving propaganda. For the sake of political expediency… YOU CAN’T BURY THE NAME ETHIOPIA UNDER THE RUG AND EXPECT TO BE TREATED SERIOUSLY BY THE ETHIOPIAN PEOPLE. Generation of our martyrs sacrifice demand that.

You can’t begin to build an enduring house on a rotten foundation.

As Olaana Abboma wants badly to portray, the hastily hatched AFD statutes are not a win-win for 70 million of Ethiopians. Rather its a poison pill for the voices of pro unity and democracy. Surely we can do better.

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The writer can be contacted for comments at ethiopia_1st@sbcglobal.net