Lidetu, his associates and a divided elite continue to betray Ethiopia

By Amoraw Ferrede

August 9, 2006

These are the same organizations, led by USAID and the US Embassy, that are the principal contributors for our national problems today! Several months before the elections, all of them had an opportunity to help Ethiopia create an environment for free and fair elections, but even those that were directly requested to help, refused to do so for fear of angering the ruling party. They have effectively told us, then and now, that the elections and Ethiopia are our problem, but we have failed to be united and strong to force the creation of conditions for free and fair elections. You folks in the Diaspora, including UEDF, did not even know that Ethiopia was serious about the elections, let alone give a hand in creating a free and fair election environment, as stipulated in Kinijit’s 8-point proposal late in 2005.

We can still stop all those that have betrayed the democratic cause; we can stop Lidetu, Temesgen, Ayele, Beyene and the rest from serving as tools of EPRDF and its external supporters. However, we need to stop throwing stones at each other first, inter-party bickering has to stop, and everybody has to agree on the speedy realization of a democratic and united Ethiopia. In this, AFD, UEDF, ARDUF, OLF, ONLF, EPPF, AEDP-Medhin, EPUF, EDL, GPLM, OFDM, REMDSJ, SLF, SPDDM should speedily come together and work systematically, just like the South Africans during 1992-1994.

Don’t tell me we are a bunch that is inferior to the South African opposition of the early 1990s. We should do better than them since we have never killed each other and since we have no problem of trust if each and every one of you avoids this disease of being a king or an emperor of a starving nation. Getting CUD’s leaders and other political prisoners out will then be a priority.

As for the traitors in parliament today, it is not improper to say a few words, starting with Lidetu Ayalew who started practicing deception in All Amhara Peoples Organization (AAPO) where he was a leader of its youth wing, and a member of the Central Committee. He led the EPRDF security to confiscate party documents from AAPO’s office during the office search right after the arrest of Prof. Asrat on trumped-up charges. Indeed, many in AAPO claim to have strong evidence that he was then an employee of the EPRDF Security while also serving in the Central Committee of AAPO.

Lidetu’s role during the AAPO office search by the EPRDF Security and thereafter was so treacherous that he had no option but to leave AAPO and put up EDP with the support of none other than such respectable names as Prof. Mesfin Wolde Mariam who is reported to have helped Lidetu to establish EDP by helping to line up a number of its top leadership, including the President. Indeed, Lidetu used Prof. Mesfin to build EDP, and Prof. Mesfin apparently did it with all sincerity since he had so much respect for Lidetu and his colleagues. However, that faith turned out to be totally misplaced, as Prof. Mesfin later found out while closely working with Lidetu for the first time in October 2004 during the formation of CUD.

As more and more educated Ethiopians joined EDP, and became members of its Central Committee, Lidetu was increasingly forced to accept a democratic process within the party for which he had cooked up bye-laws in which Lidetu, the Secretary General, was the most powerful figure in the party. Strong challenge to his one-man leadership came from Eng. Gizachew Shiferaw, Mohamed Ali and others in the Central and Executive Committees. He single-handedly threw out Gizachew, Mohamed Ali and some 10 others, accusing them of being spies. Gizachew and several others then joined All Ethiopia Unity Party (AEUP) under Eng. Hailu Shawel’s leadership, and Gizachew and Mohamed did, in fact, become members of AEUP’s Executive Committee. It turned out that Gizachew was solid, principled and credible, as reflected in his actions with Kinijit.

The next significant episode that involved Lidetu was the unity talks with AEUP, also in 2003. Lidetu agreed to the talks simply because there was so much pressure, especially from financial supporters in the USA, to get him into the unity talks.

The presidents of the two parties, AEUP and EDP, had first signed a note of understanding to unite the two parties in mid-2003, and the unity talks started in September, if my sources are right. AEUP nominated three senior party leaders, and Lidetu also designated three, of which one was one of the young but basically honest men that left AAPO with Lidetu, and was, hence, a misguided young worshiper of Lidetu. The party leaders had agreed that their political programs were practically identical and the negotiations would, therefore, center largely on the byelaws, and that was the understanding given to AEUP’s negotiators. However, Lidetu’s men kept procrastinating and sabotaging the unity talks so as to prepare a claim by Lidetu that the talks failed because of AEUP. Fortunately, all the discussions were taped with their knowledge, but with their grudging acceptance, and Lidetu could not successfully deceive openly on that occasion. The crucial part of the talks appeared when it came to establishing the Executive Committee and the Central Committee.

At that point of time, EDP had some 50,000 members and AEUP had some 350,000 members, and AEUP wanted the memberships of both parties to be fairly represented in the Committees using proportional representation, which meant that for every member of EDP in both Committees, AEUP would have seven. This led Lidetu to come out with an uproar; AEUP came down to offer that for every member of EDP in any one of the two Committees, AEUP will have 2 members. Again this was rejected by Lidetu who argued that a party is a party, and hence both parties deserved to be equally represented. (Lidetu reversed this argument in November 2004 during the CUD formation talks, as we shall see later, so that his argument was simply forwarded to serve him on that particular occasion.) AEUP refused to further throw away the voice of its supporters, and the unity talks were then effectively killed by Lidetu.

In November 2004 came the unity talks driven by Prof. Mesfin to form CUD by creating a coalition with his own new-born party, EDL, AEUP and UEDP (EDP). Prof. Mesfin had full confidence that CUD’s formation would be smooth, except possibly for some obstacle from AEUP; he had no suspicion that the most serious and only obstacle would be Lidetu, the very young man that Prof. Mesfin had admired and encouraged in all previous years, almost blindly. The talks began, and, Lidetu was dragged into the coalition talks by none other than Prof. Mesfin.

The discussions then came to the formation of the Central and Executive Committees; it was suggested, consistent with Lidetu’s stand during the unity talks with AEUP in 2003, that a party is a party and that all parties would contribute equally to both the Central and Executive Committees. Lidetu objected, but very anxious to create a solid opposition for democracy-thirsty Ethiopia, AEUP readily agreed; Lidetu would have none of that with parties that, he claimed, were born only yesterday.

After considerable pressure, it was agreed that AEUP and UEDP would have 18 members each and the other two would have 12 each in the Central Committee, and each party would have 5 members in the Executive Committee, and Lidetu would be a Vice-President when Prof. Mesfin and several others of immensely more distinguished background settled for membership in those Committees. Lidetu was still unhappy and angry that he had so little chance to outshine in that distinguished group. He set about preparing a plot to kill CUD, and he succeeded later on in October 2005.

Then came the elections where he wanted to shine alone, but that was never to be since he had very little to offer to Ethiopia, always coaxing CUD’s membership and leadership to commit errors, and providing tools to EPRDF to attack and imprison its leadership in October 2005. In its Executive Committee meetings, Lidetu was the first to come out and say that CUD should not go into parliament until and unless the people’s votes are respected, and he was also the only one that brought in the idea of an Orange Revolution. These statements by Lidetu were used by EPRDF to put CUD’s leadership behind bars when the principal author was free and recently dispatched to the USA to tell the American Congress to forget about HR 5680 since all was well in the Ethiopian Parliament, while US Congressmen, including Donald Payne, were visiting Ethiopia at the same time for the usual drama by Meles and his Parliamentary Speaker.

Very little has changed in Ethiopia since May 2005: parliamentary rules are still almost as bad and primitive as they have been before; Parliament continues to have no checks on the Executive branch which still avoids to revise the electoral proclamation and continues to own the National Election Board, all public mass media; Meles is still the judge, jury and the Constitutional Court; the police and armed forces are EPRDF’s tools in spite of the provision for neutrality in the constitution. The US Embassy, the IFIs and the EU Commission condone all that, as clearly revealed in the mass in-flow of assistance over the last few months from the World Bank, Europe and America.

The Master of treachery was the first to go into parliament, not as a member of Kinijit, but under UEDP-Medhin which never ever competed in the 2005 elections. A group of some 100 more did the same, but Parliament was so helpless and powerless that it could not stop even that. The last Lidetu blow to kill CUDP in collusion with the National Election Board and EPRDF came in October 2005 when he refused to stamp the agreement reached by UEDP to form a united CUDP. The application to get legal recognition for CUDP froze because of his refusal to join in even when outvoted by his Executive Committee; he then followed that up by writing to NEBE, as Chairman of UEDP, which he was not, that his party would not be a party to CUDP. That was his last shot for EPRDF to stop CUDP and arrest Ethiopia’s rising hopes for a better day.

Today, just like yesterday, Lidetu continues to serve EPRDF in collusion with the US Embassy in Addis Ababa, as is clear in the US visit arranged at the end of July 2006 for Lidetu and other similarly recruited elements.

In a recent interview in the USA, Lidetu has stated that they have come under the sponsorship of the US Government to learn about parliamentary procedures and democracy, and that is to be done by talking to members of Congress, lobbyists, American Professors, Minority groups ( probably African-Americans), US Department of State and others. There is the way charted by the US Embassy in Addis Ababa to build democracy in Ethiopia: talk to lobbyists and US Congressmen to stop the passage of HR 5680; plead with African Americans and certain elements of American academia to tone down their criticism of the brutal Ethiopian dictatorship, claiming that better days have come in the Ethiopian parliament; get some more instructions from Mr. Yamamoto and his other colleagues in the US Department of State about what the group is to do in the US. It is a plot to kill HR 5680 and buy support for a Tyrant who killed and maimed dozens of innocent civilians in the streets of Addis Ababa in broad daylight with US Humvees and guns under the eyes of Vicky Huddleston, the US Charge D’ Affairs in Addis Ababa.

Is this what has been promised to people like us in President Bush’s second inaugural address? I am sure President Bush did not instruct US Department of State to tell its US Embassy in Addis Ababa to destroy CUD by directly creating an EPRDF satellite party under that same name and inviting those same Embassy-created actors to Washington, D.C. to tell false stories of democracy in Ethiopia, while the recognized and respected leaders of CUD are in jail under trumped-up charges.

This is a travesty of justice, and a blow to all democratic ideals when the US Embassy itself becomes a principal actor in all such diabolical acts. Is this the way America wants to build democracy in Africa? Indeed, Vicki Huddleston is more TPLF than even the most partisan members of TPLF today.

People might wonder why Lidetu was not thrown out in October 2005. That was against what CUD set out to do: unite Ethiopians against EPRDF in peaceful and democratic elections. Throwing out Lidetu would have divided the opposition at that point and handed over victory to EPRDF while making Lidetu a national hero in the eyes of his several misguided supporters.

Lidetu’s supporters in Europe and America have to think hard and fast: he has betrayed Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people; he is now in parliament to give the image to the West that Meles is now back in a democratic fold since he is seriously negotiating with the opposition, but the facts on the ground are that Meles is not negotiating, but dictating, as he has always done. Lidetu and Co. are simple tools used by Meles and the US Embassy to create a false image for the Tyrant to justify more aid.

The Ethiopian elite needs to wake up, stop being used as tools for the dictator and his supporters, and quit bleeding Ethiopia. We bled Ethiopia for the last 33 years, and our Motherland is now the poorest on the globe. We are the principal cause of that! If we continue to be divided, as we are now, Ethiopia has no hope for recovery or even survival. Look at the recent Seattle speech of UEDF’s Negede Gobezie who reported UEDF’s principal differences with AFD as follows:

1. That the release of the elected leaders from EPRDF’s jail be the primary objective of the Alliance;
2. That no mention of the constitution be made since the constitution contains certain objectionable articles that Hibret rejects and cannot agree to;
3. That reference to Ethiopia be made in the title of the Alliance, and that communicating language be Amharic;
4. That the Alliance be inclusive of all groups and associations including the regime and that the Alliance recognize the May election result as a victory of the Ethiopian people and make that the threshold for the future socio-economic and political developments.

I agree that AFD should take the release of CUD’s leaders and the welfare of their families as a priority. However, none of the reasons given above is sufficient for UEDF’s sustained campaign against AFD. Indeed, the arguments appear totally inappropriate for a coalition whose members are the oldest in Ethiopian political history. UEDF can, and must, join AFD and it can achieve much more from within AFD instead of dividing the opposition and behaving more and more like Lidetu Ayalew, Temesgen Zewde, Ayele Chamisso and Beyene Petros, who are all simple EPRDF tools retained by Meles and the US Embassy to prolong the on-going tyrannical rule. The Diaspora must unite, set all minor differences aside and proceed like the South Africans of the early 1990s to bring about the speedy birth of a united and democratic Ethiopia to be a home for all Ethiopians within and outside its borders. AFD needs to show that it is committed to the creation of a democratic and united Ethiopia, and the way to achieve that is to join in and help it to grow into a national institution, and not wage a divisive campaign which will weaken the opposition and strengthen EPRDF.