Ethiopians in Canada's Brandon rally for democracy

By Curtis Brown for Brandon Sun

July 25, 2005

When one candidate in the Ukraine’s presidential election seemingly stole victory from another through ballot fraud, people both in Ukraine and around the world were incensed.

Every night we watched as orange-clad supporters of Viktor Yushenko camped out in front of the presidential palace demanding new election.

Premier Gary Doer and many Manitoba MLAs wore orange in the provincial legislature. Many Manitobans-including Russell MLA Len Derkach, who represents many Ukraine-Manitoban communities- gave up their Christmas holiday to ensure the election that saw Yushenko defeat his rival, Viktor Yanukovich, was a fair one.

People here at home and around the world were touched, however briefly, by the triumph of something we take far too much of granted. But few of us are likely aware of a similar struggle for democracy, one that briefly held up traffic on Brandon’s busiest street yesterday afternoon yet drew little public notice.

A group of Ethiopian immigrants marched from Brandon University to Brandon-Souris MP Merv Tweed’s 18th Street office yesterday (Friday July 22nd) afternoon to ask Tweed and his fellow parliamentarians to pressure on the government in their native land to hold new elections.

On May 15, Ethiopians voted in an election where the ruling party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its allies won a 320-seat majority in the 547-member parliament. But as in the Ukraine, many outside observers witnessed voting irregularities and biased reports in the state-owned media, something the opponents of Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi said should propt new election.

Instead of another vote, Ethiopian got blood. Police fired on protesters a month ago and according to BBC, shot at least 22 people dead. Hundreds of students have also been arrested for defying a protest ban –a ban which cuts against the democratic right to peaceful assembly.

Now, did you ever hear about that? Do you ever care? Or did you simply wonder as you were driving up 18th street what all those dark-skinned people were carrying flags and banners?

The fact is there is a double standard when it comes to how we view events around the world.

If Ukrainians oppressed for years by their Russian neighbors labour towards democracy, we consider it a noble fight to take up. If a group of Ethiopians or people from another African nation fight for a fair election from a government that has starved, bombed and pillaged their country for the past 20 years, we simply ignore it and move on with our lives.

“Ours is a forgotten country,” Baye Kumsa, one of the new immigrants to Brandon who organized this march and a vigil last weekend, lamented to me the other day.

He is right. We may care momentarily when Bob Geldif or Bono say we need to relieve the debt African countries owe us, but we don’t care enough to take up their cause when they struggle for the same rights we enjoy here, just as we barely notice when government-backed militias rape and starve their enemies in the Darfur region of Sudan, which borders Ethiopia.

Canada’s’s open immigration policy and increased multiculturalism may finally wake us up to do something about the atrocities happening in some of the nastiest corners of the world. The increasing number of people who come here as refugees or immigrants will force us to help them bring freedom and democracy to their homeland.

Yesterday’s march probably won’t force new election in Ethiopia. It may not even make Merv Tweed, who was unavailable to receive the group Friday, take up their cause in the House of Commons.

But if it at least makes you aware that people in a forgotten country on a forgotten continent desperately want what you take for granted, Baye Kumsa and the rest of Brandon’s small but growing Ethiopian community will have been successful.