Disappointing victories? How could they be?

By Zerihun Tesfaye
May 30, 2006

As regards the first event, reactions range from those that are totally opposed to the idea of the alliance itself; to those who are cautiously optimistic with a wait and see attitude, and at the other end of the continuum, those that are euphoric and who think it is a panacea to all the difficulties the opposition was facing.

Whilst there seems to be such varied views with the first event, there seems to be near universal condemnation to the latter event. (Government supporters excepted.)

The declaration of several opposition groups with varying political history and views to work together is not a novelty as such, for in the past 15 years many a coalition has come and gone. What seemed to have created a buzz this time around is the fact that groups whose possible creation of an alliance did not seem to be in anybody’s political radar, namely the OLF and CUDP are part of this alliance making.

There did not seem to be a possibility for these two groups to come together to form an alliance against the EPRDF, partly due to the incessant propaganda of the EPRDF, partly due to the short history of the CUD itself, and partly due to the earlier history of some of groups that formed the CUD, and partly due to the long history of the OLF.

That this has occurred, even if nothing more comes out of the alliance is a victory for the concerted struggle of the Ethiopian people, and a major defeat to EPRDF’s policy of divide and rule.

But of course, as long as these movements have their people’s interest at heart, let alone forming an alliance, the mere fact of a dialogue between these groups will definitely bring about situations where they will end up taking joint actions to further the people’s cause. But more importantly, such types of activities that will occur will deny the EPRDF the opportunity to divide the people in the hope of bolstering its strength at their expense.

In as much as the people’s victory in the first event is evident, the decision of the World Bank to release funds to the EPRDF, despite the many passionate and rational presentations made by Ethiopians arguing against such a measure, because they felt that despite what the Bank might think the money was headed to EPRDF’S coffers and not to the intended recipients, is apparently taken as a defeat by many. Nothing could be further than the truth.

Surely, for the World Bank to totally deny aid is not to be expected at all unless the world power, the U.S., itself takes the lead and is ready to effect a regime change. Despite the serious misgivings they seem to have towards Meles’ regime, hat does not appear to be the case at this moment. Short of that any step taken to justify the giving of aid, to explain why, or to attempt to place extra conditions on the regime for qualifying should be seen as the positive outcome of all the efforts of all the people of Ethiopia.The actions of the World Bank should thus be seen in this context.

If one backtracks and follows the tortured route the Bank had to take to come to this decision, one will be able to see the series of victories achieved by those who made it a point to argue their cases. For starters, the fact that the Bank and others decided to stop direct budgetary assistance to the Meles government is a clear rebuke to his administration and a definite _expression of their attitude towards the regime, since the debacle of the May 2005 elections and its aftermath. Secondly, the fact that the World Bank initiated a dialogue with concerned Ethiopians in the Diaspora and its willingness to listen to their concerns is by itself another victory. Thirdly, the fact that the Bank is only releasing money for the next 14 months and that the remaining amount slated for three more years is going to be released after performance assessment of the released money is another victory. When one adds up these series of victories, one can clearly see the benefits of the various engagements that Ethiopians are having even in the decision making process of entities such as the World Bank.

All these small but important victories that are enumerated above will add up to evolve in to bigger and decisive victories over the repressive Meles regime. Every passing day, the popular movements including the one outside the country are further exposing the regime’s true character and proving that Meles despite having been annointed as one of (Isaias of Eritrea and Mouseveni of Uganda are the others) the so- called new breed of African leaders, is actually of the same ilk as the dreaded African dictators of yesteryears.

--------
The writer can be contacted at senbete@hotmail.com